Was

which were in reality destitute of the sanctions they had been taught to attach to them? Why did he not do something of this kind? it not natural? Was it not almost necessary? Were there no inducements to provoke him even to a desperate desertion? Was there no magic in the forfeited privileges of his religion to invite a wavering Jew to the bosom of his national church? Was there nothing in the disgust attending an unprofitable imposturenothing in the weariness of incessant privations -nothing in the depression of hopeless anxieties

-nothing in the very infirmity of common sense, to tempt an escape from the perpetual martyrdom of sustained hypocrisy-to allure a disappointed and persecuted man to all those enjoyments he had so long sacrificed, and from which he had been withheld by an extravagant and useless fraud?

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Let us concede to the infidel that some lingering attachment to his former associates -some inextinguishable affection for his deserted relative-some strange compunctious visitings of nature," surviving amidst this last wreck of principle, might deter him from adopting so determined a course, and hold him midway between the prosecution of a fraud and its public exposure. Let us suppose that the same imbecility, which had seduced him

from the toilsome companionship of Paul and Barnabas, might prevent that entire re-action, which would have followed the defection of a more ardent mind. Let us even concede to an hypothesis which subsists on concessions, that this young man, so weak, and so amiable, might either retire among the Jews, contenting himself with a private return to the profession of the true religion, without entering on such an open recantation of heresy, as would have been distressing to his nature, and revolting to his affections-or that he might continue to reside amongst the Christians, submitting patiently to all their taunts and reproaches; abstaining from any vindication, however easy, that would involve the impeachment of his friends; practising the discipline of a system which he knew to be an imposture, and which he not only detested, but against which he had rebelled; practising it, not in conformity with precepts in which he was instructing others, nor even with the simple privacy of an obscure individual, but with the humiliation of a degraded preacher, and after the formal renunciation of that miserable reward, which its champions were receiving in the credit of its maintenance; practising it, moreover, amidst the censures of those, whom he had it in his own power to expose as the most crafty of

hypocrites, and the most impudent of impos

tors. Even these

concessions are far from

coming up to the

emergencies of the case, and fail, to support the infidel hypothesis.

Our history represents this individual, susceptible as he had already shewn himself, to the suggestions of indolence, or the charms of safety, as a candidate once more for association in that very enterprize, the character of which he knew so well, and the inconveniences of which he had so little esteemed. In the face of almost every conceivable inducement to total desertion, with scarcely an assignable motive which it is not ridiculous to mention, this young man must not only be supposed to continue still in the trammels of an imposture which he abhorred, but to propose himself, without the shadow of necessity, to engage once more in its propagation and establishment, "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Cor. xi. 26, 27.) And all this, according to the infidel hypothesis, for the sake of a system, which held out nothing but misery

in this world;' and the known falsehood of which, if he had not thrown off the belief of a God, must have exposed him to hopeless misery in the next.

But there is no end of these sceptical absurdities. In exploring these abysses of palpable darkness, we find even "in this lowest deep a lower deep." These contradictions in the conduct of the youthful impostor lead to others no less singular in that of his more experienced accomplices. His uncle, softened, it appears, by his professions of attachment, and encouraged by his promise of future stability, proposes to take him once more on a course of projected labour. To this proposition a refusal is returned on the part of Paul, accompanied with a representation of its inexpediency, and enforced, in all probability, with expressions of that determination which characterized his whole deportment. Each party then persisting in his own resolution, they are excited to a sharp and angry contention; and, essential as must have been their uniform fidelity to the welfare, and even the existence of their cause, there appeared on this occasion no symptoms of mistrust on either side-no carefulness about the consequences that might

1 "If in this life only we have hope in Christ; we are of all men the most miserable." 1 Cor. xv. 19.

follow an alienation of interest. On the contrary, they seemed so confident of each other's integrity, that they felt perfectly free to discuss, with irritating warmth, a question which related to the arrangement of their plans. Yet all this took place between two persons who had displayed habitually the most consummate address, and the most extraordinary patience in the prosecution of their scheme, and each of whom knew that his companion was made up of hypocrisy. These two individuals, in such a situation, with the weight of the most wonderful system the world ever knew resting on the firmness of their conduct, with the eyes of a thousand proselytes throughout Asia directed to their every movement, and every thing depending on their temper and prudence, could venture to dispute about an object of comparative insignificance, and risk the tremendous chance of an open rupture. And though the cause in which they were embarked had been long so unattractive, that moral miracles must be imagined to account for their continuance in it, they were so bold in all the gathered impudence of fraud, so infatuated by the confidence of ultimate success, as to cut asunder their last link of safety, and dare each other to all the hostility of broken and abnegated friendship. It must be acknowledged that their