that the issue of my labours would be as valueless as that of my preceding toil.

A full week, I think, elapsed ere all the testifiers could be summoned and collected, and then I set to work. It would be a profitless task to wade through the mass of falsehood and inconsistencies presented to my view, in this lately concocted story. It could never stand in any court for one moment, and I did not hesitate to record my disbelief of the whole story, fabricated as it was to inculpate the Rajah. The parties themselves were, I apprehend, a little ashamed of their folly, when they saw the fabric of their construction. fall to the ground-for further remonstrance heard I none. I was thus fruitlessly kept out ten days more than I need have been for any useful purpose; and I was not sorry when I was able really to turn my face homewards, bringing with me Nawab Singh Boojhait and the other five Prisoners, who were all committed to take their trial before the Session Court.

The end of the case I did not personally see, as I was subsequently sent to act as Judge of Behar, and went thence to Delhi; I was, however, kept well informed on a point wherein I was naturally so much interested. Owing to the Cole war and other intervening circumstances, the trial of the accused did not take place as soon as it otherwise would have done. Ere that period, two of those charged passed away from this earth. There are few parts of India which are not visited by that mysterious scourge the Cholera, and at Sherghatty it used to attack the Jail with great virulence, insomuch that it became at times necessary to pass over crimes of small magnitude rather than to subject the criminal to the risk of being included in the ten per cent average mortality of the Jail hospital. In one of these visits two of the minor actors in the Nathpoor tragedy perished, leaving Nawab Singh Boojhait and three others to appear before the Session Court; when they were all found guilty, and on reference to the Nizamut Adalat, sentenced to death and executed. The Court seemed to concur with me as to the inadvisability of putting the Rajah on his trial, and never sent for him. There he remained unmolested, and has so continued ever since-being to my conviction a memorable instance of the fact that our laws were unable to reach the instigator of murder, though the actual instruments and perpetrators were brought to justice.

Of the history of the Ranee's two daughters, and what decision was given as to her right to convey away her estate, I have had no opportunity of hearing any account.

II.

AN EXAMINATION OF ISAIAH VII. 14-16.

Two difficulties attend this remarkable prophecy the one concerns the connexion which it holds with the circumstances detailed in the previous part of the chapter, and may be cleared up by a consideration of the events referred to: the other is of a more recondite nature, and can be solved only by an investigation into the structure of prophecy, and by a minute analysis of some peculiarities of the Hebrew language. The former difficulty is involved in this question : how, could the assurance of a far distant event, such as the birth of Messiah, serve for a pledge of a speedy deliverance from the already prepared hostility of Rezin King of Syria and Pekin King of Israel; and that too, as it might seem, in behalf of a man who had just before deliberately refused the offer of any miraculous sign he might choose to demand? The second difficulty is this; how can we be authorized to consider the announcement of the birth of the promised child to be a prophecy of the miraculous incarnation of the Messiah, when we find that the time when the land should be delivered appears to synchronize with the advance of this child to an age when he would be able to discriminate between good and evil? Or in other words, if, as we know from history, the deliverance from the confederate assault of Rezin and Pekah was accomplished in three years and a half from the date of the prophecy, how can the child, who is supposed to have then reached his third year, be the Messiah, whose birth did not take place until more than seven hundred years later? To solve these two difficulties will be the object of this article; premising that the solution is professedly not entitled to originality, but will be elicited by an examination of several schemes which have been proposed.

To remove the first difficulty, and to shew the close connexion between the prophecy and the events which immediately demanded it, we propose to give a paraphrase of the first fourteen verses; interspersing in the narrative such additional information as is found in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

During the reign of Ahaz, Rezin the King of Syria, and Pekin the son of Remaliah, King of Israel, having entered into an alliance, beseiged the city of Jerusalem. When this confederacy was first made known in Jerusalem, the king and his people were struck with consternation, and fear

ed that their own resources against two such powerful monarchs would be unequal to avert the utter overthrow of the kingdom. In this state of alarm, Ahaz, instead of applying to Jehovah for succour, sent to Tiglath Pileser, king of Assyria, and earnestly besought his intervention. It was at this juncture that the Prophet Isaiah, at the express command of God, endeavours to dissuade the Jewish monarch from a course not only inexpedient, because indicative of want of faith in the divine protection, but also impolitic and dangerous. When Ahab was making the necessary defences for the metropolis, and with that view had gone down to the conduit of the upper pool to arrange for the cutting off supplies of water from the approaching enemy, (compare Is. vii. 3. with 2 Chron. xxxii. 3. 4.) Isaiah meets him the occasion was favorable, for he there had the opportunity of addressing the King in the presence of his court who accompanied him (see v. 14, where not only the King, but the house of David are addressed in the plural number, mikkem) some of whom may be supposed to have remained faithful to their God even in that degenerate age. The object of Isaiah is to evoke the confidence of the King the nobles and the people in their almighty protector, and to dissuade them from trusting in an arm of flesh. To accomplish this, the prophet sets Shearjashub before them, as one whose name (meaning, the remnant shall return) was significant of the destinies of the people. He may have pointed to the boy and said, "so surely as he bears this name, so surely shall a time come when Judah shall be carried captive, and but a remnant shall remain and so surely as he bears that name, so surely shall the remnant of Judah, though scattered and few, return to the land of their fathers. By no human device or effort can the deserved punishment be prevented, when the measure of iniquity is full; by no human confederacy can Judah be utterly overthrown; for God hath promised restoration. Seek not then human aid, but cleave to the Lord your God." This symbolical instruction being disregarded, Isaiah declares the subsequent portion of his commission. He says "these two monarchies ye so much dread, are already near their decay. Though the fire of their hostility may threaten your destruction, that fire is well night spent-they are but like the remnants of smouldering firebrands, soon to be utterly extinguished. Though they have meditated the overthrow of Judah's king, and designed to set a tributary prince, the son of Tabeal, upon an overturned and emptied throne, their schemes shall be dis

concerted; as Rezin now reigns over Syria, and Remaliah's son over Ephraim, so shall their respective boundaries continue unextended, they shall not reign in Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall never be, as these confederates design it, the metropolis of Syria or Samaria. Nay not only so, but within the next seventy-five years, one of the nations ye so much dread shall be utterly ruined and carried into captivity. Believe ye then this assurance of Jehovah, repair not unto Assyria for help, believe, and ye shall be established."

The consolatory assurance of the prophet is, however, disregarded by the impious Ahaz: no expression of returning confidence in God is uttered; to Assyria, and not to heaven, are the eyes of Judah's royal house directed for succour. The prophet then, possessed of divine authority, makes a proposition sufficiently explicit to allay the doubts of any man who had not deliberately hardened his heart in wilful infidelity. "Ask," says Isaiah," any confirmation of my words" you please; demand the attestation of God himself-hear Him speak in the voice of nature-seek a miraculous interposition of Deity manifest to the senses either in the heavens above, or on the earth beneath and it shall be granted as a proof that God is faithful to his promise, that He is able and willing to defend Jerusalem." The King of Judah, however, hypocritically declines the proffered wonder, under the semblance of humility; "I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord." It is not certain what were the feelings which led him to reject the prophet's offer: it may have been utter contempt and unbelief, as if he would say, "it is useless to demand the sign; for if asked, it cannot be granted," or it may have been merely doubt and uncertainty, which would lead him to think that if the sign should be asked, and not perfectly fulfilled, the hearts of his people might become still more dejected, from the thought that Jehovah refused to give a pledge of his interposition in their favor. On this guilty rejection of the effort of divine condescension, the prophet turns with lofty indignation, to Ahaz and his nobles: "Ye have already rejected me as a prophet of the Lord, when ye refused to believe my assurance that the enemies ye dread shall fail in their design against the holy city: this contempt which ye have shewn to me, I could bear with patience. But now it is not I, it is not man whom ye reject and contemn, it is God Himself."

Thus a three-fold effort had been made to dissuade Ahaz from his unfaithful and impolitic design to call in the aid of the Assyrian against the expected invaders. The child

Shearjashub, by his symbolical name, had indicated the destinies of the people. The direct assurance had been given that the strength of Israel and Syria were well nigh exhausted, and would be unequal to the conquest of Jerusalem. And as the last effort of condescension, Ahaz was directed to make choice of any miracle which might be considered confirmatory of the prophet's declaration, with the assurance that it should be granted. But all in vain. The unfaithful, who we may believe were the largest portion of the people, had now received and rejected all the means which, if accepted, would have availed to remove their unbelief, and to allay their disquietude. It cannot be expected that God will urge a sign upon them, and coerce their minds to believe. He now, therefore, takes into consideration the case of the few who amid the mass of unbelievers, might still remain faithful, and He appoints a sign which, while aptly designed to reanimate their hopes, would be altogether ineffectual for this purpose in the case of the apostate nation at large.

The birth of Messiah is again announced: He who had long since, and oftentimes been promised as the Deliverer of His people. The minds of the pious Jews were recalled to the expectations which had already cheered them in times of temporal distress as well as of spiritual depression, in seasons of national as well as of personal danger. They are reminded of the assurance that One should appear, who would bruise the enemy under His feet, that One of Abraham's seed should be born to bless the nations of the earth, that the promised Shiloh should come, to Whom the gathering of the nations should be; that One of David's royal race should at length sit upon His father's throne, and that His kingdom should be established for ever. These promises were believed. They are again confirmed-and therefore all apprehensions of present overthrow are vain. The faithful remnant are hereby secured. They know that if David's royal line is to end in the succession of One born to everlasting dominion, no enemy however powerful or numerous shall avail to establish a foreign dynasty, or to disinherit the expected Prince of Peace.

That a remote event might be employed as a confirmatory sign of another nearer event is evident from Ex. iii. 12. "This shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee; When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." The fact of the peo

ple of Israel serving God upon Mount Horeb was one yet to be accomplished in the far distant future, and yet it is