those in the open country, but inferior to those of large cities. Joseph came thither with his wife, on the brink of her confinement, and found that there was no "room" or "place" suitable for them under such circumstances, in the usual "guest-chambers," these being already occupied by several travellers. In this emergency the stable, or one of the stalls, (for the word has this meaning as well as that of "manger" or "crib: " see Luke xiii. 15,) was cleared out for Mary's use; and would, in all probability, be little inferior to the other chambers in point of accommodation. A hard earthen floor would be soon swept, a clean mat laid down, and, if necessary, a partition of curtains quickly made; thus affording a very tolerable lodging-room in a hot climate. We know that the weather was then fine and warm, from the fact of the shepherds feeding their flocks by night on the mountains; a practice never adopted in the rainy or wintry season.

Our Redeemer was not born in circumstances of abject poverty, as some would lead us to suppose. Joseph was an industrious mechanic, earning a decent competency; and most of our Lord's Apostles were selected from a similar class of persons. The reason assigned by Luke for Jesus being laid in a stable, is not the poverty of his parents, but a want of room or proper accommodation in the "guest-chamber." From the preceding remarks, we also learn how the shepherds would easily discover their infant Saviour. The Greek term, which we translate "a manger," was probably the well-known name of the public stables belonging to the khan, whither they immediately repaired, and found all things as narrated to them by the angel.

Some commentators suppose that Joseph was received into the house of a friend at Bethlehem, since acquaintances always entertain each other in eastern countries. But though he belonged to that town, yet he was domiciled in Galilee; and even if he had friends at Bethlehem,

he would probably wish, under the peculiar circumstances of his marriage, to keep his wife as much as possible retired from their curiosity. That there were houses for the reception of travellers in Judea at that time, is evident from the parable of the good Samaritan, in the tenth chapter of Luke. And as the above account of a khan will explain the nature of the attention paid to the robbed and wounded Jew, we shall make one or two remarks on the conduct of

THE GOOD SAMARITAN.

Having bound up the traveller's wounds, he conveyed him to the nearest “inn, and took care of him.” (Luke x. 34.) The latter expression without doubt means, that he nursed him during the night, and furnished him with a few necessary provisions for his immediate suste

nance.

"On the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee." (Verse 35.) According to custom, there would be no rent to pay for lodging at the khan, save a small gratuity to the host, which he probably would not accept for any attention paid to his unfortunate guest. The "two pence," or two denarii, were an ample supply for present wants, since one denarius, equal to about seven pence half-penny of our money, was a full day's pay for a labourer, and therefore enough for the wants of a family. This sum of money would do as much for the poor in Judea, as six shillings would do in an English village; taking into consideration their different habits of living. But as the Samaritan seems to have been well furnished with wine, oil, and other comforts, of which he would leave a portion for the stranger's use, his host would only require to procure a little milk, bread, and fruit,-articles of the very cheapest description. The

two pence," or two denarii, would thus suffice for at least a week, by which period the good Samaritan hoped to return; but lest his coming

should be delayed, he instructed the host, with whom he appears to have been acquainted, to furnish

any needful supplies during the interim. R. MAXWELL MACBRAIR.

THE subjoined judicious "Observations," having a remote bearing on religious education, are quoted from one of the long notes with which Mr. Nichols has lately enriched Fuller's "6 "History of the University of Cambridge."-EDIT.

MANY persons who are accustomed to consider Cambridge as having been pre-eminently a mathematical University ab initio, will be surprised to find exceedingly slight allusions to this subject in Fuller's History of the University of Cambridge." William Oughtred, of King's College, is the only one whom he has particularly distinguished, among the " many eminent persons still surviving, prince of the mathematicians of our age; " while a man of far greater genius and more extensive acquirements, who was undoubtedly the most eminent mathematician of those early days, and one to whom mathematical science in some of its highest departments is more deeply indebted than many conceited moderns are willing to allow, is dismissed with this very brief and indistinct notice, under "the learned writers" of Emmanuel College," John Wallis is now Geometry-Professor in Oxford." Samuel Foster, of the same College, is also recorded as having been a learned writer of "mathematics." The reader has now before him the FULLEST of our Fuller's enumeration of the mathematical talent of the University; and he will thence correctly conclude, that this was a department of learning in which Cambridge was then accounted to have no peculiar excellence; other wise our author, in his pardonable zeal, would have claimed for his Alma Mater supreme mathematical

honours. Yet if any one will cast but a cursory glance over the names appended to the extremely varied productions in the Musa Cantabri gienses, on some of the great public occasions soon after the Restoration, (such as the royal marriage, the death of Henrietta Maria, the Queen-mother,) will be amazed at the mass of mathematical talent which had been in a course of germination during the Interregnum. Speculation and theorizing in religion, philosophy, and politics, had then attained their utmost elevation; and it is a remarkable fact, that, with the exception of those who had been preserved in the better and higher principles in which they had been carefully educated, all the famous persons that composed the original nucleus from which the Royal Society had its commencement, and all those who in this University exclusively were distinguished by the honourable appellative of " Íatitude-men," had been generally trained up as strict Predestinarians in religion, republicans in politics, and very little better than admirers of Paracelsus, or of the mystical Rosicrucians, in philosophy. But that great revolution in England which is commonly viewed only in its political aspect and bearing, was as mighty and wonderful in its religious and philosophical issues. The discussions connected with every subject of human knowledge which very naturally arose at such an exciting period, called into healthful exercise the profound and heavenly-gifted powers of many, with whom the noblest faculties would, in all human probability, under ordinary circumstances, have lain dormant and neg lected. These great men entered

heartily into the various departments of the inductive system of Bacon's philosophy, and introduced its principles into the modification which was then formed of their religious and political opinions and practice. Whatsoever, therefore, did not recommend itself at once to their understanding through the tests of experiment, ceased to form any part of their political, philosophical, or religious creed. The blessed results are to be traced in the salutary checks and provisions which have progressively been admitted into the admirable constitution under which it is our privilege to live, and in those amazing improvements and discoveries, in every branch of human knowledge, which we have been permitted to behold. Some temporary injury was certainly inflicted on their religious principles by this arrangement; but it was in its nature such as was to be expected by every sound philosopher who has studied that propensity which inheres in the human mind toward strong moral re-action, on the accession of those new and overpowering views and feelings which it concludes to be true and correct. After the many years in which an Antinomian faith had been rampant among all classes of those professors of Christianity who had adopted the dogmas of rigid predestination, it is not surprising that the manly practical writers who succeeded them, in endeavouring to counteract what was deemed to be a pernicious error in the doctrine and practice of their predecessors, should exclude from their clever and powerful treatises nearly all mention of faith, except in its lowest acceptation of mere historical belief. But that infinitely wise and benignant Being, who kindly watches over the rising interests of his militant church, provided a remedy in due season; and, by wonderful means of his own devising, brought about that healthy state of religion which marks the present age, exhibiting generally a happy consistency between Christian faith and practice, between official doctrine and personal example.

Such was the early cradling or incunabula of the mathematics at Cambridge; and within three years after the Restoration of monarchy, the want of some adequate provision for the public encouragement of this interesting and delightfullymultifarious study having been felt and regretted, the truly honourable Henry Lucas, Member of Parliament for the University, founded and endowed that noble Professorship of Mathematics, which will transmit his undying name to the latest ages, and the chair of which has been filled by men of transcendent talents, from Barrow and Newton, its earliest occupants, to Airy and Babbage, their gifted and more recent successors.

But every one who is observant of the progress which any particular branch of ennobling study has made in our great nurseries of learning, even after it has met with as ready and cordial a reception as in the present instance, must know that still the advances of a favourite science may be correctly designated as being "slow and gradual," before it can obtain the general regard due to its increasing claims, or secure for itself permanent attention. About half a century elapsed, from the founding of the Mathematical Professorship, before those able men with whom rested the choice of the best course of learning to be pursued, were induced to adopt the mathematics for a leading academical study, and one of the most useful instruments which they could employ in forming thoughtful habitudes and shining characters. This great and gradual change, and the effects which it soon produced, are well described in the words of one of its original promoters, Dr. Edmund Law, afterwards Lord Bishop of Carlisle, in the preface to his translation of Archbishop King's "Essay on the Origin of Evil: ".

But, enough of these trifling particulars, which have detained me from a more important point intended for this place, namely, surveying the too general turn of our University education. Having, there

fore, about the time above-mentioned, (1723,) remarked some abuses in the training up of our youth, by beginning it with inculcating the dull crabbed system of Aristotle's Logic, and at a time when they were least capable of applying that to any valuable purpose; by persisting to retail such an idle system, even after it was grown obsolete, and not rather lay ing some solid foundation in natural philosophy, with its modern improvements, or natural law,' as the whole doctrine of morals is now termed; which would be of constant use to these young disciples, in what way of life soever they might afterwards be engaged, and likewise help to settle in them right notions of religion; which would, above all things, tend to make them more sober-minded, and, consequently, more submissive to their superiors here, as well as more happy in themselves for ever hereafter. Reflecting on these absurdities which still prevailed in our public forms of education, some of my friends were induced to seek a remedy, by freeing their pupils from all that pedantic jargon, and introducing some better means to engage their attention, and accustom them to a close, regular way of thinking, and thereby prosecuting their future studies with greater accuracy and precision to this end they called in the assistance of the mathematics, little then imagining, that in a short time these same assistants, these comparatively meager instruments, should, like Pharaoh's lean kine, eat up all that was good and well-favoured in the sciences themselves; that they should usurp the place of those very sciences to which they were originally designed to be subservient, and for which station they were sufficiently qualified. But such became the common infatuation, that these helps for conducting an inquiry through the whole Cyclopædia, instead of continuing to perform such useful offices, were, by the mere force of fashion, set up for a capital branch of it, and the best part of our scholars' time spent in speculating on these same instru

ments; which would, in any other case, appear perhaps to be somewhat preposterous. However, these favourite speculations did not at first so far engross all the thoughts of our young students, as not to admit some points of a moral and metaphysical kind to accompany them; which last held their ground for above twenty years; and, together with Mr. Locke's Essay, Dr. Clarke went hand in hand through our public schools and lectures, though they were built on principles directly opposite to each other; the latter of them founding all our moral knowledge on certain innate 'instincts,' or absolute fitnesses,' however inconsistent these two terms may appear, the former being wholly calculated to remove them: till, at length, certain flaws being discovered in the Doctor's celebrated argument a priori, (on the truth of which many minute philosophers had wholly pinned their faith,) his doctrine fell into disrepute, and was generally given up; but its downfal, at the same time, sunk the credit of that whole science, as to the certainty of its principles, which thereby received so great a shock as is hardly yet recovered. This threw us back into a more eager attachment than ever to its rival, the mathematics, which grew from henceforth into a most important and most laborious study, being confined chiefly to the deepest and most difficult parts of them, and taking up the student's whole time and pains, so as to become incompatible with any other much more necessary studies, as will appear below. And here one cannot avoid stopping to lament the notorious weakness of the human mind; which, instead of exerting its own native powers of examining and judging in points of faith, is ever apt to shelter itself under some sorry system of opinions, accidentally thrown in its way; and through mere indolence, or perhaps dread of that odium theologicum which too often attends on each attempt toward any improvement, or what is called innovation,' (though it be no more in reality than removing