Assuming its existence, I was led to inquire, in what it consisted; and I could discover, and can now discover, nothing else than "sameness of chemical composition, and peculiarity of form and structure." When I formerly adopted this conclusion, I had no idea that I was coming into collision with any metaphysical or theological systems. I was aiming only to meet a famous objection to the resurrection of the body, which in my view had never been answered. It still seems to me that the ground I took was tenable, notwithstanding the efforts of my learned friends to force me from it.

2. The second object of the apostle in this passage, as seen from the view of Natural History, is to show the great difference between the natural and spiritual body. The natural body is represented as a seed lying in the earth and undergoing the process of germination, which is partly a process of decay, and the spiritual body as the plant which springs from it. We are allowed, therefore, to suppose as great a difference between the two as between the seed and the future plant. And to the eye what can often be more unlike? True, the microscope may reveal the future plant in the germ of the seed, and so, perhaps, the spiritual body may lie coiled up in the body laid in the grave. But it needs an eye little less keen than omniscience to discern the relation. Nay, when the apostle says in relation to the plant, that God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, he may mean that the spiritual is so different from the natural body that there is no resemblance; yet it seems most probable that he would have us understand that, as the germ of the future plant is in the seed, so there is a starting point for the spiritual in the natural body.

3. The third object aimed at by the apostle in this passage is to show the superior glory of the spiritual over the natural body. He prepares the way, by first enumerating various. objects differing from one another in glory, and then enters into a direct comparison, or rather contrast, at once the most brilliant and impressive which the eloquence of inspiration has given us: It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown

in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. And so on to the end of the chapter does the strain rise higher and higher till it becomes unearthly, and we are borne upwards to the very gates of the celestial city.

4. There is a fourth interesting conclusion which the nat uralist cannot help drawing from this passage, even though the apostle may not have had it distinctly in mind. If his language implies this conclusion, even though we should have failed to see it without the aid of science, we need not hesitate to admit it into our creed, any more than we should a principle first brought to light by excavations at Nineveh. The naturalist does see in the passage under consideration evidence that there is a specific identity between the natural and the spiritual body. A vegetable physiologist of the niueteenth century could hardly state this principle more clearly and definitely in respect to plants than the apostle has done: ὁ δὲ θεὸς αὐτῷ δίδωσι σῶμα καθὼς ἠθέλησε, καὶ ἑκάστῳ τῶν σπερμάτων τὸ ἴδιον σῶμα. Here it is declared that every species of plant has its peculiar body, by which it is distinguished from every other plant. But why limit the apostle's language to the species? Does it not clearly extend to individual plants? Might not ἑκάστῳ τῶν σπερμάτων τὸ idov opa be properly translated: to each one of the seeds its own body? He had before spoken of species, when he said: εἰ τύχοι, σίτου ἤ τινος τῶν λοιπῶν. If he meant nothing more by the ἑκάστῳ τῶν σπερμάτων, it would be tautology. Besides, we do know that each individual seed does produce a plant that may be distinguished from every other plant; or if such a translation be rejected, yet the doctrine is taught in this passage by implication at least, that each individual seed produces a plant different from that springing from any other seed of its own or any other species.

The apostle proceeds to instance other examples of fixed differences in nature in the animal kingdom, and also in inorganic nature - the sun, moon and stars. Then he adds: so also is the resurrection of the dead. His oUTO kai in this οὕτω καὶ phrase must embrace his first illustration of the plant spring

ing from the decaying seed, as well as the other objects referred to. Indeed, in the beautiful contrasts which follow, he uses the same figure. It is sown, says he, in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, etc.

Now it can hardly be doubted that the leading object of the apostle, in referring to those several fixed differences in nature, is to show how easy it is for God to give the spiritual body a power and a glory vastly superior to the natural. But the naturalist cannot fail to infer from it that, if the spiritual retains such a specific and individual identity with the natural body, as a plant does with that from which it sprung; then whoever is acquainted with the natural, would recognize the spiritual body as easily as he can the different species of plants and animals that appear in the spring. It is their specific peculiarity and resemblance to the plants of the same species with which he was acquainted the previous year, that enables him to make this recognition in the spring. True, the spiritual body cannot have the same organization as the natural; for flesh and blood, says Paul, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But it does not hence follow that it will be devoid of organization. Nay, its superior glory awakens the expectation that it will possess a still more exquisite organization. But this need not prevent its retention of certain appearances that will at once identify it with the body laid in the grave. Of the nature of those marks of identification, I know nothing. But it is by external resemblances, not internal organization, that we identify plants and animals as to species. "In the spring," to quote the words which I used, several years ago, in a sermon on the resurrections of spring, "every spire of grass is developed with the same form and color, and position as its progenitors; so that the Festuca is at once known from Poa and Agrostis, and the Dactylis from the Phleum. The Anemones and the Violets, the Gnaphalium, the Trillium, the Trifolium, the Hepatica, and Leontodon, are restored without the loss of a single tint of coloring, or change in the form of their leaves, their stems, or their flowers. The oak, also, and the maple, the elm and

the poplar, the willow and the birch, the Cornus and the Pyrus, the pine and the spruce, and a thousand other species of trees and shrubs, put forth the same peculiar flowers and leaves, and take the same specific shapes and colors, which they have had since first they rose out of the earth at the divine command. The same familiar voices, too, meet us from the fields and the groves. At the earliest dawn, the robin's cheerful song is heard, with the clear, rich note of the lark, the soft tone of the bluebird, the twitter of the swallow, the cooing of the dove, the clear and cheerful voice of the blackbird, and the hoarse yet welcome garrulity of the crow. In short, wherever we turn our eyes, or whenever we open our ears, forins and sounds of vegetable and animal life meet us in almost endless profusion, yet familiar to us from our earliest days; and most of them dear to us not only because of their inherent beauty and loveliness, but because they are associated with the most cherished recollections of our lives." "And when the apostle says, that God giveth to every seed his own body; and that so will it be with the resurrection of the dead; every naturalist feels sure that there will exist, also, such marks of identity between the natural and spiritual body, as will enable those familiar with the one, to recognize the other. I pretend not, indeed, to describe how that specific and individual identity can be preserved amid the decompositions of the grave. But I do know that the specific characteristics of plants and animals are maintained, in this world, under changes perhaps equally great; and when Jehovah declares that so it shall be in the resurrection of the dead, I joyfully acquiesce in the doctrine, because I know that Infinite Power can accomplish that which Infinite Wisdom determines:"

ARTICLE IV.

JOHN GEORGE HAMANN.

BY REV. J. M. HOPPIN, NOW IN PARIS.

THERE are some men who have left behind them the reputation for transcendent abilities, that is not adequately shown by their works. Hamann was one of these. An author not much read even in his native land, and not much known out of Germany, he nevertheless exerted a great and beneficent, though silent and conservative, influence in his day, and deserves to he known wherever genius united with faith is honored. His memory should be precious to the church of Christ in all places and ages. We cull from German sources the following brief account of his life.

John George Hamann was born Aug. 27, 1730, at Königs berg, in Prussia, of parents in good circumstances, his father being a surgeon of some note. He was reared in a faithful Christian manner. He was instructed in the liberal branches, the languages, the fine arts, and especially music. But his early education, notwithstanding these advantages, was very irregular. He was first in the hands of an ex-preacher named Hoffman, who taught him seven years, chiefly in Latin; he then came into the school of the pro-rector Köhl, a dull and pedantic man, who confined him entirely to the classics. "I obtained no knowledge of history," he himself says, "nor of geography, nor the least conception of style, nor any idea of poetry. I have never been able to make up the deficiency in the first two, and have acquired a taste for the latter too late; for I find it very difficult to arrange my thoughts in conversation or writing in an orderly manner, and to express them with ease." He next became the pupil of a neological tutor; and at last entered the government school, under the

1 Biographies by Friedrich Roth, and Ersch and Gruber. VOL. XVII. No. 66.

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