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New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 264, 16 September 1864, Page 4

A Scotch Jlinisti.i: on Calvin.—ln the course of .1 seimen <11 Sunday afternoon, in his own chinch, at Dundee, on tho wends—" Call no man father on the earth," I\lr. George Gillillan alluded to the influence of Bfcfoiniors. These had been, in his judgement, tho most ill-used of all men, inasmuch us during their lifetime their bodies narrowly escaped feeding the ilames, and after death their fame had heon nearly snli'ocated with rancid incense. John Calvin had been the hero of the past weelc, but it was rather ominous that his admiiers had selected for anniversary not the <lalo of his biith, July 10, 1509. hut the date of his death, the 27th of 3lay, lo(H. Calvin, no doubt, was a gicat man, and thcie was a great amount of tiutli in his system. But Calvin was not cr'y not Christ, but he had less ot Christ about hiin than almost any Chiistian divine he could name. He was harsh, narrow, d< gmatic, cold, cruel. The system of polity established while he lived in Geneva was worse than that wbich prevailed in under lieinba. It was a system of biutal eiuelty. One James Greet, for writing seme loose verses, was beheaded. T.ven little boys and girls were liable to capital punishment for tiival offerees. And need lie name Servetus—a name which, despite tl.e one-sided sopbistiy of Calvin's defenders, rested like a bloedy blot on that Rcfoimei's brow r He ventured to make an asscition—it might see in strange now, but tino was a day coming when it would appear a mere tiuism—that bhakespcare, whose tercentenary lKtd been recently celebrated, was a better rcprcsnitative of the Christian relijrion than Calvin. The one wh* a monk in reality though not in name ; the other was a man in the broadest fcen>o ui' the teiiu. The one was a Jew of tho stonie.-.t type; the other a Christian of the noblest grain. The one iound evil Sin tings good ; the other a soul 0 f goodness in i|thins evil. The one wrote institute s of theology in elegant Latin, which were read only by scholais ; the other dramas in plain Hnglish. which weie lead by the civilized world, and would be lead aAer Calvinism was, to say the least, no longer, as now,

ahturdly identified "by many "with Christianity- ile spolce then of creeds, and expressed his delight that Dr. Candlish hud broken ground on that question by asserting that there were statements in the Coniessiun of Faith opposed at once to science and Scripture.— JMuuke Advertiser.

A Tkaveltvek's T.alk. —An extraordinary instance : of terrestrial refraction, says Galiynaiti's JAwo/yo', was lately witnessed Ly a party of philosophers in uil'ecting the asccn.-iun of tlie iVak <>t flei:eriife. On their reaching about sunrise tins top of the volcano, which J wis the shape of an enormous pyramid, and an altitude of 2Uol> metres above the level ol the sea, they wen' astonished to perceive at the hori/.'»n masses of mountains which could not but bcioni* t»> sonic vast eonrinent. 'I he archipelago of the Canary Islands was at (heir feet, as it were, and it was therefore impossible to mistake the appearance oi the horizon for these; and one of the tourists who had been in Is'orth America, at length recognised the Alleghany .Mountains, which weiv at least mdes iroin the spot. 'I'll is spectacle was due to a s-ingular ellcet of mirage, or tcrrestiial refraction, produced by the moist \\\S.\V. wind which blew at ihe timo. As the utmost extent of vision which can be obtained from the top id* the Peak of Tcncriiie not more than 150 miles, tlie distance supplied by refraction was in this cjjsl* not less than 2350 miles. IVliss Lee, the daughter of the rebel General of that name, has been allowed by Genera! Jailer tu proceed to Kichmoud under a Hag ot truce.