Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree; To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust which this beautiful idea undergoes, is given in the Evangelist's vision of "that great city, the Holy Jerusalem." "And I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Yet though thou troublest me, I must be meek; temple of it." Thus, the high and holy In weakness must be stout. Well, I will change the service, and go seek Ah! my dear God! though I am clean forgot, It may seem as if the quaint familiarity of Herbert shewed a want of reverence, at times; but there is a sincerity and truth about the poet all the while, that reminds us of the sweet singer of Israel. And besides the plain speaking and quaint style of illustration that mark his poetry, we must take into account that he regarded the lyrics of which "the Temple" is composed as records of the varying moods of his religious life. No one can understand the drift of the poem who fails to take that view of it. It was only a few days before he died that he made known the existence of the work to a friend, in these words: "Sir I pray you, deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. Desire him to read it, and then, if he think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it; for I and it are less than the least of all God's mercies." The idea of Howe's Living Temple, a work published about seventy years after Herbert's death, may have been suggested or developed, to some extent, by means of Herbert's poem; but the true source of the idea employed in both is to be found in the Holy Scriptures. Christ was, peculiarly, THE TEMPLE of God. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Christians, separately and collectively, are called the temple of God. Know God is said to dwell with, and among, and in, His people on earth; and they are said to dwell with and in Him, in heaven. While a good man may be called the temple of God, it is not at first so truenor afterwards is it always true-that the constant worship and pure service of God, or the joy of God's presence, have their permanent abiding-place in such a man; not, at least, until he has made wondrous progress in the life of holiness. Herbert marks this well in several parts of "The Temple:" "Soul's joy, when thou art gone, Which cannot be ; Yet when thou dost suppress Of thy abode, Oh! what a damp and shade No stormy night Ah! Lord, do not withdraw, Make sin appear, And then what life I have, And falsely boast, I half believe And, again, of the contention of worldly and transient thoughts, interests, and fears; their power to mar the pure service of God and the peace of His temple, and, as it were, to prevent His constant presence, we are told in "The Family:" "What doth this noise of thoughts within my Scatter or bind them all to bend to thee: heart, As if they had a part? Though elements change and heaven move What do these loud complaints and puling fears, But keep a standing Majesty in me." As if there were no rule or ears? But, Lord, the house and family are thine, First Peace and Silence all disputes control, And giving all things their set forms and hours, Humble Obedience near the door doth stand, "Mark you the floor? that square and speckled Which looks so firm and strong, Than whom in waiting nothing seems more slow, And the other, black and grave, wherewith each Nothing more quick when she doth go. Joys oft are there, and Griefs as oft as joys; But griefs without a noise; Yet speak they louder than distempered Fears: This is thy house, with these it doth abound; The same idea is found in some of the following verses : "How should I praise thee, Lord, how should my rhymes Gladly engrave thy love in steel If what my soul doth feel sometimes, My soul might ever feel! Although there were some forty heavens, or more, Sometimes I peer above them all : Sometimes I hardly reach a score; Sometimes to hell I fall. Oh! rack me not to such a vast extent! Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust, Thy hands made both, and I am there; * Thy power and love, thy love and trust, Make one place everywhere. It cannot be. Where is that mighty joy The grosser world stands to thy Word and art; Oh! fix thy chair of grace, that all my powers For, when thou dost depart from hence, • Probably "in thy hands" is meant by "there." one Hither sometimes Sin steals, and stains Blest be the Architect! whose art His eldest brother was the noted Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who wrote against revealed religion. Truly strange are the differences that are sometimes to be traced in sentiments, opinions, and actions, between children of the same family! How notable, in these days, the religious position of the two Newmans, fleeing from one another's cutting, but blindly cutting logic- the one to the cloisters of the Romish Church, the other into and beyond the arid wastes of Unitarianism! George was the fifth son, in a family of seven sons and three daughters. The death of his father, when he was only four years of age, would leave him to the sole care of a mother, whose influence with him seems always to have been sacred. His brothers may have often led him to entertain worldly views, and views at variance with those of his thoroughly religious and intelligent parent; but he chose the good part; and now, both in the world and in the Church, his name and fame is greater far than theirs. In next number we shall quote some poems from "The Temple,” illustrative of Herbert's doubts and struggles, and of the final choice he made. (To be continued.) J. L. B. READING.* We do not know any more gratifying characteristic of the present age, than the attempts now being made by the upper and literary classes to instruct and to arouse the masses. Lectures delivered by such men as Lord Carlisle, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Ingestre, and Mr. Layard, possess a value altogether irrespective of their literary merits-great though these indisputably are. They are valuable, inasmuch as they are calculated to knit together the bonds of society, and to lead the rich and the poor to cherish a mutual respect and mutual esteem for each other. The same end is, to a greater or less degree, accomplished by these courses of lectures which have, within the last few years, become so common and so popular in provincial towns. Delivered by the gentlemen and clergymen of the district, and attended generally by crowds of every class of society, we know that they have, in many cases, been attended with much beneficial results. Not merely have they proved a counter-attraction to the public-house, they have sometimes given rise to habits of reading and habits of thought, which cannot fail to be gratifying to every one interested in the welfare • Books in relation to Mental and Moral Culture. By the Rev. William Lee, Minister of Roxburgh. Being the last of a Series of Lectures on Science and Literature, delivered in the Town Hall, Kelso. Kelso: Rutherfurd, 1855. of his fellow-men. It should never, however, be forgotten, that such lectures, to be really useful, ought not to be regarded as an end, but merely as means to an end. They should never be regarded as the "very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice," agreeable to listen to, but forgotten as soon as heard; they should serve mainly as hints and guides for future reading, for thus only can the hearers be truly benefited. Of this Mr. Lee seems perfectly, aware; and if those who listened to his admirable lecture, put in practice in regard to lectures, the advice he gave them in regard to books, their gain will be great. Of the lecture itself, of its tone and style, we can speak in the very highest terms. The frequent and apt references to, and quotations from, many of our best authors, evince on Mr. Lee's part, not merely a hereditary knowledge of books, but also a degree of thoughtfulness and taste rarely to be met with. His object is to shew the exact relation in which books stand to the cultivation of the mind, and to point out the dangers of desultory and miscellaneous reading. And let it not be imagined, that these dangers are altogether imaginary. As our Lord warned His disciples that they should take heed not only what they heard, but also how they heard, so, in this age of cheap books, cheap newspapers, them: "In the case of books, however, as in the case of all other like means of culture, there is a right and a wrong method great readers of books, without thereby of study. We may be readers, and even cultivating our minds; nay, we may so read as to make our reading, instead of a help, a hindrance, instead of beneficial, detrimental to the improvement, elevaand moral nature,-a fact of great and tion, and development of our intellectual obvious importance which I desire especially to call attention to in this lecture, and a fact of which I shall proceed immediately to offer one or two illustrations. conceptions as to the terms on which the cultivation of the mind may be promoted by books. How often is it said to the young: 'Addict yourselves to reading, read anything, read in any way; only but spend so much time in reading—no read.' And there are those who, if they matter what, and no matter how they There are serious and mischievous mis cheap reviews and magazines, we should appropriate, that we venture to quote take care not merely what we read, but how we read. In fact, the latter caution seems to us even more necessary than the former, since what we may denominate bad books,-books positively injurious are now-a-days of comparatively rare occurrence, while intellectual dissipation in regard to books, as well as to sermons and to lectures, is, we fear, decidedly on the increase. Of the crowds who frequent Lecture rooms and public meetings, and who are never satisfied unless they hear at least three sermons every Sunday, and make one of the crowd that throngs after every popular preacher, how few are there who take heed how, and inwardly digest what, they hear! And in regard to reading, for which the opportunities are so much greater, this is still more emphatically the case. We have, as Sir James Stephen so graphically describes in his Lecture on desultory and systematic reading, "our daily gallop over our news-read-imagine that they are carrying out paper," with its endless variety of topics; -then we have magazines and reviews coming in in shoals; while, finally, our book-club sends us in every month its miscellaneous collection of history, poetry, travels, and biography, with perhaps a sprinking of philosophy, or even of novels and tales. Now, we must confess, that when we have reckoned up the amount which some "book - devourers" get through in the course of a twelvemonth, and when we consider the impossibility of, to use Lord Bacon's words, their being able to chew and digest them, that is, to read them wholly, and with diligence and attention," we have not unfrequently felt that it would not be difficult to maintain a very specious argument in support of Plato's paradox, that "the invention of letters has not materially improved mankind;" and that King Thamus had some show of reason for saying, that "letters, by making men neglect memory, will produce forgetfulness in their souls; because, trusting to the external and foreign marks of writing, they will not exercise the internal powers of recollection and thought." Mr. Lee's remarks upon indiscriminate and desultory reading are so just and so a great and beneficial mental process. Every book, every combination of paper, their eyes, possessed of magical powers printing, and boards, is an instrument, in for their intellectual and moral advancement. Every hour spent by them in reading, even though the act should be purely mechanical-an act in which neithe memory, nor the imagination, nor the ther the attention, nor the judgment, nor heart, is exercised at all-is an hour spent in the discipline and development of the highest powers of their being. This is hardly an exaggerated statement of this evening's lecture. It is an opinof opinions very prevalent on the subject ion, however, grossly and perniciously erroneous. 'If we would handle books and studies,' says Lord Bacon, and what influence and operation they have upon manners, there are divers precepts of great unto. To the same purpose another caution and direction appertaining therehigh authority, Mr. Locke, thus writes: Books and reading are looked upon to be the great helps of the understanding be allowed that they are; and yet I beg and instruments of knowledge, as it must leave to question whether these do not prove a hindrance to many, and keep several bookish men from attaining to solid and true knowledge. This I think I may be permitted to say, that there is no part wherein the understanding needs a more wary and careful conduct than in the use of books."" Our author, after some interesting remarks on the various characters of books, next discusses the question: Will the indiscriminate reading of books of all sorts promote true culture, or will it not rather impair and injure, than benefit the intellectual and moral powers? To this his answer is, "It must be stated in the most emphatic terms language admits of, that without a careful selection of the actual books with which he occupies himself, a man's reading, even should he do nothing else but read, may not only fail to strengthen and elevate his higher powers, but produce results exactly the reverse. This rule applies both to the intellect and the affections. Many a man's mental culture, that is, the amount of his useful knowledge, and the capacity of the mind itself,-is, I am persuaded, diminished, instead of being augmented by his reading." Mr. Lee's defence of this opinion is exceedingly instructive. Our limits, however, forbid us to quote more than a few very apposite sentences, for which he is indebted to Bishop Butler, who says: "The great number of books and papers of amusement which, of one kind or another, daily come in one's way, have in part occasioned, and most perfectly fall in with and humour this idle way of reading and considering things. By this means, time, even in solitude, is happily got rid of, without the pain of attention; neither is any part of it more put to the account of idleness-one can scarce forbear saying, is spent with less thought-than great part of that which is spent in reading. Thus people habituate themselves to let things pass through their minds, as one may speak, rather than to think of them; thus, by use, they become satisfied merely with seeing what is said, without going any further. Review and attention, and even forming a judgment, becomes fatigue; and to lay anything before them that requires it, is to put them quite out of their way.'" The concluding passage of the lecture is so replete with warning, as well as instruction, that we feel that we cannot do better than give it entire : "We have thus seen, then, first of all, that the study of books is an admirable means of mental and moral culture. We have seen, however, secondly, that books 6 F must be rightly used to produce this result; and, indeed, that unless rightly used, the study of them may do more harm than good. I have dwelt longer on the latter point than on the former, because, in fact, it is the most important of the two, and that on which false ideas are most prevalent. And to what has been already said on that topic, it may be worth while still further to add a single observation, namely, that the caution which has been given as to a right and wrong method of study, applies not only to books on other subjects, but also to books on the most important of all questions, religion, and not only to other books, but also to the greatest of all books-a book which stands alone and unapproachable; that book which has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its subject matter'-the Holy Bible. What our Lord said to those who listened to the great doctrines and precepts of inspiration from His lips-'Take heed how ye hear-must, with a verbal change, be addressed to us who receive divine revelation, not in a spoken, but in a written form. We must take heed how we read the Word of God. That Word possesses mighty influences. Read aright, it is able to make us wise unto salvation,' and is 'profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.' It even regenerates and sanctifies our fallen nature. But we may read Scripture itself without profit; and more than that, the very Gospel of Christ, if a savour of life unto life' to some men, may, by their own misuse of it, become to others 'a savour of death unto death.' "One word in conclusion. Let us remember, that it is not for time only, but for eternity-not to fit us for the duties and enjoyments of the life that now is only, but also of that which is to come, that we engage in any of those processes-that we use any of those means by which the intellect and the affections are exercised and enriched, and invigorated and developed. It is right we should bear this in view, both to suggest to us those forms of culture which are most essential, and also to encourage us the more to give all diligence, and spare no pains or labour to make the most of the means of such culture which are now in our power. Let us not believe that any real knowledge thus once gained will ever be lost, either here or hereafter. At all events, the effects on the mind of that discipline which it undergoes in the pur |