the world, we do not find such details of suffering, of voluntary privation, and helpless infirmity, as those which Christians have endured in silent and uncomplaining patience. This may be because they are more able than other men to maintain their ground under such visitations; just as the stately oak, which overtops the surrounding forest, and which, while it protects the lesser trees from the tempest which it breaks, can sustain more damage without destruction, receives and arrests the electric fluid. But, in all this, the attachment of the Christian to the New Jerusalem is firm and steadfast, and, as he dispels his doubts and darkness, and meekly bears his wrongs and sufferings, when, within the horizon of his faith, he descries the holy city, and expects that soon he shall be conducted thither, he counts it a privilege and an honour to endure tribulation for the sake of the Lamb who is the glory in the midst thereof. Hence, though troubled on every side, he is not distressed-though perplexed, not in despair-though persecuted, not forsaken-though cast down, not destroyed. Nay, in these adverse states, his excellences shine with greater brilliance, and his pious sentiments are kindled into greater ardour; even as the blast which extinguishes the faint scarceburning spark, fans the living ember into a purer and brighter flame, or as the labourer, with the ponderous blow of his rough and uncouth implement, breaks the external crust which centuries have formed, and discloses the sparkling and transparent gem which is concealed within.

But the Christian also cherishes a constant remembrance of the home to which he is journeying. You ask, How can that be remembered which is invisible? The answer is, that as faith has its lively perceptions of the spiritual and unseen, so it has its memories of the things upon which it is fixed. And thus the Christian, believing in the existence, and realizing the earnests of his heavenly inheritance, is not forgetful of it in the land of exile, but weeps, in tears of joy, as he remembers Zion. In ordinary life, and in the common acceptation of the term, the

exercise of memory has reference chiefly to the past. But, inasmuch as the Christian has acquired ideas and prospects of the land to which he is journeying, and as these ideas and prospects constitute a portion of his past, as well as present existence, it is with no impropriety that we speak of him as remembering, in all his goings, that yet unreached and unseen but better land to which his pilgrim steps are directed. It is, indeed, by cherishing a constant remembrance of those promises, which, by faith, he has received, by continually dwelling upon those prospects which, in Scripture, are unfolded, and by retaining an abiding appreciation of those felicities which he has been taught to anticipate, that he is sustained in his earthly sojourn, that the fact of banishment becomes tolerable to him, and that the troubles and conflicts of his preparatory lot are calmly met and triumphantly overcome.

THE FAINT HEART REVIVED. "For the Lord shall comfort Zion: He shall

comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody."-ISAIAH li. 3.

"Sing, O heavens! and be joyful, O earth! for the Lord hath comforted His people.”—ISAIAH xlix. 13.

A living, loving, lasting word,
My listening ear believing heard,
While bending down in prayer:
Like a sweet bree that none can stay,
It passed my soul upon its way,
And left a blessing there.

Then joyful thoughts that come and go,
By paths the holy angels know,

Encamped around my soul;
As in a dream of bles repose,
'Mid withered reeds a river rose,

And through the desert stole.
I lifted up my eyes to see-
The wilderness was glad for me,

Its thorns were bright with bloom
And onward travellers still in sigh
Marked out a path of shining light,

And shade unmixed with gloom.

O sweet the strains of those before,-
"The weary knees are weak no more,
The fearful heart is strong;"
But sweeter, nearer from above,
That word of everlasting love,
The promise and the song.

"Hymns and Meditations.'-A L. N

NOTHING is more natural than that words and actions should be criticised. People will exercise their judgment upon what they hear and see, and will express their opinions accordingly. In proportion, moreover, to the importance of the subject under review, or to its acknowledged bearing upon the interests of individuals and of society, may we expect to find criticism freely employed.

Sermons, then, and other religious compositions, whether spoken or written, must be no exception. The preacher must lay his account with having his discourses commented upon, both as to form and substance, and himself criticised, both as to matter and manner.

Nor is this, by any means, a misfortune. On the contrary, great good may follow from it, both to the preacher and the hearer, the writer and the reader, provided only the criticism be just, and be made in love.

But in order to be just, and to do good and not evil by our criticism, there is one principle which we ought to be especially careful to observe, viz., always to have respect to the relative value of things. Our opinions and remarks should give chief prominence to those things which are most important. This may appear too obvious a canon of criticism to require mention, but it is less attended to in practice than is either good for the critic, or safe for the criticised.

About a sermon, for instance, we ought to be careful not to speak first, or think chiefly, of such things as its eloquence, or the beauty of its illustrations. The great question should be, What was its aim? Was its aim consistent with the rule of the great preacher of the Gentiles,-"I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified?" If so, it was right in the main. If the manifest object of the discourse was to lead men to the Saviour, it fulfilled the first and indispensable condition of excellence. On the other hand, if it did not set Christ before us, then to no good

purpose did it dazzle us with the most brilliant illustrations, or move us by its eloquence. If it had not for its object, to attract us to the Christian life, or to help us in it, it had no real value for our poor souls. Does popular criticism always observe this rule?

And even as to style and manner, ought not the first question in reference to these to be, how far they have helped or hindered the true aim of preaching? The best style is that which best assists the preacher to interest his hearers, not in himself, but in his subject. His illustrations may have been very beautiful, but were they of value? Did they help us to listen, so that our souls profited thereby? or did they rather turn our minds aside from the right track? Can we say that they drew us towards Christ and the Christian lessons of the discourse, or that they drifted us away from these?

His position

And with regard to manner, the question, surely, is not whether it was what is called an impressive manner, or a pleasing manner, or any other particular manner, as an independent quality in preaching; but, did it upon the whole assist the preacher in his address to us? Did it help his meaning? as a preacher implied that he had the testimony of God to declare to us. His words affirmed that he was earnest about our receiving that testimony, for our salvation and growth in grace. The question is, did his manner harmonize with this? Did it draw our attention to his words, as these directed our minds to Christ?

We have made these remarks because there is a tendency to look first to subordinate things-the mere accessories— as if these were of first importance, and to give a last place in our criticism, when any is given at all, to what relates most to the true object of preaching.

We must beware of this tendency. It is fraught with the worst results to us. If, in our criticism, we take principal note of the mere form of the preaching, we shall come also to make

host account of it in our hearts. It matters not whether we are attracted by rhetorical embellishment, or intellectual depth or cleverness, or freshness of thought, or practical sense, or eloquent declamation, or persuasiveness of appealif it is the preacher's part, in any or all of these, which principally impresses us, then are we most certainly preferring excellency of speech or of wisdom," to "declaring the testimony of God." Under this tendency we shall go to hear preaching for mere intellectual gratification, but with no earnest desire for spiritual instruction.

66

But we have yet another word for critics. Supposing that our criticism is just and loving, and thoroughly fair, the question for each of us after all is, how does the truth spoken by this minister, declared by this book, affect me? Having criticised the truth as delivered to us, it still remains for us to exercise a selfcriticism as to how we have received it.

Whether the minister, for instance, has preached well or not, the name of Christ has been used, and the professed object of the preaching has been the instruction of souls in the way of life through Christ. Then let each of us be most concerned in inquiring, "how does my soul stand related to that Saviour? Am I ignorant about Him? Or, even if I know about Him, do I know Him? Do I know Him as my Saviour? Am I really

earnest in desiring instruction for my soul in the way of life?"

Again, we feel that the minister is not faithful unless he sets forth Christ as our only Saviour, and as an all-sufficient Saviour for us, whatever we are. And we feel that he ought to be very earnest in doing this, and that his preaching ought to come to us, not as a performance on his part for us to criticise, but as a real pleading with us on behalf of Christ, that we be reconciled to God, and live in His fear and love. So far well: but the question for us is, do we receive the preaching thus? It is quite possible that we may be so occupied with our criticism, fair and proper though it be, that we lose all the instruction for ourselves. Busy with the inquiry as to whether the preacher has been faithful to us the hearers, we may forget to inquire whether we ourselves have been faithful to the truth which we have heard,-we may forget the faithfulness which is required of his hearers. Having listened to the discourse, and sat in judgment on it, as a message delivered by an ambassador of Christ, we may yet neglect to consider what message Christ had in it for us! O that we remembered always our own responsibility to God, in the midst of our judgment of other men !

Herein lies the great danger to critics, that criticism may take the place of selfapplication. LAYMAN.

It is now rather more than three years since the Brighton newspapers announced the death of a Mr. Robertson, incumbent there of Trinity Chapel. The name was not familiar. Beyond the sphere of his duty the man was comparatively unknown. And though his death cast a strange gloom, not only over his personal acquaintances, but over the town where

• Sermons, preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton,

by the late Rev. Frederick W. Robertson, M.A., the Incumbent. First Series. Third Edition.

he lived and laboured, though his congregation felt that they had lost in him not only a teacher of rare genius, wisdom, honesty, and faith, but a tender, sympathising friend and brother, yet when, before the tears were dried for him, almost before the grave had closed over him, both his work and his character were coarsely attacked in a well known religious newspaper, most people were taken by surprise, and found themselves asking with much wonder, who was he?

How did we never hear of him? The curiosity thus excited has at length been satisfied by the sermons, or rather outlines of his sermons,* published since his death; and yet not satisfied, since as we read them we grow but the more eager to learn all we can of one so nobly gifted above most preachers of his time, and yet so quiet and unobtrusive that we did not know of him till he had passed away from us for ever. Cut off suddenly in his early prime, taken from his labours when his strength was most fitted to bear them, when they seemed most needful for those committed to his charge, struck down by death just as his hand was stretched out to reap the harvest from the seed he had so painfully sown, it might seem too puzzling and incomprehensible that he should be snatched thus untimely from the world. But he belonged to that band of true and holy men, who, though dead yet speak, and with an eloquence and power which find no parallel in their lives; and the living words which were spoken to the narrow circle of his audience at Brighton, are now, through his death, spoken, as from a tongue touched with heavenly fire, to the wider circle of the pious and thoughtful men and women of England. It was needful for him to die that he might truly live.

From the slightest perusal of Mr. Robertson's Sermons, it is easy to understand both the bitter rancour with which his memory was assailed, and the profound yet affectionate reverence of those who knew and heard him. They are the sermons of a bold, uncompromising thinker, of a man resolute for the truth of God, and determined in the strength of God's grace to make that truth clear, to brush away all the finespun sophistries and half truths by which the cunning sins of men have hidden it. You feel that you are with a man who strips every hollow pretence from your soul, and "These are not notes, previously prepared, nor are they sermons written before delivery, they are simply recollections: sometimes dictated by the preacher himself to the young members of a family in which he was interested, at their urgent entreaty: sometimes written out by him. self for them, when they were at a distance and unable to attend his ministry."-Preface.

leaves it naked and bare before God; a man who, having himself dared all things for the love of Christ, knows that unless you are ready to dare all things you are mocking your Christian name. He does not preach a lazy worship, with which the utterest selfishness may go hand in hand, nor a number of truths in doctrine and maxim pieced together like a bare mosaic, nor a narrow dogmatic system fitting in with the dogmatic exclusive tone of hard and narrow minds. But he teaches that the worship is real, and that it means the sacrifice of the heart and life to God; he is for ever pointing to the centre and source of truth in Christ Jesus; and, whatever may be his system, his teaching is liberal, large-hearted and Christlike enough to win the sympathies of all reverend and earnest minds. And, therefore, though the bigots, the workers in mosaic, the easy worshippers, with whom religion means simply churchgoing and almsgiving, though they might call him impractical, dangerous, unsound, because they could not or would not understand him; though they might slander him, because his faith, his teaching, his life, were a cutting satire upon their's; yet it is no wonder, if, in those who, Sunday after Sunday, heard these sermons from his lips, attention and respect deepened into admiration and love, nor that some, who differed more widely from him in point of doctrine, were among the saddest mourners at his funeral.

In his Table-Talk, Luther is reported to have said, that "a preacher should be a logician and a rhetorician; that is, he must be able to teach and admonish:" and if the teaching be taken with that limitation which Luther elsewhere put upon it, when he defined divinity to "consist in use and practice, not in speculation and meditation," these words include perhaps all that can be written about Mr. Robertson as a preacher of God's Word. They are the most and the highest that can be written about any preacher. The pulpit is no place for mere vague talk. A man must think well of what he has to say before he enters it, else it were better for him if he never entered it at all. If he suffers himself to use the chance