God; hence the world leaves them utterly ignorant of the very meaning of the word "persecution."-Spurgeon.

CHURCH.-Worshippers in the

Here the white, jewelled hand of the nobleman and the brown, horny hand of the poor man are uplifted in prayer. Here the educated and untutored tongue pour forth their praises together. But their prayers and their praises are indited and inspired by one Spirit; and both are poured into the ear and the heart of one Father, even the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the God and Father of all flesh.-Dr. Davies.

CHURCH.-The Youth-Time of the

In the first years of a Church, its members are willing to endure hardships, and to make great exertions; but when once it is prosperous, they desire to take their ease; as one who builds a ship is willing to work all the way from keel to deck, until she is launched; thenceforward he expects the ocean to buoy him up, and the winds to bear him on. The youth-time of Churches produces enterprize; their age, indolence. But even this might be borne, did not these dead men sit in the door of their sepulchres, crying out against every living man who refuses to wear the livery of death. I am almost tempted to think that if, with the end of every pastorate, the Church itself were disbanded and destroyed, to be gathered again by the succeeding teacher, we should thus secure an immortality of youth. -H. W. Beecher.

CHURCHES.-No Antipathies between

There ought to be no secret antipathies between Churches, for which no reason can be given; but let every house sweep the dust from its own floor.— Dean Williams.

CHURCHES.-City

Churches in cities should cause their influence to be felt afar, This is true, indeed, of all other Churches; but cities are the centres of influence in fashion, science, literature, religion, and morals. A thousand ties of interest bind them to other parts of a land; and though, in fact, there may be, as there often is, much more intelligence in a country neighbourhood than among the same number of inhabitants taken promiscuously from a city; and though there may be, as there often is, far more good sense and capability to appreciate religious truth in a country congregation than in a congregation in a city, yet it is true that the city will be the radiating point of influence. This, of course, increases the responsibility of Christians in cities, and makes it important that they should be models of self-denial, and of efforts to diffuse the blessings of the Gospel abroad.-A. Barnes.

CHURCHES.-Dead

Have you ever read "The Ancient Mariner?" I dare say you thought it one of the strangest imaginations ever put together, especially that part where the old mariner represents the corpses of all the dead men rising up to man the ship, -dead men pulling the rope, dead men steering, dead men spreading the sails. I thought what a strange idea that was! But do you know that I have lived to see that time? I have seen it done. I have gone into Churches, and I have seen a dead man in the pulpit, a dead man handling the plate, and dead men sitting to hear!--Spurgeon.

CHURCHES.-The Disturbances of

If we thoroughly examine, we shall find that pride, policy, and power, are the three principal ingredients in all the disturbances of our Churches.-M. Henry.

CHURCHES.—Evangelical

Our Evangelical Churches are too much regarded as places for preaching, and too little thought of as intended for the religious elevation of the mind by prayer and meditation.-Humboldt.

CHURCHES.—The Imperfections of

The best Churches are like the moon, not without their imperfections. The purest times had their imperfections; a pure state is not allowed to this world, but is reserved for another. In that better world the Churches shall be delivered for ever from all imperfection.-Charnock.

CHURCHES. Ornaments in

They who repudiate all ornament, and all the modes of affecting the senses in the offices of religion, as impious or improper, do not recollect the Temple of Solomon, but suffer their good sense to be overpowered by the zeal of a barbarous fanaticism.-Dr. Knox.

CHURCHES.-The Security of

Our Churches will stand in the present day, not by the excellence of their ecclesiastical polity, nor by the splendour of their liturgies, nor by the eloquence of their preachers, nor by the patronage of the State, nor by the endowment of the Queen, nor by the multitude and grandeur of the nobility who attend them, nor by the votes of the people; but by their allegiance to Christ, by their faithfulness to God, and by their sacrifices for truth.-Dr. Cumming.

CHURCHES.—Village

Blessings on those old gray fabrics that stand on many a hill, and in many a lowly valley, all over this beloved country; for I am of Sir Walter Scott's opinion -that no places are so congenial to the holy simplicity of Christian worship as they are. They have an air of antiquity about them, a shaded sanctity, and stand so venerably amid the most English scenes and the tombs of generations of the dead, that we cannot enter them without having our imaginations and our bearts powerfully impressed with every feeling and thought that can make us love our country, and yet feel that this is not our abiding-place. Those antique Churches, those low, massy doors, were raised in days that are long gone by; around those walls, nay beneath our very feet, sleep those who, in their generations, helped, each in his little sphere, to build up our country to her present pitch of greatness. We catch a glimpse of that deep veneration, of that unambitious simplicity of mind and manner, that we would fain hold fast amid our growing knowledge, and its inevitable re-modelling of the whole framework of anciety. Therefore it is that I have always loved the village Church; that I have delighted to stroll far through the summer-fields, and hear still onward its bells ringing happily-to enter and sit down among its rustic congregation, better pleased with their murmur of responses, and their artless but earnest chant, than with all the splendour and parade of more lofty fabrics.-Howitt.

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too fast or too slow. As, then, we should condemn him of folly that should profess to trust the clock rather than the sun, so we cannot but justly tax the credulity of those who would rather trust to the Church than to the Scripture.— Bishop Hall.

CHURCH.-The Scriptures in the

It is a fact too pregnant with instruction to be lightly passed over, that in every corrupt form of the Christian Church there has been more than a neglect to instruct the people through the general reading of the Scriptures-there has been a negation of it, a prohibition against it; and "the key of knowledge” being thus taken away by having the Holy Scriptures locked up in an ecclesiastical language, the progress of error has been easy, and its triumph complete. The device of Satan has been in this case to establish human authority in religion; and, by turning the edge of the sword of the Spirit, to weaken and counteract His influences. The sad result has been that the communities which retained the forms of Christianity have been no ways superior to the surrounding heathen in all that constitutes the distinguishing glory of Christianity—in knowledge, in holiness, in purity of principle, and general uprightness in walk and conversation. -Professor Scholefield.

CHURCH.-The Seasons of the

The Church makes the days and months and seasons witnesses before God and men of the great events of our Lord's life on which our religion is founded. She makes the year itself in its course preach to us in orderly succession of our Lord's First Advent to save the world, and of His Second Advent to judge the world, of His Incarnation and Birth of a virgin-of His Circumcision and Presentation in the Temple-of His Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation-of His Agony and Bloody Sweat-of His Cross and Passion-of His precious Death and Burial-of His glorious Resurrection and Ascension-and of the coming of the Holy Ghost. The setting apart of the days and seasons to be consecrated to the memory of these events-the appointment of special collects, lessons, epistles, gospels, and prefaces do serve as so many sermons or recitals of history to hinder the people from forgetting those great truths, and to teach them the great honour and importance with which they ought to be regarded. Just as the orderly revolution of the natural year doth bring our earth in turn opposite to and in view of all the constellations that girdle the heavens, so by the wise ordering of our Church, and by a fitting analogy doth the revolution of the Christian year present for our contemplation in beautiful order and harmony all those glorious constellations of divine truth which are revealed to the eye of faith.—Professor Blunt.

CHURCH.-Service Rendered by the

Boileau says somewhere that the Church is a great thought which every man ought to study: it would be more practical to say that the Church is a great fact which every man ought to measure. Probably we Christians are too familiarized with the blessed presence of the Church to do justice to her as a world-embracing institution, and as the nurse and guardian of our moral and mental life. Like the air we breathe, she bathes our whole being with influences which we do not analyze; and we hold her cheap in proportion to the magnitude of her unostentatious service. The sun rises on us day by day in the heavens, and we heed not his surpassing beauty until our languid sense is roused by some observant

astronomer or artist. The Christian Church pours even upon those of us who love her least, floods of intellectual and moral light; and yet it is only by an occasional intellectual effort that we detach ourselves sufficiently from the tender monotony of her influences, to understand how intrinsically extraordinary is the double fact of her perpetuated existence and of her continuous expansion.-Canon Liddon.

CHURCH.-The Services of the

There is something so simple, so touching, so gentle, in the domestic character of our Church services, that a person who had weighed them well-a person who bore in mind how, for generations and generations, the Prayer-Book, like a ministering angel, had walked side by side with his fathers, would surely feel as if he were wronging their sacred memory lightly to leave the inheritance they had left him, and to seek for a home in some far land among aliens and strangers. -Dr. Faber.

CHURCH-The Sexton of a

Did you note the mien

Of that self-solaced, easy-hearted churl,

Death's hireling, who scoops out his neighbour's grave,

Or wraps up an old acquaintance in clay,

As unconcerned as when he plants a tree?-W. Wordsworth.

CHURCH.-Simony in the

Simony is the gangrene of the Church, which would soon eat out her very life, were it not for the timely interposition of her exalted Head. They, also, who purchase "the cure of souls," would perish with their gold, like Simon Magus, were it not for His divine forbearance. Yet they will ultimately “have their reward."-Dr. Davies.

CHURCH.-A Sinner in a

As a wen looks worse on the face of beauty, and a skull on a bank of snow, so a sinner in a holy Church, most uncomely and loathsome.-Dr. Guthrie.

CHURCH-Sleepers in

Here you fall asleep when you have most need to be waking. But if you were wise as Jonah, you would not sleep here in the sight of all the people, but would rather get you to sleep in some corner; for Jonah went under the hatches to sleep, and would not sleep in the sight of the mariners. You would all be found in the Church when the Lord cometh, but you would not be found sleeping in the Church. You are watched, though I see you not below; and none of you can steal a nap, and not be espied; but when your eyes be most shut, and see least, then most eyes be upon you. I marvel how you can sleep, having so many eyes looking on you, so many clamours in your ears, and God Himself speaking to you. How long shall I preach afore I can convert you from your sins, seeing I speak thus long, and cannot convert you from sleeping? If you should see a traitor sleep on the hurdle, or if you should see men sleep with meat in their mouths, would you not marvel? Yet even so do you; while I denounce the great judgments of God against you, and while I am feeding some of you, you fall asleep and so I preach in vain. There is a country whereof it is said that it is night with them when it is day with us. I think that country be here: for how many are here which have lost their eyes and their ears since they came hither? If all of you

were, as many of you be, asleep, the strangers which came hither to hear, would think you all dead, and that I preached your funeral sermon; therefore, for shame leave your sleeping!-H. Smith.

CHURCH.-The Spire of a

The tapering pyramid,

Whose spiky top has wounded the thick cloud.-R. Blair.

Does not such a tall and stately spire seem like a giant figure pointing upwards? Our worthy ancestors meant that every Church should direct our eyes to heaven, and thereby admonish us that the doctrine preached in the sanctuary below is the only way to the mansions above.-Scriver.

In this way they went on and on, until at last the village lights appeared before them, and the spire of the Church cast a long reflection on the grave-yard grass, as if it were a dial (alas, the truest in the world !) marking, whatever light shone out of heaven, the flight of days and weeks, and years, by some new shadow on that solemn, hallowed ground.-Dickens.

CHURCH.-A Splendid

How very grand it is, and wonderful,

Never have I beheld a Church so splendid!

Such columns, and such arches, and such windows,
So many tombs and statues in the chapel!-Longfellow.

CHURCH.-The Stability of the

Still points the tower, and pleads the bell,

The solemn arches breathe in stone,

Window and wall have lips to tell

The mighty faith of days unknown;
Yea, flood, and breeze, and battle shock
Shall beat upon the Church in vain,

She stands a daughter of the rock

The changeless God's eternal fane !-Hawker.

CHURCH.-The State of the

This is the state of the Church militant:-she is like the ark floating upon the waters, like a lily growing among thorns, like the bush which burned with fire and was not consumed.-H. Smith.

CHURCH.-The Study of the

The great study of the Church of God on earth, is the study of God in Christ. -J. H. Evans.

CHURCH.-The Submission of the

"The Church," says St. Paul, ❝is subject unto Christ." The term-submission exactly corresponds to the great fact proclaimed by the Gospel. The Church was redeemed. She belongs to Him who redeemed her. She cannot have a will different from the divine will that saved her. Obedience is her lot, her blessed lot. That submission recognizes in Jesus Christ two sorts of authority, two distinct rights:that of teaching by His Word, and that of guiding by His dispensations. In the Word of Christ the Church finds her rule of doctrine and of life, the solution of all doubts, the arbitrator in all differences. This is the first aspect of her submission. But the Church, moreover, submits to her Master's dispensations. Sure of being "loved with an everlasting love," and