the Christian era, we must not look to laughing Democritus, to splendid Virgil, or to polished Horace; but we must look to the twelve humble desciples, mostly Galilean fishermen, who went about with the definite message of their Lord and Master, preaching the doctrines of repentance and the remission of sins. If we desire to see how the mental and moral life of the England of to-day was helped forward, we must look to the Abbess Hilda, to Venerable Bede, to King Alfred, to Wykeham, and Wycliff; and not to the crowd of nameless doubters and scoffers who have always existed, and whose services to mankind have been mostly negative or nugatory. Taken even in its most favourable aspect, the entrance to Doubting Castle is devoid of hope or joy. In spite of her worthy and useful life and works, who can compare the cold self-complacency of the Autobiography of the late Harriet Martineau, with the simple, yet sublime devotion of the life of the good Pastor Oberlin, and not perceive what a gulf there is between the human being who adopts and lives-out a system of religious doctrine, and the one who does not? Who is there who can form a sound estimate of human things, who will not own that more human hearts have been warmed and cheered, more human characters ennobled by a half-dozen hymns of Wesley or Cowper, than by all the sermons and cold-blooded disquisitions on Atheism that Mr. Herbert Spencer, or any of his school, can provide? Let us not mistake it, the world is ennobled by religious truth, and not by materialistic invention, or negative dogmatism. The undying voice is heard through the ages, proclaiming that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." And now that the nation, reputed the most polite in Europe, visited with a servile Government that panders to the secularism of its masses, has at last ventured to close even the doors of its hospitals to the final offices of religion, after having banished the religious teacher even from its private schools; is it imagined that the cause of human progress is served thereby? Is not this futile effort to banish religion from the presence of the sick poor, any other than a modern labour of Sisyphus, to roll the stone of doubt up-hill, every pause in the attempt being marked by a disastrous return upon the person of him who makes it ?

It is important further to observe that the tendency to impugn creeds and to despise doctrines of religion, is precisely because such creeds and doctrines run counter to the natural tendencies and pre-occupations of mankind. Religious truth is constantly opposed to the sinuosities, the creepings, and the burrowings of common worldly practices and pursuits; is often reproving men in the conduct of their daily business. When it does descend into the human soul as an angel of light, it does so at first like Ithuriel, who, when some deep guilt crouches near the heart of man to tempt him, suddenly reveals it by the touch of his celestial spear. Warning him with the prophet's awful utterance, speaking of worldly pride and power only to demonstrate their vanity, of material knowledge only to diminish its value; throwing aside the veil of moral propriety which conceals the vile, unsleeping selthood, and

laying bare the sorrowful and dark strivings of the human heart, the advent of religious truth is always a source of mental trouble and moral confusion. The highest aim of rationalistic philosophy is to produce a complacent and benevolent egoism. The aim of religion is to produce an entire change of heart, and to unite the noblest ideal of self-sacrifice, the wisdom of the philosopher, with the sweetness and confiding happiness of a little child. The naturalist says, "Ye must develop into finer specimens of humanity than the previous generation." The Divine Teacher says, "Ye must be born anew; 66 Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." One regards man as an improving animal, who should be urged to improve still more; the other informs him that he is destined for another and a lasting state of existence, and urges him to live with a view to that state, rather than to centre his desires amid merely sensuous things. There are many earnest thinkers, who are not wedded to any special theological system, who reply in regard to this subject, "We grant that it is well to study doctrine, but who shall say, among the many systems advocated, what doctrine we are to study?" To this I would say, first take the system which lies nearest to you mentally and morally, whether it is the religion of your infancy, or has been embraced since. Take it and study it, however, not as an intellectual luxury, but as a matter of everlasting importance; and put it to practical test. To apply a doctrine to life is the only way to determine its value. "If any man willeth to do His will he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God" (John vii. 17). For in declining to accept a doctrine until after universal search, is to decline to accept one at all. A man would become old and worn with study. and at the end must lament a wasted life. To go forth seeking by mere intellectual effort the perfect Truth, would be as much a fool's errand as that of old Diogenes, who is said to have gone through Athens with a lantern, searching for an honest man. For a man perfectly honest in thought, word, and deed, would be perfectly Divine; and the perfect Truth is infinite, and therefore beyond finite apprehension. Moreover, to carry the analogy further, it is significant that Diogenes, who so cynically sought honesty in others, had previously been banished from Pontus, on a charge of deteriorating the coin of his native country. Too often there are personal tendencies and habits which render the doctrines of religion unwelcome.

All creeds and doctrines are relative, and may be regarded as milestones and finger-posts on the great highway of Truth, rather than as actual verities in themselves. Tennyson truly says :

"Our little systems have their day.

They have their day and cease to be;

:

They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they."

Yet for what they are, we must take them and try them by the test of life. It is better to have good Roman Catholic than good heathen, and the thoughtful student of a doctrine who tests it by his life, will soon discover its shortcomings and thus progress to a better one.

Doctrine is a man-made system; teaching is given in the Word, from which doctrine is derived, as the wood, from which the boat is constructed, grows in the forest. The boat is the constant symbol of doctrine, and the boat may be small and leaky. But man has to cross the sea of life, and he cannot cross it without a boat. The vessel of doctrine may be small and leaky, but he cannot know this till he has tried it by short home voyages, and it is only as he finds it imperfect that he can be moved to construct another and a better one. This he must do if he follows sound reason, for

"Reason is upright stature in the soul;"

and as man, trusting in the help of his Heavenly Father, strives to walk uprightly and to look straight before him, he learns new views and attains better states. We must go forward or backward.

Man is a self-survivor every year;
Man, like a stream, is in perpetual flow.

make our little Do the best we do not care to

How necessary, then, is it that we should study to vessel of doctrine as perfect and complete as we may. can we shall find it still imperfect; but what if we construct it at all! It is a lack of appreciation of the reality and earnestness of life which causes so many to disregard the higher claims of the human soul. The pleasures of life are many and delightful, but the poet cries

"Who seeks amusement in the flame of battle?'

And if life is found to be the scene of a contest between the good and evil of our nature, then its significance becomes portentously increased. The old Persian idea of two mighty powers of light and darkness ever contending for the mastery over man, was the perversion of an ancient truth. For although we have no genuine warrant for believing that the power of evil and of darkness is independent and self-derived, yet its influence on man is none the less because it is the magnified image of his selfhood. As the morning traveller in the Hartz mountains sees upon the mist of the opposing hill a gigantic image of himself, so the young traveller on the mountain of life beholds his own passions and dark tendencies as an enormous and awful presence outside his nature. Well is it for him if he awakes to this in time, and, instead of occupying himself with the mere toys of life, studies to find his means of spiritual safety in days when he can freely do so. For

"When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight,

As lands, and cities with their glittering spires,
To the poor shattered barque, by sudden storm
Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there;
Will toys amuse? No! Thrones will then be toys,
And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale."

JOT.

va. B.

Obiit June 6th, 1884.

(Hetat 61.)

HOU saidst, "How short his life-but three-score

years!"

My friend, thou art in error; measure not
A life like his by seasons! 'Twas his lot
'Mid storm and sunshine, joys and bitter tears,
To work unceasing, almost day and night.

His busy brain, and hands, and ready tongue.
Scarce knew repose; too oft the thought he flung
Away with laughter! His was one long fight
With difficulties many dared not meet.

In east or west, in north or burning south

He triumph'd in so much, that as he wrought, Rich blessings to mankind sprang where his feet Had trod; while wisdom blossom'd from his mouth! And shall we say of such, "His life was short"?

X.

A Three-Year-Old Truant.

T

HOSE who know the New Walk, Leicester, know that for many reasons it is a pleasant place to live in. It is quiet, respectable, and sufficiently removed from the busy part of the town.

From the fact that it is a veritable walk, and not a carriage-way, it derives a certain prestige in the eyes of those who have young children, as we had at the time we lived there. Our little ones could go out and toddle up and down the walk with their nursemaid, on sunny days, without subjecting their parents to the fear that they might be knocked down by passing vehicles, or entangled among the legs of rampant horses. To the older ones, the Museum was an unfailing source of delight; and indeed to one of the younger ones, for Apple, of whom this story is chiefly written, had the usual love of boy for miscellaneous articles of a naturally historical description, and if not prevented was constantly making clandestine visits to that classical building. quiver was full of youngsters at that time, and, thank God! it is full nownot one of them has been selected by the Grim Archer to shoot into the darkness that lies beyond this little life. But at one time we had given Apple up, for we thought we should never look upon his dear little round sun of a face again.

My

He was not three years old, but he was the very personification of a healthy cherubic little boy. We called him Apple because he was so round-round all over, without a single angle or attenuation. He was youngest but one of a family of seven, all of them boys, and as diverse in temperament and appearance as can be imagined. But they all adored Apple. Rex was his real name, and he was Rex indeed, reigning with a kingly little sway among the energetic host. There was something manly about the way he stood about, with his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers; something manly and straightforward in the way in which he looked you full in the face with his round brown eyes. He was a very stout little lad, and would have been the very model for one of the old painters to draw a Cupid from. It seemed a shame to put clothes on him, he had such a pretty round chubby body; and yet when you had dressed him you could not help feeling how well he filled out his little garments, and how admirably they became him.

And then he was "so very human." He had his little tempers and