on the other. They will support the Church on high grounds of religious feeling and principle, in which, even many, who do not conform to all the doctrines of the Church, may cordially and zealously concur. This object I, for one, am determined to maintain. But it is quite consistent with that object to relieve any real grievance, and to remove any civil disadvantage under which those who do not concur in the doctrines of the Established Church may labour. My opinion is that, with that course, coupled with a sincere desire to promote rational and well-matured improvement, the people of England will be content; nay more, that of that course they will cordially approve.

As for myself, whatever may be the result, I regard it without any feelings of anxiety or apprehension; I have no object of personal ambition to gratify, and, whatever else I may lose, I cannot lose the consolation of having acted on a sense of public duty at a period of great difficulty. If I succeed, I shall have the satisfaction of thinking that I have succeeded against great obstacles and amid the most confident predictions of failure. I BELIEVE THAT I SHALL SUCCEED. I have that confidence in a good cause; I have that confidence in the success of good intentions; that I believe that a majority of the representatives of England will be satisfied with the measures which I shall propose, and that they will lend their support and co-operation in carrying them into effect. But, gentlemen, if I

am mistaken; if, after having exerted myself to the utmost in that great cause in which I am engaged; if, having nothing to upbraid myself with, I shall nevertheless fail, then, I do assure you, so far as my personal feelings are concerned, I shall relinquish the powers, emoluments, and distinctions of office with any feelings rather than those of mortification and regret. I shall find ample compensation for the loss of office; I shall return to pursuits quite as congenial to my taste and feelings as the cares and labours of office; I shall feel the full force of the sentiments which are applied by the poet to the hardy natives of the Alpine regions:

"As the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar,

But bind him to his native mountains more !" so shall I feel, that the angry contentions and collisions of political life will but bind me the more to this place, not, indeed, the place of my nativity, but dearer to me than the place of my nativity—by every early recollection and association, and by the formation of those first friendships, which have remained uninterrupted to this hour. I shall return hither to do what good I can in a more limited sphere, and with humbler powers of action to encourage local improvement, to enjoy the opportunities of friendly intercourse, and to unite with you in promoting good fellowship, and a spirit of conciliation and mutual good-will in that society, to the bosom of which I shall return.

EDWARD

IRVING.*

SERVING GOD IN THE HOUSEHOLD.† WHEN I look upon a family, of father, and mother, and flourishing children, with perhaps

* Many a sincere and worthy tribute has been paid to the life and work of Edward Irving from time to time. "Irving," says one, "almost alone among recent men, lived his sermons and preached his life. His words, more than those of any other modern speaker, were 'life passed through the fire of thought.' Blackwood's Magazine has termed him the greatest preacher the world has seen since apostolic times; and Carlyle's lament over his death, in the form of a short article to Fraser's Magazine (1835), has always been admired for its pathos, sincerity, and truthfulness. We quote but a sentence or two:

"Closed are those lips. The large heart, with its large bounty, where wretchedness found solacement, and they that were wandering in darkness the light as of home, has paused. The strong man can no more: beaten on from without, undermined from within, he has had to sink overwearied, as at nightfall, when it

a goodly retinue of household servants, I say unto myself, What a work of Divine providence was yet but the mid-season of day. Irving was fortytwo years and some months old. Scotland sent him

forth a Herculean man; our mad Babylon wore him and wasted him with all her engines, and it took her twelve years. He sleeps with his fathers in that loved birth-land. Babylon with its deafening inanity rages on, but to him henceforth innocuous, unheeded for

ever.

"What the Scottish uncelebrated Irving was, they that have only seen the London celebrated and distorted one can never know. Bodily and spiritually, perhaps there was not, in that November 1822, when he first arrived here, a man more full of genial energetic life in all these islands.

"But for Irving I had never known what the communion of man with man means. His was the freest, brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever came in contact with. I call him, on the whole, the best man I have ever, after trial enough, found in this world, or now hope to find."

↑ "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord,

is here, what a signal manifestation of the goodness of God! Some ten or twenty years ago, there was nothing of this substance, none of these thriving children, nor did any of those happy domestics tend the many cares of this little state. Then those who rule it in nobler state than king or queen, whose smile is the joy, whose embrace is the highest ambition of the little ones, and upon whose nod the grownup people wait with willing attendance;-this king and queen of the hearts of all (which that father and mother are not always, is their own wicked mismanagement, for God hath designed it, and hath provided it so to be) were some few years ago in subjection to their own parents, and most frequently without anything they could call their own. The one, like young Jacob, crossing the fords of Jordan to seek his inheritance, with a staff for all his portion ("With my staff I passed over this Jordan"); the other, like Rebekah, waiting on her father's flock, until it might please the Lord to send her a husband and to find her a home. These two the Lord brought together, with nothing but each other's love for their portion, perhaps without a home to dwell in, or a servant to minister to them. And from these two needy dependants of the Lord's providence all this little nation hath arisen. One immortal soul after another the Lord sent them, and with every hungry mouth He sent the food to satisfy its hunger. And in coming into existence, pain and trouble and death lay in wait for mother and child, but the Lord's arm sustained both. And often against the soft childhood of the little nursling death brought up various diseases, and shot his infectious arrows abroad amongst the children, but still the Lord sustained them. And while He blessed maternal carefulness at home, He blessed paternal carefulness abroad, finding them thousands and thousands of meals, so that they consumed not faster than He supplied; the barrel never went empty, the cruse never ran dry, the wardrobe was ever full. And oft when that mother's heart was sick with sadness, and that father's arm weary in the rough encounter of the world, and ready to resign the oar which won his children's bread, the Lord sustained their hearts, and restored their souls. And here they are, brought by the Lord into a haven of rest, and their home is a little paradise of contentment, and perhaps there is a good store provided against the future, when their children shall have ripened into manhood, perhaps there are many attendants ministering in the house, perhaps many dependants abroad, and every comfort and every luxury which the present life can enjoy. Oh, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served, that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh. xxiv. 15).

when I look upon a family thus brought out of nothing, this miracle of the Divine providence and goodness, and haply sit with them cheerfully round the evening fire, and mingle in their enjoyment; it doth so delight my heart to hear them discourse of their family difficulties-to see the eye of a father brighten while he looks upon his present happiness, and the heart of a mother glad while she beholds her children opening into the liveliness and beauty of manhood! And if they intersperse their discourse with pious thankfulness to God, and devout acknowledgment of His goodness to them and theirs if they teach their children to know the Lord God of their fathers, and to walk in His ways and to keep His precepts-if they, moreover, bow the knee in homage unto Him who feeds the raven, and clothes the lily of the field, and walk before Him in a perfect way at home; not only say with Joshua, but with Joshua perform, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord;"-when this I behold, I say unto myself, Here is the happiest scene under heaven, the true seed-bed of greatness, the nursery of heaven. To this let the palace (as palaces are generally ordered), to this let the senate, to this let the academy, to this let the exchange, to this let every tabernacle under which worldly interests shelter, yield. Here is the abode of my soul-here will I rest, for I do like it well. But if it should otherwise happen that these two children of God's hand, for whom He hath builded a nest, and furnished it with plenty, and peopled it with dear children, and given it the children of others to do its servile work, forget all the doings of the Lord for them and theirs, and ascribe the glory unto themselves and unto Fortune (that usurper who hath nothing of his own), and boasteth that all the wealth of Providence is of his procuring;-oh, if I see this family estate, with no fear of God in the midst of them, consuming their meals with no thankfulness, rising in the morning with no prayer for counsel, and laying them down in the evening with no commendation of their spirits to God; if I hear His name passed amongst them like a household word, and His service slighted, and all the soul-cheering spirit of religion banished out of doors to dwell in the church or the cathedral,-oh, how I pity the children! They are rising for a prey to the enemy, who lieth in wait to take their souls after they have served him all the days of their life. Poor children! no one to care for their souls. Poor famished children! no spiritual food for you from the father and mother who bore you. The Lord preserve you, for your father and mother have forsaken you! The Saviour take you up, for surely ye are destitute! But for the parents-what ingrates are you! what a hardened and ungodly pair, thus to forget the Lord who found you solitary, and founded for you a habitation, and prospered

you, and gave you children, the most valuable gift! Oh, it is pitiful to be in such a house, where everything is present but piety, which is the titular saint of all household graces. It seems to me a miracle that it should stand before the Lord. And I almost look for the moment when it will disperse like an illusion, But the Lord is long-suffering and spareth much. He wisheth all to come unto Him, therefore He is kind. Oh, then, revere Him in your houses, and return Him thanks for His great mercies, and you shall dwell safely and securely in the midst of those family infirmities which we now go on to declare as arguments for a godly establishment of the household.

When I look upon this family, and further think of its risks and dangers, its hopes and fears, and all its infirmity, I pity the more that it should be without the great patronage and protection of the Almighty Father of all. The life of the industrious father and of the careful mother hang by a thread, which a thousand accidents may cut asunder; and what then is to become of the little nest? To what serve the securities upon your lives-to what your houses and lands, which have no affections to cherish kindred affections, no bosom upon which the helpless infant may hang, nor lip to impart to the ear of listening childhood maternal counsel or paternal wisdom? And what are guardians, and what wealthy relations and friends, in the stead of parents in whom God has planted the rudiments of affection, and made their ministry as necessary for the rearing of a healthy soul, as for the rearing of a healthy body, in their offspring? Each child's life contained a thousand anxious affections and precious hopes, which by death are all scattered, as a fine elixir is when the frail vessel which held it falls to the earth. And if they ripen into manhood, how many pitfalls are in their path, and most alluring seductions, wherein being caught, the hearts of the parents are oft broken, and their grey hairs brought with sorrow to the grave! And contentious feuds in families do oft slay affection, and counteract nature, so that there shall be strokes instead of embraces, and frowns for smiles, and bitter wrath for melting love. And hoping the best, that death is escaped, and vice and passion fended off (although in the absence of religion I see not how), what foul winds may cross the course of the vessel in which this domestic state is embarked! Life is not a gay voyage upon the bosom of ample streams through luxuriant and beautiful fields, like that which kings and queens are reported to take at times through their ample territory; but it is a rough and traverse course amongst adverse currents and rough impediments, requiring each day a constant outlook, and ready activity of all concerned. Each post that arrives may bring to the father the heavy burden of a shipwrecked fortune, or to a mother the tidings

of some scion of the house in foreign parts lopped off for ever from the parent stock. Each fair daughter, as she walks abroad, may catch the basilisk eye of some artful wretch; and each hopeful youth fall into the snares of some wicked woman, who lieth in wait for the unwary. Why should these things be hid from the thoughts of parents? Why should not all the infirmity of a family be laid open, that they may have their refuge in Jehovah's everlasting strength? Look upon this city where ye dwell. Behold the daughters of misery and vice. Was not each one of these a father's delight and a mother's joy, and the dwelling-place of as many natural affections and hopeful wishes as the daughter of a king? Each of these is a proof of a family's infirmity. And every youth who in fallen wretchedness paces these weary streets, and every haggard boy who looks into your face for charity, and the thousand striplings who prowl about and lie in wait for things not their own, having often upon their heads more capital offences than years, are all instances of domestic infirmity. And so are the lists of ruined merchants and broken traders, and the shipfuls of heavy-hearted emigrants from the various ports of this blessed island, and the large population of paupers which crowd the poorhouse, or depend upon the parish, and infinite cases more lamentable than those, which modestly hide their want, pining in secret over broken hopes and humbled fortunes, or haply relieved by the unseen hand of charity-these are all instances of that domestic infirmity with which I now desire to impress your mind, that ye may seek your strength in Him who "placeth the solitary in families, and maketh the children of the youth to be like arrows in the hand of a mighty man." There is refuge nowhere else against these infirmities, whether of the outward condition, or of the inward happiness of a family. In the outward infirmities, on which I insist the least, what refuge is there in the love of father or mother, or both, save in Him who is a father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow, and the orphan's help? And in the ruin of our household wealth, what refuge save in the arms of His providence unto whom every creature openeth its mouth many times a day for nourishment, and findeth it either in the air or upon the earth, or in the waters under the earth? He alone can fill the house which is empty, and stock our exhausted barns, and make our presses to burst out with new wine. And when riches have taken unto themselves wings and flown away, like an eagle towards heaven, there are treasures on high, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and where thieves break not through nor steal. But for the inward and spiritual infirmities against which it concerneth a family's weal to be defended-against the quarrels and animosities and jealousies of husband and wife-against

feared God, not men who hung on for a scrap of patronage, but men who stood for the Lord, and for the spirit of holiness in the family-to offer up its prayers, to counsel the heads of the house, to instruct the children, to teach the servants their duties in a religious sense, to gather the whole household together and exhort them all-one who was a minister of God amongst them, and showed his gifts in watching over the souls of a household, thereby manifesting his worthiness to be translated to a parochial or a diocesan cure. The Protestant religion made its way through the noble families of the north. Knox first preached the doctrines of the Reformed religion in a nobleman's hall; and there he first administered the sacrament of the Supper in that simple form which soon laid low the vain and wicked foolery of the mass.

So that the idea which I represented of a godly family is far from being Utopian in high or in low life. Nothing is Utopian for which God hath given forth His rescript; and in this way He hath ordered houses to be trained up, adding His promise, that when they are old they will not depart from it. But while the world lasts, fashion will whirl it about, and luxury intoxicate it, and passion drive it headlong. Let the world go; let it go its wicked round to its miserable end. But ye are not of the world who have come up to serve Him this day in His courts; or if ye be, come out from them and be saved. Who is upon the Lord's side? Who? Let that man look better to his children than the world doth to its flocks and its herds. Let him look to the holiness of his home more than they do to the profits of their business room. Oh, let him look to the righteous standing of his children with God, more than they do to their right standing with great men and their prospects in life. Then shall the infirmity of his family be cured, and in weakness it shall be strong, and in poverty rich, and in the darkest hidings of the world's countenance it shall be glad. In its afflictions it shall be comforted, in its sicknesses healed, in its bereavements blessed, and in everything made superior to the vexations of life and the troubles of time.

I look upon a family, and think of its dissolution-how it shall disappear before the touch of death like the frost-work of a winter morning, and all its strong attachments dissolve like the breaking-up of the ice-bound waters at the approach of spring-how snowy age, and tottering feebleness, and stark death, shall at length come upon the stately supporters of the domestic state, and they shall fall into the grave, bearing with them the thousand loves and affections which can find no second stem to which to transplant themselves. And then comes strong grief for an honest and wise father, and the sad apparel and pale countenance of widowhood and fatherless children, who know not where to look for bread or for patronage. And a mother hath

the right over her children shared by some relative or friend, who supplieth the evening and morning consultations of parents over their offspring. And oft the children, like encumbrances, are got rid of to the earliest employment, without any study of their natural disposition or turn of mind, and sent into a cold fatherless world to make the best of it. And perhaps also, ere this, a mother is reft away in her tenderness from the midst of her babes and immature children, who go about the cold house, and cry for her that bore them; but she is not to be found, neither answereth to their cries. And now cometh orphanage, fatherless and motherless orphanage. A stranger comes to nurse the babe, and the babe is happy in its unconsciousness of its loss; but the little ones know not the voice of the stranger. Then asylums are sought for some, and charitable foundations for others, where, far from the chamber of home, their hearts winnowed of their natural loves, they grow as upon a rock, hardy but stunted, strong but crooked and twisted in their growth, for want of the natural soil and genial atmosphere of a father's and a mother's love. And if it is ordered otherwise, that the children should be plucked away in their youth or in their prime, and the two parents left, naked and solitary, without a scion from their roots, or any fruit upon their boughs; then they go all their days mourning; the joy of their life is cut off in the mid-time of their days, their best hopes and dearest affections are buried in the dust. But in whatever way the king of terrors maketh his approach, and in whatever order he taketh away his victims, certain it is that he will not cease until he hath taken them all. He will leave none to tell unto future ages the domestic tale of sufferings and death. One by one they shall be plucked away; after intervals of days, or months, or years, he shall come again, and a mother's tears and a father's repressed and silent sorrow, yet too big for his manly breast to contain, and fond children, and the tender years of his victim-nothing shall withhold his arm, or ward off the blow. Time after time he shall come, and fill the hearts of all with sorrow, and clothe their countenances with sadness, and deluge their couch with tears, and fill the house with lamentations, until, one by one, he hath gotten them in his hold, and all the affection that smiled and prattled, all the happiness that glowed around the fire, and all the festivity of birthday and bridal-day that gladdened the halls of that house, are now converted into the dampness and darkness and unsightliness of the family vault, where father and mother, and children, and children's children, with all their beauty and strength, lie a heap of unsavoury earth. And perhaps the mansion where they were reared is roofless and tenantless, and the garden where they took their pleasure overrun with weeds; and if some descendant come from