elaboration. Work of this kind, done hastily, is better not done at all. When completed it will be small in bulk; it will address itself for a long time to the few and not to the many. The reward for it will not be measurable, and not obtainable in money except after many generations, when the brain out of which it was spun has long returned to its dust. Only by accident is a work of genius immediately popu lar, in the sense of being widely bought. No collected edition of Shakespeare's plays was demanded in Shakespeare's life. Milton received five pounds for "Paradise Lost." The distilled essence of the thought of Bishop Butler, the greatest prelate that the English Church ever produced, fills a moderate-sized octavo volume; Spinoza's works, including his surviving letters, fill but three; and though they have revolutionised the philosophy of Europe, have no attractions for the multitude. A really great man has to create the taste with which he is to be enjoyed. There are splendid exceptions of merit eagerly recognised and early rewarded-our honoured English laureate, for instance, Alfred Tennyson, or your own countryman, Thomas Carlyle. Yet even Tennyson waited through ten years of depreciation before poems which are now on every one's lips passed into a second edition. Carlyle, whose tran still more sorry and disgraceful is the outcry coming by every mail from our colonies: "Send us no more of what you call educated men; send us smiths, masons, carpenters, day labourers; all of those will thrive, will earn their eight, ten, or twelve shillings a day; but your educated man is a log on our hands; he loafs in uselessness till his means are spent, he then turns billiard-marker, enlists as a soldier, or starves." It hurts no intellect to be able to make a boat, or a house, or a pair of shoes, or a suit of clothes, or hammer a horse-shoe; and if you can do either of these, you have nothing to fear from fortune. "I will work with my hands, and keep my brain for myself," said some one proudly, when it was proposed to him that he should make a profession of literature. Spinoza, the most powerful intellectual worker that Europe has produced during the last two centuries, waiving aside the pensions and legacies that were thrust upon him, chose to maintain himself by grinding object-glasses for microscopes and telescopes. If a son of mine told me that he wished to devote himself to intellectual pursuits, I would act as I should act if he wished to make an imprudent marriage. I would absolutely prohibit him for a time, till the firmness of his purpose had been tried. If he stood the test, and showed real talent, I would insist that he should in some way make himself indepen-scendent powers were welcomed in their infancy dent of the profits of intellectual work for subsistence. Scholars and philosophers were originally clergymen. Nowadays a great many people whose tendencies lie in the clerical direction yet for various reasons shrink from the obligations which the office imposes. They take, therefore, to literature, and attempt and expect to make a profession of it. Without taking a transcendental view of the matter, literature happens to be the only occupation in which the wages are not in proportion to the goodness of the work done. It is not that they are generally small, but the adjustment of them is awry. It is true that in all callings nothing great will be produced if the first object be what you can make by them. To do what you do well should be the first thing, the wages the second; but except in the instances of which I am speaking, the rewards of a man are in proportion to his skill and industry. The best carpenter receives the highest pay. The better he works the better for his prospects. The best lawyer, the best doctor commands most practice and makes the largest fortune. But with literature, a different element is introduced into the problem. The present rule on which authors are paid is by the page and the sheet; the more words the more pay. It ought to be exactly the reverse. Great poetry, great philosophy, great scientific discovery, every intellectual production which has genius, worth, and permanence in it, is the fruit of long thought and patient and painful by Goethe, who long years ago was recognised by statesmen and thinkers in both hemispheres as the most remarkable of living men; yet, if success be measured by what has been paid him for his services, stands far below your Belgravian novelist. A hundred years hence, perhaps, people at large will begin to understand how vast a man has been among them. If you make literature a trade to live by, you will be tempted always to take your talents to the most profitable market; and the most profitable market will be no assurance to you that you are making a noble or even a worthy use of them. Better a thousand times, if your object is to advance your position in life, that you should choose some other calling, of which making money is a legitimate aim, and where your success will vary as the goodness of your work; better for yourselves, for your consciences, for your own souls, as we used to say, and for the world you live in. Therefore, I say, if any of you choose this mode of spending your existence, choose it deliberately, with a full knowledge of what you are doing. Reconcile yourselves to the condition of the old scholars. Make up your minds to be poorcare only for what is true and right and good. On those conditions you may add something real to the intellectual stock of mankind, and mankind in return may perhaps give you bread enough to live upon, though bread extremely thinly spread with butter. We live in times of change-political change, intellectual change, change of all kinds. You whose minds are active, especially such of you as give yourselves much to speculation, will be drawn inevitably into profoundly interesting yet perplexing questions, of which our fathers and grandfathers knew nothing. Practical men engaged in business take formulas for granted. They cannot be for ever running to first principles. They hate to see established opinions disturbed. Opinions, however, will and must be disturbed from time to time. There is no help for it. The minds of ardent and clever students are particularly apt to move fast in these directions; and thus, when they go out into the world, they find themselves exposed to one of two temptations, according to their temperament; either to lend themselves to what is popular and plausible, to conceal their real convictions, to take up with what we call in England humbug, to humbug others, or perhaps, to keep matters still smoother, to humbug themselves; or else to quarrel violently with things which they imagine to be passing away, and which they consider should be quick in doing it, as having no basis in truth. A young man of ability nowadays is extremely likely to be tempted into one or other of these lines. The first is the more common on my side of the Tweed; the harsher and more thoroughgoing, perhaps, on yours. Things are changing, and have to change; but they change very slowly. The established authorities are in possession of the field, and are naturally desirous to keep it. And there is no kind of service which they more eagerly reward than the support of clever fellows who have dipped over the edge of latitudinarianism, who profess to have sounded the disturbing currents of the intellectual seas, and discovered that they are accidental or unimportant. On the other hand, men who cannot away with this kind of thing are likely to be exasperated into unwise demonstrativeness, to become Radicals in politics and Radicals in thought. Their private disapprobation bursts into open enmity; and this road, too, if they continue long upon it, leads to no healthy conclusions. No one can thrive upon denials: positive truth of some kind is essential as food both for mind and character. Depend upon it, that in all longestablished practices or spiritual formulas there has been some living truth; and if you have not discovered and learned to respect it, you do not yet understand the questions which you are in a hurry to solve. And again, intellectually impatient people should remember the rules of social courtesy, which forbid us in private to say things, however true, which can give pain to others. These rules forbid us equally in public to obtrude opinions which offend those who do not share them, yet require us to pause and consider. Our thoughts and our conduct are our own. We may say justly to any one, You shall not make me profess to think true what I believe to be false-you shall not make me do what I do not think just; but there our natural liberty ends. Others have as good a right to their opinion as we have to ours. То any one who holds what are called advanced views on serious subjects, I recommend a longsuffering reticence and the reflection that, after all, he may possibly be wrong. Whether we are Radicals or Conservatives, we require to be often reminded that truth or falsehood, justice and injustice, are no creatures of our own belief. We cannot make true things false, or false things true, by choosing to think them so. We cannot vote right into wrong, or wrong into right. The eternal truths and rights of things exist, fortunately, independent of our thoughts or wishes, fixed as mathematics, inherent in the nature of man and the world. They are no more to be trifled with than gravitation. If we discover and obey them, it is well with us; but that is all we can do. You can no more make a social regulation work well which is not just than you can make water run uphill. I tell you, therefore, who take up with plausibilities, not to trust your weight too far upon them, and not to condemn others for having misgivings which at the bottom of your own minds, if you look so deep, you will find that you share your selves with them. You, who believe that you have hold of newer and wider truths, show it, as you may and must show it, unless you are misled by your own dreams, in leading wider, simpler, and nobler lives. Assert your own freedom if you will, but assert it modestly and quietly; respecting others as you wish to be respected yourselves. Only and especially I would say this: be honest with yourselves, whatever the temptation; say nothing to others that you do not think, and play no tricks with your own minds. Of all the evil spirits abroad at this hour in the world, insincerity is the most dangerous. "This above all. To your own selves be true, CHARLES KINGSLEY. HEAVEN ON EARTH. 1819-1875. gion on once a week with his Sunday coat, but wears it for his working dress, and lets the MEN eat, and drink, and do all manner of things, thought of God grow into him, and through and with all their might and main; but how many through him, till everything he says and does of them do they do to the glory of God? No; becomes religious, that man is worth a thouthis is the fault-the especial curse of our day, sand sermons-he is a living Gospel-he comes that religion does not mean any longer, as it in the spirit and power of Elias-he is the image used, the service of God-the being like God, of God. And men see his good works, and adand showing forth God's glory. No; religion mire them in spite of themselves, and see that means, nowadays, the art of getting to heaven they are Godlike, and that God's grace is no when we die, and saving our own miserable souls dream, but that the Holy Spirit is still among from hell, and getting God's wages without doing men, and that all nobleness and manliness is God's work-as if that was godliness-as if that His gift, His stamp, His picture, and so they was anything but selfishness; as if selfishness get a glimpse of God again in His saints and was any the better for being everlasting selfish-heroes, and glorify their Father who is in ness! If selfishness is evil, my friends, the sooner we get rid of it the better, instead of mixing it up as we do with all our thoughts of heaven, and making our own enjoyment and our own safety the vile root of our hopes for all eternity. And therefore it is that people have forgotten what God's glory is. They seem to think that God's highest glory is saving them from hell-fire. For what is doing everything to the glory of God? It is this: we have seen what God's glory is: He is His own glory. As you say of any very excellent man, you have but to know him to honour him; or of any very beautiful woman, you have but to see her to love her; so I say of God, men have but to see and know Him to love and honour Him. Well, then, my friends, if we call ourselves Christian men, if we believe that God is our Father, and delight, as on the grounds of common feeling we ought, to honour our Father, we should try to make every one honour Him. In short, whatever we do we should make it tend to His glory-make it a lesson to our neighbours, our friends, and our families. We should preach God's glory day by day, not by words only, often not by words at all, but by our conduct. Ay, there is the secret. If you wish other men to believe a thing, just behave as if you believed it yourself. Nothing is so infectious as example. If you wish your neighbours to see what Jesus Christ is like, let them see what He can make you like. If you wish them to know how God's love is ready to save them from their sins, let them see His love save you from your sins. If you wish them to see God's tender care in every blessing and every sorrow they have, why, let them see you thanking God for every sorrow and every blessing you have. I tell you, friends, example is everything. One good man-one man who does not put his reli heaven. Would not such a life be a heavenly life? Ay, it would be more, it would be heavenheaven on earth: not in mere fine words, but really. We should then be sitting, as St Paul tells us, in heavenly places with Jesus Christ, and having our conversation in heaven. All the while we were doing our daily work, following our business, or serving our country, or sitting at our own firesides with wife and child, we should be all that time in heaven. Why not? we are in heaven now-if we had but faith to see it. Oh, get rid of those carnal, heathen notions about heaven, which tempt men to fancy that, after having misused this place-God's earth-for a whole life, they are to fly away when they die, like swallows in autumn, to another place they know not where-where they are to be very happy-they know not why or how, nor do I know either. Heaven is not a mere place, my friends. All places are heaven if you will be heavenly in them. Heaven is where God is and Christ is; and hell is where God is not and Christ is not. The Bible says, no doubt, there is a place now-somewhere beyond the skies-where Christ especially shows forth His glory-a heaven of heavens: and for reasons which I cannot explain, there must be such a place. But, at all events, here is heaven; for Christ is here and God is here, if we will open our eyes and see them. And how ?-How i Did not Christ himself say, "If a man will love me, my Father will love him; and we, my Father and I, will come to him, and make our abode with him, and we will show ourselves to him?" Do those words mean nothing or something? If they have any meaning, do they not mean this, that in this life we can see God—in this life we can have God and Christ abiding with us? And is not that heaven? Yes, heaven is where God is. You are in heaven if God is with you, you are in hell if God is not with you; for where God is not, darkness and a devil are sure to be. There was a great poet once-Dante by name -who described most truly and wonderfully, in his own way, heaven and hell, for indeed he had been in both. He had known sin and shame, and doubt and darkness and despair, which is hell. And after long years of misery, he had got to know love and hope, and holiness and nobleness, and the love of Christ and the peace of God, which is heaven. And so well did he speak of them that the ignorant people used to point after him with awe in the streets, and whisper, There is the man who has been in hell. Whereon some one made these lines on him: "Thou hast seen hell and heaven? Why not? since heaven and hell Within the struggling soul of every mortal dwell," neighbours, even if they cannot sing with their voices God's praises in this church, how will they like singing God's praises through eternity? No; be sure that the only people who will be fit for heaven, who will like heaven even, are those who have been in heaven in this life-the only people who will be able to do everything to God's glory in the new heavens and new earth, are those who have been trying honestly to do all to His glory in this heaven and this earth. EDUCATION OF WOMEN. The education which I set before you is not to be got by mere hearing lectures or reading books: for it is an education of your whole character; a self-education; which really means a committing of yourself to God, that He may educate you. Hearing lectures is good, for it will teach you how much there is to be known, and how little you know. Reading books is good, for it will give you habits of regular and diligent study. And therefore I urge on you strongly private study, especially in case a library should be formed here, of books on those most practical subjects of which I have been speaking. But, after all, both lectures and books are good, mainly in as far as they furnish matter for reflection; while the desire to reflect and the ability to reflect must come, as I believe, from above. The honest craving after light and power, after knowledge, wisdom, active usefulness, must come-and may it come to you-by the inspiration of the Spirit of God. Let me ask women to educate themselves, not for their own sakes merely, but for the sake of others. For, whether they will or not, they must educate others. I do not speak merely of those who may be engaged in the work of direct teach Think of that!-thou-and thou-and thou! —for in thee, at this moment, is either heaven or hell. And which of them? Ask thyself, ask thyself, friend. If thou art not in heaven in this life, thou wilt never be in heaven in the life to come. At death, says the wise man, each thing returns into its own element, into the ground of its life; the light into the light, and the darkness into the darkness. As the tree falls, so it lies. My friends, you who call your selves enlightened Christian folk, do you suppose that you can lead a mean, worldly, covetous, spiteful life here, and then, the moment your soul leaves the body, that you are to be changed into the very opposite character, into angels and saints, as fairy tales tell of beasts changed into men? If a beast can be changed into a man, then death can change the sinner into a saint-but not else. If a beast would enjoy being a man, then a sinner would enjoy being in heaven-but not else. A sinful, worldlying; that they ought to be well taught themman enjoy being in heaven? Does a fish enjoy being on dry land? The sinner would long to be back in this world again. Why, what is the employment of spirits in heaven, according to the Bible (for that is the point to which I have been trying to lead you round again)? What but glorifying God? Not trying only to do everything to God's glory, but actually succeeding in doing it-basking in the sunshine of His smile, delighting to feel themselves as nothing before His glorious majesty, meditating on the beauty of His love, filling themselves with the sight of His power, searching out the treasures of His wisdom, and finding God in all and all in God-their whole eternity one act of worship, one hymn of praise. Are there not some among us who will have had but little practice at that work? Those who have done nothing for God's glory here, how do they expect to be able to do everything for God's glory hereafter? Those who will not take the trouble of merely standing up at the Psalms, like the rest of their selves, who can doubt? I speak of those-and in so doing I speak of every woman, young and old-who exercises as wife, as mother, as aunt, as sister, or as friend, an influence, indirect it may be, and unconscious, but still potent and practical, on the minds and characters of those about them, especially of men. How potent and practical that influence is, those know best who know most of the world and most of human nature. There are those who consider and I agree with them-that the education of boys under the age of twelve years ought to be entrusted as much as possible to women. Let me ask-of what period of youth and of manhood does not the same hold true? I pity the ignorance and conceit of the man who fancies that he has nothing left to learn from cultivated women. I should have thought that the very mission of women was to be, in the highest sense, the educator of man from infancy to old age; that that was the work towards which all the God-given capacities of women pointed, for which they were to be educated to the highest pitch. I should have thought that it was the glory of woman, that she was sent into the world to live for others, rather than for herself; and therefore I should say-Let her smallest rights be respected, her smallest wrongs redressed; but let her never be persuaded to forget that she is sent into the world to teach man-what, I believe, she has been teaching him all along, even in the savage state-namely, that there is something more necessary than the claiming of rights, and that is, the performing of duties; to teach him specially, in these so-called intellectual days, that there is something more than intellect, and that is-purity and virtue. Let her never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the lower and more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and the diviner calling of self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life, which lives in others and for others, like her Redeemer and her Lord. And, if any should answer, that this doctrine would keep woman a dependant and a slave, I answer-Not so; it would keep her what she should be the mistress of all around her, because mistress of herself. And more, I should express a fear that those who made that answer had not yet seen into the mystery of true greatness and true strength; that they did not yet understand the true magnanimity, the true royalty of that spirit, by which the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Surely that is woman's calling-to teach man: and to teach him what? To teach him, after all, that his calling is the same as hers, if he will but see the things which belong to his peace. To temper his fiercer, coarser, more self-assertive nature, by the contact of her gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice. To make him see that not by blare of trumpets, not by noise, wrath, greed, ambition, intrigue, puffery, is good and lasting work to be done on earth: but by wise selfdistrust, by silent labour, by lofty self-control, by that charity which hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things; by such an example, in short, as women now in tens of thousands set to those around them; such as they will show more and more, the more their whole womanhood is educated to employ its powers without waste and without haste in harmonious unity. CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON. SERMONS-THEIR MATTER.* 1834 WE must throw all our strength of judgment, memory, imagination, and eloquence, into the delivery of the Gospel; and not give to the preaching of the cross our random thoughts while wayside topics engross our deeper meditations. Depend upon it, if we brought the intellect of a Locke or a Newton, and the eloquence of a Cicero, to bear upon the simple doctrine of "believe and live," we should find no surplus strength. Brethren, first and above all things, keep to plain evangelical doctrines; whatever else you do or do not preach, be sure incessantly to bring forth the soul-saving truth of Christ and Him crucified. I know a minister whose shoe-latchet I am unworthy to unloose, whose preaching is often little better than sacred miniature painting - I might also say holy trifling. He is great upon the ten toes of the beast, the four faces of the cherubim, the mystical meaning of badgers' skins, and the typical bearings of the staves of the ark, and the * From "Lectures to My Students," by permission of Mr Spurgeon, and Messrs Passmore & Alabaster, the publishers. windows of Solomon's temple: but the sins of business men, the temptations of the times, and the needs of the age, he scarcely ever touches upon. Such preaching reminds me of a lion engaged in mouse-hunting, or a man-of-war cruising after a lost water-butt. Topics scarcely in importance equal to what Peter calls "old wives' fables," are made great matters of by those microscopic divines to whom the nicety of a point is more attractive than the saving of souls. You will have read in Todd's "Student's Manual" that Harcatius, King of Persia, was a notable mole-catcher; and Briantes, King of Lydia, was equally au fait at filing needles; but these trivialities by no means prove them to have been great kings: it is much the same in the ministry; there is such a thing as meanness of mental occupation unbecoming the rank of an ambassador of heaven. Among a certain order of minds at this time the Athenian desire of telling or hearing some new thing appears to be predominant. They boast of new light, and claim a species of inspiration which warrants them in condemning all who are out of their brotherhood, and yet their grand revelation relates to a mere circumstantial of worship, or to an obscure interpretation of |