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years and a half, and during part of it Mr. Pike resided at Quorndon, near Loughborough. This he continued to do until about Michaelmas, 1861, when he became pastor of the church in Friar Lane, Leicester, on the death of the Rev. S. Wigg, an office which he had already practically held for two years and a half, in consequence of Mr. Wigg being laid aside from active duty. Prior to this Mr. Pike had ministered to a congregation of friends who seemed determined he should not leave Leicester. He may, therefore, be said to have been a minister in that town for little short of a quarter of a century.

At the Association in June, 1855, Mr. Pike was chosen Secretary of the Foreign Missionary Society in the place of his father, to whose faith and zeal it owed its origin, and whose devoted service was rendered up to the very moment of what seemed rather a translation than death. Born in a kind of missionary atmosphere, there is little wonder that the subject of this sketch should, in early life, have desired to work for Christ in India. It was considered that his health would not stand the climate; and he, like his father before him, who had cherished similar longings, was destined, to employ Carey's emblem, to hold the ropes rather than to descend into the pit. So deep, however, was his interest always in the missionary enterprise, that even after he was turned fifty years of age the needs of Orissa caused him to consider seriously whether he could not go there. And when, in 1873, responding to the Committee's invitation, one of his sons actually went, it was a great joy to the father's heart, though he confessed to feeling the pain of parting more than he had anticipated.

In a sermon preached in Cuttack, just after the intelligence of his decease arrived, the Rev. W. Miller thus referred to the late Secretary's relation to the Society-" He was intensely devoted to its interests. To advocate and advance its claims his tongue and pen were ever ready. For it he laboured, prayed, and preached with unflagging earnestness and devotion. The Annual Report, compiled by him, bears testimony to his intense and constant interest in the work of the Lord in Orissa. Every part of the field, every event, every department of labour, every apparent success and reverse, engaged his attention, and awakened his deepest interest. He was thoroughly in everything affecting the Mission, one with the missionaries, and rejoiced when they rejoiced, and wept when they wept. In his correspondence with the missionaries he was most kind and considerate, ever ready to help and oblige in every possible way. All felt that in him they had a judicious, true, and able friend, accessible at all times for everything relating to themselves and the Mission. In times of anxiety, affliction, and bereavement, his letters were full of sympathy and consolation. In his death his widow and family, the Mission, the church of which he was pastor, and the denomination to which he belonged, have sustained an irreparable loss."

Two or three years after Mr. Pike became pastor of the church at Friar Lane, he began to contemplate the erection of a new chapel. The difficulties in the way of this undertaking were so many that it seemed, when first he mentioned it, like a dream never to be realised. There were times when he almost gave up the project; but he was not the man to yield to difficulties before they were proved to be insuperable. Those who can recollect the dismal chapel of fifteen or a dozen years

ago can appreciate the contrast now presented by the new and commodious pile of buildings in which the needs of the congregation and the schools are amply met. At first it seemed as if the whole burden rested upon the minister; and the writer well remembers the gentleman who gave the first £50 (though he neither belonged to Leicester nor the denomination) saying to him that he thought Mr. Pike was himself doing more than he ought. The foundation-stone was laid January 23rd, 1866, by Mr. Robert Wherry, and on August 15th of the same year the opening services were held. It was an interesting day; and one sees now in imagination the pastor enter the pulpit for the first time to offer prayer. Who, then, could tell him that ten years hence, to the very day, his body would be borne into the chapel and placed before those communion rails on its way to the tomb; whilst from that pulpit his brethren would speak of him as gone to his reward! These August dates, as we have already seen, are somewhat singular, and there are others which the writer cares not to mention. The deceased once observed, "I am always thankful when August is past. It is often a very sickly month."

Of a sanguine temperament, generous even to a fault, with a strong will, and yet an amiable and gentle spirit, Mr. Pike was well known as a man of systematic and laborious toil. The multiplicity of his engagements is a cause of wonderment. The pastorate of an important and increasing church, and the secretariat of a Foreign Missionary Society, might surely have been sufficient for one man; but during all the years he held those offices he gave a portion of his time to various business affairs. Had he not done this he could not have maintained and educated his family as he did. Some men receive large pay for very little work; his lot was uniformly the reverse; he received small pay for large services. He loved work, and was most anxious to be useful, saying, “It were a poor life that rendered no valuable service to others, and not worth living." Still it is possible to do too much. So early as the spring of 1858, he writes, "The fact is I have more to do than I have strength for.” And at intervals, during the following years, such sentences as these occur," I contrived to finish my report by daylight on Tuesday morning, and have since been at the Association." "You seem to be pretty full of work all at once-as for me I am always more than full.” The Mission takes an immense lot of time; and I fear, after all, may require some one wholly devoted to it. I could not see my way clear for this; and shall not like to keep in office and see things go wrong. I sometimes almost wish I could feel it my duty to give up." "Am, as usual, more than full of work.” “I was looking over my daily memoranda book for a year or two back, the other day, and am not surprised that I should knock up. Working all hours, night and day, is enough to take the steam out of any one, and I really felt in my review a marvel to myself." The thoroughness with which whatever was undertaken was attended to was a marked characteristic of this busy workman. Little or great, a bit of carpentering, or the preparation of a sermon, or a report, he gave himself to it and did his best. There was a wonderful neatness, too, in the manner of doing things. He could not work at an untidy table. There must be a thorough clearing of the deck before the action began, and then there was a gallant fight, if need be, to the break of day. Amidst all his laborious

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and responsible duties he was a capital correspondent. So the writer was constrained to testify as the other day he read through 760 letters to himself from that hand now cold in death. It was curious to observe some of the headings, etc.-10.45 p.m., 11.55 p.m. Sat., and a little past 1 a.m. "It is Saturday night, and getting late, but I must write a line or two." "It is nearly 12 o'clock, I must therefore go to bed." A Sunday's letter contains the information that the evening sermon was begun at 8 p.m. on Saturday, and finished at 2.30 a.m. Of course a bad plan; but then he would not be beaten ! and thus it concludes, "It is 6 o'clock. May the good Spirit help us both, and make our word effectual to the conversion of many."

More than eleven years ago Mr. Pike's medical adviser pointed out to him that he worked himself up to a certain pitch, and then was obliged to give up altogether. And so it has been ever since, until at length it seemed to himself as if the end might be near. In a letter dated August 1st, 1875, he says, "I was very ill several days last week, and should not have felt surprised if the Master had called for me.' On the morning of January 16th, this year, he entered his pulpit for the last time "very unfit for preaching," as he afterwards wrote in his memoranda book. On the 26th he wrote, "Sometimes I get very down and hysterical, and fancy I shall not recover." A day later he took a more cheerful view of his case; and from that time his prevailing opinion was that he would be restored. He knew not that he had preached his last sermon. The issue of his affliction was wisely veiled from his sensitive heart. Nearly thirty-nine years before he had been in great peril of his life upon a stormy sea, and during all the anxious hours when the waves were threatening every moment to swamp the boat that passage of scripture filled his mind which old Wycliffe hurled, like a defiance, at the friars who were watching for his end. "I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord." The same text came to his mind in 1865 when grievously low, and gave him hope. It came again that January morning, to use his own expression, " just like a message direct from heaven. and it came with such power and sweetness that I felt it must be true." Aye, and no doubt it was true; but that time having in it something beyond the temporal. What if it had a temporary purpose to cheer the Spirit until the veil should be lifted and its fuller, deeper, grander meaning should be disclosed to the astonished gaze.

"And doubtless, unto thee is given

A life that bears immortal fruit

In such great offices as suit

The full-grown energies of heaven."

The long and tedious winter was very trying to him; but when the much wished for summer came it brought little accession of strength. It was touching to see disappointment after disappointment meekly borne as one after another of the engagements which, in the distance, he hoped to fulfil were seen to be impossible as the time drew near. It was a great trial not to be present at the Derby Association. An abstract of his twenty-first report was read at the Foreign Missionary Meeting very touching in its reference to the year's death roll, and impressive in its summon of the living to new enterprise. He had himself wept over it! Still he kept hopeful, as if death might not

touch him yet—said he felt as if he could work as well as ever. Others could see the grim circle narrowing round him; but he saw it not; and even the last morning after two of his sons, who were watching him, had seen in a most marked manner that singular prelude to death in which the whole contour of the countenance and its hue are altered, he would sit up and read, and attend to his toilet. He knew not death was upon him; or, if for a moment he guessed it, that moment there was no more that it could do. One sentence in the last letter that the writer of this sketch received from the departed, little more than a fortnight before the great change took place, sums up the matter, exhibiting at once his feeling and his faith. Somehow I have an impression that, in answer to many prayers, I shall be restored for a time, and permitted yet to work for the Master; but I leave myself and all that concerns me in the Lord's hands. I know He will do all for the best." In this confidence he lived and died. Many have been the expressions of sorrow and sympathy from those who knew his worth and feel his loss. Resolutions of condolence have been passed by those who listened to his preaching of the word and experienced his pastoral oversight; from the Leicester Board of Nonconformist Ministers, who shared his brotherly affection; from the Eastern and Midland Conferences, representing the localities in which his ministerial work was done; from the Committe of the Foreign Missionary Society, whose interests he served with rare discretion and zeal. Numerous, too, as might be expected, have been the letters received by her to whose unremitting and loving attention for many years we perhaps largely owe the fact, under the Divine blessing, that the valuable life which seems to have closed too soon should have continued so long. Writes one"To know your dear husband, ever so slightly, was to esteem him; to know him better was to find esteem growing into affection." Writes another "We shall miss him much. His place will not soon be filled. Generous, devoted, reliable, unremitting in labour, true and staunch in principle, a warm-hearted friend, a fair and honourable opponent, we could ill spare him." Heavy, indeed, have been the recent losses, forcing from many a saddened heart the old pathetic cry-" My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." Birmingham.

AT IT: AND ALWAYS AT IT.

E. C. PIKE.

THIS is the law of good work. God Himself rewards the worker by giving him more to do. It is the inactive man who cannot do another stroke. The busy man can always add to his labours: for he acquires power in doing, and gets force for work by working. Unused tools rust. Work keeps them bright. Do not part with the sovereign you are now asked to give, and you will hold the next with a tighter grip, and the third will stick to your soul and become a part of it, and you will die with it burning into the marrow of your bones. As long as you live, work. Moses did his best work in his last forty years. Paul said his best and sweetest words when he was "aged." The righteous bring forth fruit in old age. Change your work in its form if need be, but keep at it. You have experience, ripeness, grace, culture, which all the energy in the world cannot buy. Young people, work wisely, thoughtfully, prayerfully, hopefully, but work. Be not afraid of discipline for service. Care more about efficiency than fame; and be more anxious to please God than men. Christ Himself is the Pattern Worker, and He was always at His work, saying, "I MUST work the works of Him that sent me while it is day." JOHN CLIFFORD.

THE ABUSE OF METAPHOR IN RELATION TO RELIGIOUS

BELIEF.

BY DAWSON BURNS, M.A.

No. II. Concerning God.

I. WE believe in God-in the God revealed in Holy Writ. But the Bible has been charged with giving anthropomorphic views of Godthat is, with representing Him as being, and acting, like a man. This charge is based on certain facts-(1.) That God is described as possessing the physical parts of a man-a face, eyes, ears, arms, hands, fingers, feet; even wings like a bird. (2.) That He is described as performing physical movements-walking, riding, coming down, drawing near, looking, talking, listening, lifting up and hiding His face, as inclining His ear and turning it away. (3.) That mental states are ascribed to Him which are indicative of human limitation or weakness-such as remembering, forgetting, repenting; as becoming weary, angry, jealous, etc. Are we, then, compelled to believe that these things are literally true of God? Only two classes are so compelled-those who insist on a literal acceptance of everything in the Bible; and those who, for their own purposes (for example, Romish writers), demand a literal construction of phrases which are as clearly metaphorical as those just named. If we are asked how we know that these descriptions were not intended to be taken literally, we have various replies, of which two are sufficient; first, because they occur in the books of a religion which was avowedly designed to prevent its votaries forming conceptions of God as a being cognisant by the senses, or subject to sense-restrictions; and, secondly, because, in the same books, the descriptions given of God in His illimitable perfections and spiritual nature utterly forbid that the other descriptions should be literally taken.

If it be further asked, whether any have ever construed those Biblical descriptions of God literally, we answer, that this is said to have been done by an ancient sect called Anthropomorphists, and that it is done in the most revolting manner in the Mormon theology. In the doctrinal books of the self-called "Latter-day Saints," the statement that man is made in the image of God is tortured into the dogma that God is a man on a great scale, capable of making worlds and peopling them, and that His sons ("the Saints") will one day attain to the same dignity and power! While we are shocked at this profanation of the Divine Majesty, it is not unprofitable to remember that extremes meet in theosophic speculation as in other things; and that the highest reach of the Positivist Philosophy, in a religious direction, is to invent a Grand Etre (Great Being), the ideal of humanity, which all individual men are invited to worship instead of the Divine Creator! Thus, by a common abuse of metaphor, Mormonists and Comtists do homage to a god who 66 such an one as themselves."

is

It will be well, if, being preserved from such an error, we are also guarded against the evil arising from dwelling upon the metaphorical language of Scripture concerning the Most High-namely, an undue familiarity and a flippancy in the use of the Divine Name; an evil not unknown among us, and which could not exist if the transcendant and