is well to have a good supply of revenue officers, lest the king's business should take damage.

A third plan is, for persons of means in the place or Circuit to lend, say from £10 to £100 for their Circuit, under warrant for ten years, unless death should intervene-without interest-and for the funds arising from pew rents, and an annual demonstration, to be applied pro rata, or by ballot, as in foreign loans, in paying off these claims. Persons of means often make investments which are unproductive for many years; why should not a little be done in this way for the house of the Lord?

And lastly, another plan is, for persons of property to remember God's house," where they and their fathers have worshipped," and where they wish their children to worship in succeeding years, in their last will and testament. It will not be a thorn in their pillow to reflect on a dying bed, that they have, "in a corner of their will," left £10, £50, or £100 to God's house. When this is done it should to left to the trustees, and it should be stated that it is to be paid out of the personal estate, otherwise it will be null and void. A lady, in a neighbouring town, lent £200 on one of our Chapels, and receives four and-a-half per cent interest; at her death the debt will be extinguished.

Well, all these plans are practicable, either severally or conjointly, and commend themselves to common sense. I have read of a certain man who, coming to the banks of a river and finding the waters too deep to ford, sat down to wait until it should all run to the sea. I am afraid this course is followed by many trustees; they wait and wait for something to turn up instead of exerting themselves. Every £20 of debt extinguished is adding a pew to the Chapel.

One word in reference to a subject which is german to the above, that is Chapel-building. In my younger days, before taking a leap, I measured the ground with my eye. This is what all intending Chapel builders should do. It is important to count the cost; unfortunately, it is too often lost sight of; and say what you will it is as if any one must have his own individual, and often painful, experience. Every one intent on building, thinks he can do better than his predecessors. Too much faith in this matter is a species of infidelity; it is presumption. It neglects and despises the means. Let those who contemplate the erection of Chapels, see that, at least, two-thirds of the estimated cost is down on the nail before they set a brick. It is easier to beg £100 to build a Chapel, than £10 to pay off a Chapel debt.

Always have the pulpit at the other end of the Chapel from the door; so that the bulk of the congregation may sit with their backs to the entrance. In entering a place of worship few like to have the scrutiny of hundreds of eyes. Let all the free seats be near the door. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and there are hundreds of similar characters in humble life, who like to come and go without challenging observation.

Frodsham.

J. E.

Review and Criticism.

"Hidden Springs." By Joseph Parker, D.D., of Cavendish Chapel, Manchester. London: Pitman.

SOME few years back, title-pages assumed the appearance of a "Table of Contents;' now we are dismissed with two words, sometimes with one. We prefer brevity. It serves as. finger-post, and we find the town opening upon us as we proceed, with something like pleasing surprise. The title-page before us is as characteristic of the work as of the genius of the author. We are not distracted with a single period, running into a dozen different lengths-crowded, when thrown together, like so many members of the same family into one room, each claiming a right to be heard. Nor are we called to lend attention to a long chain of reasoning, dry in itself, and only interesting to the few who are partial to victuals dried by sun and wind. When the Doctor reasons at all, he reasons in terse, striking sentences, full of pith and meaning; marshalled like a regiment of soldiers, rank and file, from the beginning to the end of the paragraph. All are united as one. Uniform and object are the same; yet each man is distinct in person from his fellow-can stand alone-is ready for action-completes the work assigned to him-while combined strength secures success, and crowns the actor when the work is done; and he is isolated from his companions, as if the glory of the cause were, for the moment, concentrated in himself. We are, ever and anon, indulged with the short sententious wisdom of the proverb.

Not a more characteristic description can be given of Dr. Parker, as a writer and a preacher, than that of the Editor of the Homilist: "The bent of the writer's genius is to new methods, leaving ruts worn by the wheels of ages, to more timid and less original men." The pleasure which the work before us imparts, does not arise merely from its originality, brilliancy, and the ingots of condensed sense scattered throughout its pages, but from the fact of it being so highly suggestive, and so admirably adapted to be put into the hands, not only of ordinary Christian readers, but of candidates for the ministry, Sabbath-school teachers, and laymen, who usefully and creditably devote a portion of the Lord's day in holding forth the word of life to their fellow-creatures,-each, of course, apart from the suggestions, preserving and cultivating his own characteristic style. The "Springs "cannot fail to lead to the GREAT FOUNTAIN of all; to refresh the spirits of those who sip, and irrigate the ground over which they pass. And though "hid," like streams underground, still they are "hid" only "to them that are lost." "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God;" and the reason assigned for this, is, "because they are spiritually discerned." But these "Hidden Springs" are ever bubbling up to the mental vision of those "whose life is hid with Christ in God."

There is now and then a rugged grandeur thrown around the

subject-we pass from crag to crag, from steep to steep-now the thunder-storm, with its sudden flashes of lightning, and reverberating peels, then the summer sun with its laughing landscapes, and its ever-varying flowers, in their richest attire-now the howl of winter, then the softened tones of the Eolian harp. Such as is the preacher, such the writer. Look at the very first sermon, embracing a portion of St. Paul's autobiography, on contentment. There are suggestions for twenty sermons, comprising a variety of companion subjects. The writer is often abrupt, but it is the abruptness that pleases rather than startles. His transitions are like sudden gleams of light from the folds of rolling clouds, flickering in rapid succession, and then breaking away into a beautiful sky. He is never at fault with his imagery, allusions, comparisons; his garden is as rich in flowers as his orchard with fruit; he takes the heart with the head, the judgment with the fancy; abounds with antithesis, and shews a liking for epithet.

Dr. Parker is one of those writers that is certain to attract attention; certain to excite the envy of the weak and self-inflated, or to draw down upon him the vengeance of the snarling critic; but equally certain to please; while, in his affluence, dealing out the bread and water of life, to feed the hungry, and slake the thirst of those who, like the hart, are panting after the water-brooks! There is subtlety with power. He must be read with care--without distraction. His meaning may not be seen by every one, and at oncethat is, in its drift, its point, its depth, its force, its appropriatenessbut a momentary pause will let you into it, when added pleasure will be the result. He has a character of his own. He stands out from the crowd. Wherever sincerity is found, or a desire to profit is felt, the reader will be amply repaid in the perusal of " Hidden Springs." Once read, the work cannot be forgotten. It will be hung up as a distinct picture in the chambers of the mind.

The text, in Dr. Parker's hands, never fails to speak for itself. His mind seems to hover over the sacred ground of the Bible, like the eagle in mid-heaven, and perceiving a text, and next a word in that text, which forcibly arrests attention, he at once descends upon it, and bears it away to his charge. Take, for example, the sermon already referred to, Phil. iv. 11. The two principal words-"learned"

content," are italicized, and stand alone, like land marks. Whatever besides is forgotten, these, containing solid thoughts, find a lodgment in the mind, and there remain for permanent use. The embroidery, the enamel, touches, hues, finishings, all vanish,pass away from the mind, like settings round the diamond, like a few scattered rays of light flickering round the orb of day. Hear him :

"I have learned. Special emphasis and fervour must be thrown into the word 'learned; for it is one of the key-words of the passage; it is a multitudinous word. It speaks of a school, and of education, of drillings, and many-sided discipline. The whole utterance is that of a man who has been undergoing a process, who has been immured in a library, and who, having patiently read page after page, and undergone a severe and exhaustive examination, pronounces himself 'learned.' If we stumble at the word 'learned,' we shall stumble all through the

exposition. A man cannot come to this moral eminence by intuition; it is not to be attained in a moment of high inspiration of genius; nothing but the ripping plough, dragged by a fire-breathing team, and the pulverizing harrow, and the crushing rollers; nothing but a discipline that grinds the bones, and racks the heart, and strains the very last suggestion out of the over-goaded brain; nothing but the hardships of earth, sanctified by the Spirit of heaven, can make the 'learned' man of the text. Not books, but heavy burdens-not gifts of the intellect, but griefs of the heart-not paid schoolmasters, but invisible, despotic, inexorable tutors, can carry us through the education which ends in this lofty refinement of learning.

"The Apostle's autobiography is at hand, and that will tell us somewhat of the educational course through which he passed:

"In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings, . .

by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true; as unknown, and yet well-known; as dying, and behold we live: as chastened, and not killed; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.'

"What think you of that? A man striking and swiftly recoiling-hardly in one condition till he is thrown into another; just rising into honour, and suddenly plunged into dishonour; on the point of imagining himself well-known, and in a moment the world shuddering with horror at the mention of his name! This rapidly alternating experience gives a man profound lore. It is not the gradual transition by which day darkens into night, and night brightens into day. If an analogy can be found in the firmament, it must be when storms are raging there and light breaking through the gloomy masses: now is there a wing of deep blue, anon the clouds shut it out from the eye of the admiring earth; this moment, there is a fringe of beauty on the dark storm-cloud: and in the next, thunder roars as if cursing the intrusion. We must not only have variety, but also suddenness and violence of alternation. Our bread must be snatched out of our own hand at the very moment that our hunger pines for it; and the water dashed from our grasp when the fire is scorching our tongue. A discipline of this kind will teach us much of inconstancy and mutation; much of the fickleness of cir cumstance; much of the rottenness of man." pp. 4—6.

We are reminded here more of Rembrandt and Salvator Rosa, than of Claude Loraine; but, whatever we may think of the artist, and his picturings, the word "learned" towers over all. We carry it away with us, we dwell upon it, we profit by it. After a number of other pertinent, striking, and appropriate remarks, the preacher proceeds :

"We may now pass from the word 'learned' to the word 'content.' The one refers to a process; the other to a result. The solution of the difficulty may, in my opinion, be condensed into a single sentence-the Apostle was 'content' with every state as educational not final. The whole mystery of the word is to be explained, I submit, by some such expression as educational, not final—preliminary, not ultimate. No man could be content with suffering as a permanent condition of being; but the Christian reaches that high moral state in which he can not only accept, but even cherish it, as a purifying and perfecting discipline. He is 'content' with it as a preparation for something better; he is content with the plough, because it is preparing the very heart which it crushes to receive the seed which shall bloom in immortal beauty and fruitfulness." Page 14.

The book itself is a beautiful specimen of typography and binding, and we shall be happy to meet the writer on any other topic, in the same costume, style, and spirit as on the present

occasion. Sunderland.

J. E.

The London Quarterly Review. April, 1864. No. XLIII. London: HENRY JAMES TRESSIDDER.

THE subjects treated in this Number of the London Quarterly, are all interesting some most important-and are discussed with great ability. "The Ancestry of the Wesleys," founded on Kirk's Life of Mrs. Susannah Wesley, is a very acceptable contribution to Methodistic literature; "Captain Speke's Journal" is an eulogistic, but discriminating review of that discoverer's travels and achievements, and contains much information with regard to the moral condition and commercial capabilities of the countries through which he passed. The writer of "Shakespeare" gives an instructive résumé of criticism, foreign and domestic, on the works of the great bard; he is not, however, insensible to the deduction to be made from their value on account of the ribaldry and obscenity with which some of them are stained. It is refreshing, in this tercentary year, to meet with one critic who, in dealing with Shakespeare, has not gone quite mad. "Renan's Life of Jesus" is in continuation of an article on the same subject in the preceding Number, and completes the most satisfactory refutation of the Frenchman's sophisms we have yet seen. The remaining articles are, "Life in Deep Seas," "Robert Browning," "Bates's Naturalist on the Amazon," and "The Reign of Elizabeth;" all deserve a careful perusal.

The Camp and the Sanctuary; or, the Power of Religion, as Exem plified in the Army and the Church. A Memoir of Thomas Hasker, formerly of the 1st Dragoon Guards. Intended as a Companion to "The Village Blacksmith." By James Everett. London: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & Co., Paternoster Row.

THIS is an admirable little volume, and will sustain the well-earned reputation of its author as an attractive and instructive writer of Biography. In Thomas Hasker he found a subject suited to his taste, and has drawn a portrait of the courageous and pious soldier which the reader-whatever may be his views as to the lawfulness of the military vocation-will find it difficult to contemplate without admiration. The narrative shows that, with watchfulness and prayer, piety may be maintained in the midst of circumstances the most unfavourable, and that, in every sphere in which he moves, the servant of God may let his light shine, and be the instrument of good to others. Hasker fought at Waterloo, and was wounded in the conflict. He was subsequently discharged from the army, with a pension; settled in business at Newcastle, and there became a successful Local Preacher; joined the Reform movement, consequent on the expulsion of Messrs. Everett, Dunn, and Griffith; and died in the faith and hope of the Gospel, on September 5th, 1858, in the seventieth year of his age. In saying that "The Camp and the Sanctuary" deserves to be called "A Companion to the Village Blacksmith," we bestow on it high commendation; we advise our friends to obtain and read it.