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THE TEACHING OF THE BIBLE Respecting the Way of Obtaining Eternal Life. By Rev. John Venn, M.A. London: Elliot Stock.

MR. VENN is an able controversialist, and shows a thorough mastery of his subject. He has exposed a weak point in the current interpretation of the Evangelical creed. Faith is too often regarded as a substitute for, and an enemy to, works, and the precept "only believe" has been grossly misapplied. Mr. Venn has refuted this and related errors in a very trenchant and conclusive style, and thrown out many invaluable suggestions in the opposite direction. Though we cannot assent to all his positions and arguments, we recognise in the treatise the work of a profound, scholarly, and reverent mind, bent on knowing at all costs the will of God. No thoughtful reader can peruse the book without great advantage.

THE MINISTER'S POCKET DIARY AND CLERICAL VADE MECUM. 1882. Hodder & Stoughton.

THIS invaluable "diary" is again reproduced with all the necessary adaptations to the year now opening. It contains valuable postal, Government, and ecclesiastical information, calendar, Scripture lessons, Burial Laws, lists of missionary and other societies, Scripture texts for the visitation of the sick, with well arranged spaces for entries of all kinds. Every minister in the kingdom should possess it.

OUR LITTLE ONES. Vol. II.; No. 1.

November. London: Griffith &
Farran, West Corner, St. Paul's
Churchyard.

THIS first number of a new volume of "Our Little Ones" is as fascinating as we can imagine anything in the shape

of a book for little children to be. The printing is bright and clear; the illustrations are full of life and meaning; and the stories in prose and poetry are at once short and such as a little child is sure to like to read. "It is the aim of the editor to present reading matter which shall be simple and pleasing, free from slang, sensational incidents, or sectarian bias-bright, lively, and funny, but never flippant, low, or vulgar." This aim is realised, and we are glad to learn that "the popularity" of this beautiful serial "has increased with each succeeding number."

THE YOUNG CROSSING-SWEEPERS: a Tale of Orphan Life. By Mrs. Olding. Elliot Stock.

A SECOND edition of a touching little story, which has already been highly recommended in this Magazine.

THE SOWER. Vol. III. New Series. 1881. London: Houlston & Sons, 7, Paternoster Buildings. "THE SOWER" is a very well-conducted periodical, designed to deepen the spirit of Evangelical piety in its readers, and to stimulate them to activity and fidelity in the service of their Divine Master. Its theology and spiritual tone are of the old-fashioned type, and may be sufficiently designated by the term "Calvinistic." There is much reading in it which the devout will relish.

THE CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST : with Original Illustrations. Cassell, Petter, Galpin, & Co.

SINCE we last noticed this charming version of the story of our Lord's life, two additional parts-the 13th and 14th -have been issued. We gladly repeat and emphasise our commendation.

THE

BAPTIST MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1882.

The Lord Justice Lush.

N the paper called " Life," Mr. Charles Reade, the famous novelist, gives, under the title of "Perseverance," a sketch of the life of the late Lord Justice Lush, describing, in his own graphic style, how a widow woman and a chubby faced boy appeared at the office of Mr. Chitty, an attorney in Shaftesbury, to ascertain if he had a vacancy in his office into which the boy could be received; how the humblest situation, the only one then open, was accepted, the boy being so eager to find occupation connected with the law that he did not care how humble it was; how the boy did his work so well that he soon rose to be head clerk to his employer; how a London attorney, Mr. Bishop by name, who was Mr. Chitty's agent in London, becoming in this way acquainted with the head clerk's efficiency, begged to have him transferred to his office; and how, on Mr. Chitty consenting not to stand in the clerk's way, and the proposal being mentioned to the latter, he readily accepted, saying frankly, "Sir, it is the ambition of my heart to go to London; " how from that situation he was called to the Bar, and rapidly rose to the eminence to which he ultimately attained.

We doubt not that Mr. Reade is right as to his main facts, but in two things he is mistaken; the boy was not quite so young as he says, and his mother was certainly not a widow, for his father before

his death was permitted to see his son pretty far advanced in the profession in which he became so distinguished.

His removal to London led to some very important results, not only in a legal, but in a social and religious point of view.

As a young man he was led through early influences and associations to adopt Unitarian principles, and it was after he came to reside in London that he embraced what we believe to be sounder views of truth. The woman who did laundress work for the house in which he lodged was a member of the church in Westminster of which the Rev. Christopher Woollacott was pastor. Through her influence and persuasion he was induced to hear Mr. Woollacott preachThe sermon differed widely in doctrine from anything he had been accustomed to hear, and from the sentiments he had imbibed. It was, as those who knew the preacher will readily understand, thoroughly and intensely Evangelical. The Gospel truth which it contained was by the Divine Spirit made conducive to Mr. Lush's spiritual enlightenment, and from that hour, we believe, a new direction was given to his life. If he did not then experience what "with infinite joy he would have called his conversion," the impressions were then produced which, gradually deepening, issued in his thorough conversion to God. After a short time he was baptized and received into the church, and remained connected with it until Mr. Woollacott resigned, after which he removed with him to the church in Little Wild Street.

This attendance on Mr. Woollacott's ministry led to an acquaintance with the pastor's eldest daughter, then an amiable and sprightly girl in her teens, of kind heart, bright intelligence, and attractive manner. Among several suitors he had the happiness to be preferred, and in due time gained her hand as well as her heart. Her influence was most helpful to him in the struggles of his early life. She took an intelligent interest in his preparatory studies; helped, we believe, in the correction of the proofs of his Book on common law, which first brought him into notice; and by her cheerful, buoyant spirit greatly encouraged him in his work. Not only at the beginning, but up to the close of their married life she proved a true helpmeet to him. On all important matters relating to himself he made her his confidant, and in little things also he leaned upon and was influenced by her to an extent which is rare even among couples who are most happily united and suited to each other. Her death in March last, after a union of forty years, was

shock to his sensitive nature from which

he never rallied, and, though he cannot be said to have been prematurely removed, it soon became evident, to those who saw him from time to time, that her decease was hastening his own.

Mr. Reade, in the sketch to which we have referred, tells how, on the day of their marriage, the father of the bride took them aside and said, "I have only £200 in the world; I have saved it a little at a time for my two daughters. There is your share, my children." Then he gave his daughter £100, and she handed it to the bridegroom on the spot. The good minister smiled approval, and they sat down to what fine folk call breakfast, but they called dinner.

"After dinner and the usual ceremonies, the bridegroom rose, and surprised them a little. He said, 'I am very sorry to leave you, but I have a particular business to attend to; it will take me just one hour.'

"Of course there was a look or two interchanged, especially by every female there present; but the confidence in him was too great to be disturbed, and this was his first eccentricity.

"He left them, went to Gray's Inn, put down his name as a student for the Bar, paid away his wife's dowry in the fees, and returned within the hour.

"Next day the married clerk was at the office as, usual, and entered on a twofold life. He worked as a clerk till five, dined in the Hall of Gray's Inn as a sucking barrister, and studied hard at night. This was followed by a still stronger example of duplicate existence, and one without a parallel in my reading and experience; he became a writer, and produced a masterpiece, which, as regarded the practice of our courts, became at once the manual of attorneys, counsel, and judges.

"The author, though his book was entitled 'Practice,' showed some qualities of a jurist, and corrected soberly but firmly unscientific literature and judicial blunders.

"So here was a student of Gray's Inn, supposed to be picking up in that Inn a small smattering of law, yet to diversify his crude studies instructing mature counsel, and correcting the judges themselves, at whose chambers he attended daily, cap in hand, as an attorney's clerk. There's an intellectual hotch potch for you! All this did not in his Inn qualify him for being a barrister; but years and dinners did. After some weary years he took the oaths at Westminster, and vacated by that act his place in Bishop's office, and was a pauper-for an afternoon."

Mr. Reade is mistaken as to the number of the minister's daughters -there were four daughters and two sons then living. But he is probably right as to the amount of the bride's dowry, and the use that was made of it; certainly right as to the position which Mr. Lush then occupied, and the account of the rapid success which awaited him as reported farther on. The ex-clerk and young barrister had ploughed and sowed with such pains and labour that he reaped

with comparative ease. Half the managing clerks in London knew him, and believed in him. They had the ear of their employers, and brought him pleadings to draw and motions to make. His book too brought him clients, and he was soon in full career as a junior counsel and special pleader. Senior counsel too found that they could rely upon his zeal, accuracy, and learning. They began to request that he might be retained with them in difficult cases, and he became first junior counsel at the bar; and so much for perseverance."

This explanation of the secret of his success agrees with what Dr. Landels had previously said in his funeral sermon, in reply to those who attributed his early success to his Nonconformist connections. "Even if this view were correct," Dr. Landels says, "it would still imply some connection between his fidelity and his success. I question, however, its accuracy. Certainly, in all my conversations with him, I never heard him refer to it, and among the early clients whom I have heard him speak of I cannot remember that there were many whose religious convictions accorded with his own. It was the thorough manner in which he qualified himself for his work, and his own personal qualities, rather than his ecclesiastical connections, to which he owed his success. When I first became acquainted with him he habitually worked harder than any man I had ever known; and I know of no one whom I would have more readily held up to young men as an example of what, by Divine help, hard work may achieve. It was a part of his religion to do whatsoever he did well, and the thoroughness with which his work was done was not merely owing to his natural disposition, but to his acting ever, even in secular things, as in his great Taskmaster's eye."

For some time after his marriage, his residence was in the neighbourhood of John Street, Bedford Row. At that time he was a frequent hearer on week-nights of the Rev. John Harrington Evans, whose richly Evangelical ministry he greatly enjoyed. Often have we heard him quote the good man's sayings, and describe his manner, with a pleasure which showed how much they had impressed him; and, indeed, up to the close of his life his character bore traces of the effect which Mr. Evans' preaching had produced.

About the year 1852 he purchased the residence in Avenue Road in which he dwelt for the remainder of his life. At first he took sittings for himself and family in the Congregational chapel, Portland Town, of which the Rev. S. Wilkins was minister. Here they attended,

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