Observer, Mar. 1, '72. Whether the churches are content to fulfil their part in the realisation of this purpose is doubtful. Just now they are 'given to change,' somewhat fickle in their attachments, affect the novel, are prone to run after the sensational, and, above all, covet popularity in the preacher. A crowded chapel more surely than charity covers a multitude of sins' in the estimation of the Christian public. When the pews are all let and there is no deficiency in the income for incidentals, deacons and committees are satisfied, and the pastor is looked upon as the 'right man in the right place.' But should he, like his Divine Master, so preach the truth that the many go away and only a few remain, a removal is considered desirable. If the supplies are stopped, as at Corinth, a change is imperative. Popularity with sinners gives power among the saints. A man is famous in the churches in proportion to his influence in the world. 'Brethren, such things ought not to be.' Too frequently, and let us gladly and gratefully insist, not so often as our opponents imagine, but too frequently, the success of a preacher is measured by a standard which would show Moses and Elijah and John the Baptist to be decided failures. Before our pastors can do their work continuously and efficiently in one congregation, the members with the minister must make personal holiness and faithfulness to Christ the first consideration, and strive together, as alike accountable to the Judge and King, in the work of the gospel of the common salvation.' If ministers ceased to crave positions of influence in the churches they serve, and churches ceased to look for popularity and its accompaniments in their ministers, pastors would be more settled and removals less frequent than they are. * * * Could we persuade our members to cherish the simplicity of the faith of Christ, to realise the objects for which they are united in Christian fellowship, to continue instant in prayer, to live as in the sight of God and in personal communion with His Son our Saviour, the rest would be easy. Then a higher type of young men would consecrate themselves to the ministry and enter the schools of the prophets."" Turning to another page we find a wail from New Zealand Baptists. P. H. Comford, from Auckland writes "We are sadly in want of Baptist ministers in this colony, but are not in a position to offer pecuniary inducements. Baptists have become absorbed in other congregations to so great an extent that they cannot be induced, without ministers to rally them, to combine for the purposes of building chapels, and sending to England for ministers of whom they know nothing. The note I enclose from Nelson represents one case. Taranaki also has a Baptist chapel, and sadly wants a minister. At the Thames gold-field there are 12,000 people, and the church, though brought very low, holds together, and hopes for an earnest young pastor. The sphere is a most inviting one to any zealous young man who should come out unmarried, able to live on the £150 per annum, which would be found by the present handful of people, but doubtless doubled to any suitable man after the first year of labour. I consider the sphere so important and promising that if my health had not so thoroughly broken down through bronchitis, I would at once cheerfully resign my present sphere to assume it if a successor could be found for Auckland. Besides these places, Christ Church also greatly wants a pastor. Brother Williams, of Dunedin, has visited the place, and I believe persuaded the two churches to combine; but the tendency to High Calvinism I believe is strong with the greater number. Observer, Mar. 1, '72. The fact is, our congregational system does not answer for the colonies. At every new township Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Episcopalians, and Primitives are sure to be before us, and Baptists either unite with them or become Plymouth brethren, or fall into the snare of Campbellites. There are two settlements about twenty and thirty miles from Auckland, in each of which a few Baptists unite together for worship and useful labours, hoping some day to become churches, but our system does not embrace them as Methodism would. It grieves me sore that I cannot do anything." In the same paper we have an appeal signed Isaac New and others, for ministerial aid in Australia, which commences "We have been requested by the committee of the Victoria Home Missionary Society, to ask permission to bring the necessities of this colony under the notice of your readers. The population of Victoria, according to the recent census, is 729,654. Of these nearly 200,000 live in Melbourne and the suburbs; about 85,000 in the four large towns, Ballarat, Sandhurst, Geelong and Castlemaine; and the remainder, either in municipal towns, of which we have about twenty, with a population of from 2,000 to 7,000 souls, or in small townships scattered over an area of about 500 miles from E. to W. by 200 from N. to S. It may readily be supposed that it has been a work of the greatest difficulty for all sections of the Christian church to supply such a population with preachers of the gospel, and the means of grace. But none have been so far behind in this respect as the Baptists; and that, we believe, not because of our distinctive views, but simply because the claims of the colonies have never been understood or recognized by the churches of England. There are about forty Baptist churches in Victoria, but of these twelve are in Melbourne, four in Geelong and Ballarat; and the remaining twenty-four (with not more than 300 members in all, and many of these without pastors) represent all that we are doing for a population of nearly 500,000." Now take these facts merely as samples, which Baptists and Independents could produce in large numbers, and they show that if churches depend for life upon their ability to find and pay a competent nurse for each, or upon other churches finding and paying on their account, then die they must, and there is no help for it. The Baptists cannot meet the requirement, if that be the nature of it; no other sect can; we cannot, and our chief weakness would be in the attempt to do it. The New Testament gives no trace of such practice, and our safety and success depend upon keeping to the apostolic way. Family Room. DOMESTIC GOVERNMENT.-No. II. 66 D. K. You have read, I dare say, of Scylla | she repaired to her "Long Branch," and Charybdis; and you will remem- or Cape May," which, in her case, ber that the former was a beautiful was the beach of the Strait of Messina, woman who had the misfortune to be there to disport herself in the healthfond of sea-bathing, As the story giving waters. It happened, by a goes, every year, as soon as the singular fatality, that she had for a fashionable summer season opened, lover one Glaucus, who in his turn * Observer, Mar. 1, '72. was beloved by Circe. Now I can readily understand, though I am not versed in the mysteries of love and jealousy, that an unscrupulous female like Circe would not hesitate at trifles when a sturdy fisherman such as Glaucus was to be won or lost. Hence the story is not wanting in verisimilitude when it narrates that she infected, by some witchcraft, the water in which Scylla was wont to bathe. The consequences were most awful. The very next time the poor girl waded out, doubtless with all the rapturous little screams and squeals which are still so much in fashion, she found herself of a sudden converted into a solid rock-in fact, a terrible breaker, with the waves dashing and roaring over her in a manner that I shudder to contemplate. Now you will not doubt that this story is true; because the rock is there still! The other tale is briefer, and not quite so pathetic. Charybdis belonged to the very first families. Indeed, as she was the daughter of Neptune and Terra, she could boast, on the side of both parents, some quite respectable claims to divinity. But she was hard to please. Nothing seemed to satisfy her. In fact, her desires were so insatiable that Jupiter himself lost all patience with her; and one day, in a fit of passion, the father of gods and men cast her down headlong into the sea, or rather into the Strait, just opposite and very near where poor Scylla was petrified. The unlucky girl, so the story goes, the moment she touched the water was transformed into a whirlpool; and I cannot begin to tell you the number of ships and sailors that this insatiable monster has swallowed. You will not expect me to vouch for the historical truth of this narrative I am not positively certain that Neptune and Terra were ever blessed with a daughter at all; and if they were, I am quite prepared to believe that she was a very proper girl, and behaved herself as any high-born damsel should. But the story conveys a very wholesome caution; and perhaps. we may as well accept it as it reads, without prying too closely into its truth. At any rate, the whirlpool and the rock are facts, and the strait between them is very narrow; let us see if we can steer our little bark safely through it. Mrs. Easyman is your Charybdis. You will strive with all your might to avoid the dangerous influence of her example. You will set the sails of your little ship in such way as by all means to escape the terrible whirlpool of passion and folly and weakness in which so many have been engulfed. This is well. But remember that Scylla is close at hand. Take care, lest in avoiding one danger you rush upon its opposite. I very well know, for example, that if that dear little boy of yours shall be permitted to grow up ungoverned,. he will bring his mother to shame. But is there nothing to be feared on the other side? Alas! it is possibleto govern too much. And I feel certain, after long and careful. consideration, that the evils resulting from this course are greater in themselves, and more likely to be permanent, than those which spring from absolute neglect. I beg you, then, to fix in your mind as a first principle, from which you are never to depart, that your business is not to impress your character upon your child, but to develop and mould his own. Study his nature, respect his individuality, tolerate his peculiar disposition, let him grow up in the sunshine of your love, while you wisely and discreetly prune his. excesses and give direction to his development. If God has planted in your conservatory a little peachtree, you may as well make the best of it. As long as it lives it will be a peach-tree, and nothing else. You may prefer apples, and be very sorry that yours is not an apple-tree, but Observer, Mar. 1, '79. no sort of management or cultivation | will, no freedom, no individuality, no will ever change it. You may keep it trimmed down to the ground; you may give it poor soil and little sunshine; you may cut off its roots as fast as they shoot out, and thus succeed in making it a poor, little, good-for-nothing dwarf-peach. Or you may nourish and cherish it, trimming and pruning where necessary, until after a while it will produce fine, luscious fruit of its kind. It might be possible to paint its bark, and trim and shape its leaves, until it should resemble a tree of a different genus, but it would then be only falsehood. Men cannot gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles. Now, I should be very sorry for your little boy to go forth into the world, a few years hence, a masked hypocrite, a living lie, a vain pretender to what he is not. Why, look at those lovely little Prims, which one dislikes so; what do you expect of them? Mrs. Prim, herself, as you well know, is the very pink of propriety. The Ten Commandments are written on the two sides of her stony face as legibly as on the tables in the ark. Inside she is full to repletion of books of decorum. She knows exactly what is right. She can tell you to a T how to stand and sit, and walk, and what to do with your knife, and fork, and napkin, and finger-bowl, and whatever else is worth knowing. She is an exceedingly proper woman. You might suppose that she never made a mistake in her life. And as for her immaculate establishment, it does one's heart good to enter it. Every thing is so quiet and orderly. A doll, or a ball, or a hat, or a shoe, or a book out of place, was never known. And her children are all such model little Prims! They sit down, and they sit still, and they sit straight. And then they are so clean-oh, so very clean! As for faults-why, bless your heart, they have no faults! How could they? They have no life, no anything, of their own; and, as a matter of course, such blessed little machines can do no wrong. The truth is, they are governed to death. All the minutia of their life and behaviour are subject to control. They are growing up under the potent spell of mere external law. They have ascertained that whatever they wish to do, and are naturally inclined to do, is wrong; that every prompting of their own hearts is suppressed and kept down by an outer force. All is cold, stern, inflexible and incomprehensible letter. In the presence of the lawgiver they may be safe enongh; but out of that presence they are bewildered and lost. The spirit that God gave them has been quenched by the frigid extinguisher of artificial propriety; and the flow of their true nature, instead of being guided in proper channels, has been dammed up, perchance to break over hereafter in some false direction and with destructive flood. At best, though they may be "good" children, as the phrase is, they will forever be good-for-nothing. They may be interesting little dwarfs, but they will never become larger. Full-grown, self-reliant, sturdy men and women they cannot make. Now I trust, my dear Matrona, that you will not believe a word of Mrs. Prim's favourite maxim, that 66 little folks were made to be seen and not heard." On the contrary, they were made to talk and laugh with free and joyous hilarity; to shout and halloo; to run, and romp, and rollick, and fall down in the embraces of their mother earth-and get dirty. And if my children did not do. it, I would try to make them. You will not, of course, understand me to teach that all this is to go on without any interference on the part of the parent. Let it be restrained whenever it is improper in time, or place, or manner, or quantity; because these are circumstances of Observer, Mar. 1, '72. which the child is not a competent | be children," says the proverb, and judge. But Mrs. Prim, not content with restraining the excesses, would eradicate the very disposition which gives birth to them; and would force her children to adopt a standard which, for them, must necessarily be false. Thus she makes their characters weak and vacillating; their manners, when away from her, hesitating and awkward; and their whole lives hypocritical and unlovely. It is always sad to see a mother with a hawk-eye, ready to spy out and to pounce upon every little chicken that shows its head in the form of a fault. It is just as well not to see some things. Children will 66 there is wisdom in it. They are often discouraged, fretted, rendered sullen and obstinate by a mother's habit of eternal fault-finding and complaining. A little of that heavenly charity that covers a multitude of grown people's sins might sometimes be extended to them without degenerating into Easyman weakness, or unfaithfulness. Time, instruction, example, a mother's love, and the sense of a mother's sympathy and a mother's help, will work wonders. If the blade and the stalk have no fruit, be patient and trustful: the full corn will come after a while. J. S. L. THE LESSON OF THE WATER-MILL. Listen to the water-mill, Through the live-long day, Stirs the greenwood leaves; "The mill cannot grind With the water that is fast." Autumn winds revive no more And the ruffled stream flows on, To the water-mill. Truly speaks the proverb old, "The mill cannot grind With the water that is past." Take the lesson to thyself, Golden years are fleeting by; Learn to make the most of life, Lose no happy day, Time will never bring us back Chances swept away. Leave no tender word unsaid, Love while love shall last, "The mill cannot grind With the water that is past." |