The fifth volume of Gregory's Edition of Hall's Works, contains the best specimens of his least elaborated but perhaps most characteristic Discourses. His style has not that close connection or linked succession, for which South's Discourses and Stillingfleet's may be regarded as models.

Do not heighten your present sorrow by a morbid imagination, you know not what a day may bring forth. The future is likely to be better than you expect, as well as worse. The real victory of Christians arises from attention to present duty; this carries them on from strength to strength.

Present Duty.

Robert Hall.

Concession.

The consciousness of having overcome diffi- Earnestness. culties, and combated trials successfully, will afford you, in the issue, a far higher satisfaction than you can ever hope to obtain by recoiling from them. Never demean yourself by contending about trifles. Yield in things of small moment to the inclinations and humours of your companions; fear God, and love your fellow-creatures; and you will find Wisdom's ways, ways of pleasantness, and her paths, paths of peace.

Robert Hall.

Common Life.

To combine business with religion, to keep Religion in up a spirit of serious piety amid the stir and distraction of a busy and active life-this is one of the most difficult parts of a Christian's trial in this world.

Spirituality of mind is not appropriate to one set of actions, and an impertinence and intrusion with reference to others, but like the act of breathing, like the circulation of the blood, like the silent growth of the stature, a process that may be going on simultaneously with all our actions-when we are busiest as when we are idlest-in the church, in the world, in solitude, in society.

To

become an adept in it is to become just, truthful, sincere, self-denying, gentle, forbearing, pure in word and thought and deed. And the school for learning this art is, not the closet, but the world,-not some hallowed spot where religion is taught, and proficients, when duly trained, are sent forth into the world, but the world itself, the coarse, profane, common world, with its cares and temptations, its rivalries and competitions, its hourly, ever recurring trials of temper and character. A man in solitude and study may become a most learned theologian, or may train himself into the timid, effeminate piety of what is technically called 'the religious life.' But never, in the highest and holiest sense, can he become a religious man, until he has acquired those habits of daily selfdenial, of resistance to temptation, of kindness, gentleness, humility, sympathy, active beneficence, which are to be acquired only in daily contact with mankind. Tell me not, that the man of business, the bustling tradesman, the

toil-worn labourer, has little or no time to
attend to religion. As well tell us that the
pilot, amid the winds and storms, has no lei-
sure to attend to navigation, or the general, on
the field of battle, to the art of war.
will he attend to it?

Where

Caird.

Here in the paths which beauteous error trod, Paul at Athens.
The great Apostle preached the unknown God;
Silent the crowd were hushed, for his the eye
Which power controls not, sin cannot defy:
His the tall stature, and the lifted hand,
And the fixed countenance of grave command;
And his the voice, which heard but once, will
sink

So deep into the hearts of those that think,
That they may live till years and years are gone,
And never lose one echo of its tone.

Tranquil he stood, for he had heard, could hear
Blame and reproach with an untroubled ear,
O'er his broad forehead visibly were wrought
The dark deep lines of courage and of thought,
And if the colour from his cheek was fled,
Its paleness spoke no passion and no dread.
The meek endurance, and the steadfast will,
The patient nerve that suffers and is still;
The humble faith that bends to meet the rod,
And the strong hope that turns from man to God.
All these were his, and his firm heart was set,
And knew the hour must come, but was not yet.

Machiavelli, in one of his interesting letters,

W. M. Praed.

Peace (secret

English Bible.

which contrast favourably with his political works, writes to a friend: "In omnibus requiem quæsivi, sed non inveni nisi in angulis et libellis." He did not live to read the words of the foremost of English philosophers: Multa sunt acutè dicta et leniter calentia, sed in iis omnibus non invenio, "veni ad me omnes qui laboratis et onerati estis, et ego vobis requiem præbebo."

Who shall say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English of the Bible is not one of the strongholds of heresy in this country? It lives in the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, (like the sound of church bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forėgo.) Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than words. It is a part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that there has been about him of soft and gentle, and pure and penitent and good, speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed, and controversy never soiled. In the length and

breadth of the land there is not a Protestant

with one spark of religiousness about him
whose spiritual biography is not to be found in
his Saxon Bible.

It is not these that win my heart,
But 'tis the pure intelligence of mind,
That like some unborn light beams from her
soul,

The virtuous thoughts that clothe her like a

garment,

The chastity, the candour, and the meekness
That through her parted hair look from a brow
And features, where the seal of Heaven is set.

Cæsar thus describes the river Saône: "Flur men est Afar, quod in Rhodanum influit incredibili lenitate, ita ut oculis in utram partem fluat judicari non possit."

Because He commands it, whose commands are not to be disputed, but obeyed. Because they have means and opportunities of being good betimes. Because then they will have fewer sins to answer for, and repent of. Because time is a precious talent, that young men must be accountable for. Because then they will have the greater comfort and joy when they come to be old. Because an eternity of felicity and glory hangs upon those few moments that are allotted to them. Because they do not begin to live till they begin to be really good. Because the promise of finding God, of enjoying God, is made over to an

J. H. Newman.

Moral Beauty.

Aubrey de Vere
Indecision of
Character.

De Bell. Gall.

Piety in the
Young.