As belonging to the general condition of the peoples of the world, it would be unpardonable to omit notice of the popular developments in music and art, with their connections in theatrical and other amusements, whether personal or of a social and public character. The spread of music, with its sweet influences, is almost beyond our imagination, compared with one hundred years ago. The pianos, the harmoniums, the musical boxes, the various other instruments, as violins, cornets, flutes, etc., that have been sent out in the period of the last fifty years must be ten thousand-fold over those of the centuryago period. Think of the street music, even although it is the fashion to rail so against it, the cheap concerts, the invention and spread of Hullah's system of singing, and of the Tonic Sol-fa system; the excellence of church, organ, and choir music.

Then again, the influence for joy of all our modern art processes, photography, colour-printing, and the beautiful room-papers now so cheap. Also the exquisite tones and patterns of dress materials, carpets, and furniture generally.

All these additions to the sum-total of joy in the world for poor and rich are since 1757. They are all new things of this age. The very steel pen with which I write, and for which, like its steamengines, gas and water fittings, and fifty other things our town of Birmingham is so justly famous, is not the least significant of our new blessings.

Mention of the steel pen by a natural connection leads to a few words about our postal system, that most wonderful, perhaps, of all the wonderful things of this age of wonders. Here I could spend hours, but must content myself with two or three minutes.

The postal system of the world in 1757 may almost be said to have been non-existent. Whether as to speed of transmission, cost, conveniences, or extent, we can scarcely institute a comparison. In 1783 a petition to Parliament respecting the postal service says, "The mails are generally intrusted to some idle boy without character, mounted on a worn-out hack." This was a hundred years ago. Now the most perfect system in the world collects, sorts, and delivers every DAY 22 millions of letters and newspapers and other posted matter. One-half of this great total is posted in America and England. London alone from St. Martin's le Grand sends out forty tons daily.

The newspaper delivery of the world is another system of local posting, collecting, and delivering, which may be illustrated by the single house of W. H. Smith, Arundel Street, Strand (the "Smith" of railway-bookstall fame), whose thirty-seven red carts begin every morning at three o'clock collecting and conveying to the various

trains out of London parcels of newspapers, etc., and whose sharp and quick work lasts till towards eight, by which hour they have despatched their morning parcels to every stall in the kingdom, only to rest till the afternoon editions require a similar though smaller despatch.

Let any one try to estimate the intellectual and social results of this one department of activity in this wonderful new age.

A hundred years ago scarcely anything worthy of the name of "science" as now understood existed. All is new. New science has created new trades. Electroplating, gilding, photography, telegraphing, telephoning, and other trades, are wholly new creations.

Several new metals now come into the market. Steel, by that wonderful "Bessemer" process, is a world-wide commodity.

Free-trade, even as a name, was unknown in 1757. Every country fought against its neighbour by export as well as import duties till most terrible distress showed the folly of the course.

Roman Catholic and Jewish civil disabilities have been removed, and now almost the last of our Dissenting disabilities have gone.

The last century has seen the birth of Wesleyan Methodism, of the British and Foreign Bible Society, of Sunday Schools, of almost all the Foreign Missionary Societies, of all Home Mission efforts, of Temperance Societies, Good Templary; and this very year, or next year certainly, will see the publication of that grand work of our age, the new revision of our Bible.

As for public elementary instruction, what can we say? Who can picture the dense ignorance of the masses, all the world over, in 1757? There is no doubt but that the Press first educated the legis latures, and then the governments of the world gradually began to educate the peoples. Nor can we omit again to allude to the potent agency of Sunday schools in forwarding and preparing the way for more general elementary instruction.

This, the hundredth year of their existence, makes the present a suitable time to mention it, and the fact that the New Church has from the beginning taken up and helped vigorously in the work makes this room1 also a suitable place. Then came the grand infant-school system of Pestalozzi, himself a New Churchman; then the British schools of Bell and Lancaster; then better private schools, with mechanics' institutions, evening classes, free libraries, and museums; and lastly, in our own day, Government and rate-aided schools. England, though behind other nations in their establishment, is now abreast of them in results. The present year sees the completion of our national system of in1 The schoolroom, Wretham Road Church, Birmingham.

struction by the compulsory clauses passed during the very last session of Parliament. In three years' time every child of a suitable age in the kingdom will be at school.

Such has been the effect of this in the United Kingdom, in the last thirty years, that in the whole population there are 42 per cent. more scholars, 56 per cent. fewer convicts, and 29 per cent. fewer paupers. While I am reading this paper1 Birmingham rejoices in the opening of Mason's College for the highest scientific culture of students, a gift by the founder of nearly £200,000.

The charities and beneficent endowments of the period since 1757 have been alike wonderful with its other progress-hospitals, dispensaries, almshouses, charities for every conceivable class of the poor and the suffering, orphanages (to wit Müller's in Bristol and Mason's in Birmingham), and then lastly the new system of annual public collections in towns and cities for charitable purposes,-all these show a total of good practical unselfishness which is beyond doubt a glory of the new age.

In conclusion, were it not for the universally spread and destructive effects of "drink," which most unhappily is so great a blot on our civilized life, this nation, and almost every civilized nation of the globe, might enjoy a degree of happiness in life, of comfort, of freedom from care, of absolute joy which is beyond description. Let us hope that we may soon see in that, as in so many other grand things we do now see, that the Divine promise is being surely fulfilled, "Behold, I make all things new." JOHN BRAGG.

INTRODUCTION TO ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL.

ANSWER TO AN INQUIRY.

LUKE begins his Gospel in a form that gives it, more than any of the others, the appearance of a merely human composition. Addressing a single person, he speaks of his qualifications for the task he had assigned himself, and declares his object in writing to be to confirm Theophilus in the faith in which he had been instructed.

If the human agent and object are more prominently set forth in this Gospel, the Divine agency and object are not more clearly indicated in the others. Direct Divine authorship is not claimed by any of the sacred writings, and is only claimed for them on a ground that is common to them all. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." The absence of any visible sign of Divine authorship in the

1 October 1, 1880.

Scriptures may be assumed to have the same cause and the same purpose as the absence of any visible sign of a Divine authorship in Nature. The Divine Being works by means, producing ultimate effects by intermediate causes. The cause cannot be seen in the effect, but the cause may be learned from the effect. And this is the way in which rational beings are to acquire the knowledge of causes, and of the Great First Cause itself. That Cause does not obtrude itself on the notice of our senses, but leaves us to arrive at it

by the exercise of our reason. As it is in Creation, so is it to some extent in Revelation. The Word reveals its Divine Author; but it reveals Him through human instruments, and leaves us to decide on the truth of their declarations. The Author of Nature and Revelation desires that He should be the Object, not of sensual perception, but of rational conviction. Therefore God is a Being who hides Himself within the veil of some finite covering; and even when He manifested Himself, it was in the person of an angel, and in the form of sinful flesh, that men might not be forced to believe simply on the evidence of their senses.

The appearance of mere human authorship, so prominent in the exordium of Luke's Gospel, is no proof against its Divine origin. The Spirit of truth, when it flows into the human mind, like the Spirit of life when it flows into nature, manifests itself according to the form and quality of the objects which it animates. This ordinary law of life is not set aside, but only transcended in the extraordinary operation of the Spirit in the inspiration of the sacred writers. The Spirit takes the language, and even the forms of expression, of that which it reveals, from the mind of the human writer, but it fills them with a spirit and meaning which the finite instrument never conceived. This is one distinguishing characteristic of writings that are Divinely inspired. And this is the character of Luke's Gospel, as of all the other sacred writings.

But there is a spiritual reason for this proemium to Luke's Gospel, especially for the Gospel being addressed to Theophilus, which it may be useful to consider.

Luke, though an evangelist, was not an apostle. He was not himself an eyewitness and minister of the Word, but derived his information from others, who could speak from personal knowledge of the things he relates. He was induced to record the history of the Saviour, not because few had attempted it, but because many had taken it in hand. It seemed good to him also, having had perfect understanding of, or having accurately traced, all things from the beginning, to write them in order. The eyewitnesses and ministers of

whom Luke speaks no doubt included the apostles, and the many who had written may be supposed to include the Evangelists. The Gospel by John was not yet written, and some are of opinion that Luke had not seen the Gospel by Matthew. Whatever documents Luke had seen, whether they included any of the genuine Gospels, or only some traditional narratives, it seemed good to him to write another. The Church has reason to render thanks to the Lord, the Saviour, for inspiring His servant with the desire to write another Gospel, and for guiding him infallibly in his sacred work; for this evangelist has added much to that which the others have recorded. Of what the many had produced very little has survived save the other Gospels; and if what has perished contained anything of importance besides, their works have become like events of our early life, which, though not lost, are hidden in the inner recesses of our minds, and exist rather as impressions than as ideas-impressions that are gathered up, so far as they can be, and embodied in another and enduring form, by the intellectual faculty developed at a later period of life. And not only does the mind receive impressions, but the memory records facts before the judgment has attained maturity sufficient to sift and arrange them. And many attempts are sometimes made to give facts and ideas form and expression before we succeed. This seems to be the function which Luke performs in regard to the many who had taken in hand to set forth in order the things which had been delivered to the infant Church, respecting Him who had begotten it in truth and righteousness. These things relate both to the truth and good of Christianity, as indicated by their having been delivered to the Church by eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, eyewitnesses being those who receive the truth, and ministers those who practise it, and these may and should be united in one person, since every true disciple both understands and does the things that the Word teaches. Those who are here mentioned are not only eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word which the Lord delivered, but of the Lord Himself as the Word -the Eternal Word which was made flesh and dwelt among us. All things relating to Him from the very first, as they arose into actual existence in fulfilment of the promise given at the beginning, of the woman's seed crushing the power of the serpent, the evangelist had traced, and writes in order, that Theophilus might know the certainty of the things wherein he had been instructed. Some have supposed that Theophilus was but a name for every lover of God, which the name signifies. Without questioning the literal fact of this Gospel having been addressed to a particular individual, the spiritual truth is, that it is addressed to all who have the love of God in their hearts,