The first beam of the morning-the march of the starry giant o'er the centre of heaven-the deepening purple of twilight and serene stillness of night, when moon and stars, and the shrouded trains of solemn thoughts brought by them, passed in silent and successive pomp-the enjoyment of these were denied to this poor outcast; the snowy frost, the midnight and the morning dews-the stone for a pillow, the earth for bed, and the sky for a canopy, were freely his— none would dispute this general empire: he passed through city and village and over the plains, and none stayed to greet him, but with shuddering and haste they laid the hand upon the mouth and sprung from his path. The Lordly as the lion in his desolation, over the crag and through the ravine, over the mountain and across the wilderness, goes the hapless wanderer; the shafts are rankling in the very core of his heart, but no remedy, no help! Not all the physician's skill can ever minister to him the sweet comforts of a healthy frame. awful load of misery he bears darkens his mind; his leaden lips writhe in impotent rage and anguish. Roots and herbs and wild berries his food, he houses with the desert beast; more helpless than they, he hath no city, no home. The animals enjoy his suffrages, but are by their brute adaptation infinitely his superiors; and the thought of what he was, and what he is-the comforts he enjoyed, and the miseries he endures, only make his grief the more poignant : alas, alas he is unclean-unclean! One thing could have given him relief and consolation, and that he possessed not. There was a sweet unction that he might have laid to his heart, and have made him love the rod that so bitterly chastised him. But he knew not of it; or perhaps only by the flying tongue of rumour, exaggerated, curtailed, or tortured at each variation of the strange things spoken of the Son of God; in the utter hopelessness of his case, the poor leper heeded not to enquire -the holy words that fell from the lips of Christ, dropping like balm upon a wound, were not spoken to this poor wretch. Had he heard them, the sublime, awful, and inexpressible virtue of submission to the will of God might have wrought itself wonderfully in the leper's heart. He might have bowed himself in meek humility, or with a silent prayer that, if it pleased Him, the cup might pass, and have thus sought for relief to body and to mind: all this the weary, heart-sick wanderer knew not of-on, on he went, warning all that came near him by his wild presence and dreadful ery of "Unclean-unclean!" to hurry from his path, and so escape the contagion. On the shores of the Galilean Sea, at the foot of the mount, was assembled a dense throng of people. A short time back, and the mountain sides had held the groups, listening with awe and astonishment to One that "taught as having authority." Every word spoken bore conviction to the hearer's heart; the precept was simple, uncompromising, perceptible to all. Nothing to the anxious listeners appeared to be more easy than the fulfilling of His command, for His "yoke is easy and His burden light"-nothing more simple than the manner of unravelling the points of doctrine that He taught nothing more beautiful than the pure morality, nothing more holy than the great cause He advocated. Grand and majestic in His severe simplicity stood the Son of God in the midst of the mass. The great multitudes had followed Him down to hear more, to ask questions, to be instructed-some to raise doubts, many to have doubts resolved: suddenly there is a movement in the outer circle-the human throng is rocking with some strange commotion: the murmur rises into a cry-a sudden rush to right and to left, leaving a "ray of space' opening to Christ as its centre"Room for the leper! room!"-and he totters forward with mingled feelings of fear and hope, his soul for a moment lightened up with a ray, his form weary; sick even unto death, as the pale check and the wild sunken eyes testify, he falls gasping at the Saviour's feet-"Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Who should doubt but He would? Who could for a moment imagine that the benign expression, the love, and the gentle reproof, that crossed His seraphic countenance, were meant to be ended in the withering refusal? Who could doubt His willingness to help, to heal, to save? None. "Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden." And was not the leper so? We have endeavoured to show to human feeling how heavy was his load; he might have heard some strange account of the power of Christ-might have seen some one of the many restored from pain and sickness, with an intense hope, yet having a doubt to mar the brightness of his hope, like a small black cloud upon the blue veil of heaven, almost desperate, he had crawled under the burning sun, over the desert sand, to perish or to be saved. The invitation to come to Christ was followed by a promise, beyond all expression vast-" and I will give you rest." The leper is kneeling, with an eye of piteous supplication bent upward on the Man of Sorrows. Yet there is not sorrow in his face now; it is an irradiation of benevolence, of love-such a love only as God bore to man; and the kneeling afflicted hears from the lips such a music pealing, not loudly, but like a vast tone, to be heard through all heaven, yet compressed to the still small voice heard by the inner heart. He hears it, and it is to him sweeter than all earthly melody-sweeter than the smiling of the stars or the voices of the flowers, when the breeze whispers to them in the evening, or the softest breathings of a reedy pipe-"I will be thou clean." The man's doubt is first resolved, next his intense prayer is answered. The leprous scales are instantly falling off, the clear healthy blood is rushing with a renewed vigour beneath the ruddy skin, the pale lips are become red, the pulses beat with regularity and power, the unstrung and relaxed frame is once more erect and commanding the leper is healed. Who may tell the feelings of the health-restored man on his homeward way that night, when beneath the gorgeous canopy of heaven (more gorgeous now to him, for that he enjoys its serene beauty, and loves it the more), beneath the twinkling starry eyes, he lifted up his tearful face and clasped hands to his "Father in heaven?" Who can tell the awful communing, the silent but deep whispering, that took place between him and God? None can tell, but we may to a degree imagine. We can also imagine his joys at being once more restored to home and to happiness-the reunion of all the ties that had once been severed-the boundless affection of a heart renewed by a divine love, enlightened and regenerated by a divine grace. Can we not also imagine how strong and fervent would be his prayers, how cloquent would he be on the humility, the benevolence, the love of Christ? Canst thou not, oh man, imagine all, or any part of this man's feelings? Think of his wondrous restoration, think of God's love-think, think at all upon the subject, we entreat thee, and thou wilt be, at least for the moment, a better man by dwelling upon such a thought-for thou too art a leper! How, how? Aye, a leper, we say, from the head to the foot: yea, covered with an awful, horrible leprosy, far worse than that of the body-with a leprosy that hath no nanie, save in hell! We do sometimes call it Sin; but the name is so familiar that it scarcely startles the ear. "All have come short of the glory of God." Many have been saved-many more will be, we trust; but be not one of the nine that were healed, and returned not back to revere and to worship. Ingratitude is a dreadful vice; but he who has this, truly is not yet healed of his moral leprosy. Strange, too, man seems not to note the ravages of the disease-why? We are in the same desperately dreadful circumstances as the poor leper's were sick to death. To death-of what kind? Standing with ribaldry and mockery on the brink-on the mighty peak, beneath whose shadow are standing, out of sight, things having names like Apollyon, many being Legion, ready to receive those that fall. We call, and we warn thee-it is a narrow and a straight way to the mount; but there is Christ, waiting. Why is not this disease seen more plainly, then? Because we are alike all clad in sackcloth; and having the mark upon the brow, we do not, therefore, stand and gaze with horror and affright upon -cach other, or flee from each other's paths. We are fellow sinners. Alas! alas! what a terrible tie binds us to each other, then. The wretched affinity is perceptible in all, and we aggregate in masses of a kind. We have heard of a Physician, of a remedy, and why do we not seek it out? We are sunk in apathy and in indifference; and not until the last, last awful struggle of life with death-when we are just in the act of falling down the sheer height, and know that then there can be no remedy-do we see that what we could, or promised to our own hearts we would do, hath been left undone until it is too late. Drag thy limbs a litApproach to the throne Awake, leper!-up, and to the Physician. tle nearer, nearer--and thou wilt be saved. of God, where the sacred and eternal fires of Justice, Love, and Truth are burning. Art thou darkling?-canst not see thy way? Ask the foolish virgins, with oilless lamps, to guide thee. Wilt thou still cling to the deceptions of the world. No religion of nature, without a God, can give thee any light-no abortion of the human brain, with its tissue of bewildering mysteries, can aid. Time blew out the fire of the Magian; it was left in the noon-day of the world, smouldering in its own ashes-no light, no help! What, dost thou ask? Hath God then frowned upon the universe, and hath it become a gloom, a vast darkness, a chaos? Truly man hath made it so; but God made it light and beautiful. Here is a lamp that will guide thee-it is the Bible; and by it thou shalt see the throne, standing in a region of spotless light that never, never shall grow less. This, poor leper, is all thy hesitation and doubt. Say, as the apostle said, "Lord, I believe-help thou mine unbelief." We speak to thee, oh man, in a plain language. Men in a general danger do not pick out appropriate and subtle words always-the shortest, the strongest, the most effective. Rouse, then, the disease is eating thee; it will kill thee. Thou art falling by its power into an unending sleep; thy very marrow is freezing with the cold hand of the Reaper. Dost thou not feel him?-hast thou no desire to be saved, to be healed? Be not besotted, thou art not (in this world at least) everlasting. Alas! what are three score years and ten, when thou lookest back upon them; but they are a long time to endure what thou dost endure. Be not a mocker: do not laugh or scoff-be not a brave coward, for it is ignorance that makes thee so-your leprosy. Ye laugh because you think that Death is not sitting by your side; but how know you that? The fountain of life is sapped often when the eye is brightest and the cheek is seemingly healthiest; the disease is then too deep, ineradicable; and thus do some slip into the grave with a jest on the lip, a scoff upon the tongue, plague-spotted with sin, and leprous with the curse of God— And where will ye awaken? The Physician is calling all to come. Quick, then, while life is! A A "REPENT THEE, ROME."-By G. L. F. Seven-hilled City, hear my word! By thy fratricidal lord ;* By thy blood-cemented walls- Repent thee, Rome! By the base Tarquinian line, By the desert-stream that flows Where once the towers of Carthage rose. * Romulus. By each spoiled Corinthian fane- By the trammell'd nation's cry, Repent thee, Rome! "What! shall a poet blame the earth Thank thee for the name ! It fires anew the indignant flame! By those who worshipp'd in the dust Repent thee, Rome! By the Albigensian war, By the blood of brave La Vaur; * By Piedmont's hills with slaughter dy'd- By each deed in darkness hid, By God, and Valladolid, By thy victim's dying groan, Repent, repent thee, Rome! CATHEDRAL ARCHITECTURE. ALL the Cathedrals of England and Wales, with one exception, are built in the form of a Latin cross. This form, however, is not of very ancient date. The first Christian temples were oblong buildings; the space within was divided into a nave and aisles by two rows of columns in the larger, and formed one simple room in the smaller sort. This was certainly the form of the Saxon churches in this island, and probably of the British also before them, if, indeed, any buildings were erected in those early times for the express purpose of Christian wor |