but a general sense that the infinite is the right thing They might as well boast of nausea as a proof of a strong inside.

for them.

I reverence the law, but not where it is a pretext for wrong, which it should be the very object of law to hinder. . . . I hold it blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it, in the beginning.

Rufus Lyon.-You will not deny that you glory in the name of Radical, or Root-and-branch man, as they said in the great times when Nonconformity was in its giant youth.

Felix. A Radical-yes; but I want to go to some roots a good deal lower down than the franchise.

Rufus Lyon.-Truly there is a work within which cannot be dispensed with: but it is our preliminary work to free men from the stifled life of political nullity, and bring them into what Milton calls 'the liberal air,' wherein alone can be wrought the final triumphs of the Spirit.

Felix. With all my heart. But while Caliban is Caliban, though you multiply him by a million he'll worship every Trinculo that carries a bottle.

This woman has sat under the Gospel all her life, and she is as blind as a heathen, and as proud and stiff-necked as a Pharisee; yet she is one of the souls I watch for. 'Tis true that even Sara, the chosen mother of God's people, showed a spirit of unbelief,

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and perhaps of selfish anger; and it is a passage that bears the unmistakeable signet, 'doing honour to the wife or woman, as unto the weaker vessel.' For therein is the greatest check put on the ready scorn of the natural man.

I have had much puerile blame cast upon me because I have uttered such names as Brougham and Wellington in the pulpit. Why not Wellington as well as Rabshakeh? and why not Brougham as well as Balaam? Does God know less of men than He did in the days of Hezekiah and Moses?—is his arm shortened, and is the world become too wide for his providence?

And all the people said, Amen.' . . . My brethren, do you think that great shout was raised in Israel by each man's waiting to say 'amen' till his neighbours had said amen? Do you think there will ever be a great shout for the right-the shout of a nation as of one man, rounded and whole, like the voice of the archangel that bound together all the listeners of earth and heaven-if every Christian of you peeps round to see what his neighbours in good coats are doing, or else puts his hat before his face that he may shout and never be heard? But this is what you do : when the servant of God stands up to deliver his message, do you lay your souls beneath the Word as you set out your plants beneath the falling rain? No; one of you sends his eyes to all corners, he smothers his soul with small questions, 'What does brother Y. think?' 'Is this doctrine high enough for brother Z.?' 'Will the church members be pleased?'

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others, may happen to sear your own fingers, and make them dead to the quality of things. 'Tis difficult enough to see our way and keep our torch steady in this dim labyrinth to whirl the torch and dazzle the eyes of our fellow-seekers is a poor daring, and may end in total darkness.

To an old memory like mine the present days are but as a little water poured on the deep.

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Esther. This will not be a grief to you, I hope, father? You think it is better that I should go ?

Rufus.-Nay, child, I am weak. But I would fain be capable of a joy quite apart from the accidents of my aged earthly existence, which, indeed, is a petty and almost dried-up fountain-whereas to the receptive soul the river of life pauseth not, nor is diminished.

We may err in giving a too private interpretation to the Scripture. The word of God has to satisfy the larger needs of His people, like the rain and the sunshine-which no man must think to be meant for his own patch of seed-ground solely.

Truly, the uncertainty of things is a text rather too wide and obvious for fruitful application; and to discourse of it is, as one may say, to bottle up the air, and make a present of it to those who are already standing out of doors.

The Lord knoweth them that are His; but we-we are left to judge by uncertain signs, that so we may learn to exercise hope and faith towards one another ; and in this uncertainty I cling with awful hope to those whom the world loves not because their conscience, albeit mistakenly, is at war with the habits of the world. Our great faith, my Esther, is the faith of martyrs: I will not lightly turn away from any man who endures harshness because he will not lie; nay, though I would not wantonly grasp at ease of mind through an arbitrary choice of doctrine, I cannot but believe that the merits of the Divine Sacrifice are wider than our utmost charity. I once believed otherwise-but not now, not now.

Esther.-Father, I shall make a petit maître of you by-and-by; your hair looks so pretty and silken when it is well brushed.

Rufus.-Nay, child, I trust that while I would willingly depart from my evil habit of a somewhat slovenly forgetfulness in my attire, I shall never arrive at the opposite extreme. ¡ For though there is that in apparel which pleases the eye, and I deny not that your neat gown and the colour thereof-which is that of certain little flowers that spread themselves in the hedgerows, and make a blueness there as of the sky when it is deepened in the water,—I deny not, I say, that these minor strivings after a perfection which is, as it were, an irrecoverable yet haunting memory, are a good in their proportion. Nevertheless, the brevity of our life, and the hurry and crush of the great battle with error and sin, often oblige us to an advised neglect of what is less momentous.

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I say not that compromise is unnecessary, but it is an evil attendant on our imperfection; and I would pray every one to mark that, where compromise broadens, intellect and conscience are thrust into

narrower room.

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Esther. But that must be the best life, father. That must be the best life.

Rufus. What life, my dear child?

Esther. Why, that where one bears and does everything because of some great and strong feeling—so that this and that in one's circumstances don't signify. Rufus.-Yea, verily but the feeling that should be thus supreme is devotedness to the Divine Will.

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We ought to strive that our affections be rooted in the truth.

The ring and the robe of Joseph were no objects for a good man's ambition, but they were the signs of that credit which he won by his divinely-inspired skill, and which enabled him to act as a saviour to his brethren.

I am an eager seeker for precision, and would fain find language subtle enough to follow the utmost intricacies of the soul's pathways, but I see not why a round word that means some object, made and blessed by the Creator, should be branded and banished as a malefactor.