no rough measures permitted which might damage the concealed work.

V. Purism-the creation of false harmony and the destroyer of history-should be abjured. Modern work should never replace old, merely to make the predominant feature the only one. Renaissance, and even the Debased English of the seventeenth century, tell the tale of their time, and should not be blotted out.

VI. Restrain undue ornamentation in restoring an old church. In our present knowledge of colour and gilding the decoration of old buildings is a dangerous experiment, and usually results in the disfigurement of the ancient work, without any compensating benefit.

VII. Do not fill an old church with more furniture than the necessities of service demand. It is to be feared that the æstheticism of the day has thinned popular judgment and spoiled critical taste. It is common to hear the most glowing admiration expressed for such gaudy trappings as have vulgarised Worcester, Ely, and other fine churches. The judgment which condemns this "unfitness of things," and recognises its vulgarity, is unhappily in a powerless minority which can only cry out, but cannot lift a hand. But when once it becomes recognised that the architectural remains of the country are part of its art-treasures, and, as such, are to be watchfully guarded, we may then hope to see a change in the treatment of our old buildings. Like all such happy changes, however, in the slow march to better knowledge, the reform, it is to be feared, may come a little late.

CHARLES GRINDROD.

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

REMARKS ON THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN PULPIT.

IN

N the limited space at our disposal it would be impossible to attempt an adequate discussion of the subject indicated by the above heading, and the following remarks are intended as little more than stray suggestions which the reader may expand and apply under the guidance of his own judgment and experience.

That the pulpit affords a grand opportunity for elevating the motives, clearing the view of duty, and strengthening the higher purposes of our people will hardly be denied. Already it accomplishes an untold amount of good; and we cannot doubt that, if the ministry of every church rose to the greatness of its calling, the continual enforcement of earnest, high-minded, manly counsel would have a marked effect upon the character of our nation.

It is true that Christianity is not a mere ethical system, and that where it is ethical it departs widely from the legal and prescriptive method, and a preacher who confined himself to the morality of civilised life would fall far short of his vocation. Yet, for this very reason, Christianity binds religion and morality into indissoluble unity. Its dominant aim is to destroy the sin which separates man from God, and, by raising man into that communion which belongs to the children of God, to fill him with Divine righteousness. Accordingly it holds before us a supreme ideal of character; and to depict the beauty of this character, to search the depths of the Christian spirit, to waken. its vivifying power, and to trace its ramifying obligations, must constitute a most important part of the preacher's work.

This portion of ministerial duty assumes three main directions. First, it is necessary to exhibit the inwardness of Christian morality in opposition to a mere code of commandments and

prohibitions, and to describe the inward principle of life in its essential unity. The fountain of moral life is, in the Christian view, nothing less than the Holy Spirit of God working within the soul, and all holy living is the spontaneous outcome and expression of this Spirit. Hence it is the highest aim of the pulpit to lift men into communion with God, to waken in them the consciousness of Divine things, and commit them to the free prompting of the Spirit; and he who can bring the soul to God, and reverently leave it there to be moulded by the higher will, has the loftiest power that belongs to the preacher's office. Could all ministers do this their task would be complete, and life's duty would shape itself into the Divine pattern without their imperfect admonitions. But there are many who are not, indeed, unconscious of the influence of the Spirit, but whose consciousness is dim and uncertain, and needs the assistance of some more discerning mind, and we are all under the temptation to take the sweetness of religion, while we turn a deaf ear to its call for self-sacrifice. It, therefore, becomes necessary to insist, and again and again to repeat, that the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus is not only a Spirit of truth and peace, but a Spirit of active goodness, with serious and even awful claims upon him who would receive it in its fulness. If we inquire more nearly into its ethical quality, we shall probably accept the word Love as the supreme term which, best expressing the eternal essence of God, sums up in itself the moral perfection of man. This, then, is the ideal good which the preacher has to set before men as the ethical side of their Christian faith, a life of love flowing broad and deep from the infinite fulness of God, and converting the finite and mortal into an organ of Divine and eternal purpose. If the thousands of our clergy and ministers called men to this life, out of the over-mastering impulse of the Spirit in themselves, would there not be a great awakening of the national conscience? Secondly, the unity of the moral life, owing to the variety of objects towards which it is directed, and its varied relations to these objects, resolves itself into several dispositions or virtues. Love to God exhibits itself in such dispositions as reverence, humility, trust, and so forth. Love to man divides itself into justice and benevolence, and the virtues which flow from these. Love to creatures below man shows itself in appreciation and reverence towards their mysterious life, and in the humanity which shrinks from giving them needless pain. Every one of these dispositions may form a separate theme for Christian

teaching, and, coupled with warnings against their opposite faults, they ought to be frequently pressed upon public attention; for who will say that even the sincere believer in Christ is always distinguished by the largeness and graciousness and beauty of soul which are the natural expression of his faith? These things are the fruit of the Spirit; but we all know how that fruit is spoiled by passion and self-will, and how prone we are to deceive ourselves, and ascribe to the Spirit what is only the pitiful outbreak of our own selfishness and puerility. Hence it is needful to unfold in detail the lineaments of spiritual perfection, that men may know what spirit they are of, and through the clear recognition of realities be saved from self-deception. Only thus can they learn to discern the spirits and to distinguish heavenly inspirations from earth-born suggestions. The pulpit needs a large increase of its influence in rousing and cultivating this faculty of spiritual discernment.

Lastly, the various graces of the Christian character have to display themselves in practical life. If they were not confronted by any opposing forces, they would issue spontaneously in certain lines of action which would constitute the Christian ideal of public and private conduct. When these actions are duly classified and arranged, we obtain a moral code, which may be regarded from two different points of view. According to the Christian idea it simply describes in detail a manifold and prolonged offering of love to Him who has Himself consecrated the sacrifice. From a lower spiritual position it appears as a law of duty, which lays its commands upon the will and requires obedience. Now, if we all stood upon the Christian height, we should not need any law of duty, but (so far as the fundamental principles of conduct are concerned) might live each moment out of the spontaneous impulse of the pure heart; but, in fact, the spirit is not always equally fervent, and the inspirations of our highest moments turn into duties for our lower moods. And therefore the preacher, when he has taken men up with him to the mount of vision, and shown them there the practical results of the highest spiritual energy, should press upon them the obligations which thence arise, and urge them to the fulfilment of their duties, not only as members of a church, but as members of a State, of a society, of a family, and as solitary workers responsible in their most secret life to the Lord of their conscience. We must remember, too, that many people who are comparatively insensible to spiritual appeals are not without a moral sense

which would respond to the claims of duty or take warning from denunciations of wickedness. There are also some matters on which Christian teaching has not generally expressed itself with the clearness and emphasis which we might expect. Might not the pulpit do more than it does to foster a spirit of international justice, and put an end to those wars which are more like the revelry of fiends than the serious pursuit of sane and Christian men? Might it not do more to cultivate that purity which would destroy from the root the social blight that is ever seeking to wither the virtue of our people, and whose unveiled iniquity has recently sent a thrill of horror through every rightminded man? Might it not raise a sterner voice on behalf of honesty in trade? Might it not declare itself on the side of lofty principle and honourable dealing and respect for one another's rights in elections and other political matters? Might it not even do something to slay that intolerance which it has too often commended by draping it in garments stolen from the Prince of Peace? When the various parties in Christendom are made aware of the width and the practical bearing of their own faith, they will become conscious of the unity of the Spirit, and find in Christian righteousness a meetingpoint for those higher aspirations and that larger purpose before which our sectarian animosities will disappear; and, encouraged by the general call to nobler living, those who venture to undertake the preacher's office will, while not neglecting the other requirements of Christian instruction, be more than ever prophets of holiness and illuminators of the national conscience.

JAMES DRUMMOND.

NOTE ON ST. PAUL'S SAYING IN 1 COR. XV. 32.

"NAY, you may search all the Gospels with whatever

microscope you will, and you will not find a syllable to match that unguarded exclamation which slipped in an evil moment from the pen of Paul, though in direct contradiction with all his life and all his principles, 'If the dead rise not again, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'" Does this exclamation of the apostle deserve all the opprobrium that is so often heaped upon it by liberal theologians? The opinion regarding it which I have quoted from the admirable article of Dr.