are we tending the sheep, that for many a year we called our own. No longer are we seen, as of old, wending our way to the house of prayer. Another has taken our office. The people institute comparisons. The aged extend their recollections through a succession of pastors. The young have noted, with characteristic quickness, the leading traits of the only minister they have known. And when old and young come to speak together of clergymen of their parish, and compare them with each other, and give them their relative position in esteem, what will be their judgment of their late minister? "What will

they say of us?"

Mightier change yet! A little while and we shall go hence, and be no more seen. The pulpit is for ever left. The vestry shall never know us more. Within those communion-rails, we shall never again stand.

The labourer's work is done. The steward has been summoned to his account. Beneath some grassy mound, in our familiar churchyard, is laid our mortal tabernacle. The Sabbath-worshippers pass it by, ere they enter the house of prayer. Its sight recalls the name of him who sleeps below. They commune freely about him; for compliments are for the living, but truth is oftenest told over graves. And as they, who knew us in life, speak about us now that we are in death-as they describe our ministry and our going in and out among them, how solemn the question, "What will they say of us?"

Suppose, a half-century is gone, and men, not yet born, are writing of Ireland's Church and her ministers of the present day. Unbiassed by one feeling

that now influences the living, they have to tell of our events and of the struggles and difficulties that at the present time are engrossing us. Long since all we, one after another, have disappeared from life's scene. Whatever part we acted, whatever character we filled, whether of idleness or usefulness, is gone through. If we were poor, our poverty is over. If we were rich, wealth does not now profit us. If we had dignities, our titles are laid with us in the dust. It is with us, as with ministers of the Church of the living God, the historians have to deal; and, as they proceed with their narrative and chronicle the doings of the clergy in the public assembly, or describe their labours in their respective parishes, "What will they say of us?"

*

*

One thought more. When the period fixed in God's unchangeable decrees is arrived, and He cometh, from whose face the earth and heaven shall flee away -when the great white Throne is set, and the books are opened, and the Dead, small and great, stand before the Judge—when we have each given an account of the things done in the body, according to what we have done, whether it be good or bad—when the Son of Man shall address all gathered before Him, and pronounce the benediction or the anathema. Brothers! O brothers! "WHAT WILL HE SAY OF US?"

CHAPTER XV.

DWELLING-PLACES.

"Thou camest not to thy place by accident;

It is the very place God meant for thee:

And should'st thou there small scope for action see,

Do not for this give room to discontent;

"Nor let the time thou owest to God be spent
In idle dreaming how thou mightest be,

In what concerns thy spiritual life, more free
From outward hindrance or impediment.

"For presently this hindrance thou shalt find

That, without which all goodness were a task
So slight that Virtue never could grow strong:

And would'st thou do one duty to His mind,
The Imposer's-over-burden'd thou shalt ask

And own thy need of grace to help, ere long."

THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

N their early days, most persons indulge in dreaming about a future earthly home. Life spreads itself before the young as a fair prospect; and from a Mount of Vision they look down on the earth as on a pleasant land, that is soon to be their own in glad possession. While they musingly fashion their intended habitations, the enthusiasts unconsciously unveil themselves before the beholder. The bias of personal tastes is betrayed. The conformation of individual character is manifested. There are clinging dispositions, that care for

M

naught outside the paternal dwelling, and find their daily joy in the loving group therein assembled. There are eager spirits, that, in the consciousness of power, long for the conflict, to win their place among the sons of men. There are restless hearts, that sigh for a glimpse of distant shores, and covet adventure by land or by sea. There are temperaments, that desire the city, with the stir and tramp of ceaseless life. There are lowly minds, that content themselves with the country; and consider that a cottagehome, with a bird and books and flowers, were quite enough for earthly possession.

Time flies equally with all; and, when years have come and gone with these dreamers, it were a curious inquiry to bring together for comparison the Actual and their Ideal. Perhaps the heart, that entwined itself around the ancestral roof-tree, was forcibly detached and taught to climb around a far different support. And the ardent soul, that, like the war-horse, coveted the fray, soon by suffering grew sober and subdued. The traveller never quitted his native shore. The citizen was located in the remote country. Fit rusticus ex nitido. And rural tastes were expended on a fern-case in the window, or on the miniature garden that accompanied a town-residence. Whence these vicissitudes? Is there not a cause? Or is Life but a medley, and a tangled web?

Could we but investigate each case, and scan its minutest particulars, we should be constrained to say, "This cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working!" And our testimony would be, " He hath done

all things well!" when scene after scene of the individual's history passed in review before us. In each instance there was a "needs be" for the changes. If men might establish themselves upon earth, after the counsel of their will, they would cease to regard themselves as but strangers and sojourners: and God's people especially must be delivered from this snare. The Great Husbandman, accordingly, uproots and transplants, else the trees of righteousness would wither in an alien soil; and, when they are made productive, He purges the branches, that they may bring forth more fruit. He removeth, and setteth up; He keepeth men stationary, or speaketh unto them that they go forward; and He changeth their dwelling, if only He may teach them that "here they have no continuing city."

When it pleased God to make of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on the face of the earth, He established for them two great appointments. He determined "the times" of their existence, and "the bounds of their habitation;" and, in His wisdom, (as Matthew Henry judiciously observes,*) ordained both the place and period of their living in the world. I love to meditate upon the twofold ordinance, that I may find therein my own manifold mercies. Cordially concurring with this excellent writer, I hang on his words+:

"The particular habitations in which our lot is cast, the place of our nativity and of our settlement, are of God's determining and appointing; which is a reason why we should accommodate ourselves to the habitations we are in, and make the best of that which is."

* Commentary, on Deuteronomy xxxii. 8.
Commentary, on Acts xvii. 26.