of the large city, and organizes various systems for the redemption of the fallen. His knowledge of medicine helped to fit him for this work. He not only understood moral and physical diseases, but also their bearing upon each other, and the causes which produce them. He held that the Gospel designs to bless and save the body as well as the soul; and very often can best reach the soul through the body. That by feeding the hungry, clothing and warming the naked, we gain access to their hearts and secure a lodgment for saving grace therein. He held that a large class of the fallen are more sinned against than sinning. That society, an inactive and unsympathizing church membership, and laws which license certain kinds of business, which tempt the weak and unstable into paths of sin-that these and many other causes will in the great day of judgment be held accountable for the ruin of many souls. partial remedy he advocated compulsory education. ject is now being extensively discussed, let us hear what good Thomas Guthrie has to say about it.

As a

As this sub

"I am an advocate of compulsory education. I hold that no man has a right to bring up his child a burden, a nuisance, and a danger to society, and that if he is bound by law to feed its body, by law also he should be bound to educate aud cultivate its mind. If he will breed up children as savages. let him retire to the desert We punish men for cruelty to cats, and dogs, and horses-which is right; but is it right to allow those to go free who, neglecting to educate, as well as feed and clothe their children, inflict still greater cruelties on their own flesh and blood? How inconsistent our conduct; and what a disgrace it is to a well-ordered, to say nothing of a Christian community, that parents who have plenty of money to waste on drink and tobacco, are allowed to starve their children, kill them off with cold and hunger, or bring them up in ignorance of everything but vice and misery. Some talk much nonsense about the liberty of the subject, and how unpopular a compulsory system of education would be in a free country. But there is no compulsion to the willing. Those who are doing their duty by their children can have no objection to such a system. Talk of compulsion, of interference with the liberty of the subject, where once in every ten years a man makes his way into a family of ladies to ask them their age! We have many good objects that are only reached by compulsion. People are compelled to pay taxes; children to take physic, and go to school; so that in a sense, with few exceptional cases all education is compulsory. Never otherwise will a national system of education reach the lowest, and raise the lapsed, and disarm the dangerous classes.

In Nottingham nearly 50 per cent. of the operatives cannot read even the simplest paragraph. Out of two or three hundred brickmakers in that town, employed by a single firm, only two could read, and these were the sons of the foreman. Of 92,000 inhabitants in a certain quarter of Manchester, about one-fourth of the youths from fourteen up to twenty years of age were unable to read, and more than the half were unable to write."

When Guthrie took charge of his first parish, in Arbirlot, his native county, he found matters bad enough. The fruits of his labors are seen in the following description:

"How deplorable their condition in the foul streets, closes, courts, alleys, where they herd! I shall never forget the contrast these presented to the sweet country parish which I left for this city (Edinburgh.) There, in Arbirlot, I had about a thousand people under my ministry. Of these only one did not attend church, and his wits were addled; only one could not read, and he was regarded as a curiosity. With the exception of a farmer or two, and an old soldier, who used to get eloquent about the battles in which he had fought on the day when he got his pension, and got too intimate with the bottle, there was not a man in the parish that could be called a drunkard. It had but one public house; and as that fortunately stood on the extreme boundary of the parish, a dram, with most, was not to be got at their door, nor but after a walk of two or three miles. But on coming to be minister of the Old Grey Friars parish in Edinburgh, I found out of the first hundred and fifty I visited, not more than five who went either to church or chapel. On every hand was drunkenness, with all the misery and poverty which attend it-misery most hideous and revolting. No city have I seen so beautiful as our own;-in none have I seen such ruffianlooking men, such hags of women, such bloated wrecks and miserable victims of drunkenness; such wretched children leaning their weary heads on the foul bosoms of drunken mothers; streets, so thickly planted, degraded and cursed with public houses. The only remedy for our social and moral evils will be found in the systematic, cordial and united action of churches and Christian people."

Dr. Guthrie's style is exceedingly pleasing, clear, and simple. He tells of an humble woman, who said, "I like best the likes of Scripture." That is to say, those sayings of our Saviour where he says, "The kingdom of heaven is like" this or that. Always liking it to some familiar object. This, too, was Guthrie's style. He says that he once saw Moffat, the South African Missionary, address a thousand children-the most formidable congregation, in one sense, before which any speaker could appear. His address happened in the evening and was over an hour in length. At a time when most children get sleepy, there was not a sleeper in the whole house. He was the centre for two thousand eager, glancing eyes; and for more than the time usually occupied by a sermon, he held his audience by the ears.

"It was a great achievement; and how accomplished? In a very simple way. Suiting the action to the word, and drawing on his own observation and experience, he told them stories illustrative of the labors and purposes, of the difficulties and dangers of missionary life. How often have I seen a restless boy, whom neither threats nor bribes could quiet, sit spell-bound by a nursery tale! We can all recollect the hours spent listening to a mother's or nurse's stories told around a winter hearth. Now, parables are just stories."

And what makes much of our Saviour's teaching so pleasant and plain is because it consists in Gospel stories or parables. His writings and sermons abound in apt illustrations or likes. "Of

these quite two-thirds were taken from the clouds and the sea." He was born and brought up not far from the northern ocean; and had a mind capable of enjoying its grandeur. This and the wet weeping sky of his Island home filled his imagination with a world of similes. Many of his most eloquent passages derive beauty from showers, storms and shipwrecks. He was the most eloquent Scotch pulpit orator of his times. "The friend and spokesman of the poor, the homeless and the destitute; the powerful advocate of those who were powerless to speak on their own behalf." "Few have attained the eminence which he has reached. It was his custom after the public service, to assemble the young men and women in a Bible class. A part of the exercises of the class, was to repeat from memory such part of his discourse, as they could remember.

"The first few Sabbaths was anything but flattering to the preacher. He found that although he might do his very best, very little was remembered by the young people. But one day he used an illustration, and everybody in the class remembered that. So he learned the value of illustrations, and he endeavored to make the next sermon a little more illustrative, and there was still more of it remembered. And so on and on he went, until now there is no more skilful orator in the use of apt and appropriate illustrations in the British pulpit than himself.

"This experience of his is full of instruction to us. It proves that if you want to hold the attention and interest of the Sundayschool scholars, deal as much as possible in illustrations, only see to it that the illustrations are pointed, and take care that they do not overlap the subject."

He never lost his hold on the lowly and neglected classes, nor they theirs on him. His large heart was always open to their appeals. Open it was, indeed, to all who needed counsel and sympathy, especially to the young. With them he always remained in lively sympathy. Although an intensely earnest man, dwelling much on the darker sides of life, and grappling much with giant evils, he had a keen relish for a joke, a heart fond of fun, when not out of place. He was full of humor, and abounded in the funniest anecdotes, and on proper occasions, could tell them with great effect. He was fond of children, and they were drawn to his tender heart as by a magnet. And a great favorite he was with dogs, which rollicked around him with great glee. Nothing icy, angular, and repulsive in this dear man. A friend to all that was good, and to poor sinful man even when not good. Few Scotchmen have brought so much blessing to the mass of the poor and degraded, and few have had so many and such sincere mourners, from the lowly around their grave, as Thomas Guthrie.

I remember him well, although I saw him but once. It was in his own church at Edinburgh. Then he was not yet so widely and well known as a popular writer and editor-chiefly as one of the great Edinburgh divines, and a leader in the Free Church of Scotland. It was a charming Sunday morning in Spring. I had attended services in Dr. Candlish's church. From there I hastened to Dr. Guthrie's, hoping still to enjoy part of the services. Fortunately it was the Communion Sunday. Around long, plain tables in the aisles, spread with a white cloth, the communicants gathered, as the custom is in Presbyterian churches. At the close of each table a certain minister delivered a very long and intensely dry address to the guests. There were many tables, and many guests at each table. I was taken to a seat in the gallery. The church was a very large and a very plain structure. In style somewhat after the meeting-house fashion. No ornament of any kind could anywhere be seen. But an air of comfort was everywhere perceptible. The whole interior was commodiously arranged. There was no organ and no choir. A precentor near the pulpit raised the tune of the hymns, and the whole congregation, several thousand people, swelled the sweet song. The clerk, or precentor, wore a black gown and a white neck-band. Each hymn is here always sung to the same tune. The whole congregation seemed to be familiar with the tunes. Nearly all the ladies were dressed in black, like a congregation of mourners. Although the services were very protracted, and the addresses, to my mind at least, uninteresting and unedifying, the vast congregation kept very devout to the close. I could not help but think that here were hundreds of sanctified people, temples of the Holy Ghost, built of "lively stones," which gave this flock more enduring beauty than the costliest architecture could furnish.

From the gallery I had a good view of a venerable gentleman in the pulpit. He had on a black robe and white neck-band. Patiently he sat through the long service, now and then reaching for his box and taking a snuff. When he seemed to fall into a sort of reverie, his mind apparently running on somewhither, unconscious of what was going on around him. Perhaps his faith bore his thoughts to the perfect communion of the redeemed in Heaven. Alas, I am too late to hear him preach, thought I.

At length the communion ends. The old minister in the pulpit rises to speak. A tall, slender, erect figure, not yet bowed by the many burdens of life. Slightly grey, his face pale, not with a sickly pallor, his limbs long, with such arms and hands as make gracefulness in a public speaker difficult. Albeit, this man used his most gracefully. His features bearing the lines of sorrow and severe toil. Age heralding its approach.

"Arise and let us go hence." John 14: 31. Thus he began his seemingly off hand address. For about fifteen minutes he spoke as only he could. Without impassioned fervor or excitement, only here and there, an apt gesture with his long arms, his voice pitched in an easy tone, could be distinctly heard in every part of the vast building. A voice by no means powerful, yet clear, pleasantly modulated, having a distinct utterance. Nothing studied, no affectation, no flashes of oratory, or straining to produce effect, but a fatherly talk to his spiritual children. Telling them what it meant for them to "Arise and go hence." How thankful I felt for that brief address; that glimpse of the noble Scotchman. Whenever I think of Dr. Guthrie, it is as I saw him on that Spring Sunday in his Edinburgh pulpit, speaking affectionate words of fatherly counsel to his people. He knew not that thereby he gave a blessing to a stranger from a far country, sitting in the gallery.

There is a real grandeur in his dying words. Not that they are so angelic and thrilling with celestial triumph. He endures his closing conflict like a true Christian. None but an honest man, in the true sense of that term, could speak as he did. So meek, so trustful, so childlike, one seldom finds, even great men, on their death bed. Dr. Candlish, in preaching the funeral sermon in the good pastor's own church, and to his loving, devoted flock, gives the following dying utterances:

In concluding his discourse, he said: "I have now to ask you, brethren, to listen to the sentences which I am about to read. They are not mine, but another's: 'Thank God, my tongue has been unloosed!' All reserve is gone-I can speak out now.' 'Oh! most Mighty and most Merciful, pity me, once a great sinner, and now a great sufferer.' 'Blessed Jesus! what would I now do but for Thee!' 'I am a father, and I know what a father's heart is. My love to my children is no more to God's infinite love as a Father than one drop of water to that boundless ocean out there.' 'Death is mining away here, slowly but surely, in the dark.' 'I often thought, and even hoped, in past years, that God would have granted me a translation like Chalmers or Andrew Thomson. But it would appear now this is not to be the way of it.' 'Oh! the power yet in that arm'-the right arm stretched out with force while in bed. 'I doubt it presents the prospect of a long fight. And, if so, Lord help me to turn my dying hours to better purpose than ever my preaching ones have been.' The days have come in which I have no pleasure in them.' Vanitas, vanitatum! I would at this moment gladly give all my money and all my fame for that poor body's'-(a smiling country woman tripping by)—' vigor and cheerfulness.' 'A living dog is better than a dead lion.' I have often seen death-beds; I have often