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thousands must have participated in its invaluable instructions. For many years Mr. Dugdale was its superintendent. He cheerfully and liberally defrayed all the cost of its maintenance, very frequently addressed the scholars in an admirably simple, Scriptural, and appropriate manner, and in other ways generously promoted its interests. Prayer-meetings were instituted, religious tracts were circulated, and the sick and poor were visited. Mr. Dugdale well remembered and acted upon the Saviour's words, "I was sick, and ye visited Me." His labours in this department of Christian service were eminently praiseworthy. During many years the requests for visits which he received were exceedingly numerous, and were never disregarded. He went forth regardless of distance, of weather, of convenience, to the abodes of sickness, sorrow, and sin, and with loving tact and assiduity ministered to the necessities both of the soul and the body; for while provision was thus made for the spiritual wants of the neighbourhood, the temporal necessities of the poor were not forgotten. A blessed stream of "the water of life was caused to flow through the hamlet, and parallel with it ran a liberal current of material bounties. Food, clothing, medicines, money, were freely dispensed, amounting occasionally to a considerable proportion of Mr. Dugdale's income.

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In dwelling upon this most active part of Mr. Dugdale's life, emphatic mention should be made of his services as a local preacher. His aim was pure-the glory of God in the salvation of men. His topics were well chosen; they were those great and familiar verities which are so luminously exhibited in the standard authorities of the Connexion, and which, are the very "life" of the soul. He made diligent preparation, seeking, by the use of the best aids to the understanding of the Scriptures, "rightly to livide the word of truth." In the pulpit he was grave, natural, deeply earnest, free from the affectation of ambitious originality or of a highly florid and ornate style, having a sonorous voice, and occasionally evincing a solemn and tender vehemence under which congregations were overpoweringly affected. While his health permitted, he was a laborious preacher, responding to every call, never neglecting his appointments, and in every place most cordially welcomed.

The necessity of constant private devotion in order to the growth of personal piety, and to the vigour and success of all public duties, was profoundly felt by Mr. Dugdale. Hence he had his fixed hours of religious retirement, which he most conscientiously observed, and he was exceedingly regular and reverent in domestic worship.

There are few tests which human nature bears so badly as opulent leisure. Generally it is devoted to self-gratification. The gaieties of fashionable life, the exciting pleasures of the turf or the chase, the refined enjoyments of intellect, imagination, and taste, or the gross indulgences of the flesh, are the pursuits to which affluent leisure is commonly applied. How refreshing to turn from the general selfishness and worldliness of society to contemplate the example of one who rose above the temptations of his station, and who, in spite of the sneers of the world, devoted rich opportunities and large resources to the glory of God and the good of mankind! "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise." In what way can human life be better spent? How can it be filled with finer Accds, enriched with higher happiness, or made productive of nobler results? The multiplication of such instances of Christian devotedness

would amazingly promote the welfare of mankind, and accelerate the final triumph of the Kingdom of Christ.

A few sentences will suffice to narrate the closing events of Mr. Dugdale's life. His constitution was not robust, and his health had never been vigorous; hence in spite of the utmost care, and of frequent and prolonged visits to salubrious watering-places, in his later years he experienced painful debility. He was compelled gradually to cease from his public labours, and to confine himself to his weekly Class-meetings and the services of the sanctuary. These he attended with unabated interest nearly to the last. The long and severe illness of Mrs. Dugdale, and the sad calamity of her blindness, deeply affected him, and called forth loving and assiduous attentions by day and night; and her death, though to her a most gracious release, was to him a blow from which he never rallied. A rapid and total break-up of the constitution ensued, and after a season of extreme illness, in which he mostly lay silent and tranquil, he passed away on August 5th, 1872, confiding in the merits of his Redeemer.

FOUR SUCCESSIVE STATES OF A HUMAN SOUL.

BY THE EDITOR.

"For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."-ROMANS vii. 9-25.

THIS Seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans explains some of the strangest and most stubborn facts with which the frail and fettered intellect of man has ever grappled. In it the Apostle fearlessly explores some of the deepest and darkest caverns of our mysterious nature, and confronts some of the most inexplicable phenomena which occur in that transcendent science, the philosophy of the human soul. He carries the flaming lamp of inspiration through the deadliest damps and the most bewildering intricacies of that vast catacomb of spiritual death, the heart of fallen man.

St. Paul in this passage describes a human soul in four successive states, each of which he had himself experienced, so that in describing each he copies from his own personal consciousness. The first state is that of

self-satisfied, because self-ignorant, life, in blindness to the searching spiritual light of the law of God. "I was alive without the law once." The second state is that of startled awaking by the penetrating beams of the law of God, and then the deadly recoil and rebellion of the passions against the strictness and spirituality of the law. "When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." The third, the struggle of the enlightened intellect and the awakened conscience to keep the law; their utter discomfiture, enslavement, and despair, through the superior strength of the senses and the passions. This is depicted in verses fifteen to twenty-four, ending in the cry of self-desperation, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" and the fourth, the rescue and the conquest through Christ, expressed in the triumph-shout, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," and richly described throughout the whole of the succeeding chapter. Let us glance at these successive states.

I. St. Paul describes his first state as a being alive; because, although all the noblest faculties and forces of his soul were in a state of collapse and corruption, and even sin itself lay within him in a sort of dreamy slumber, he yet enjoyed a kind of life, a pleased and anxious self-consciousness, and a busy and boastful activity. Paul had never been an idle, listless man. Even in his unrenewed and unawakened state, he sought for a sphere of energetic employment, and set before himself a high standard of moral and religious excellence. He had naturally a vigorous intellect, a vivid imagination, great force of character and fervour of temperament. He was an ardent and successful student, and thus enjoyed an intense intellectual life; he was a strict and strenuous religionist. After the straitest sect of his religion he "lived a Pharisee.' Thus he led a sort of religious life. He seemed to himself and to others a most exemplary man. Moreover, he precipitated himself into public events; he sought and won public service and public distinction. Thus he led a public life. He was none of your human plants that seem to vegetate rather than live; none of your mortal machines, only acted upon from without, and moving as others move them. He could truly say, "I was alive."

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But how could he say, "I was without the law"? See him sitting at the feet of Gamaliel, the most learned doctor of the law, unrolling fold after fold of his parchment Bible, and bringing to bear upon it all the powers of his agile and athletic intellect, outstripping all his fellows in learnedness in all matters of the law. See him also a devout and punctual worshipper; reverent in his regard for the name of God; a strict observer of the Sabbath; amidst all his public honours, a model of filial duteousness; perfectly free from every vice or crime, excepting that which he thought a virtue, and reckoned amongst the holiest and most meritorious acts of his life-the slaughtering of the sheep of Christ. How could he be without the law, when he bound select passages from the law upon his brow, and bore them as a badge of honour, making broad his phylacteries? Without the law! when proficiency in it was the pride of his life, and to keep every jot and tittle of it was the struggle and triumph of his existence! Without the law! when on reviewing his early history by the light of his subsequent Christian experience, he could say, "Touching the righteousness which is in the law" I was "blameless"! He was not without the letter of the law; perhaps he knew almost every letter of it by heart; but the law is not a letter, it is a

life. The letter is not the law any more than the body is the soul. Saul of Tarsus was not without the outward restrictions and regulations of the law, but they are not the law, any more than the clay-Adam-exquisite model of a man-was a living soul, God's image, until God breathed into him the breath of life.

Thus the erudite young student of the law was in thicker than heathen ignorance as to three great facts which it most concerned him to understand: (1), he had no idea what the law was; (2), he had no idea what sin was; (3), he had no idea what he was himself. But a moment arrived when he suddenly discovered what the law was. He had probably been repeating the ten commandments, and as he rehearsed them in succession, each of them sent a thrill of self-satisfaction through his heart, and he said within himself, "All these have I kept from my youth up." Till he came to the tenth, the last. And as he read, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, nor anything that is his," he said, "Why this is a commandment that I have quite lost sight of!" It came upon him with all the force of a new enactment. "Why, this is a law that I have been breaking every day of my life, and all day long, from the time when I envied my elder brother's toy, and looked askance to see whether my little sister's figs were larger and nicer than my own, until this very day, when I wished I were sitting in Gamaliel's chair instead of at Gamaliel's feet. God be merciful to me a sinner! But I'll do better: I'll not covet any more. How strange I never noticed that commandment before !"

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future, and he had no

Alas! he could not

However, he set himself manfully to keep it for the fear of failure in this, any more than in the other nine. so much as walk from the college to the temple without breaking it many a time and oft. As he saw the multitudes give the profound salaam to the most illustrious scribes, he found himself longing that the most obsequious greetings in the market-place might be transferred to him; and as he heard the salutation, "Rabbi, Rabbi," he could not but feel jealous that the public gaze was fixed on others more than on himself, and that the popular shout took up other names more frequently and fervidly than his own. Thus he found himself coveting his neighbour's honours, his neighbour's reputation. And as he turned the corners of the streets, and saw the rich-robed Pharisee stand with both hands full of coin, and heard the trumpeter sound ostentatious summons to the multitude to come and scramble for the alms, he caught himself casting a greedy gaze upon the gold, and wishing it were his, that it might prove to him the purchase-money of influence in this world, and distinction in the world to come. Thus he coveted his neighbour's wealth and his neighbour's popularity. At last he felt, What object is there in life, what motive for the toils of study and the austerities of religion, if I may not desire to outshine my brother-man, and to displace those who at present are above me in the calendar of saintship and the roll of learned fame ?

Thus he found that selfishness was after all the mainspring of his moral mechanism, and the motive force that bore him on in his arduous studies and struggles after superior sanctity. He was making learning-yea, even the law of God—a ladder by which he might surmount his fellow-men.

But this was not all. Now he had discovered that the law of God claims cognizance of the affections, emotions, and desires, he found that Sin, —which he flattered himself he had conquered, because he had made his

life correct and unimpeachable,-Sin had but retreated from the outworks of his conduct to entrench itself in the citadel of his heart. And when the law summoned his heart to surrender, that it might there fix its seat of benign and holy empire, to the instant expulsion and permanent exile of every cherished longing for that which the law and providence of God denied him, he found that "the commandment," so far from subduing his sinful propensities, only irritated and inflamed them into a more desperate violence. He had hoped it would be otherwise; he calculated that the law would cure him of coveting even as it had saved him from outward vices and impieties. But, no. His corrupt inclination did sorely fret and fester under the restraint, until, like the possessed man in the Gospel, it became "exceeding fierce," and could not be bound, "no, not with chains." When the Divine law reiterated the prohibition, "Thou shalt not covet," his unhallowed passions and lawless appetites rose up in insurrection against it. He found that although Sin, as a practice, had been abstained from, avoided and abhorred, yet Sin, as a propensity, as a principle of his fallen nature, had only been all this time in a state of torpor, from which the piercing light and the pure and penetrating flame of the law of God made it start up into fierce and fatal activity. Sin had long lain coiled up in his bosom like a frozen snake, but "when the commandment came," that last loud peal of Sinai's thunder, "Thou shalt not covet," woke it up. That last flash of Sinai's lightning made it stir, and hiss, and sting. "Sin revived," and Saul of Tarsus was no more. He died. He lost his specious saint-like life. "Thou shalt not crushing curse, a sentence of death, a death-blow. the commandment, and wrought in him "all manner of concupiscence,' that is, all manner of longings for forbidden objects and contraband indulgences and denied gratifications,-"the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." He "had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet; that is, he would have taken no notice of it at all. So long as he kept from the actual deed of sin, the lawless desire might have stirred and revelled in his heart, without his feeling the slightest condemnation or self-reproach. But now that he discovered that the unholy desire and the selfish wish were sinful, "exceeding sinful,”—that although to covet was neither a crime nor a vice, it was none the less a sin,—although it did not exclude from reputable religious society, it did effectually exclude from heaven, he felt as if his whole soul were one creeping mass of unholy desires and selfish longings.

covet," was to him a Sin took occasion by

Thus sin, so far from being conquered by the commandment, only took occasion by it to work in him "all manner of concupiscence." The serpent Sin, when it found itself molested in its very den, wound itself with deadly tenacity, coil over coil, about his heart, and sent forth its whole swarming brood of evils, until he was covered with them, like the land of Egypt with its loathsome plagues. It wrought in him "all manner of concupiscence," all kinds of desires for those hurtful things which the law or providence of God denied.

This was his startled awakening by the penetrating beams of the law of God, and the deadly recoil and rebellion of his passions against the strictness and spirituality of that law.

This struggle of Sin against the law of God is still further described in the former part of our text: "Sin taking occasion by the commandment."

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