thing is not set square with the pulpit. And yet what is that wooden box more than a convenient screen for hideous, unshapely legs? Moreover, does not a high authority ask, "Who is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?" The pulpit is made for the pew, and not the pew for the pulpit. Of course I highly esteem all ministers for their works' sake; and I may say that I know a few who would fare very badly in the matter of esteem if it were not for their work, for they cannot be loved or respected for anything else; certainly not for the way they do their work, since that is far from estimable, and quite as clearly not for what they themselves are; for their photographs show conclusively that they possess qualities of character altogether opposed to the spirit and life of the New Testament pastor. But of these by and bye.

I now begin with the PEW; and I select a photograph taken a long time ago in the Baptist Chapel, Back Lane, in the ancient and time-honoured borough of Asitwas. On one occasion, when the minister was rather prosy - for even Homer nods sometimes, and Milton is not always sublime-I set my invisible camera before the serene, placid, and contented countenance of Mr. William Rutty, sen., seated in pew forty-six, in a straight line from the pulpit. The Ruttys, I may say, have been in that pew since the days of Oliver Cromwell, and they will be in it, so they boast, to the day of doom. They are a respectable family, a most respectable family, and the head thereof is the duly concentrated essence of modern respectability and oldworld stagnation. See his face. The eyes are fixed and the gaze is steady. He looks straight on, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. Though the nose is obtuse and fleshy, the lips muscular and slightly compressed, and the chin large, yet the whole is animated with a quiet glow of satisfaction like that one sees in an ox contemplatively chewing its cud. His hair is as straight as a mathematical line, and as it is rather iron grey, and stiff and stubby, reminds us of the icicles that ornament the eaves of low-roofed houses on a winter's morning. The necktie boasts breadth, is not wholly unlike a Scotchman's plaid, and is put on so tightly as to threaten strangulation. Above this, like ramparts defending a city, rises an amplitude of collar, sufficient for half a dozen ordinary necks, and starch enough in the collar to meet the wants of a moderate family laundry. The smirk of self-complacency on his face, being interpreted, says to the

minister, "Go on, Mr. Neophyte; go on, sir, your allotted time. Denounce creeds as you please, I stick by mine. Urge anxiety for the salvation of souls with all your ardour. I can squeeze all my solicitude into a guinea subscription to the Missionary Society. Advocate novelties to your heart's content, I stand by the old ways. I know they are right, and I am right; right for this life and the next. Go on, sir; my name is Rutty. I have been all these ways heretofore; I know where I am, and I mean to keep there."

And to do Mr. Rutty, sen., credit, he has "kept there." All his Puritan energy has been driven along well-beaten tracks. At the prayer meeting many years ago I heard him pray; I listened to him last night again. He has not changed a bit. He still wants blessings to travel "like oil from vessel to vessel;" and asks that triple good, "mouth, matter, and wisdom," for the young minister, who certainly does not lack mouth, however much he may need both "matter and wisdom;" as he had for thirty-five years, week by week, with all the regularity of the borough clock, requested the same favours for his former pastor, though his "wisdom" had become petrified prudence, and his "matter" was so dry that nobody could digest it. Four thousand three hundred and seventy-four sermons he had heard from that Back Lane pulpit, but they had no more lifted him out of one of his ruts than you could lift the Andes and the Himalayas with a Woolwich crane. He had the honour of opposing every improvement as though it were an innovation; and once or twice he had to accept innovation without improvement. He told me that he did not get a "wink of sleep "the Sunday night after the minister introduced an additional hymn and a second reading of the scriptures into the service; and when it was decided that candidates for church fellowship should not be required to state their experience in the hearing of the whole church, fearful visions of ungodly men creeping in unawares disturbed his rest and interfered with his digestion. Only a short time ago he was so deep in the pew-rent and quarterly collection rut, that the scriptural plan of weekly offerings was held to involve a needless change; for had not, said he, the minister as much money as old Mr. Jenkins? and were they not quite free from debt? So Mr. William Rutty, sen., goes on, from end to end of his short and narrow ruts, rejecting all that is new as necessarily untrue, and clinging to whatever is familiar as though it were a revelation of God; instead of

following the teaching of the Bible, and proving all things, and then holding fast only the good, whether that good be ola as Adam or new as the morning.

But enough of the Ruttys, for the other portraits of members of this family so closely resemble this that I may venture to leave them; simply saying in plain English what I hear ministers sometimes say in rusty Latin, "From one learn all."

For

I have put in the Chapel Album, under the next portrait, that well-known line of the poet Keats, "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;" and just recently I have added the words which stand as the motto of these papers. Yet to many eyes the photograph of Miss Wedderburn is not suggestive of the beautiful, even in a faint degree. But to me it is a sainted picture. years she has been with the angels, and this souvenir seems as though it gave intimation of her approaching glorification. Every time I look at it a floating fragrance comes filling the air as with the balmy breath of heaven. Those uplifted eyes, in which serene calmness and earnest faith sit enthroned, speak of the simple grandeur of her confidence and the fulness of her disinterested devotion. The brow is white as alabaster, lofty, and smooth as marble; the finelycut lips stand a little apart, as if waiting to deliver a message of love that forces its way from the heart; and the countenance is radiant with the unearthly loveliness of a mystical and rapturous communion with God. There is beauty, but you feel it rather than see it. It is not in form, nor colour. That circle of

paleness round the lips, and the bright roseate hue in the centre of the cheeks, suggest disease rather than health, and urge thoughts of fading strength rather than of expanding life. No; it is a spiritual and ethereal beauty, a beauty of soul that triumphs over the physical features and shines out with a glory that is not seen on sea or shore.

66

Hers was a noble life. Like Martha, she was engaged in "much serving;' but yet was never cumbered and worn with it, because, like Mary, she sat daily at the Master's feet, and listened to His words, and received His sustaining strength. She was as sweetly unselfish as the flowers, and gave herself and her "all" to Christ, like the widow of the gospels. Meekness and humility clothed her with their loveliest robes. I never knew а purer spirit. She always breathed the softness and gentleness of the Saviour; and yet I have seen her weak body quiver and throb with its anguish of desire for the salvation of the lost. Faithful unto death, she realized the support and joy of the Christian's hope, and gently as leaves are shed by the flower that has finished its course, she fell into the arms of Jesus; and as Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, was buried under the "oak of weeping" amid affectionate regrets and sweet memories, so this Christian servant was laid in the grave with tears of real sorrow from those whom she had served so faithfully and long, as well as from friends who had been gladdened with joy and fortified in the faith of Christ by her sweet, earnest, and beautiful Christian life. JOB GILSON.

THERE is no gift of God so good

It needeth not His blessing-
Take richest dowers or daily food
That deeper need confessing;

For gifts without his blessing used
Tend only to our hurting-

Meats stored when salt has been refused
To foul decay reverting.

Mere riches hold us down from God,
With heavy cares oppressing,
The while His golden streets are trod
By beggars for His blessing.

We may with simple pulse be fed,
And show a fairer glowing

Than all who sit where meats are spread
And choicest wines are flowing.

Or otherwise, with love divine,

Our humble need redressing,

Ripley, Nov., 1871.

God turns the water into wine
When poured beneath His blessing.
Of mental wealth the truth's the same-
In man's dim narrow college

We struggle for, and scarce retain,
A crude external knowledge.
Add blessing, with its power to lift
The veil of all the seeming,
Then wisdom lights the blinder gift
To search interior meaning.

Then prize the blessing far above

All else thou wouldst be gaining, Count all outside the Giver's love Unworthy thy retaining.

Or doubly lose the very thing

For which ye most have striven,
As God's just wrath took back a king
In righteous anger given.

E. H. JACKSON.

ALTHOUGH the titles of the several books of the New Testament show that they were written by different authors, yet many devout and otherwise intelligent readers seem hardly to realize the fact. It is no doubt a great blessing to have the whole of the Christian Scriptures in one compact volume, so that the traveller may find room for it in the smallest package, or even in his pocket, and the invalid may have it lying on his bedside-table, or hold it in his languid grasp but it is a drawback to this advantage that it is apt to make us forget the composite character of the book, the remembrance of which is a great help to a correct understanding of many parts of it, and to an insight into their force and beauty. It is, indeed, only by an effort that some readers realize the fact of its being made up of many parts, the works of different authors, written at different times and in different places; and that while its several parts set forth the same great truths, the manner in which these are brought forward and put together bears more or less clearly the mark of each writer's purpose, and mind, and temper. Paul does not write like Peter, nor Matthew like John; though they bear a concurrent testimony to the character and doctrine of their common Lord.

But when we do realize this fact, we are at once led to ask, when and by whom the several books of the New Testament were brought together. Was the collection all made at once: or was it small at first, and grew larger step by step? Were the same additions made in all Christendom at the same time and with one accord, or were there differences of opinion and usage in different churches? Through what changes, in a word, did the collection of the Christian Scriptures pass before it took the form which it has kept for so many hundred years, and in which we now have it? And by what authority were those changes made or ratified, and to what regard are they entitled ?

I am aware that there are some persons who dread these inquiries, and shrink from them. They think them probably mischievous, at any rate undesirable. When this fear springs from the narrowness and intolerance of a mind that will not bear to have its own conclusions questioned, or from the

laziness of one that will not take pains about anything, it deserves no consideration; but when it arises from sincere, though misjudging apprehension for the security of sacred things, it is entitled to more respect. Let such timid believers, however, take comfort from the thought, that truth will always bear investigation, and that the foundations which God has laid can never be either insufficient or unsound.

But, in truth, we have no choice. If we do not make these inquiries, others will: if we do not let the results of our inquiries be known, they will not fail to publish the results of theirs. The spirit of scepticism, nay of disbelief, is in the present day wide-spread, active, and remorseless; it respects no plea of sacredness or authority; it spares no labour of research; and now by suggested doubts, now by confident assertions and by assuming as proved its own foregone conclusions, it inspires those whose belief is not firmly grounded with an uneasy feeling of insecurity, which can only be dispelled by a search into the foundations of our faith, at once cautious and thorough, reverent and free.

It is not my present purpose to inquire into the origin of the whole of the Christian Scriptures. The four gospels are my subject. I am concerned with the other books only incidentally. I propose to speak of the gospels,

I. Collectively; as the nucleus of the volume of the New Testament.

II. Severally; their authorship and the special characteristics of each.

III. In their origin; the materials from which they were compiled.

I.

The Gospels collectively, as the nucleus of the volume of the New Testament.

The Christian religion arose in Judea ; its founder and its first teachers were all Jews, and Jerusalem was the mother church of Christendom, which was therefore familiar from the very first with the idea of sacred writings, and not only with the idea of them, but with their use. None of the other nations of antiquity seem to have had sacred books in general circulation and popular use. The Greeks had none that we know of: those of the Romans

seem to have related only or chiefly to the ritual to be observed by the state in certain contingencies, and they were carefully kept in the custody of their official guardians; of those of the Hindoos and other Oriental nations we are hardly yet able to speak as to the extent to which they were popularly known; though our acquaintance with them and with their history is rapidly growing. But the sacred writings of the Jews were generally known to them, 'being read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day;"* so that the common people became well acquainted with them, appealed to them, and argued from them. Thus our Lord, in His Sermon on the Mount, cited them, and corrected the current perversions of their meaning; and after His resurrection, when as yet unrecognized, he expounded them to His disciples on the way to Emmaus. Peter on the day of Pentecost,§ and Paul in the synagogues of the Pisidian Antioch, Thessalonica, and elsewhere, argued from them; the Ethiopian treasurer beguiled the weariness of a long journey by reading them, T and the child Timothy learned them at his mother's knee.** The Targums, or Chaldee paraphrases, in the East, and the Greek translation of the Septuagint++ in the West, made them accessible to those who could not understand the Hebrew originals. Nay, even beyond the limit of the Jewish people, they must have become known to those Gentiles who, weary of their own superstition, and yearning for clearer light, habitually attended the worship of the Jewish synagogues, which were to be found in all the principal towns of Greece and Asia Minor. These Gentiles are described in the Acts of the Apostles by various expressions,‡‡ and from them a large part of the first believers were gathered. Few ancient writings then, if any, were so widely known as those of the Old Testament.

But what the church derived from the synagogue was not only the idea of sacred writings, but the writings themselves. The Jewish Scriptures constituted the original Bible of Christians,

and took the same place in the worship of the church which they already held in that of the synagogue, from which, indeed, the usages of the church were borrowed. While the apostles and other "eye-witnesses and ministers of the word" were present, to impart with their living lips the directly Christian knowledge which the church needed, and perhaps even after their death or their departure to other fields of labour, while their immediate followers remained, who could clearly remember and faithfully report what they had said, the want of an authentic written record of the Saviour's life and teachings was less keenly felt; but when, as years passed on and the church spread more widely, the chain of living tradition was at once lengthened and weakened by the insertion of fresh links, and its utterances became less consistent and less trustworthy, the necessity of such a record became manifest.

In the good providence of God that want was supplied; but the period of the church's history which comes immediately after the apostolic age, and indeed the closing period of the apostolic age itself, is wrapped in almost impenetrable darkness; so that we are left in ignorance of much that it would deeply interest us to learn as to the exact time and manner of the supply. A few brief writings, chiefly letters, none of which are much to our purpose; and the fragments, imbedded in later works, of writings which would have been more to our purpose, and the loss of which is therefore the more to be regretted, are all that we have to guide us. The few statements made, or facts hinted at, in these writings and fragments, do not amount to much; so that our conclusions have, in a great degree, to be drawn from the state of things which we find existing when, toward the middle of the second century, the darkness begins to clear away. We then find, as I think I shall be able to show, our four gospels occupying, in the usage and estimation of the church, nearly the same position that they do now, and their authorship attested by the church's accordant tradition: but we are left to such conjectures as we are able to form from the very scanty internal evidence, or from the questionable traditions of a later age, as to the time when, and the place where they were written; for whom they were in the first instance designed, and to whom they were delivered; and where, and by whom, and how early, the other books of the New Testament were united in one collection with them.

It has

THE Capital of any great nation, independent of any special historical associations, is always a place of great interest, and especially must this be so with Paris after the terrible sacking and burning she has undergone. been my privilege to visit this city lately, not in its glory, but in its dilapidation; and it is still glorious, its dilapidation notwithstanding. The heaps of ruins which one gazed upon here and there, like pieces of shipwrecked vessels on the sea, told of splendid structures which had once existed, but which now exist no more. Paris is a city magnificent even in her partial ruin. For architectural and artistic construction and arrangement-for the beauty of her buildings, and the lavish and costly character of her adornments, I should imagine she is unrivalled by any city in the world. Whatever else the Emperor may have failed to do he has certainly "built a city" splendid and unique. Well, perhaps, for France, would it have been had he not sacrificed his people for his capital.

I know not what may have been the feelings of others who have visited Paris lately, but to me the traces of the terrific struggle that has so recently been going on there were visible only in the buildings and not at all amongst the people, who seemed to be carrying on their business and whirling in their pleasures as if nothing at all had happened. The destruction of many of their most magnificent buildings is perfect and complete. Some charred and blackened walls, with a heap of debris in the centre, are all that remain of the far-famed Tuileries. While in front of the crumbling wreck, and exactly over the very entrance through which the Emperor has passed and repassed some thousands of times, may be seen the words, painted in very legible characters, "The property of the nation;" and underneath the still more significant motto,

Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." I know not whether these words are intended to commemorate the throwing off the yoke of an intolerable despotism, or the wanton destruction of one of the most superb palaces of modern times. Not far from this are the remains of what was once the magnificent "Hotel de Ville," now a mere heap of rubbish. A little further to the left is the Palace of Justice, with two wings completely gutted, and with the same inscriptions upon the ghastly remains as those upon the Tuileries. Though how the liberty,

equality, and fraternity are exhibited in burning down such splendid fabrics only an excited Frenchman, in the height of his senseless and uncontrollable frenzy, can discern. Immediately in the same neighbourhood, and indeed here and there all over the city, are to be seen the same sad effects of the work of these brutal and barbaric incendiaries. The whole of the buildings actually demolished, and those that are partially injured, are far too numerous to give in detail; but the entire city bears evidence of the fiendish exploits of the reckless marauders who infested Paris under the name of the Commune; while at the corners of most of the principal streets the beautiful shops and white stone buildings are chipped, bored, defaced, and blackened with the shots and shells which flew along like hail during the recent struggle. The gigantic bronze "Colonne de Juillet" is perforated from top to bottom, and in many places huge holes are visible where the balls have passed right through the tough metal on one side and out at the other. "Church de la Madeleine" presents a mournful and at the same time most ludicrous appearance; many of the eminent saints whose statues adorn the exterior of this noble edifice being minus a leg, an arm, or cheek, or head, as the caprice of the shots which whistled so thickly amongst them determined. Even the venerable Notre Dame did not escape untouched, for the floor in front of the altar, and even the gorgeous altar itself, bear marks of the same vicious attempts. Let this fact, however, be well remembered-Paris has suffered far more from her own people than from the Prussians. The Prussians did very little damage to Paris. It was those reckless men called the " Commune" that have made her what she is.

The

And to my mind there is a deeper meaning in all this destruction than appears on the surface. The humiliation of France, and the defacing of her Capital, contain a profounder moral than the French people seem as yet to have realized. I have said they are taking their pleasure again as if nothing had happened. I am not superstitious; but, unless I have read the history of the world backwards, Paris will always be subject to these convulsions so long as she pursues the course she does. Let me give a specimen of a Sunday I saw there. The shops were all open, the omnibuses all ran, and business was going on just the same as on any other