of a bird of Paradise without the slightest acknowledgment. To such an one I would commend these words for his earnest meditation, and as the subject of his next discourse :-"Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hand the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth" (Ephesians iv. 28). At the same time, I think it right to say that I am by no means straitlaced, but quite the reverse in the matter of clerical plagiarism. I have no objections personally to clergymen stealing as much as they please, provided they do it honestly and judiciously; and I am satisfied that no compositions are so much benefited by the process as sermons. But let the process be acknowledged or understood, or, at all events, let no mean attempts be made at concealment. We Scotch people in particular have a tremendous appetite for sermons, insomuch that I sometimes think we have too much preaching and too little worship. But so long as we require our minister to come to the pulpit Sabbath after Sabbath with two new discourses in his pocket, each occupying say an hour in the delivery, how can we expect him to be always original and profound? It is simply a mental impossibility, and we are to blame for making such an unreasonable demand on poor clerical human nature, which is only human nature after all. For,

put the case in this way :-Suppose a young man to begin preaching at the age of 25, and to continue preaching till he attains 70, and that he delivers two discourses every Sabbath. At a moderate computation his 104 discourses per annum would fill six goodly octavo volumes, which being multiplied by 45-the term of his preaching life-would give us a net product of 270 volumes. Just think of it! Therefore I am not disposed to join the hue and cry against the preacher who, finding elsewhere materials better than he can supply himself, works them into the web of his own compositions, and so benefits his hearers-only, as I said before, let this be honestly understood on both sides. For here it is concealment that constitutes the theft, and no wise man will be the less wise for believing and acting on the belief that men have lived before him somewhat wiser and better than himself-a belief surely that will not seriously shock any intelligent and judicious hearer. I may be thought too liberal when I say that I could hear read from the pulpit the masterpieces of Bourdaloue, Massillon, or Bossuet, or the sermons of Barrow, South, Hooker, Taylor, and the other great English divines, with as much content and profit as I could derive from the spoken discourses of most of our own preachers, provided I were duly apprised of the sources whence

the logic and eloquence were drawn, and not given to understand that they were the preacher's own. But literary theft is a mean vice, and meanest of all in the pulpit; and the systematic perpetrator and concealer thereof will, sooner or later, come to realise Emerson's far-reaching words :-"In labour, as in life, there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself, the swindler swindles himself. For the real price of labour is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. The signs, like paper, may be counterfeited or stolen; but that which they represent, namely knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen."

OVER THE HILLS.

WAS I ever up the Alps? Did I ever stand "at Venice on the Bridge of Sighs?" Did I ever do the Rhine, or take a bird's-eye view of the universe from the summit of Mount Ararat? Perhaps not. I rather think not. But what of that? What I mean to say is this, that one doesn't need to travel a hundred or a thousand miles from home to behold scenes as good as these. Of course, if you are a snob, you will spread yourself abroad over foreign countries, and believe (or say) there is nothing worth seeing in your own; and come back-how much the wiser, think you? Nothing to speak of, seeing that you could not avoid travelling in your own company. Get acquainted with your own lochs and mountains, rivers and valleys, woods and glens, and the manifold scenes of quiet beauty and wild magnificence that make up the features of our own dear land. Then

go abroad; and if you find anything better or grander in foreign countries, you can just remain there. But, notwithstanding, I must be permitted to remain of the opinion that finer scenery than that in which our own noble river (Clyde) is set, is not to be found anywherean opinion backed by all impartial travellers and men of gumption. And then the great sea-arms, reaching from the river far among the hills, to which you may be borne in a few hours, and wander in solitudes as complete as Patmos, and see visions, too, which it may do you good amid the turmoil of city life to keep fresh in your memory for ever.

"Over the Hills"-the very words are full of poetry, and even while I write I seem to feel the fresh breezes fanning my cheek, and the big city and its cares seem very unsubstantial and remote. Come then, if you deserve to be in such superior society, and accompany us a day's journey over the mountains from Lochgoilhead to Blairmore. "Circumstances (as a person says when he calls his creditors together) over which we had no control," found half a dozen fellow-travellers obliged to "put up," one night lately, at the comfortable little inn at Lochgoilhead, and the same circumstances rendered it necessary that they should walk the whole distance thence to Blairmore across the hills, which, as anybody may know if he tries, can only