Church. To avoid this result the most careful attention should therefore be given to those who have thus become interested, but have mistaken conviction for conversion and are still unsaved. They should not be left until they know Jesus as their deliverer from the law of sin and death. So much is involved at this point that it cannot be emphasized too strongly. It should be the first work of pastors and leaders to guide these honest seekers who have been brought to the altars of the Church into the full liberty of the Gospel. Difficult and delicate as the task may be the Church must not fail here.

During this period a prayer and conference meeting should be kept up, in which seekers as well as converts should be urged to state freely their experiences. Luke tells us (Acts iii) that after the greatest of revivals, in which thousands were converted from the traditions of the Jewish Church to faith in the Messiah, Peter and John went up to the temple daily for prayer. And this they continued to do long after the excitement of Pentecost had subsided. The presence of such enlightened souls in these after-revival meetings is of incalculable worth to young converts and will have much to do with shap-. ing their future lives. In such meetings the leaders should emphasize the importance of the witness of the Spirit to what has been accomplished in the soul; and since so much depends upon this sure testimony great care should be observed, lest in the excitement of the revival services the statement of the leader or the wish of the heart may have been taken for the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

2. Attention should be directed to soul growth. Converts are but babes in the household of faith. They are expected to develop and to be prepared for the conflicts and responsibilities of the Christian life. Hence, as soon as the convert gives evidence of genuine conversion he must be taught that. soulculture and expansion constitute the law of his new life. If a bud fail to blossom and send forth its fragrance on the summer air we conclude that some power has hindered its development; unless the babe grow in stature and wisdom we are disappointed, for its power to grow, its capacity to understand, and its ability to do form the measure of our joy. Yet all converts do not grow alike. Some may have had the understanding

darkened, the vision blurred, the conscience silenced, and the will vitiated by long years of sin; and these form a class who are sensitive to the criticisms of those looking on, and, therefore, need constant and patient care.

But others, who have never fallen into gross sins, are ready to be led out at once into the larger experiences of the Christian life. The first thing to do with these saved souls is to awaken clear conceptions of what the Father proposes to do for them. Paul, in his prayer for the Ephesians, spoke of these divine provisions as follows: "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places." Under such incentives the convert will come to feel that there are greater heights before him to be gained and greater joys to be secured.

3. Much care should be exercised in the selection of proper . literature and other helps for the young convert. In some medical schools more attention is given to the patient's food than to his medicine. Having been saved and cleansed, converts should be instructed with reference to the selection of such soul-food as will maintain a healthy spiritual tone. Their interest should be awakened in God's word. Obeying the command of Him who is the great Head of the Church, they must "search the Scriptures." It is also essential that they become familiar with Church literature, in order that they may be intelligent members of their own denomination, and that they may also exercise that charity which "seeketh not her own" and "is not easily provoked" toward others. It would be well if a course of reading were selected by the leaders, covering the biographies, the histories, and the relig ious treatises of the universal Church. The church might be thrown open in the evenings and a room appropriately furnished with books and works of art. It would be well if the probationers could listen to a course of lectures on church polity and doctrine, especially on those doctrines peculiar to our denomination. The pastor should also preach on personal con

secration and loyalty, when all the membership of the church should be urged to renew their vows. In short, the pastorshould constantly be guided in the selection and presentation of his subjects by the fact that the convert is before him. He should avoid presenting the theories of philosophers and agnosties, since they have a tendency to divert the mind from the source of spiritual nourishment.

4. Christian work should also be urged. Exercise is essential to growth. It is the price of strength in the spiritual as in the natural world. The plant in the divine economy must gather and assimilate its nourishment, if it strike its roots into the flinty soil and stand firm amid the storms. It would never unfold its summer beauty and send forth its fragrance unless it had replenished its strength by seeking its own nutriment. So is many a professed Christian dwarfed by ease and self-indulgence. Earnestness and activity precede the fruits of the Spirit. God has made provision for the weak to become strong through the labor of the soul. Next to the sin of unbelief is that of spiritual indolence. The broken testimony of the working convert proclaims that genuine growth which should appear in every society of Christian men and women The convert should be enlisted with older members of the church in such enterprise as will call forth his personal exertion. When such a condition is carefully observed converts will grow as naturally as the lily of the field.

It. W. Bolton,

17-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. IX.

ART. VII.-SONGS OF THE CHURCH.

METHODISTS have always been noted as a singing people. Theirs, indeed, has not been the solemn psalmody of the Calvinists nor the artistic chanting of the Catholics; but it is the outgushing melody of the soul, much, we fancy, like that which Paul recommended as "hymns and spiritual songs" (Eph. v, 19; Col. iii, 16), and perhaps illustrated when the prison at Philippi shook at his and Silas's voices (Acts xvi, 26). The "hymn" which our Lord sang with his disciples before issuing to Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi, 30) is generally thought to have been part of "the Lesser Hallel," which consisted of the Hallelujah Psalms (cxiii-cxviii), and was sung at the daily offering of the lambs on the altar, as well as during the Paschal meal.

The oldest songs of Zion are of course those found in the Hebrew Psalter, and they have therefore formed the basis or at least the model of all later hymns used in the Church of God; but these are so well known that we pass directly to the relig ious effusions of the Christian era. Undoubtedly the earliest of the latter productions now extant are the three attributed to Clement of Alexandria (head of the Christian school there at the close of the second century), because found attached to his treatise entitled the Tutor (Пaidaywyós). Of these we select, as the most characteristic and best known, that with the heading "Hymn of the Saviour Christ," which consists substantially of a practical series of epithets designating our Lord's character and offices, in the unrhymed cadence of the primitive Greek meter (irregularly iambic, dactylic, or spondaic dimeter to tetrameter, with the quantity tending to be overborne by the accent); and we present, besides the Greek text, a metrical version as closely following the original as the laws of modern versification allow.*

It is to be found entire in Daniel's Thesaurus Hymnologus, iii, 1, 2; which follows the edition of Potter. Several translations have been published, all more or less paraphrastic. Our Hymnal gives, under No. 885, five stanzas taken from the version of Rev. H. M. Dexter, D.D., which first appeared in the Congregationalist, December 21, 1849, of which journal he was then editor. It bears so little resemblance to the original in form, meter, phrase, or sentiment that we are at a loss what part of the hymn it is intended to represent. We have supplied in brackets a few words to fill out the meaning or the meter.