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expose us to loss and risk. The question is, "Ought we to endorse this particular deed if we occupied our neighbour's position ?" A common case is this. The pastor you think of occupies a church which has not been prosperous for many years. It has not had the right man. At last he is found. Before he arrived there you never dreamt of him, would not have mentioned his name. Since then, he has been successful, is happy and appreciated, and has the promise of years of usefulness. If you were a member of the church he serves, what would you think of the application you now make?

Oh! but we could give more money!

Yes; but ought you? Is the monetary consideration the only one to be entertained? Is it the only one you would see if the positions were exactly reversed? You know it is not; and the church of Christ is the last place on earth where Mammon should have a throne.

But ours is " a larger and more important sphere."

Perhaps so. Churches rarely lack conceit. Many of them, if " respectable" and blessed with a "banking account," are as full of vanity as an egg of meat, and seem to regard their "sphere" as the centre of Paradise, and big as the universe. There are other things to be thought of than the "largeness" of a "sphere." A soap-bubble may be a thousand times the size of a sphere of gold; but it is not so valuable. Spheres" must be looked into as well as at; and you should ask what injury would be inflicted on the smaller and insignificant sphere, if you took the man after your own heart out of it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, applies quite as much when that neighbour is an insignificant Zaccheus, as when he is a gigantic Goliath; not less or more to the happy and modest society at Little Peddlington, than to the "respectable and influential" community at Lauditon Magna.

Of course, there may be a seeming where there is not a real violation of this law. I wouldn't try to get the services of the managing clerk of Messrs. A. B. and Co., in the same line of business as I am, simply because he could do my work better than it is being done, and I could give him better pay. But he has been there seventeen years, and ought, considering his capacity and experience, to have a share in the firm. They are not treating him fairly. I know his worth, and I tell them I shall offer him a position with me as a junior partner, and a fifth of the profits. They say, We'd rather you let Mr. Z. alone; but we cannot stand in his way, and as we cannot afford to lose him, we will give him a share with us. In that transaction everything is fair and open and right; although it is not altogether pleasant. We must not confuse seeming and real violations of this law. Intelligence is necessary to true obedience.

But I must pass to the second law. Where churches are united in a denomination, they have more to consider than the relative claims of the two churches interested in the migration of a pastor. They ought to inquire, what is the probable effect of the proposed choice on the attainment of the ends for which we are formed into a federation of churches? How will it affect our denominational efficiency and progress? Humanity is more than Europe, Europe is more than Britain, Britain is more than any one town, the town is more than any single ward; and so a federation of churches is (as you, Mr. Editor, would call it,) more than any single church: and the federation exists in vain if churches will not loyally accept and obey the law, "Thou shalt love the federation of churches more than thyself."

There is a church selfishness which is as hurtful to the church as individual selfishness is to man or woman. A church that saves its life for itself shall lose it. All self-seeking is a mistake, and churches need federations to enlarge their aims, purify their loves, and give them a wider and more lasting usefulness. And since no step is likely to affect so deeply their denominational sympathy and activity as the choice of a pastor, it is of great moment that they should give due consideration to the probable influence of their choice on the whole denomination. It is little and "belittling" for a town to consider none but "local interests" in sending a member to Parliament; and it is worse for a church belonging to a federation of churches to close its eyes to everything except what can be squeezed within its four walls.

BY REV. JOSEPH COOK, OF BOSTON.

EVERY true church is a contract, not between two parties only, but three. It is not only an agreement of men with men, but of men with God. In disbanding a church, men alone cannot annul the contract. This is the scholarly idea of the bond of Christians in fellowship with each other and with an invisible Head. Thus the Christians of the world are really and confessedly members of a Theocracy. You think Cromwell's and Milton's dream of a Theocracy failed. Many an archangel pities you, and all the deep students of science among men smile, if you say this seriously. God governs, and His kingship is no pretence. Our best hope for America is that it is, as every other part of the universe is, a Theocracy. A true church is the outward form among men of God's kingdom in human history, and it illustrates His kingdom in all worlds.

We must look on every true church as really a Divine institution, for it is a contract with the Unseen Power that is filling the world just as the magnetic currents of the globe fill all the needles on it. Our Lord was, and is, and is to come; and in all true believers He is as much present as the magnetic currents of the globe are in the balancing needles that point out the north pole rightly, if they are true to the currents that are in them, but not of them. The church is our Lord's body; the church is our Lord's temple; the church brings every true believer in contact with the deepest inmost of our Lord's present life in the world; and this is the supreme reason for uniting with it. It is painfully evident here, I hope, that I am speaking of a true church, and not of a Sunday club!

Experience has shown that most men who do not unite with the church drop away from their early religious life. The two great reasons for uniting with a true church are, that you are likely to grow more inside the church than out of it, and that you can probably do more good in it than out of it.

To which church do I ask you to join yourselves? I wish you could find out. Am I making a party plea? I wish you would find out on which side it is made. I know, perhaps, five hundred young men who are members of churches; but I do not know of twenty of them to which evangelical church they belong, nor do I care. It is not a partisan plea I am making in asking you to become a member of the visible church; and if you are a member of the true invisible church, you will assuredly wish to aid in making some part of the visible church a true church.

But you say that creeds are long. They are quite short in some places although they are deep. Not a few newspapers have lately cited a portion of the Andover creed which the professors there sign. That is in form a very different creed from the one that belongs to the Andover chapel church. The public does not seem to know that the detailed statement or confession which the professors may well be called on to subscribe, is a different thing from that statement of essentials which Andover puts into a church creed. The Andover chapel church creed is hardly longer than my hand is broad, but it is as deep as any rift in granite that goes to the core of the world. The best church creeds include great essentials and no more. I think now especially of the short creed in the Yale College church, written by President Dwight, not very wide, but fathomlessly deep. These are simply the creeds which you wish to make the basis of your action, and therefore may well make the basis of your profession

I hold in my hand the creed which the American Evangelist, who will soon lead our devotions, subscribed twenty-one years ago in Boston. That confession of faith has by the Divine blessing amounted to something in the world. As a ray of keen light for others, our evangelist will allow me in his presence to read what perhaps he never has seen, the record on the church books of his examination in that house of God yonder in which he first resolved to do his duty.

"No 1079. Dwight L. Moody.-Boards 43, Court Street. He has been baptized. First awakened on the 16th May. Became anxious about himself. Saw himself a sinner; and sin now seems hateful, and holiness desirable. Thinks he has repented. Has purposed to give up sin. Feels dependent upon Christ for forgiveness. Loves the Scriptures. Prays. Desires to be useful.

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Religiously educated. Been in the city a year. From Northfield, this State. Is not ashamed to be known as a Christian. Eighteen years old.

"No. 1131. March 12, 1856.-Thinks he has made some progress since he was here before-at least in knowledge. Has maintained his habits of prayer and reading the Bible. Believes God will hear his prayers. Is fully determined to adhere to the cause of Christ always. Feels that it would be very bad if he should join the church and then turn. Must repent of sin, and ask forgiveness for Christ's sake. Will never give up his hope, or love Christ less, whether admitted to the church or not. His prevailing intention is to give up his will to God.

That is a most moving record. Gentlemen, I hold that this is an examination that no church need feel ashamed of, and the results of it are of the same character.

The Christian ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper you do not approach closely unless you come into the church. There is a power in the close contact with illumined souls which will come to you nowhere outside of God's house. Why is it that there is such a strange power exerted by a great assembly all of one mind? Go to the little gatherings where some men of the class that neglect God's house spend their Sundays-fire-engine rooms and the secret clubs for drinking,-and all the sentiment runs one way there. Men are like eels in pools of the muddy sort, and by and by come to think their pool is the whole ocean. You are transfused with the spirit of any company that moves all one way. Put yourselves into the crystalline springs and streams. Somewhere in the church you will find crystalline waters. There is a church inside the church. Move in that! enswathed in that! Let that be the transfusing bath of your inmost life; and very soon you will find in the power of that interfusion of soul with soul that assuredly God is yet in His holy temple! Yes; but there are hypocrites in the church. I know it. Let Tennyson describe one.

"With all his conscience and one eye askew,
So false, he partly took himself for true;
Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry,
Made wet the crafty crow's-foot round his eye;
Who never naming God except for gain,

So never took that useful name in vain;
Made Him his cat's-paw, and the Cross his tool,
And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool;
Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged,

And, snake-like, slimed his victim ere he gorged;
And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest

Arising, did his holy, only best."-Tennyson's Sea-Dreams.

Do you

The black angels look through pillars of blue fire of that sort. want the church better? Unite with it and turn out such men; or rather, unite with it and keep such men from getting in.

Perhaps some of our churches are too ambitious to be large in numbers. Let us be reasonably shy of that church ambition which cares more for quantity than quality. Our evangelist has said that he once in Chicago was ambitious to have a big church. He got one. Then he became ambitious to get a small A recognition of the necessity of spiritual church membership is the crowning glory of the churches in America of all denominations, and it is almost a distinctively American idea.

one.

Think of the host in the air behind me, as I invite you to become members of God's house! Here is a visible audience which might be enlarged to fill the city, or the nation, or the continent, or the world; but even then the audience before me would be as a ripple compared with sea in contrast with this audience in the air behind me,-all the sainted of our New England shore, all who have gone hence from foreign lands and are now in the Unseen Holy! The church is one on earth and in heaven. Think of the martyrs of the Reformationthose who on the continent of Europe prepared the way for this modern rising of the sun; and of all those who in the eighteen Christian centuries have laboured, and into whose labours we have entered. The goodly company of the martyrs and apostles and prophets is before you! With all that company I urge you to join hands, when I ask you to pass your brief career in this world in organized, aggressive companionship with those who have a zeal for good works.

Out for a Sunday Holiday.

A REMINISCENCE.

"Of course we shall see you at chapel to-morrow," said a draper to us on a recent Saturday, on learning that we were about to have a Sabbatic rest. "Certainly not: I shall go and see how other drapers do their work and set out their windows."

Accordingly we betook ourselves to a chapel on the Sunday morning that had been a Baptist chapel, but has passed into the hands of the "New Church," or, popularly speaking, the "Swedenborgians." It was a wet morning, and we were two or three minutes before time; for in going to the "New Church" we desired to note not only any new doctrines that might be preached, but whether any new habits, such as punctual attendance and the like, were developed. On the matter of attendance there certainly was not much that was flattering; for the old sin of unpunctuality seemed to be in strong force in the sparse congregation.

But one thing was new. Scarcely had we entered the porch or lobby, when a female stewardess with an amiable kindness paid to us the utmost attention, disposed of a "moist" umbrella and a damp "waterproof," conducted us to a comfortable seat, and forthwith supplied us with the books necessary for the service, and thereby put us into the best possible mood for appreciating at its highest value the whole of the subsequent proceedings.

"Well," said I to myself, "this is the New Church most assuredly; and if all its credentials are only as good and praiseworthy as this, I shall have more joy in making an acquaintance with it in the flesh' than I have in the knowledge acquired from books. For, if my ears do not deceive me, courtesy and kindly attention are quite forgotten in most of the old churches and chapels, and a stranger is no sooner within the gates of Zion than he is made to feel that he belongs to the outer court, is not one of the flock, but is left to the uncovenanted mercies of heathendom. We have had “revivals," "awakenings,” and “movements for higher life." I really should like to see a "revival" of the ancient grace of Christian courteous treatment of visitors to our places of worship; a "movement" for treating religious worshippers almost as well as they would be treated in "clubs." I wish some Moody would preach to the churches the duty of repentance for this neglect, and some Sankey sing his solos in favour of "being kind" to the visitors to our church homes.

The audience was not large; for the regular minister was away, and it was only a "supply" who was officiating. Ah! said I, this belongs to the "old church," I fear: this is a lá Londoners generally, and is a thread of the ancient and orthodox church, woven into the garment of the new. Nor was this the only vestige reminding us of the Egypt we had left. Soon was it seen that in the "New Church" all things are not new; for the two ministers on whom the conducting of the service was devolved appeared in white surplices, read the prayers from printed books, and repeated the ten commandments.

Ministers, it occurred to us, have great advantages in the matter of wandering thoughts" over their congregations. Their attention is fixed on their subject and work, and the suggestions of the past do not obtrude so painfully upon their minds. The unexpected apparition of white surplices carried me back to the only occasion when we had such a solemn presence in our own chapel. It was a wedding ceremony, in which we took a subordinate part. All were waiting. A cab stopped at the chapel door, and down the aisle came the very reverend gentleman who had the chief working to do, looking for all the world as though he had put his night-shirt on. We shall never forget the scene! Never were risible faculties more strained! And as we gazed on the surpliced official of the New Jerusalem Church we said, amidst crowding visions of night-shirts, "Surely in the Church of the Future, ministers will find content in dressing as ordinary gentlemen."

The singing was exceedingly good; the sermon not the best we ever heard, and remarkable mainly for the use of common language in an uncommon sense. JOHN FOSTER, in his Essay on the aversion of men of taste to Evangelical

SCRAPS FROM THE EDITOR'S WASTE BASKET. 269

Religion, cites the use of old, dry theological, forgotten, technical terms, as one of the causes of that antipathy. Professor Seely insists on the need of using the current English of the hour for effective preaching. But had either of these two notables attended the New Church service, he would have asked for a Swedenborgian dictionary, in order to enter into the meaning of much that was said. But though this "peep" at the New Church did not impress us very deeply with the idea of its power and usefulness, nor fill us with desire to forsake the revelation of the New Testament for the revelation of Emanuel Swedenborg, yet we did wish that the kindness shown to strangers might become the distinguishing grace of all the churches of Jesus Christ.

In the evening we went to an "old" church, and heard an old man preach a sermon fresh with youthful enthusiasm and vigorous with youthful energy. A child might have understood his language; a cultured and powerful man must have been refreshed by his thoughts and appeals. There was no surplice;" there was a man standing amongst men, and reasoning with them as a brother and a father, now leading their thoughts to God, and now turning them in upon themselves.

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In the morning we were most deeply impressed on going in, in the evening we felt most deeply on coming out. JOHN CLIFFORD.

I.

Scraps from the Editor's Waste-Basket.

TRAINING FOR THE MINISTRY.Dr. Vaughan asks, "Where is the experienced pastor who would not gladly take under his general direction, from time to time, three or four candidates for holy orders? Great joy would it carry to the heart of one parochial clergyman-for him I can answer-to receive applications of such a nature; to find that there were men of blameless character, of steady purpose, of open mind and true devotion, who were willing to take up their abode in his parish, before ordination, to see what he could show them, and to render to him such services, in his schools and amongst his poor, as church order might permit and mutual convenience arrange. Then, and not till then, would he feel that his parish was efficiently worked, and he would cherish the hope that what was thus given to him would be repaid in some measure by opportunities of widening experience, and growing in the knowledge alike of man and of God." This plan has often been advocated amongst us, and there is a strong desire for its adoption in several quarters now. Many will remember how earnestly our beloved friend and brother Mathews urged it as the closing process in ministerial education. Its advantages are obvious and manifold. Could not, as the "Live Deacon" suggests, our College arrangements be made to include it? The only difficulty we know of is the financial one, and that might, by agreement between the receiving church and pastor and the College committee, be so arranged as not to be a burden to either. Dr. Vaughan has carried out this method for the last four

teen years, and more than 200 clergymen graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, have received at Doncaster and the Temple this kind of training. It is one of the capital needs of Free Church methods of preparing men for ministerial work.

II. ACCIDENTS will happen in the best-regulated periodicals until Editors have less work and more repose, better memories and more daring in universal verification. We confess to a feeling of shame that "How to write a letter" (p. 150) should have been allowed to go over to the credit of Henry Crabbe Robinson, when it is really due to Robert Robinson, the genial, the good, the great Robert Robinson, of Cambridge, author of "Village Discourses." See Vol. I., Bunyan Library, p. xxix. Nor is that the only error. The recipient of the advice was not a girl, but a boy-said boy being father to the late Ebenezer Foster, banker, of Cambridge. We could say something by way of excuse for this dual error; but no! We would rather break the pen, etc., etc., than try to shift an atom of the blame.

"Where is here?"" is a question asked by several correspondents. "Here" is, in this case, on page 154, line 14 from foot, and stands for Long Eaton. Will our long-suffering readers make this short correction?

III. THE AUGUST MAGAZINE.-Be sure to get it. It will contain Mr. Argile's Address at the Sunday School Conference on "The Little Ones," addresses at Home Missionary Meeting, etc., etc.