preceded him, and the clerk determined to produce an anthem worthy of the man and the hour. He took the words from Solomon's Song, and considered he had done a very fine thing indeed. Great was his indignation and mortification when his rector, glancing over the composition, laid an injunction upon the performance; it is doubtful if that clerk ever forgave the insult. words to have been sung were—

The

"Feed me with apples, feed me with apples, feed me with apples, for I am sick of love."

It has been a subject of controversy, warmly debated by the curious minded respecting such matters, to which of the leaders of the evangelical revival in the last century we are indebted for the saying, that "it is a pity that the Evil One should have a monopoly of all the good tunes." By some it has been ascribed to Wesley, and by others to the Rev. Rowland Hill, of Surrey Chapel. The phrase sounds like Hill; but the practice of taking secular tunes, and adapting them to doctrinal hymns, appears earlier in that century, and possibly came into general use through the Wesleys. Rowland Hill may have used the phrase in defending the custom of the day in his eccentric phraseology.

But to judge of an innovation on established custom, or a work of art either poem, picture, piece of sculpture, or musical composition-as if it were an effort of an isolated man of genius, is only viewing it, as it were, through a glass, darkly. The historian must first be consulted to see what were the special features of the age in which the work was produced; what was the literature of the period; what was the theology, the philosophy, the social conditions; and to what extent had the influence of foreign countries influenced the mind of the author. As knowledge has become widely diffused, and sources of information are open to the many where they were formerly only attainable by the few, it follows that there must be hundreds of men at the same time partaking of the same sources of inspiration, and all unconsciously working in the same grooves. But among those men there must be some who are the master spirits of the rest, the geniuses who idealise the spirit of the age, and inspire and lead their fellow men. Or to take a higher view, there are among all workers, men especially chosen of God for particular work, with peculiar gifts, and endowed with a power for influencing others that seems to border on inspiration. Of these, Whitfield and Wesley stand out most prominently in the eighteenth century; though there were others-lesser lights who ruled the day-Rowland Hill, Toplady, Newton, Cowper, and others, who each with his especial gift contributed his share in spreading the influence of religion under a new phase throughout the length and breadth of England.

At the latter part of the seventeenth century, and in the first part of the eighteenth, among thoughtful people a good deal of dissatisfaction with the state of religion prevailed. The dryness and formality of public worship-perfunctory Christianity, as it were grieved serious people. When Isaac Watts, the son of the schoolmaster at Southampton, ventured to raise his voice against the established order of things, and tell his father that he thought the metrical versions of the psalms contained no clear statement of Divine truth, and that something more was wanted, his father was horror-struck at the young man's presumption. Experimental religion was all very well, and doctrinal truth no doubt essential; but what need any one could find to give voice to such truths in public worship, was more than the orthodox old gentleman could bring himself to imagine. No doubt he was a little staggered by the practical form which his son's views took in writing off with such marvellous rapidity strings of verses, which must have been generally acceptable, judging by the currency they gained in a short space of time.

But the greatest reaction was that under Whitfield. What must have been the astonishment and indignation of those in high places in those days to see crowds of people following, literally as well as spiritually, a man who had had the audacity to say that Archbishop Tillotson had no more religion than Mahomet; or, in Scotland, to confess his utter ignorance of, and indifference to, the Solemn League and Covenant, and decline to preach about a thing with which he was so imperfectly acquainted! To the Scotch theologian of that day the whole world, religiously, politically, and morally, turned upon the question of that same Covenant; and Whitfield's indifference to its importance was viewed with as much horror as if he had denied the inspiration of the Scriptures. "Sir," said the Scotch minister to whom he had spoken, "every pin of the tabernacle was precious." "Yes," replied Whitfield; "but there were outside as well as inside workers, and I am one of the latter."

The word Methodism has been so inseparably connected with the Wesleys that people have come to forget that it had its origin as much with Whitfield as with them. At Pembroke College, Oxford, these young men became acquainted with each other, and united with some fellow students in prescribing and observing for themselves certain rules and methods of life, and so received in ridicule the appellation of Methodists. At that time none of these young men had the slightest idea of founding or establishing a new sect; they merely wished, as had been the practice of some of the first reformers in the Church of England, to revive such usages of private devotion, as the indifference of the times to all religion had

rendered not only obsolete, but had come to be considered ridiculous and extravagant.

It was, indeed, an unfavourable time for serious and practical Christianity in England, for it was sunk into the lowest state. Scriptural, experimental religion, which in the previous centuries had been the subject of the sermons and writings of the clergy, was considered to be exceedingly unfashionable; and the only thing insisted on was a defence of the outworks of Christianity against the objections of infidels. In consequence of this lukewarmness on the part of professing Christians, the writings, of infidels multiplied every day, and infidelity made a rapid progress among persons of every rank, not because they were reasoned into it by the force of argument, but because they were kept strangers to Christ and the power of the Gospel.

Bishop Butler, writing about the middle of the last century, says: "It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious; and accordingly they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of reprisals, for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world."

That this deadness to religion must have been universal in England we may believe, from the extraordinary conduct of the heads of the University of Oxford when Rowland Hill was an undergraduate. Some young men, who had become diligent students of Holy Scripture, found there glimpses of Divine truth to which they had hitherto been strangers. They were the first, in fact, of that band of preachers who were afterwards to revolutionise the face of religious society in England. When the authorities determined to expel these young men, the spirit of Hill and others rose in rebellion; and, on closer acquaintance with the persecuted and with the doctrines denounced, decided to become of the new school, and cast in their lot with their tabooed companions. These were the men whose work it was to be to change the order of things which for more than one hundred years had existed in England. Religion was to be heartfelt and real, and the expression of it individual and natural. The cantatas and anthems were doomed, and eventually the parish clerk himself was to become a thing of the past. Metrical versions were to drop out of sight; the very tunes to which they had been sung were to alter, not perhaps for the better, but in such a way as met the requirements of the age, and were in accordance with the theological spirit of the day.

453

MILTON MOUNT COLLEGE.

BY THE EDITOR.

"What is the whole business of education, but a practical application of rules deduced from our own experience, or from those of others, on the most effectual modes of developing and of cultivating the intellectual faculties and the moral powers?" DUGALD STEWART.

"

'Believing that women in general find nothing more serviceable to them than the ready use of their own common sense, assisted by a large amount of general intelligence derived from every source which can possibly be made available in early life, it has been a great object with me to extend this intelligence to some subjects not usually comprehended in the education of young ladies; and as I have had to do this without abating one iota of the accomplishments generally required, it has been made practicable chiefly by converting some of the ordinary branches of learning into what we consider more useful channels."

Mrs. ELLIS.

On a dark, sultry, autumnal day (Oct. 5, 1871), clouds lowering, and thunder brooding, we went down to Gravesend, to "assist," as our French friends would say, at the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of Milton Mount College, at Milton-on-Thames; or, as some of the official papers have it, "Milton-next-to-Gravesend." It was, of course, not a particularly pleasant journey. As we left Charing-cross the air grew heavier; as we swept by the fair Kent fields and woodlands, the signs of the on-coming tempest gathered thickly around us; and when we reached Gravesend, down came the pouring, drenching, thunder-rain, to the extreme dismay and discomfiture of all concerned.

But when we reached the tent, where a goodly company of ladies and gentlemen were already collected, we quite forgot" the sorrows of the way." The rain had not damped anybody's courage; for all was animation, earnestness, and enthusiasm; and, as the thunderpeals rolled and died in the far distance, and the patter-patter and drip-drip gradually ceased, and just as a line of golden light streaked the gloomy southern sky, the stone was pronounced to be duly laid by Samuel Morley, Esq., M.P. And then we adjourned to the Assembly Rooms in Gravesend, and took tea, and heard sundry speeches, till train-time warned us to depart; and, in the darkness and dreariness of the October evening, we steamed back again to London.

Far otherwise was it the other day-Friday, the 16th May, 1873 -when once more we gathered at the railway stations, and took our seats for Gravesend. It was a beautiful spring morning, clear, though cold for the season; the sun shone gloriously; the trees and fields were exquisite in their fresh verdure; and by-and-by the

river danced and glittered in the sunshine. It was a festal-day, in every sense of the word.

And there, standing proudly on its own "Mount," was the noble College for the Education of Congregational Ministers' Daughters, ready for the reception of the girls, who, three or four days later, were to muster to the number of a hundred and ten! The "Ladies' Meeting" was the inauguration of proceedings. Miss Davies, of the London School Board, addressed the ladies, speaking at some length of the sadly inadequate provision for the sound education of girls, which, even in this age of progress, is a reproach to us, both as Christian people and as subjects of our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria. Miss Hadland, the Lady President, then read a paper, which gave us a very clear idea of what the system of the institution will be, and at the same time expounded her own views, which, we feel bound to say, are of the highest and most enlightened order, at once simple and profound, and resulting from a strong conviction of the immense responsibility of the work to which, we doubt not, God Himself has called her.

After the meeting came the luncheon-a repast to which everybody seemed quite inclined to do full justice. And then, being refreshed, we distributed ourselves about the building, making a very close and thorough inspection of all that it contained. We went upstairs, and downstairs, and through the ladies' chambers, which latter are a marvel of prettiness, neatness, and comfort. The sleeping arrangements deserve special notice; the furniture is necessarily simple, but everything that is really needed. Any young lady dissatisfied with the dormitories and cubicules of Milton Mount College must be very hard indeed to please; the accommodation is infinitely superior to that of the aggregate of girls' boarding-schools under private management, where the "terms " are thirty, forty, fifty, and even sixty guineas a year, "without extras!" The elder girls have little rooms to themselves; each girl has her own bed, washing-stand, chest of drawers, which also serves for dressing-table; looking-glass, and pincushion. A strip of soft, bright-tinted carpet is at every bedside.

This plan of separate sleeping-rooms for elder girls does away with one great objection to public schools-an objection, by the way, which may be quite as strongly urged against private schools; the herding-one can call it nothing else-of girls, or rather young women, together, to the detriment of all those finer and more delicate instincts, which we ought to cherish most carefully, in the youthful female character. That there is an ample provision of convenient and properly secluded bath-rooms we need scarcely mention. We noticed that several of the small sleeping chambers were double the size of the "cubicules," and supplied with double