me. I was delighted, convinced, and grateful from what I had thus far seen of the Irish Church Missions. Am I extravagant in my assertion thus far, that the Irish Church Missions had been proved by me to be a most important work; and this new Reformation a real and actual, and probably permanent change and elevation among the people of that dark and wretched land? But I have yet more important and interesting facts to communicate, and my readers must indulge me with one more article upon the subject. I have no question their own conclusion from the whole story will be a feeling of sincere gratitude to God for that which he hath thus wrought. S. H. T. ARTICLE VI. By The Whole Works of Robert Leighton, D.D., Archbishop_of THE Gospel frequently displays its power by producing, in the least favorable circumstances, the most beautiful manifestations of true grace. In Corinth, the very hot-bed of the worst licentiousness of Greece, God had "much people," who are said to have "come behind in no gift." "In Cæsar's household" the Cæsar referred to being Nero-St. Paul informs us there were "saints." In the shameful court of Charles II., Margaret Blagg (afterwards Mrs. Godolphin) moved like an angel, with robes perfectly unsoiled. And in the times of the same sovereign, when all the scum of boiling passions, many years indulged, was floating foully over the surface of society, there flowed through the very centre of the feculence the clear, bright stream of the beautiful example of the almost heavenly Bishop of Dumblane. In the whole history of Christianity it would be difficult to find an instance in which more lovely fruits have been produced by it than in the life of this admirable man. Born in 1611, he came upon the stage of active life in the very midst of the terrible convulsions with which Britain was shaken to its centre-the dust of a falling throne around him, and the scenes of a fierce civil strife continually in his field of view. An obstinate monarch was endeavoring to impose upon the people the yoke of an oppressive arbitrary power. An as obstinate ecclesiastic was laboring to bind upon the clergy observances opposed to the tastes and the convictions of very many of the most pious in the Church. Both had mistaken the characters they had to deal with, and both had raised against themselves a spirit of intelligent and determined opposition. And as the policy of King and Churchman had been essentially the same as both pressed equally towards a domineering absolutism; and as each countenanced the other in his aims, religious feeling mingled with the contest for mere civil rights, gave fearful intensity to the passions that had been aroused, and made men feel that they were "doing God service" in seeking utterly to overthrow a monarch that had grown into a tyrant, and an archbishop that seemed laboring to be a pope. The issue, as all know, was the triumph of the popular and Presbyterian side, the dethronement and judicial murder of the sovereign, and the bringing of the abetting ecclesiastic to the block. Only as regard for monarchical authority outlives in those brought up beneath it the reverence for priestly rule, and as resentment for oppression of the conscience is keener than that for invasion of one's civil rights, Laud had to mount the scaffold some time anterior to Charles. Leighton was not without experience of the violence of the struggle that was going on before this final bloody crisis had been reached. His father, Dr. Alexander Leighton, a warm Presbyterian, published, in 1628, a virulent assault against Episcopacy. It was a dangerous subject for an essay when the Star Chamber was in being, and such a man as Laud was at the board. Common prudence-to say nothing of Christian principle should have dictated the treating of it with gentleness and moderation; with an effort at strong arguments rather than strong words. But in the heat of partisan con tention common prudence generally finds small place. In the case of Leighton, Senior, it was wholly disregarded. His book showed neither the wisdom of the serpent nor the harmlessness of the dove. It was full of bitter vituperation against the heads both of the Church and State. It called the Queen "a daughter of Heth;" said that the King was "corrupted" by the prelates; declared prelacy to be "anti-Christian and Satanical;" spoke of the bishops as "ravens and magpies," "men of blood," and "enemies to God and to the State; and, with a significancy not to be mistaken, commended the murderer of the Duke of Buckingham, and hinted at encouragement for like attempts. The Star Chamber must have lost its character if it could suffer such language to remain unpunished. And it was punished savagely. Its author was whipped and pilloried, his ears cut off, his nostrils slit, a fine of £1000 imposed,* with imprisonment in Newgate till it should be paid-an imprisonment subsequently suffered for upwards of ten years. At the time of this cruel sentence on his father, Leighton was eighteen years of age. If fiery passions ever dwell in one they are at that period at their very head. And it would certainly have been any thing but wonderful if the hot blood of his youth had overboiled at such a punishment. We could easily have excused in him a considerable hatred for both monarchy and prelacy, when he had seen their authority so enormously abused. But he was naturally of a gentle temper, and seems to have come early under the influence of heavenly grace. He had learned in Christ's school the lessons of a charity that "is not easily provoked," "thinketh no evil," "beareth all things," "endureth all things," "suffereth long, and is kind." He probably saw, too, that if the representatives of Church and State had erred, they at least had been alone in it; and that, at any rate, a system is not to be held responsible for the malconduct of those who may temporarily administer it. His loyalty to government was, consequently, not impaired by the high-handed tyranny of Charles, nor his candid consideration of Episcopacy hindered by the inquisi * Equal to $10,000 in our day. torial violence of Laud. He became a good subject of the descendant of the former, and received Episcopal consecration finally at the hands of the successor of the latter. Nor can we find, in a careful search of all his works, one word of resentment against the perpetrators of the punishment his father underwent, or any thing to indicate that the fire of such a feeling had passed over him. But heavy storms leave their traces always, and it is not improbable that the cautious prudence of his later life owed something to the recollection of this period of his youth. He was at college in Edinburgh when his father suffered, and continued there till the second year after the sentence on him was pronounced. Some years were subsequently spent in France, apparently in the further prosecution of his studies; and it was not till the ripe age of thirty that he entered-Nov. 16, 1641-upon active duty as an ordained minister of Christ. His inclinations, even from his youth, had been towards a moderate Episcopacy; and had such been existing at the time in Scotland, he might, perhaps, have received his ministerial commission through that line. But during his absence on the Continent, the Scotch estates-in 1638-had abolished all shadow of Episcopacy, and established a complete Presbyterian Church government instead. And as Leighton held an Episcopal succession of less consequence than a pure preaching of the Gospel, he did not hesitate to receive, through the established Presbytery, his license to go forth to preach. The parish of Newbottle, in Mid-Lothian, was blessed with the first labors of his ministry. It was near enough to Edinburgh to allow of ready access to the libraries of the great town; and yet, deep in the shadows of the Pentland Hills, with the little Esk flowing sweetly through its vales, it afforded his contemplative and studious spirit the retirement that he loved. For upwards of twelve years he went about among its families, affectionately ministering to the afflicted and the poor, instructing the children in the Catechism, and urging on the adults of his flock portions of Scripture on which he preached on Sundays and lectured during the week. For weekly lectures formed, in those days, inseparable parts of Scotch ministerial work. Few records of these pastoral years remain to us; but we can easily imagine how almost angel-like that refined, tender, gentle spirit must have seemed, engaged continually in the holy duties of religion, and in the midst of the intensest agitation with which the nation was swept, as by a storm, leading his flock by the still waters and to the green pastures of God's truth, all round him preaching of "the times" while he preached "Jesus Christ and eternity." The beautiful picture Goldsmith has drawn for us of the pastor of "Sweet Auburn," approaches nearest the conception we would form of the subject of our article in these first pastoral days; only here, in addition to the pure simplicity and tender amiableness which the poet has depicted with such skill, there was a noble and highly cultivated mind, and a heart full of the rich spirit of religion, of love for Christ, and love for souls, and love for the truth which brings souls to the Saviour and builds them up in him under the influence of the Holy Ghost. But worth like his could not be kept pent up within the limits of the humble sphere in which he moved. Promotion that he never would have sought, eventually sought him. He was too near the metropolis not to be somewhat known among "the better sort" in the fair city whither he occasionally went. For years, rumors had been coming now and then across the Pentlands of the rich learning, lofty intellect, and heavenly piety of the minister of Newbottle; and in A.D. 1653, those who had the affairs of the University of Edinburgh in charge felt that they could not better consult its interests than by calling to its Primarship him whom every body praised. It was a difficult position-the centre of a nation's observation at a time when the mind of the nation was thoroughly aroused. But humble as Leighton was in his estimate of his powers, he could not but be conscious of ability to meet the responsibilities of such a place. His mental constitution was of the finest mould. He had had great advantages for the improvement of it. The best teaching Scotland afforded in his day had been enjoyed by him in his youth. The benefit of intercourse with learned men, and of aceess to large libraries abroad, had not been lost on him. And all those years of rural quietness, amidst the Lothian vales, had doubtless |