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COUNTRY SERMONS.

FORMER volume of sermons by Mr. Page Roberts having gone through four editions and been warmly received in quarters as far apart as the Westminster Review, the Nonconformist, the Church Herald, and the Spectator, one naturally expects a new volume from the same pen to be worth more than casual attention. In point of fact, these are very good sermons, simple, forcible, saturated with the results of recent culture, not over the heads of ordinary hearers, and, last not least, short. The sermons now before us were, with two exceptions, delivered to country audiences. The keynote of the discourse on "Revivalism" which was delivered at Westminster Abbey, is pitched no higher than that of the others: which says much for the preacher's command of his material and manner. The first sermon in the book, preached at Stowmarket, is upon Evolution;" and there is perhaps not one of them, which would have been entirely applicable in, say, the time of Paleyso great is the change which has come over our ways of looking at sacred things and speaking of them! Mr. Page Roberts appears to be a very liberal theologian, but very decidedly a Churchman-as may be seen at a glance from his discourse entitled, "The King's Highway."

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Here is a short passage which will very well exemplify the directness and simplicity of the preacher's manner :

"Yes, you believe that God sees you every moment, and that every moment you are in his power. But what difference does that belief make to you? Does it stop you from an unfairness in the shop or market, or on the exchange, when that unfairness will bring gain? A man would be sorry for his friends to think that he cheated or lied, but he does not care that God sees him and that He knows the pretence to the uttermost. There is no use in talking of his faith, he believes in vain.

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Again, we all believe that we are created by God to live for evermore, and that our future life will be the natural result of this; in other words, that God will render to every man according to his deeds. There are few men here, few men anywhere, who do not believe such simple, such elementary truths as these. But we act as though we did not believe in it at all, we act as though we believed that in death we come to our final resting-place. We believe that we are passing on quickly to the new and eternal world, and that each day is doing something to make our happiness or misery in that world—and yet we toy and play, idle and pass time. and are sometimes ennueyed to death; or we work, and degrade, and descend, till all noble sentiments have perished out of our nature, until the bell tolls, and there is a solemn funeral for one who has believed in vain. Better believe one thing in reality than a thousand things in vain. And it may be, in the last great day of definition, the despised Deist, who believing in God has sought as best he could to serve Him, may find it more tolerable then than he who on every Sunday cried 'Lord! Lord!' but believed in vain, because he did not the things which Christ spake unto him."

Certainly, there is no beating about the bush here. The most cultivated hearer finds nothing to complain of in the language used: the most ignorant can follow it. In what direction volumes like those of Mr. Page Roberts find their largest circulation we do not happen to know; but such discourses must make very useful models for young and inexperienced preachers who have brains, honesty of purpose, and a hatred of affectation.

It is to be hoped, however, that young and inexperienced preachers will not, by reading these or similar discourses, be tempted to go out of their depth or beyond

Reasonable Service. By W. Page Roberts, M.A., Vicar of Eye, Suffolk, Author of" Law and God." London: Smith, Elder, & Co.

their range. The simplicity of manner which Mr. Page Roberts so successfully cultivates is a good thing when united with information and command of principles. But it would be a very infelicitous result if inferior preachers were led to fancy that it is an easy, thing to deal as Mr. Page Roberts does with Comte and Tyndall in the pulpit: keep within sight of the least instructed hearer and yet never offend the most cultivated. It may well be added that the gift of taking up topics of the day and yet retaining the true keynote of the sermon is a very rare one. Those who have not the self-control of Mr. Page Roberts should not be in haste to attempt what he has done so well.

T

THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.*

HE time has gone by for reviewing Mr. Buchanan's Romance, and it is not in these pages that any general sketch of its plan will be sought for. But it need not, for all that, be passed over, without any attempt at a judgment of its claims as a work of art, or any word as to its moral scope.

"The Shadow of the Sword," though it took its place among the novels of the year, is a "Romance," and is altogether an exceptional book. It is a storyfounded, we learn by a side-note, upon real characters and real incidents,- a story of a Breton fisherman, Rohan, and his sweetheart, Marcelle, whose courtship and betrothal befall in the midst of the great Napoleonic wars. We think that, as a prose romance, it is a mistake. Mr. Buchanan has, or had, theories of his own about prose and poetry, and the superior possibilities of rhythm which lie folded up in the former. Admiring readers will say that he has by his practice done something to discredit his theory; and we do very distinctly maintain, recalling the well-known Miltonic phrase, that the poet has written this book with his left hand. It is so written that we feel what the power of the right hand must be; but lefthanded work it is-an exercise-a passing effort (for the effort is visible) of a man of genius, and no more.

Those who have read the book will best know what high praise this is. The conception is so fine, and the descriptive passages are so powerful, that one cannot help feeling that hardly anything is too much to look for from such a writer, if he can only concentrate himself. He knows, better than reviewers can tell him, the natural limitations of prose story-telling; he may like something craggy to break his mind upon; but, after all, there is no use in dissipating strength; and though Mr. Buchanan may have reasons for using his left hand rather than his right, he can have none that are good, if his right hand would serve his purpose equally well. As a poet he is always effective, and often great; but as a story-teller in prose he is, with all his splendour and pathos, a somewhat washed-out copy of -himself.

The general burthen of the story is probably known to most of our readers. Mr. Emerson has told us something that happened one day when he was out on a visit with Mr. Carlyle. Mr. Carlyle inquired, after dinner, if he could quote to them any American idea? Thus challenged, writes Mr. Emerson, I bethought me neither of court, cacus, nor newspaper (we quote from memory), but unfolded, as I was able, the great doctrine of no-government and non-resistance, and obtained a kind of hearing for it. I fancied, he adds, that one or two of my anecdotes produced some impression upon Mr. Carlyle. Sancta simplicitas! But Mr. Buchanan's hero, Rohan, like Mr. Emerson's, thinks a man too noble a creature to be butchered;

*The Shadow of the Sword. A Romance. By Robert Buchanan. Three volumes. London Richard Bentley and Son. 1876.

flies the conscription for conscience sake; is branded as a coward for it; and up to the end of the romance is a broken, unwed man, though not lonely, for Marcelle is with him. What Mr. Carlyle or even Mr. Emerson would say to the appearance of such a book in the very midst of the massacres in the East we cannot guess. But we can confidently inform the reader that if, upon the word of any review of this romance (and we have seen such reviews), he believes that Rohan is a coward, he is wofully misled. He is not a coward but a hero, and we shall be surprised if at some distant day Mr. Buchanan does not paint him over again—with his right hand. More strength to his arm when he does so!

THE CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

I

THINK that many of those whom I am about to address in this College* on the condition and prospects of our National Church, may very probably be asking themselves at this moment what possible claim I can have to do so, or what possible good can come of anything I may say. I, at any rate, very readily admit that such questions would be most reasonable, so perhaps a few preliminary words of explanation may not be out of place.

to me.

It was some months ago, before the late occurrences at Hatcham and all that has followed on them, that the proposal was made Even then I had serious doubt as to accepting, and ultimately did so with some reluctance. The doubt arose from a genuine belief that I had much more to learn from than to teach the members of Sion College on such a subject. It is true that I had been asked to speak or lecture on the Church question at Birmingham, Norwich, and elsewhere: but those addresses were delivered to popular audiences, to whom I had been asked to speak as a politician, and at times when this great controversy was in a very different phase. But in this place I knew that I should be addressing an audience of experts, the metropolitan representatives of the great profession (or "calling," to use the better word) of ordained ministers of the National Church—a very different and much more serious matter. Hence my doubt. My reluctance arose from a dislike to stir still waters, and raise discussion upon grave matters at a time when there seemed no pressing need for action or decision with regard to them. And I own that the earlier part of the past year appeared to me to bear many signs of such a time; for the usual motions, pointing to a

*This article was delivered as an address, at Sion College, March 13th. VOL. XXIX. 3 T

severance of Church and State, or to reconstruction or reform of one kind or another, had not been made in the House of Commons. In the addresses of members and candidates to constituencies last autumn, when reference was made to the Church question, it was generally treated as a kind of neutral territory in politics, even advanced Liberals, like Mr. Leonard Courtney, declaring, that though they were theoretically in favour of the entire severance of Church and State when the proper time might come, yet they saw no sign of its coming, and deprecated any attempt to force it. On the other hand, one most important Church reform, the full meaning of which has never been popularly appreciated,— I mean the subdivision of dioceses and the appointment of Suffragan Bishops who should not be Peers of Parliament,-had made great progress, almost without opposition from the nonconforming bodies or the Liberation Society. Thus far the time. seemed one for letting well alone, and I should certainly have desired to do so then, but for the smouldering discontent already too apparent in one extreme wing of the National clergy. In view of this, however, it seemed to me possibly worth while to put forward at Sion College a lay view of the matters which were causing such discontent amongst a section of Churchmen. So with this view I overcame my reluctance, never dreaming that before I should address you here, this smouldering fire would have burst into a blaze; that we should have, on the one hand, the Church Union publicly denying the right of the nation to control the clergy, and clergymen declaring that they "will labour night and day to set the Church of England free from a persecuting State;" on the other hand, the Liberationists, reassured at hearing their own war-cries issuing from within what they are used to regard as the hostile camp, openly preparing for a campaign which they seem to think may be the final one.

Had I been able to foresee such a state of things, I candidly confess that I should have declined this invitation. The prospect is to me altogether too sad and too confusing, and the issues are at present so undefined, and the forces on either side so undeveloped, that I would very gladly have been silent, at any rate till I could see more clearly how the great controversy was shaping itself, and what it behoved one to say or do in this matter who looks upon the connection of Church and State-of the spiritual and temporal life of the nation, as it exists, and has existed in England ever since we were a nation-as a part of our national inheritance which it would be a grievous misfortune, and an irreparable misfortune, to lose.

I am here, however, to speak to you on the subject, and must do so to the best of my ability, glad at any rate that you will hear the views frankly expressed of what I believe to be a much larger

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