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They pay him for his sermon,

But the money 's only lent: For it brings them a collection

In aid of their dissent. "He praises all they're doing;

But thinks it a disgrace

They've so poor a room for preaching,-
They should build a better place.
An Ebenezer Chapel

Would be just the thing he meant ;
So very grand, and useful

In helping on dissent.

"With driving and with scraping,

And with screwing from the poor, (They spare their own dear pockets), They get a little store;

But before the meeting 's finish'd,
The money 's gone and spent;
And they find that it's expensive
To set on foot dissent.

"But they raise a mighty clamour,
And they try to blind men's eyes
With tales about the parsons,

And half a score such lies:
To be sure it looks like sinning,
But they say it's all well meant;
And without a little falsehood,

Who could hope to teach dissent?

"And when it's done, what follows?
Why morning, noon, and night,
There's quarrelling and brawling,
Who's wrong and who is right:
Sedition and rebellion

Find a very easy vent;
And farewell to peace and order

In the place that has dissent!"

We Presbyterians, whose orders are as valid as those of Episcopalians, and who have retained the succession of apostolical doctrine and discipline, as well as of mere genealogical descent, can afford to smile at these hits at the irregularity of dissent. The getting up of such opposition meeting-houses, and the ministry of self-elected and unauthorised preachers, however justifiable in special cases, is in general as much deprecated by Presbyterians as by Prelatists.

The brawling and disorder of " political Dissenters in England will, we trust, lead the more sober and pious among the Congregationalists to return to the scriptural and sound system of Presbytery.

"" WHY DON'T YOU GO TO MEETING?" The Mother's Answer.

"You may tell me of the meeting where you Dissenters go;

You may tell me of the liberty that you Dissenters know;

I am little of a scholar, but the question is not long,

For he who stays away from church, I know, is going wrong:

There is a way that seemeth right, the holy Scripture saith,

In a man's own eyes, as yours does now, but the end thereof is death.

"It was in church, that happy day, the happiest of my life,

That my husband said, 'I take thee to be my wedded wife,

To have and hold, from this day forth, in sickness and in health,

For better and for worse, and in want as well as wealth: '

And I scarcely think, whatever you Dissenters choose to say,

That she's an honest woman who weds another way."

In this ballad, of which we quote two verses only, there is more than ecclesiastical bigotry; there is the same spirit, to which we will not affix an epithet, which attempted, in the matter of the Presbyterian marriages in Ireland, to sow doubts and discord and guilt among families not conforming to the Establishment. There is another ballad with the same title, intended, we presume, to preserve the minds of the young from "hatred, malice, and all uncharitable

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WHY DON'T YOU GO TO MEETING?"
The Child's Answer.

"Oh no! I dare not turn away

As

you would have me do;

I dare not leave God's house to-day,
To go to meeting too.

"In church God always waits, I know,
To hear His people's prayer;
But in the place to which you go,
His presence is not there.

"God's priest in church for God doth stand;
And when the prayers begin,
The Lord will give me, at his hand,
Forgiveness of my sin.

"But who taught others how to pray?

Who gave them power to preach?
Oh, this indeed is not the way

That God's own word doth teach!
"Do not the holy Scriptures shew-
(We know the story well)
Why Korah once, and Dathan too,
Went down alive to hell?

"And did not God strike Uzzah dead,
Because, through over-care,
Upon the ark his hand he laid,

Which only priests might bear?
"And Saul's sad end might make us wise,
Whom God in anger slew,
Because he offered sacrifice,
Which only priests might do.

"In church I was baptized; I'll praise
In church the Lord most high;
In church I'll serve Him all my days,
And in the Church I'll die.

"'Tis there I love His name to bless, And there to hear His word; How can I do this wickedness,

And sin against the Lord?"

Contrast the second verse of the foregoing hymn with that of Cowper, beginning:

"Jesus, where'er thy people meet,

There they behold thy mercy seat; Where'er they seek Thee, Thou art found, And every spot is hallow'd ground." Or, compare the spirit in which the children are expected to sing or say these lines, with that which breathes in the hymn of Dr. Watts:"Lord, how delightful 'tis to see

A whole assembly worship Thee; At once they sing, at once they pray; They hear of heaven and learn the way. "I have been there, and still would go, 'Tis like a little heaven below; Not all my pleasure, and my play, Shall tempt me to forget this day.

"O write upon my memory, Lord,

The texts and doctrines of Thy Word, That I may break Thy laws no more,

But love Thee better than before.

"With thoughts of Christ and things divine,
Fill up this foolish heart of mine;
That hoping pardon through his blood,
I may lie down and wake with God."

Here is another stanza, in praise of the Church:

"Though Baptists, Chartists, Infidels, Have set upon her sore; Wesleyans, Independents,

And other sects a score;

Yet how can we forsake her,
When she alone hath power
To guard and guide us while we live,
And bless our dying hour?"

To the Church, meaning thereby the Anglican clergy or priesthood, is thus ascribed power, which belongs to God only! It must, however, be rather mortifying to High Churchmen to find that they themselves are numbered by Roman Catholics among the "other score of sects," who arrogantly presume to exercise authority to which they have no title. We gladly leave the two to

settle their claims between them.

Before concluding, we must remark that Mr. Neale has written songs of so different a kind, that we regret the waste of talents on such subjects as we have already noticed. How he writes, not as the ecclesiastic, but as the Christian, the following lines will shew:

66 THE FISHERMAN'S SONG."

"Come, messmates! 'tis time to hoist our sail;

It is fair as fair can be;
And the ebbing tide and the northerly gale
Will carry us out to sea.

So down with the boat from the beach so steep,
We must part with the setting sun;
For ere we can spread out our nets in the deep,
We've a weary way to run.

"As through the night-watches, we drift about,
We'll think of the times that are fled,
And of Him who once call'd other fishermen
out

To be fishers of men instead.

Like us, they had hunger and cold to bear;
Rough weather, like us, they knew;
And He who guarded them by His care
Full often was with them too!

"'Twas the fourth long watch of a stormy night,

And but little way they had made, When He came o'er the waters and stood in their sight,

And their hearts were sore afraid;
But He cheer'd their spirits, and said, It is I,
And then they could fear no harm;

And though we cannot behold Him nigh,
He is guarding us still with His arm.

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lost,

When their Lord was fast asleep :'

He saved them then-He can save us still-
For His are the winds and the sea;
And if He is with us, we'll fear no ill,
Whatever the danger be.

"Or if He see fit that our boat should sink,
By a storm or a leak, like lead,

Yet still of the glorious day we'll think,
For they who depart in His faith and fear
When the sea shall yield her dead;

Shall find that their passage is short, From the troublesome waves that beset life here,

To the everlasting port."

LORD CHANCELLOR ELDON AND THE PRESENT BISHOP OF EXETER.

DURING his last illness, Dr. Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, who was connected with him by marriage, hearing of his weak state, called upon him and prayed with him. Not having touched on any topic that was distasteful, this visit passed off most satisfactorily. The next time said, "I have had another doctor since I Mr. Pennington appeared, the patient saw you." "I am glad of it," answered the worthy apothecary. "Oh, but," said

I see

Lord Eldon, "he was a spiritual doctor, | matters of consideration at a time when not a medical. The Bishop of Exeter you were not prepared to admit them, or paid me a visit, and after sitting a little in a manner which may have been by me, and observing me look very ill, he deemed too earnest and importunate. got up and bolted the door, and knelt That you pardon the intrusion, I have no down by me. 'Let us pray,' he said. doubt, and that you ascribe what may He did pray, and such a prayer! I have been ill-timed, or ill-considered, to never heard such a prayer.' A few the true cause-an anxious wish to lead days subsequently, as was gathered from a highly gifted mind like yours to those Lord Eldon's own statement, the thoughts which alone can satisfy it. Bishop repeated his visit, and after some religious conversation with him, was alarmed by finding the entire selfsatisfaction with which he looked back on the whole of his past life, and his great seeming reliance on his own merits. In the true spirit of a faithful Christian | pastor, who must not regard the rank or station of a dying man, the Bishop tried, in mild terms, to remind him that we have all followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts; and that, confessing our faults, we ought to look elsewhere for pardon than to the recollection of the good works which we may rashly impute to ourselves. The old peer thereupon became very refractory, thinking that some personal disrespect was shown to him, and that a slur was meant to be cast upon his conduct as a public man, which he had ever regarded as most spotless, as well as consistent. He was particularly indignant at the thought of such a charge coming from one whom, notwithstanding a show of outward civility, he had regarded with some secret suspicion from the part at last taken by the Right Reverend Prelate respecting Catholic emancipation; and he considered it particularly hard to bear taunts from such a quarter. As the exChancellor displayed some impatience and even resentment, the pious Divine in vain strove to make him understand that the only object of this conference was to call his attention to spiritual things, -and having exhausted all the means which the acutest intellect, the deepest knowledge, and the most winning manners could supply, was obliged to retire without, in any degree, making the impression which he desired. Next day Lord Eldon received the following most beautiful letter, which no doubt brought him to a right frame of mind, and which may be perused with advantage by persons of all ages and all conditions of life, whether in health or in sickness :

"MY DEAR LORD,

"I take blame to myself for having, as I fear, obtruded on you some important

"Before I leave this place, instead of again trespassing on you in person, I have resolved to commit to paper a few considerations which your own powerful mind will know how to improve, and which I humbly pray the Holy Spirit of God to impress, so far as they accord with His truth, on the hearts of both of us. I contemplate in you, my dear Lord, an object of no ordinary interest. a man full of years and honours-honours richly earned,—(ay, were they tenfold greater than they are,)—by a life which, protracted long beyond the ordinary age of man, has been employed during all the period of service, in promoting, strengthening, and securing the best and most sacred interests of your country. I see in you one who has largely benefited the generation of which you have been among the most distinguished ornaments. Seeing and feeling this, I am sure you will pardon me if I exhibit a little even of undue eagerness to perform to you the only service I can hope to render-that of exciting such a mind to those reflections, by which, after serving others, it can now do the best and surest service to itself. In truth, those reflections are few and brief, but most pregnant. In short, my dear Lord, I would seek most earnestly to guard you against the danger which arises from the very qualities which we most admire in you. That danger is, lest you contemplate those matters with too much satisfaction, lest you rest upon them as the grounds of your hope of your final acceptance with God. dear Lord, the best of the sons of men must be content, or rather must be most anxious, to look out of themselves, and above themselves, for any sure hope,-I will not say of justification-but of mercy. Consider the infinite holiness and purity of God, and then say whether any man was ever fit to appear at His tribunal. Consider the demands of His law, extending to the most secret thoughts, and wishes, and imaginations of the heart, and then say whether you, or any one, can stand before Him in your own

Oh! my

strength, when He cometh to judgment. | No: it is as sinners, as grievous sinners, we shall, we must appear; and the only plea which will be admitted for us, is the righteousness and the merits of our crucified Redeemer. If we place any reliance on our own poor doings or fancied virtues, those very virtues will be our snares, our downfall. Above all things, therefore, it is our duty, and pre-eminently the duty of the purest and best among us, to cast off all confidence in ourselves, and thankfully to embrace Christ's most precious offer on the terms on which he offers it. He will be our Saviour only if we know and feel and humbly acknowledge, that we need His salvation. He will be more and more our Saviour in proportion as we more and more love and rely upon Him. But surely the more we feel and deplore our own sinfulness, the more earnest will be our love, the firmer our reliance on Him who alone is mighty to save. Therefore it is, that, in preparing ourselves to appear before Him, the less we think of what we may fondly deem our good deeds and good qualities, and the more rigidly we scrutinize our hearts, and detect and deplore our manifold sinfulness, the fitter shall we be, because the more deeply sensible of the absolute necessity and of the incalculable value of His blessed undertaking and suffering for us. One word only more,-of ourselves we cannot come to this due sense of our own worthlessness, and the devil is always ready to tempt our weak hearts with the bait which is most taking to many among us-confidence in ourselves. It is the Holy Spirit who alone can give us that only knowledge which will be useful to us at the last the knowledge of our own hearts, of their weakness, their wickedness, and of the way of God's salvation, pardon of the faithful and confiding penitent for his dear soul's sake. Oh! my dear Lord, may you and I be found among the truly penitent, and then we shall have our perfect consummation and bliss among the truly blessed."-Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors.

COMMON SENSE NOTIONS ABOUT

PASTORAL VISITATION.

(From the Free Church Magazine.) THE writer of this paper subscribes to everything that can be said to magnify the importance of pastoral domiciliary visitation. He believes that it is next to im

possible to exaggerate the value of this department of ministerial duty. In walking with his flock, the minister not only does good, but gets good. It is his solemn duty to cultivate all opportunities of coming into a conciliating, close, affectionate, and spiritual contact with the people of his charge. He must teach Christ from house to house with the most painful diligence.

66

Granted all this; I must yet assert that there prevails a demand for ministerial household visitation which is wholly excessive and unreasonable. Dr. Chalmers, in one of the latest papers which he sent to the press (letter to the editor of Lowe's Magazine for January, 1847), speaking of the labours of town ministers, says: They are in the state of overworked men a state of exhaustion, aggravated by the extravagant notions of ministerial ubiquity, which abound everywhere, and in virtue of which they are plied with demands for service from all points of the compass." Every minister is assailed by these extravagant demands. But the most perverse and harassing form they take is that of incessant and somewhat imperious solicitation to keep up a round of visitation. The following samples of the expectations entertained by our people actually fell within the writer's experience. He entered a house where there was an aged person, but not bed-rid nor unhealthy, and where he had been seven times in his ministerial capacity within eighteen months. It is four miles from his place of residence. His salutation from three or four voices at once, with gestures of astonishment in every variety, was, Hech, sir, sic a stranger! Visiting an invalid at the distance of a mile, a member of the family says, as the minister is going out, "We're real muckle obleeged to you for this visit; an ye canna come ilka day, we'll be content wi' ye ilka ither day.' Again, the writer went to visit another family, to which he thought he had done his duty to supererogation. Luckless man! little did he imagine how the tables were to be turned. In a gentle, reproachful but forgiving tone, he is told, "We were thinkin' ye had forgotten us a'thegither." Twice has it happened to him to be solemnly forgiven for imagined neglect, by persons on their death-bed, as if he had been their murderer; and in neither case, though the grave could give them back, does his conscience suggest to him that he ought to have been more assiduous

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66

than he was. In fine, conscientiously toiling to the very limits of his strength, and incessantly harassed with complaints of neglect and shortcoming, the weary man is fain to cry, with Job, "Oh, that they would let me alone while I could swallow down my spittle!" It is the same everywhere. It is quite common for those who affect to know more of the matter than their neighbours, to say, "Oh, we don't so much mind what a man is in the pulpit-that's but one day in the week-if he be a right man, a man who is always among his people throughout the week." In short, pastoral visitation has been cried up till it might almost be thought the exclusive test of a good minister. It is not so. The pulpit is his great arena. He must concentrate his strength for that. He must always do his very best there. The character of the whole Church is just the character and standing which the pulpit is able to maintain. It is merely sinful in minister to satisfy first all demands for visiting, leaving the pulpit to fare as it may on the residue of his time. The pulpit must be satisfied first, and satisfied fully, laboriously, faithfully; while pastoral visitation, kept to its proper place, is entitled to no more than the careful gathering up of the fragments.

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We are quite sure that in these our common-sense notions of pastoral visitation, we enjoy the sympathy of very many of the brethren, who are aware that were they to speak in this strain, they would run no small risk of being suspected of semiModeratism. But we are not putting in a plea for ministerial ease or indulgence. We are striving against a tendency, which, if indulged, will have the worst effect upon our ministry. Nothing but solid, thorough, and systematic preparation for the pulpit can build up a permanently useful ministry. Such prepation is perfectly incompatible with a large amount of visiting. No man can for any length of time carry on both. Dr. Chalmers himself, when translated from Glasgow to St. Andrews, is understood to have begun to feel the combined pressure of pulpit preparation and extensive pastoral visitation insupportable even for him. There need be no delicacy in saying that those ministers who carry household visitation to the greatest length, are far from being the most remarkable for habits of careful pulpit preparation. That weighty duty demands the majority of the days of the week. Exact a great amount

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of visitation and you render the pulpit ministrations weak, wordy, jejune, and tiresome, through the want of that variety which you render impossible when you do not leave the preacher time to search out acceptable words. That is the plain common sense and inevitable upshot of the matter. What rational man could ever expect it to be otherwise?

In favour of household visitation we will cheerfully sacrifice personal_convenience, relaxation, the pleaures of congenial society, the delights of literature; but let exaction stop short of that degree at which we should be compelled to sacrifice the pulpit too. For the Church to do that, would be,

"Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas

for the sake of living to lose the thing for which we live.

At present, it is the cue with many of the incumbents of the Establishment to run much about among the people. Many of our Free Church friends, and even office-bearers, think it necessary to compete with them by a similar exhibition of fussy diligence, lest our adherents should be stolen away. This is an idle fear. Our people are not always considerate in their demands at present; but "treat the multitude rationally and frankly, and you will not fail to have the multitude on your side." We deserve to lose our adherents by the thousand, if we are capable of doing anything to keep them together which we would not do out of love to their souls, and zeal for our Master's glory. Let us hold calmly on our way, regulating the discharge of our duty so that no one part shall jostle out another.

The large number of young men ordained since the disruption have been under peculiar disadvantages for acquiring those enlarged stores of professional knowledge, which, in a quieter time, they would have been allowed the leisure to accumulate before entering on full ministerial duty. Often, immediately after being settled, they have been thoughtlessly hurried into a laborious course of visitations. Had they been judiciously dealt with, they would have been encouraged rather to take the study as their field of strenuous labour, and to come gradually up to the full mark of outdoor duty as they gathered strength and experience. Real mischief has been done by the thoughtless urgency which has led not a few of our excellent young ministers to engage upon a scale of work

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