412 Rain! rain! it is summer rain! SUMMER RAIN. And it scarcely sounds on the window-pane; With a smile and blush as bright as thine. But he is not afar who loveth thee. With the love and the light of thy gentle eyes. On the southern hills, beyond the bay, But the sun should shine upon thee alway. Rain! rain! it is summer rain! And it ceases, at last, on the window-pane; A smile might be false, but a tear is true. And the breeze that comes hath blown on thee; And every leaf, and every grass, Love! Love! And I would, that for thee, I could gather them. Will tremble and blush, as we pass, on their stalks ; And I love thee, ever more and more. A THE PULPIT. THE Press is assailed often in the pulpit, and sometimes from its own place it retaliates. Both are engaged in a good work, although they may not always agree. Both have occasionally bad specimens of their classes. There are immoral publications in this world, and there have been useless pulpits. The pulpits avowedly deal with the interests of the future; the press more palpably with the affairs of the present. Still, all these matters are, or should be, blended together. It is an error to separate them. Mau's duty should be man's religion. Life comes to a great break, and men do not see beyond itt-as they do not see to-morrow, and what it may bring forth; but life is a whole, and should be dealt with in that sense. One man may be storing up heaps of money, yet be the most remarkable spendthrift of his street or his town. Another may be apparently following pleasures, when he is going as rapidly as possible into trouble. Facts are misnamed in society, and it gains nothing by these blunders. They proceed out of the error common to all, whereby life is not divided even into parts, but kept as two distinct and separate lives. Accordingly, the pulpit takes less cognisance than may be desireable of this current stage of existence. It resembles an institute of the future more than of the present. Some portion of its fair influence may be squandered in this way; and for many years it appeared not to exercise the power which it might have possessed. The force is large. Its officials in this island are a perfect corps d'armée, engaged in its work. At least, twenty-five thousand men, of ordinarily good education and fully average minds, are employed in pressing on the people the acceptance of glad tidings. This Gospel has its conditions. They oppose the natural inclinations of mankind; but in this country they have gained many apparent and professed converts. They have moulded our institutions and our social system into some degree of conformity to their spirit. The greater part of the inhabitants call themselves Christians. Moreover, I think that the majority believe what they say. I do not consider that the greater part of my acquaintance and friends are hypocrites; and I do not believe them to be better than the acquaintance or the friends of other people. Hypocrisy is not, in my opinion, a common crime. This opinion may, however, be formed upon excess of charity, of good nature; or, not to be too indulgent in my own case, from defective knowledge of the world. Still, I assume at present its accuracy, and nobody can demonstrate its inaccuracy, since hypocrisy cannot be proved, and can only be surmised. He who formed the heart has retained the evidence of this guilt in His own keeping. Men may make the impulsive oscillations of an illbalanced mind into evidences of hypocrisy, with which they may not have any sympathy: but they do not prove the offence. A vast multitude in this country are apparently, therefore, believers in the Gospel. The great majority of our population, indeed, are allies of the pulpit, and its power should be immense. That power is immense in subordinate matters. "The Church is in danger" has for two hundred years elicited a response, like wildfire for intensity and rapidity. "Freedom of conscience" and "religious liberty" have roused echoes that ceased not till cabinets fell and thrones were wrecked. The power is great, but it is not directed with skill. It generalises when it should individualise. I do not mean that, more than "the press," it should deal with individual crimes, much less peculiarities; but it should call for individual work. Fifty years since "the pulpit" was not aggressive, and the churches were passive. The congregations came and went. They heard much of duties and faith; many of the hearers were comforted, doubtless, and many passed out of the tribulations of this preface to life- into life. Still, the character of the services were nearly Jewish in their carelessness of proselytising. Propagandism was reckoned discourteous, and those who neglected it assumed credit for good manners. The heathen were left to be the heathen continually, as if, like cloud and storm, in the physical, they were a perpetual inheritance of the religious world. Even if a hope of their conversion at some period rested in many minds, it did rest. It was hope in a miracle. It was confidence that, where they did nothing, something would be done. They leant back, with life-long composure, on the doctrine of their own helplessness in the matter an orthodox doctrine, in one sense; but they looked always to one side, and never turned to the other. There were exceptions, The founders of mis sionary societies were the exceptions; but they were deemed generally enthusiasts-innocents with a want; and I am correct in saying that seventy years have not passed since their objects were stigmatised in the General Assembly of the Scotch Church as intrinsically objectionable, and likely enough to produce bad results. As for the English Church, one must read the history of Wesley and Whitfield to know its state at that time. The Pulpit of Scotland in these days was excessively dull and square. Any man who has had an opportunity of looking over old discourses will admit that they were cool and tame. The character changed gradually; but they are still argumentative and disputative, rather than exhortations. In England, the hearers were generally satisfied when prayers were read well. I recollect having been unable to obtain space to sit or "kneel" in one cathedral during chaunting and prayers; but three-fourths of the congregation departed before the sermon. They had said their prayers," whatever that may mean, and they were satisfied. The mistake was all the greater that the discourse was very intelligent and useful. An opposite course was adopted in Scotland; for in all things-even in our Christianity-we are an opposition people, and ofttimes right. Our plan of worship got, at last, into an extreme fit of intellectuality. I once was in a church for one hour and nearly three-quarters. The time was entirely occupied by the minister's own composition, except so much as was required to read and sing-I believe twenty-four lines altogether-and to read the text of his discourse, which did not exceed, I think, twelve words. The scheme was dreadfully erroneous, and inconsistent with the instructions of the speaker's superiors. This excess of discoursing is now abandoned, without any injury to our intellectual standing, but with much advantage in every respect. Still, Scotch discourses are chiefly cast in the old mould. They seem framed generally to demonstrate some fact or principle in which the hearers have believed from their infancy upwards. Logical reasoning is extremely stupid when it is not wanted. On earth nothing bores me more than too much proof. The idea of a young gentleman, who I know to be rather immature in his learning and opinions, occupying an hour of the most valuable time that a hard-wrought man possesses—namely, his Sabbaths-in making quite clear the doctrine of justification by faith, to six or seven hundred persons, who believed it before he was born-and some of them before his mother was born-is very odd; and would appear very singular to "the fathers of the Church,' if they would take the matter into their thoughts. The greater part of minds in the world find one quarter of an hour's dry, good, hard argument all that they can employ profitably for one time. The belief of many persons is much better than their practice. But I am told, "Make sound the creed, and the practice will follow." Perhaps so; but I would like to see it. The great evil in our congregations is, that there are so many hearers who are not doers | doctrines, and know that it was painful, I have of the word. learned to lay "great stress" upon the necessity of services being adapted for the young. I am never likely to forget the denunciations of goodness, as I understood them, which I heard from one evangelical minister. He went over all the commandments. I thought, as to the first, that I had not broken that; and I was quite sure in reference to the second, as I read it. I could not respect to the carnations already mentioned, I was pretty strong in the fourth, and very anxious to obey the fifth. So on with the others to the end. All this, however, he assured me and others, was of no use. He should have told us that our obedience was merely comparative, and not full or real. As it was, I went home dispirited, and thought for nearly a whole week. "I need not try, it's of no use." That came from too much speaking, and too little thinking, on the part of the minister; for all that he said, if it had been expressed thoughtfully, consisted with my own opinions now, to which I would have felt no objections then. A child appreciates truth soon if it be kindly told; and there is nothing in the simple truth that may not be understood in early years. The pulpit has not the influence that it might and should wield, from a curious oblivion that creeps over pastors and people. They do not remember that they were young. I recollect my infancy. It must have been extremely happy and pleasant, I remember it all so well. "Good men," and especially a certain class of ladies, are sure to consider me to have been a desperate re-recall any offence against the third. Except in probate in my youth, when they hear this candid confession, which I make, like others, for the public good. I did not like much to attend public worship. I liked the walk to church, and I much better liked the walk back to dinner at home. That is the simple truth. I had a good opinion of the singing; and, although it was far from being fine, yet I could have taken it somewhat longer with satisfaction. I knew that prayer was very solemn, and had recourse always to "Our Father," which I could repeat quietly to the end; but I did not comprehend hard words. The sermon went completely out of my depth. It was so difficult to remember the text, for repetition in the afternoon, that I never made anything of the heads. The minister was blameless. He did not intend me to profit by his services; but he expected me to sit demure and quiet in a corner, as if the discourse had been all plain to my understanding. He had formed similar expectations of other young people. The difficulty was, that perents had the same ideas; and there was an old nurse of mine, perfectly sensible on all other subjects, who, for two hours of each Sabbath, was my terror. The Press was nothing better then than the Pulpit. There were few of those little books that now enliven and instruct together. The path to learning was dry and hard. The path to religion was drier and harder-not a green blade nor a little flower to be seen by a child in all the road, unless in the Book itself. It was always full of marvellous history-from the tragedy of Cain killing Abel, down to that grandest dinner-party ever met on earth, upon the shores of the Sea of Tiberias; or to the river of life, and the gates of pearls, and the streets of gold, and where there is no night; to that land where there is neither sorrow nor crying; beside the living fountains whereby God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." The youngest, who are able to read, comprehend all these matters, although they may have no opinion whatever on Apocalyptic interpretations. Still, they think of the Book of Life, and the holy city, the great street, and the pleasant tree of life. I once took courage from a few words" Consider the lilies how they grow," to look at some carnations and stars of Bethlehem, which were my private property; and, although it was on the holy day, I, a very little child, did not feel myself worse in consequence. Because I remember the entire process of antipathy, and then interest, preceded by an unbelief in "evangelical" The Pulpit should be made attractive to the young. Boys and girls under ten or twelve years of age form one-fourth part of all congregations. There are four millions of them at least, or, perhaps, five millions in this island; and if the services of religion were made acceptable and attractive to them, less would be said than we hear now, twenty years hence, of the want of churches and the neglect of public worship. Any person in Glasgow may do exactly what I did one day,-for ten thousand persons do it every day, walk over a little hill, where within five hundred yards, and nearly in one direction, he may see fifteen large churches which were not there ten years ago, and twenty that were not built fifteen years since. The view is from the top of that little hill looking in one direction; for if the passenger were to turn backward, uncounted by me are the church spires on which his eyes would rest. The buildings before him betray taste in several instances, wealth in all. It is unfortunate as a matter of taste that the attractive spires, without exception, are placed on low ground; and those which occupy a high place in the world do not deserve it from their shape. The buildings are varied in design. It is literally so many churches as many styles. There is an Episcopalian Church, adorned with a quotation from the Bible in the original; and an Independent Church, with little figures for the Apostles, or for some of them, in gilding, as ornaments to the outside walls. There is an Independent Church with, and another without, a spire; a Unitarian Church, very like a small Greek temple-and one of the United Presbyterian Churches beside it is like a large temple, with a design from Athens, and a spire standing beside, and not upon it, after the manner of Canton or Jeddo-and, if not, then sui generis. The majority | allure my steps into some unknown region of finery, but the seat nearest the door answered my purpose; it was all so very fine, as, for a humbleminded person, to be rather frightsome. Glasgow was out of town. That I had forgotten, and there was a seat in these upper regions for almost every listener. The reason was obvious. The minister and people were down the water," and some one of the brethren had come up the water, an exchange of place for the benefit of unfortunates pent in city vile. When my official friend saw that she could make nothing of me she intimated a rather gruff assent that I might sit there, the very act that I had my mind made up to do, from a liking to the propinquity of the door in a "simmering" afternoon, the benefit of the wall to rest upon, the facility of seeing the entire building, and when all was over getting reasonably soon out of the way. Besides, the crimson cushion seemed as soft as any other I was likely to meet. The reason for the old lady's anxiety to carry me further in became evident. The seat not being let was used by her, and she was afflicted with "rheumatics," and wanted to employ the cushion and wall as a sofa. I saw my error too late, but the splendour of the decorations absorbed attention for a time. They were novel, the colourings ob. jectionable, the design or form good, and I should say useful; that is, the acoustics of the house are perhaps unexceptionable. The roof is magnificent, but here and there something tawdry occurs. is supported by pillars, perhaps intended to resem It Their style is, however, often inconsistent with their objects. I am guilty of a love for appropriate neatness in all places of public worship, and a rich-ble the Corinthian order, for anything I know; yet ness or solemnity in the arrangements, where that is possible without incurring heavy responsibilities, and they are often incurred, and remain like a national debt pulling down the energies of the people-without the slightest belief in consecration, or the possibility of getting a breath of spiritual influence put into bricks and stones, slates or timber; yet I think a church should tell its purposes, and, as far as possible, be confined to them and to kindred topics. It is not a nice place for squabbling in regarding a penny rate, and speaking or thinking evil "of the rulers of the people," or even the vicar. There should be congruity between the objects and the style, something of "the mellow calm" that, out of the noise of the present, is born of the future and the past, the hope and the memory. I went into one of these West-end churches. It was an afternoon service. I felt, from a knowledge of the minister, that it would be good and profitable, and with the becoming modesty of an intruder turned to the gallery, in the hope that it might be less fully occupied than the area, as is the custom in Scotland; but there was no labour, there was luxury in climbing these broad short stairs. At the top of them a beadless or pewopener, advanced in life, and perhaps not well pleased with it, by hieroglyphical signs wished to that cannot be, for they comprise angels with wings, attired matronly and modestly, without any crinolinic extravagance; but each has all the appearance of being the personage most necessary in a nursery, where there is a thriving child not more than ten months old. Why do artistes make angels female, with pinions? It conveys an idea of spiritual existence, to old and young, entirely unfounded. Let artistes mould and picture what they know and see. Ne sutor ultra crepidam; but a great painter or sculptor would be amazed by any comparison to his boot-maker. The colouring of the lower part of this building is of a "rich" brown red. The upper portions, on a level with the gallery and the roof, are of gaudy and gay colours; the pillars resemble a greenish marble, and there is too much decorative and gilding work. There is too much for taste, and a great deal too much for the labour that has to be done in the world. The blue in the colouring seems rather light, but without criticising details, which is no part of my object, it occurs to the visitor that a more ecclesiastical effect would have been produced for less money. Yet this is a splendid building, externally and internally. After what might be considered the more devotional services, the preacher mentioned his text, St. John's Gospel, c. iii. v. 16, one that goes right into any open heart, and needs no commentary. It is a noble passage as the ground of an exhortation, but certainly does not appear to require abstract arguments to make clear its meaning. In a moment, however, and I never knew how he got there, the preacher was in the clect world. Then, for forty minutes, he enlarged upon the necessity for the statements in his text, their origin, and every other matter connected with them. He may have comprehended the whole discourse himself, but for me, with my trusting and weak mind, the simple words, "God so loved the world," were grander and holier than all that could be said of the reasons. The reasons have all been lost to me in the result. I see the fruit, and need not scramble among dark mysteries for the hidden root. Then he came to a few practical observations. Now, at last, in this marsh of controversy, I thought, we shall have little islets of fresh verdure, such as I have seen in other marshes of the physical world. But this was not to be. The preacher was a severe man. His last words, "Lost, lost, eternally and irretrievably lost," rung for two or three hours, I doubt not, on the ears of the awakening children, who could not follow through all the reasonings whereby a man endeavoured to explain the occurrences from everlasting, ere yet the foundations of the earth were laid, whereby his text became a moral necessity, or, at least, a moral propriety. For a weak minded person like n.yself-and all children are strong in imaginative faculties, but weak in logical talents-it was sufficient-yea, the fulness and overflowing of sufficiency, to read the text there. We might have liked-the we being all the children and myself-the applications practically to our lives and ourselves of this rich passage, so rich in comfort, and heart-raising influences. It might have done us good to remember that even this wreck was so loved in its wretchedness that all the beauty of flower and scenery was allowed to remain in the world. We might have listened with profit, and gone away with softened spirits, from an enumeration of "the loving kindnesses of the Lord," terminating in this grand gift-the key of all-of all the cause and spring. Perhaps we-the children and myself-for I take the congregation generally to be strong-minded people, as is evidently true of my colleague in that pew-the beadless-who appeared to be delighted and edified by this most tough ravel of reasoning; but we, the children and the writer, might have gone forth, anxious to love more, and more purely, all that "God so loved," and to hear, with deeper sorrow than before, his name irreverently or sinfully spoken, who "so loved the world;" and in grief that it should ever be sinfully in other lips, to have had it sinlessly and more strongly engraven on our own hearts. A week's learning, a week's play, a week's work, might have been hallowed by such thoughts as spring out of that text, to those who comprehend it-a fountain of love-sending out perpetual and sparkling waters over "a dry and parched land;" or what other wise, and except for it, would be a bleak, hard lifc. We, the children and myself, were not a small portion of the congregation. They were only in a minority of thirteen in the opposite side of the gallery; and on my side, perhaps, we were not in any minority. We all seemed tired and weary. Oh, I remember well, in other days, when these services were a weariness of flesh and spirit. Will not great men-eloquent orators-remember sometimes that they were little children, and had little thoughts, and loved little things, and were easily impressed with any pleasing incident. A tale of tenderness tenderly told, occupying four or five minutes in the telling, would have kept them. np then through a quarter of an hour's “dry as dust" logic. But in a warm day, in a close church, how can young eyes keep from winking? And then comes sleep; and when one gets home, and all the way home, scolding from strong-minded fathers and mothers, who never were childrenwho were born five feet five and five feet ten respectively; and so there is a happy Sabbath, or one that should have been very happy, spoilt utterly. When I found us getting into the labyrinth which I had threaded in all directions often before, I looked over and round, taking care not to offend my neighbour, the astute beadless, for some occu pation; and, strange enough, there was a little face opposite, just as interesting as any little face: I have ever seen. Now, it may be proper to re mark, that the face had not been in the world more than four summers, or thereby-five at the longest possible term; and as for me, I have for gotten how many fours and fives I have been, here; and this little face did no more than remind me of other little faces far away, and set me to wonder what they were doing; and then, as this one began to droop, and the eyelids grew heavy, elder sisters did their best to keep them open, out of love, and with their experience, that the heated air, the weary walk, and the warmth of the night, & might cause a crime to be committed-the child ↑ might sleep. At last the process attracted the notice of the paterfamilias a most respectable man, I have no doubt, and one who has forgotten. his own boyhood, or that he ever slept in church and he stretched past several wakeful sitters, and, with the aid of a silk umbrella, nudged up my little favourite out of the beginning of a dream At last the little girl had to be brought under the direct surveillance of the father, who contrived somehow to keep the eyes open; but anyhow it must have been either a process of "sweets" or of "torture." I do not doubt for an instant that be is a very loving father. Neither, I hope, does the little child. We shall never meet more, if ever we can be said to have met; but I trust that there be many happier Sabbath afternoons on earth before this little face than that one. Still, it is right that 5: all parties should know how infancy and youth. gather a repugnance to worship. Bald and dry... discourses are not for them. They cannot possibly understand them. They do not lose much, some-: |