"I need not go; no doubt there will be many people present, and I shall not be missed."

"I would go if I were sure of my pastor's being present, for when he does not conduct these meetings, I think they are dull."

"I would go any day to hear a Sunday's sermon, but I do not care much for week-night services."

"It is my duty to go; others cannot worship God for me; my place can be filled by no one but myself; and if all were to stay at home, because they thought the congregation would be sufficiently large without them, the benches would be empty."

"I must go; my pastor is never absent unless he cannot possibly help it, and if he is not present, Jesus will be there, and "The disciple' must 'not' be placed 'above his Master.'"

"Our minister is anxious that his people should uphold his hands by earnest, united prayer, and how can we hope to profit by his sermons unless we meet to ask the Divine blessing upon them? Those who think that these meetings are of no consequence, never know what they miss by staying at home."

"The same day at evening, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith to them, ‘Peace be unto you.' But Thomas was not with them when Jesus came."

Now

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL"

E. C.

see what a gross blunder the miser commits, and observe how cleverly Nature punishes him through the agency of his own vice. There is just one thing he dares not do with his money. He dares not spend it! The sole condition which gives it its value is precisely the condition with which he cannot, dares not, comply.

What should we say if a man were to expend his fortune in building a mansion he never intended to inhabit, in collecting carriages he would never employ, in procuring dainties he would never taste, in accumulating coats and trousers he would never attempt to wear? Without hesitation we should pronounce him a fit and proper person for a lunatic asylum, and when there the other patients might protest against him as a disgrace to the whole order of madmen.

But this is substantially the part which every miser plays. For the money which he keeps locked up in his coffers substitute some of its equivalents, and the cases are precisely the same. His conduct is just as brainless, and his hoards are just as useless, as if

you found that he had a hundred clocks on his premises, not one of which would go, or five hundred hats, not one of which would fit his head, or a thousand boots and shoes, not one of which he could draw on to his feet. Imagine his cellars to be filled with the costliest wines, but bricked up so that no one could reach them; let his stables be crowded with steeds which no one is permitted to mount; let his pantries be stocked with provisions which are never to be consumed; let him order fresh coals every day and yet allow no fire to be lighted from January to December,-in short, let him amass whatever species of commodity he may like, stipulating with himself that he shall not use it at all, and we have the philosophy of avarice practically exemplified and practically explained.

Let us grant, indeed, that the man has the pleasures of possession. But possession of what? If a person is enchanted with a piece of glass which he believes to be a priceless diamond, he is an object of pity, but certainly not of envy. If the miser gloats over a treasure which in his hands is substantially as unavailing as if it consisted of so much sawdust, his raptures only render his folly the more marked and preposterous. Every one can understand why a man may be in love with money, if it enables him to live in a castle instead of a cottage; to sleep on a bed of down instead of a pallet of straw; to dine on venison and turtle instead of a herring and a roll; to drink port and champagne in place of small beer or smaller water. These are unquestionably low applications of its power, but they give a prodigious value to wealth, not to mention the nobler purposes to which it may be put. But it is a singular feature in the vice of avarice that it not only excludes a person from all the higher enjoyments which opulence commands, but cuts him off from the coarsest and commonest indulgences of life. He may "groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread." Practically speaking, the labourer is richer on half-a-sovereign a week, than the miser with a million in the funds.-J. G. Hargreaves.

THERE

HOUGHTS GRAVE AND GAY.

are two reasons why some people don't mind their own business. One is that they haven't any business, and the other is they haven't any mind.

The Bishop of Peterborough mentions the case of a clergyman, who

offered to marry a patron's plain and unamiable sister on condition of receiving a living in reward.

The consumption of sugar annually increases at such a rate that it will soon, according to trustworthy authority, reach one million tons per annum.

A Parisian defines a shout to be "an unpleasant noise, produced by overstraining the throat, for which great singers are well paid, and small children well punished.

“Eh, sir,” said a minister's man one Sabbath morning to the parish minister, while assisting him on with his gown, " do you see what a lot o' folk are leaving the kirk to-day, and gaun ower the hill to the meeting-house?" " Very true, John," replied the minister, jocosely; "but, John, ye dinna see ony o' the stipend gaun ower after them."

The Spectator confesses that it is "the blindest possible policy to attempt to disguise from ourselves the fact that the National Church of England is a more or less accidental agglomerate of a good many different Churches...which no possible jugglery will make a dogmatic unity."

Before a man gives way to excessive grief about the fortunes of his family being lost with his own, he should think whether he really knows wherein lies the welfare of others.

Desire is the soul of prayer.

CHURCH NEWS OF THE MONTH.

A PAROCHIAL clergyman is reported to have said that he

could set his back against the church wall, and hold the bishop at arm's length with one hand, and his parishioners at arm's length with the other.

Startling as the statement is, it is even short of the truth: for a clergyman can not only set his bishop and his parishioners at defiance, but the law of the land also. The very loftiest and the very lowliest in England are amenable to justice, with the exception of the clergyman. He can and does at his discretion trample its plainest decisions under foot.

In saying this we are only repeating the recent extraordinary confession of the highest authorities in the Church; and facts of the greatest notoriety attest its accuracy. The Primate complains that anti-Protestant innovations are made in all directions with impunity; and the

Archbishop of York describes the wide-spread and gloomy discontent that is justly felt by the laity at the Popish tendencies of many of the clergy. "It is not," says a writer, "merely a question of ecclesiastical millinery; or the foppery and frippery of young clergymen who must play at priestcraft, and dress themselves in silks and satins to make a show; it is a question of introducing all the practices of Roman Catholic worship, and the doctrines those practices symbolise and teach, into our Protestant services."

To find a remedy for these iniquities, the Archbishop has brought in a bill, the practical design of which is to invest the bishops with a power of discipline they never have had before. To entrust the bishops with such powers is, according to the Dean of Westminster, "so inevitable an inference from accepting Episcopacy as a desirable form of Church government, that he would not further argue" the matter. It has, however, always been the practice of the English law for legal tribunals of any kind to consist of laymen. What is needed at the present moment is to enable the laity to protect themselves against the innovations of the clergy, and so long as the Church covets the control of the State, such control could best be exercised by the laity.

Of course to any change that can bring certain of the clergy under the dominion of common sense they are averse. They much prefer to be a law unto themselves. Thus Archdeacon Denison says:-"If this bill, or any bill like it, become law, we are not only on the edge of a revolution, but we are in a revolution. Pending the final issue of that revolution, not long to be delayed, the bill would do more to create differences of practice than anything that can well be conceived. Its probable effect would be that in no contiguous dioceses would there prevail the same or a similar rule of practice. It would make many victims, for there will be many who would rather be deprived of a benefice than appear before the tribunal proposed to be established under the bill. Upon the whole, if it is wished to break up Church and State, there is no readier or more effectual way than that proposed under the bill."

A guarantee fund of £7,200 has been promised to the Bishop of Durham to enable him to meet the expenses incurred in checking Ritualistic practices in that diocese.

The purchase system in the Church has become so gross a scandal that at last the Bishop of Lincoln has decided to brave the penalties for refusing to institute in a simoniacal case, and no less than three

suits are proceeding against him for refusing to connive at similar transactions. The Bishop of Peterborough proposes that the subject should be referred to a committee of the House of Lords.

The Rev. John Kennedy, in an able letter to a contemporary, proposes that action should be taken by the Nonconformist bodies of England, with a view to protest against the Romanising tendencies of the Establishment. After discussing various methods of action, and showing that whatever ground is occupied must be ground common to all, he says: "Presbyterians and Wesleyans-not all indeed, but many-could not join us in asserting the unlawfulness and inexpediency of all Church Establishments. Nor could we join them in an assertion of the abstract lawfulness and expediency of such institutions. But are we not agreed in this--that better no Establishment than one that is Popish or Romanist? Suppose the present Establishment were Roman Catholic, would we hesitate to combine in asking the Legislature to disestablish it? Now, though it is not nominally Roman Catholic, is it not confessedly endangering the Protestantism of the land? Is it not itself saturated with essentially Romish doctrine? And is not the hope of Rome touching the conversion of England based far more on the labours of Anglo-Catholics than of Roman Catholics? In these circumstances is not the question which has to be answered really and essentially this,—which is better, a Popish Establishment or none at all?-or, an Establishment which, though not Popish in name, is in doctrine and in ritual, and is effecting a rapid transition from Protestantism to Popery, or no Establishment at all? ...

“If the question was submitted to the Wesleyan body-a Protestant Establishment or none at all ?—all differences would be merged, and with one voice they would say, 'None at all, if it is not Protestant.' Now, my contention is, that this is substantially the question submitted to-day to the Nonconformists of England. And on this ground I claim the co-operation of Presbyterians and Wesleyans in asking for the disestablishment of the Church of England—not on 'Liberation Society' grounds, as they are called-but on grounds which may be taken in common by those who believe in the principles of the Liberation Society and those who do not. A petition signed by the universal ministry of the Nonconformist Churches, or by any large portion of them—including those who have hitherto been regarded as the friends, not the enemies of Establishments-would show to the Legislature that the patience of the country is exhausted,