cable curse; the tone and the traditions, which after all are but the moral atmosphere which the life of each boy here leaves behind, and which, if they be evil, may even poison all the happiness and all the usefulness of this school, and imperil every immortal soul committed to its charge. As yet the simplicity and purity of tone, the earnestness and manliness of character which have here been specially cultivated, that singular unitedness of mutual affection and respect which seems by God's blessing to bind together the hearts of boys and masters here like the heart of one man, are inestimable advantages if you know how to use them rightly,advantages which must be lessened before their full value can be realised. But I cannot profess to speak impartially. Nine years ago I was one of your number; I say of your number, for the heart of a Marlborough master is like the heart of a Marlborough boy:-and though those nine years have brought with them other duties and other interests, they have not dimmed my gratitude or my affection for a place where I found a friend whom, like many others, I love and reverence as a father'; and colleagues from

1 The late Lord Bishop of Calcutta, whose sudden and untimely death was felt by the author, as it was by a very large

whom I received the kindness and sympathy and forbearance of brothers; and pupils, of whom some are here present, who have since become friends on more equal terms, and who having passed through many distinctions to a useful and honourable manhood, are now fellowlabourers in the same great work, striving with you to build up in your own hearts and in the life of this great school a Temple whose entablature shall be holiness to the Lord! I return and find these friends and other friends unchanged; I find the work still continued in the same hearty, fervent, simple, unselfish spirit, and continued with rare and increasing success. Those were days of doubt, trial, and difficulty: but God blessed the work which was then undertaken for his own honour, and we all rejoice with grateful hearts to know and acknowledge that these are days of advance, prosperity, and triumph. Then the friends of this College sowed in tears, now through God's great love and mercy they reap in joy. From a full heart I

number of deeply attached friends, to be an irreparable personal loss and misfortune. It can fall to the lot of but few men to be so long and affectionately mourned as Bishop Cotton has been : to know him was at once to reverence and to love him; and I, for one, shall always reckon his warm friendship and unvarying kindness among the best blessings which life has given.

pray that these blessings may be continued. From a full heart I pray that God may lay your stones with fair colours, and your foundations with sapphires;—that all your children may be taught of the Lord, and that great may be the peace of your children. From a full heart, as one among the thousands who love this noble school, I pray that His fatherly hand may ever be over you; that His Holy Spirit may ever be with you ;—and that He may so lead you in the knowledge and obedience of His word that in the end you may obtain everlasting life!

Δόξα τῷ Θεῷ.

XIII.

THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM.

(Preached at All Saints', Huntingdon, Dec. 28, 1862.)

Rev. xiv. 13.-"And their works do follow them."

To those who can read it aright, few books are more full of sublime comfort,-few books are more illuminated with the glory of a heavenly hope, than the Revelation of St John. It is true that in the vain attempt to degrade it into a prophecy of private interpretation, it has been made the battle-field of opposing prejudices, until its value has been discredited, its meaning obscured, and those simple hearts have almost abandoned it, who dislike the noise and dust of idle controversy. But to one who reads it with a quiet and truth-loving heart, it is full of the most unspeakable wisdom. Marvellous indeed was the vision unrolled before the eyes of him whose young head had rested on the bosom of

the Lord! From the sulphurous mine, from the rugged island, from the loneliness of exile,`. from the convict's company and the felon's chain, he is raised into the very presence of the mightiest Immortalities; the glorious spectacle of innumerable multitudes sweeps before him, and the hymns. of the highest heaven melt in their speechless sweetness upon his mortal ears. True it is that there are other scenes which he must witness; the seven great plagues, and the seven vials full of wrath, the woe-trumpets, and the scorpion army, and Death riding on his livid horse', and the judgment of her who was drunken with the blood of the prophets, and "the hues of earthquake and eclipse." But mingled ever with these scenes of Retribution,preceding and following and out-dazzling them, -are the visions of the Lamb and the Lion, and the white-robed palm-bearing procession of happy human souls, and the crowned elders, and the victor angels, and Jerusalem the Golden descending out of heaven with its walls of jasper and gates of pearl. Fitly indeed do the melodies of this book rest last upon our ears; fitly does it close the gate of Revelation, which alone

1 idοù iπños xλwpós.—Rev. vi. 8. Not "pale,” as in A. V.

F. S.

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