ment of science or literature, seems to be impossible, without allowing a corresponding deficiency in nearly all others. There is a certain quantity of energy, life-power,' or whatever else it may be called, and no more. If a mountain has to be made, a valley must be made with it. The earth that creates the one is dug from the other. There is no absolute addition of quantity, only a different apportionment of the materials. In Newton's case the intellect reached the highest point to which it has ever attained. He who would attempt to follow in his steps must resolve on a sacrifice equal to that which Newton made.

It is the habit of newspaper and other writers to enlarge upon the advancement of the present age. Two very notable illustrations of the progress of society have occurred during the past month-Sir George Grey, the incarnation of finality, and Mr. Henley, the type of Toryism, havemoved! Sir George, who used to launch his little satires upon the possibilities of a penny press when the abolition of the newspaper stamp was under discussion, and who voted so obstinately against Mr. Milner Gibson's bill, has addressed the people in support of cheap newspapers. He advocates their extension, praises their conduct, and says he subscribes to one himself! His speech affords another indication also that the age is changing, and one that is a continual subject of remark in circles where plans of political and other agitation are discussed. We allude to the secondary importance of public meetings. There is far less advice now to go to lectures, and there is a growing indisposition to attend them. It is the most difficult thing in the world to 'get up' a good public meeting. Hence the advice to read, and the necessity for public societies accommodating themselves to the growing preference of the people to this mode of teaching. We, who have no hesitation in avowing our attachment to what are termed 'advanced principles,' have reason to rejoice rather than otherwise at this change. We have little fear of the people reading too much, and have sufficient confidence in the truth of our convictions to be fully persuaded that the more they read the closer they will come to a knowledge and persuasion of what is right.

But Mr. Henley also is moving-he, one of the rear guard of the old army who fought and conquered nearly half a century ago, under Sir Harry Inglis's banner, has come round to the acknowledgment that a reform in the representation of the people is desirable and necessary. What kind of reform Mr. Henley would like, he does not say. No member or supporter of the present Cabinet has as yet made any declaration on this head, but, something must be done,' is an acknowledgment which few expected to receive. For anything, however, that we can see to the contrary we are likely to be placed in the position of a man who has been voluntarily starving himself, but has at last come to confess that he had better have something to eat. He will not, however, say what he will have, and he angrily rejects everything that is offered him. In such a case the confession is practically worthless, neither the man nor his friends are the better for it; and the chance is that before long both will be held up to ridicule.

The Chinese treaty, for every particular of which the English people have as yet been indebted to foreign sources of information, seems to be everything that one could wish. It is a very good thing procured in a

very bad way. Apart from its general character it is especially remarkable for the closeness with which the negotiators have followed in all the old paths. We have the old and mischievous system of a resident ambassador, the old diplomatic regulations, the old trade laws-just as if we were dealing with any European power. Not content with stipulating that we should have a Resident at the Chinese capital,' we lay down the condition that a Chinaman is to reside in London and conduct business at the Court of St. James's. In other respects the Treaty is the most remarkable that has been made in history; and must lead to a change more extensive than the world has seen since the first preaching of Christianity. There is now no barrier, that cannot be easily overcome, to the preaching of the gospel to every nation.

The work of consolidating our relations with China will devolve upon Christian men and merchants; something also will have to be done by the Missionary Societies. As soon as the path is opened we shall see the most enterprising such as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospelappointing a missionary exactly fitted for the work, as it has already done in the case of British Colombia, and to secure an able man, has wisely given a much larger salary than usual.

India, however, will be the burden principally of statesmen for some time to come. Its finances are in a most dilapidated condition, and will need the speediest and wisest revision. So that, for years to come, India will be a bone of contention in the House of Commons, and, probably, a source of pecuniary loss to this country. From these and other evils, Mr. Bright would have those who can, escape by emigration. In a bold, but, as it strikes us, a somewhat angry letter, the member for Birmingham unsparingly denounces the class government of England, the oppression, to the poor man, of its rule, and urgently advises him to seek another and a better home. The Times,' having nothing else to say, returns to an old song, and cries 'un-English,' as though the evils were not un-Englishwhatever that may mean-and the denouncer of them the truest friend of his country, daring to risk any amount of abuse in telling the open truth.

We have been surprised that the third of September should have been allowed to pass without some demonstration in remembrance of Oliver Cromwell's day. There must have been few who allowed it to pass without a thought: there were very many who would have been glad of some opportunity for the expression of their feelings with regard to a man to whom England owes a large proportion of her present greatness, and English people a very large proportion of their present liberty. But no one seemed to think it a duty to take the initiative, and although more than one attempt was made by the press to excite some public demonstration, the day passed as though it were not one of the greatest in the calendar of English history.

The newspapers inform us that Baron Humboldt has just completed 'Cosmos;' and a day or two ago a paragraph appeared, stating that the Princess Louisa and Prince Alfred had called upon the great writer. It was a fitting thing to do-for royalty of rank to bow before royalty of intellect. May we not hope that the day is not far distant when Princes will not deem it an indignity to pay a similar respect to English Literature?

THE MONTHLY

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

NOVEMBER, 1858.

My Congregation and I:

PASSAGES FROM A YOUNG MINISTER'S DIARY.

I am increasingly struck with the crude worship of intellect and culture which prevails in our body. It must appear very strange to outsiders,' especially considering how little wool there is to all this cry. These Independents,' I could fancy them saying, 'make so much splutter about talent and education in the ministry, that you might reasonably expect they would have something more to show for it in their pulpits.' Not all my dissympathy with the vulgarian, who thinks spirituality and syntax cannot go together, can prevent my siding, if I must take sides at all, with those who cry out for more men of God, rather than more men of books, as teachers and evangelists. What we want more than talent is, I think, intelligence; that clear-sightedness which springs from sincerity of soul. Things are very simple if we bring an open mind to them. One of my people to-day quoted Tennyson to me as a Christian poet, and seemed to have missed the pantheism of In Memoriam. When, after showing him what the poem really is, I wound up by quoting the first line of the last verse

That God wшICH еver lives and moves

he actually referred to the use of the (now) neuter relative in the Lord's Prayer, Our Father which art in heaven,' as being a parallel case. After I had got him to confess that the 'which' in In Memoriam was not only obviously exceptional and deliberate, but was to be read in the light of the rest of the poem, he said, quoting a remark attributed to Carlyle, and which he had heard, he said, from Mr. George Dawson, 'Well! Pantheism or Pottheism, what matters?' I explained that at least distinct perceptions were desirable, and the calling of things by right names; but my friend seemed to think haziness of brain rather good than otherwise, and was quite impatient of being asked for accu

racy of description. I have met many young men like him; and of all the crude admirers of crude pulpit talent, these are the crudest. If this friend can be kept off intellectual ballooning, and dallying with half-disguised ideas, from which he might strip the veil if he chose, I have great hopes of him, for he has independence and warmth of character, and, I think, real disinterestedness. Would not the care of a class in the school be a good discipline for him?

I wish I could get all my people to think less of me as an officer, and to enter into frank and natural intercourse with me without reflecting about it. I shall try if I cannot make a cordial life among these brethren and sisters, a life lived upon the common level, supply the place of a good deal of study; or rather do more, and work results which no study could work. I see somewhere in the country a clergyman has been jumping in a sack with his parishioners, by way of showing brotherly love. Happy establishment, which (being secure of its revenues) can afford the contrast between the surplice and the sack! But I fancy some of my immediate brethren make the same sort of mistake as this clergyman,-that of trying to get up brotherly love, or, at least, a genial familiarity, by an occasional dodge.' It will not work. Nothing will work but the thing that is. As for being secure of revenues-I wonder whether, if the minister were to mingle more freely with his people, his salary would be grudged, or seem as if it were grudged to him? It is the doctor's bill and the lawyer's bill which are paid with the worst grace, is it not? Let me try hard to seem to my flock less of a functionary, whose work has exceptional uses and special times and seasons, and more of a man, who is, on every human ground, worth his salt and standing

room.

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Nothing is so deceptive as facts, except figures.' The reason, of course, is, that you never get the fact undiluted: an infer ence slips in unawares. Immediately before my settlement here, one of the old members, a grocer and tea-dealer, withdrew from the church; and as he had been heard to say that I did not preach enough to poor sinners' (i. e., that the words 'poor sinners' did not occur frequently in my sermons), it seemed a safe statement of 'fact' to say, that he had withdrawn because he did not like my preaching. This I know was said, but it was mistaken after all. The plausible inference was just the wrong one. Our good friend withdrew, it appears, to begin preaching on his own account! He had saved a little money in business, which (or part of which, for he is the most 'canny' of Scots) he invested in a small place not far from his shop, and then turned it into a chapel; as exactly as possible imitating ours, down to a toy clock in front of a toy gallery, which, however, fills half the place. I understand that he had been for some time on confidential terms with T. M. about his ministerial views, and had said that he thought he wasn't well treated by the deacons during the interregnum

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here when they were in want of supplies. They might have given him an opening, he thought, to test his gifts. (At the prayer-meetings his gifts' had been tested, and had not received the hall-mark of general acceptance.) He could point (I will put down his exact words as reported to me) to nineteen poor sinners between Roperstreet and Chelmsford-square,' who had been turned to the Lord through his instrumentality; and he was not well treated by the deacons. Besides, they were a great deal too easy in letting members in. He met Miss who joined the other day, and had a long conversation with her by Cold Bath Fields prison (it was November, and Miss ———— is a delicate, consumptive child of eighteen, who would almost as soon encounter a wild buffalo as our friend,-to say nothing of the neighbourhood selected for putting her on the rack) and could not find the least savour of grace in her. Then, what was the good of having tasted that the Lord is gracious? Let your light shine,-shine was the word, and the Bible was plain sense for poor sinners. No. Things were not as they should be at Chapel, and whether the Lord would appear for their improvement, he couldn't say. At all events, he did not wait to see. Having adapted and beautified his placewhich he has actually christened New Street Chapel!-he opened it with three sermons, got up a recognition-service,' caught a couple of ' deacons,' formed a church,' and has, positively, a congregation. He sent me word the other day that he was now a co-worker with me,' and hoped I would engage to come to his first Anniversary Tea-meeting. He has been preaching on prophecy, and explaining the Number of the Beast in a way which I cannot really make out. I am almost afraid to put down, even in these pages, lest it should appear incredible to my own eyes, that he explains the 'score' in three-score' to mean, score with the pen, or underline the previous figure. How he worked out the whole sum my informant (not T. M., but a much more reliable person) could not tell me. But when it was suggested to him, that when applied to the original, this criticism would break down, because the word 'score' would not be found there, our friend, not in the least abashed, said he believed God took care of the translation of his own word, and that if he could get at the Hebrew, (!) he had no doubt he should find his reading of the prophecy borne out. It is creditable to his energy that he is taking lessons in that language of some poor Jew twice a week. But how shall I write what he said to me last Christmas-eve? As I passed his shop, I caught his eye, and went in. I found him up to his eyes in plum-picking, with two or three helps. Well, Mr.,' I said, 'you look very tired, I thinkoverworked, I suppose?' 'Yes,' said he, 'I've been up late picking currants and Valencias these three nights; but it is through much tribulation, my brother, that we must enter the kingdom.' !!!-Yet I must not omit to register, that as I was coming home once in the grey of the morning from the bedside of a mother dying with her week-old babe in her young arms, I met my poor friend, carrying under his arms a Bible a foot square in a green baize wrapper, and that, on my asking him where he had been, and not before, he told me he had been at