From this circumstance our historians have deduced the pedigree of British Christian doctrine and discipline from Antioch rather than from Rome, and this conclusion is supported by Neander and by Lappenbury as well as by our own writers." We could write much on this

work, for though small in bulk, it is fraught with suggestions. It traces the very life's blood of English history, as it runs through the veins of ages.

MEMORABLE EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF A LONDON PHYSICIAN. In Three Parts. London: Virtue Brothers.

"The members of the profession," says the author of this book, "of the present day are all at sixes and sevens. Whether in opinion or in practice, there is nothing but doubt and disagreement prevailing in their ranks. Allopathy, Homœopathy, Hydropathy, Chrono-thermalism! Thirty years ago you never heard these words. Physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries thirty years ago, all squared their measures by a common creed. In theory, as in practice, one and all held a community of tenet, seemingly as unchanging and unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. According to the whole profession then, and—if the truth be toldaccording to many of them still, the root of every disease is 'inflammation.'" This short extract suggests to the reader what to expect in the pages of this work. The writer's strictures upon orthodox physicians and practitioners are such as to shake the confidence of the public both in their science and in their skill. It would be well if the indolent, and the morbid, those who are looking at their tongues and feeling their pulses because they have nothing else to do, and who are, therefore, constantly calling in the doctors to their house, would read this work. It would scatter their delusions, keep them away from medicine, make them healthier people, and save their pockets. The book is full of valuable information, and thoroughly interesting.

DIVINE COMPASSION. BY JAMES CULROSS, A.M.

London: Nisbet & Co. The object of this work is to show the mercy of God to man, by Christ's treatment of the sinners who appealed to Him. The woman of Samaria, the man born blind, little children, the rich young man, Peter, and the dying thief, are some of the examples he selects. The idea of the book is a happy one, and is impressively wrought out.

THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Newly Translated, Explained, Illustrated, and Applied. By REV. A. B. GROSART, First U. P. Church, Kinross. London: Nisbet & Co.

MR. GROSART is a quaint and curious author, one who well exemplifies the maxim, "Reading maketh a full man." Nothing in prose or verse

of any school of divinity, seems to have escaped him. We cannot enter into the points which invite remark in the mysterious conflict between the Prince of Light and the Prince of Darkness, between our Living Friend and our Living Foe. We have already discussed the subject, and our author refers in his volume with commendation to what we have advanced. In addition to the original matter-which contains a new translation, with Critical Remarks-the author presents us with many choice passages from writers unknown and well-known; among whom are Hacket, Gumbleden, Leighton, Beaumont, Andrewes, Udall, Manton, Taylor, Trapp, Manning, Arnold, Kingsley, Wilberforce. Nowhere in so small a compass have we met with so valuable and copious a collection of extracts, all of which bear on the elucidation of the subject. Among the topics which will not command universal acceptance, is where Mr. G. gravely recommends ministers to discard Jay, Simeon, and to read Shakespeare by way of preparation for the pulpit. His estimate of recent editions of the Greek Testament is amusingly graphic. The one by Webster and Wilkinson is the only one which pleases him, as having no pretentiousness, no dogmatism, and superior to any for ripe scholarship, spiritual insight, suggestiveness, truthfulness; a judgment this, on which we have more than once pronounced. Dean Alford is described as perpetually disappointing and inexact, betraying great want of deliberation and thoroughness of scholarship. Dr. Wordsworth is said to be full of patriotic lore and nonsense, dexterous in evading difficulties, raising enormous buttresses of quotations to keep up rotten beams. Our readers would do well to procure this remarkable work.

CRISIS OF BEING; Six Lectures to Young Men on Religious Decision. By the REV. DAVID THOMAS, D.D., Stockwell. Also, the PROGRESS OF BEING, by the same author. A New Edition. London: Jackson, Walford & Hodder.

BEING SO closely connected with the author of these volumes, we have not the heart to condemn them, nor the immodesty to praise them. Suffice it to say that many thousands of each have been sold. Young men in every part of the world have acknowledged the good they have derived from them; and they now appear in a new form, and at a reduced price (eighteenpence).

GOOD STORIES. No. I.-THE PEACEMAKER: A Christmas Story. No. II.— FOUR LADS AND THEIR LIVES: A Night-School Story. Selected and Edited by J. ERSKINE CLARKE, M.A. London: W. Macintosh. THESE are the first two numbers of a new serial. The stories are selected with taste and judgment; the illustrations are striking; the "getting up" unique and beautiful. The name of the Editor is a guarantee for sterling thought, catholic spirit, and literary excellence.

A HOMILY

ON

The World's Cry

Concerning the Method of being brought into Fellowship with God.

"Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God?"-Micah vi. 6.

N our last Homily, our attention was directed to "Man's Felt Distance from his Maker." We sought for an explanation of this feeling in three sources :—

human philosophy, speculative theology, and Divine revelation. We found it in the last, and nowhere else. Here we learned that man's iniquities have produced the distressing separation between him and his Maker. It is not that God has withdrawn from us, but that we are alienated from Him by wicked works. The feeling of the distance is misery—is hell; and the vital question now to consider is, How can it be removed? How can the twain, the soul and its God, be one again? "Wherewith shall we come before the Lord?" This is another of the world's cries. A cry-deep, loud, continuous. Where can we get a satisfactory response? There are three, and only three, answers: that which has reference to the presentation of sacrifices, that which has reference to a right moral conduct, that which has reference to the intervention of Christ. Let us look a little into each of these three, and see which, if either, furnishes the solution.

First: There is that which has reference to presentation of sacrifices. "Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, calves?" &c. This is the way in which heathens have sought to bridge the gulf between themselves and their Maker. Yes, and

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the old Hebrew too. Millions of victims have been slain, and oceans of blood have been shed. But is this satisfactory? To say that we are to return to God through sacrifices, however costly and abundant, is not quite sufficient. In the first place it is repugnant to our reason to suppose that such sacrifices can be acceptable to the God of love and mercy. The dictates of our moral nature render it impossible for us to feel that the blood of innocent victims can be acceptable to our Maker. In the second place, it is opposed to the declarations of the Bible. "For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.” (Ps. li. 16.) "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord:" (Isa. i. 11.) "And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering." (Isa. xl. 16.) "None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: for the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:" (Ps. xlix. 7, 8.) And in the third place, such sacrifices, as a fact, have never removed from man this feeling of distance from his Maker. The gulf remains as deep and broad though the cattle upon a thousand hills were offered.

Secondly: There is that which has reference to a right moral conduct. "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" This is just what philosophy would say. Think the true, love the good, and do the right, and you will be accepted of your Maker-you will come back into a friendly state with Him. This is satisfactory so far as it goes; for to do the right thing, is reconciliation with Heaven. Those who live a holy life walk with God, and are happy in His fellowship. But the question is, How to come into this morally right state? And the philosophy which presents this method, has no answer to this question.

Thirdly There is that which has reference to the intervention of Christ. This is the answer of the Bible. It teaches that Christ is man's way back to fellowship with his Maker. "I am the

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way: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." 'Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." (Eph. ii. 18.) He is the "mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.” (Col. i. 21.) "Christ

also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." Such passages may be multiplied almost indefinitely. This is the answer of the Bible to the question.

But, now, in order to see the satisfactoriness of this answer, it may be necessary to ask the question, In what way does Christ bring man into fellowship with God? For the sake of clearness we may answer: Negatively;-First: Not by repealing any of the laws of moral obligation binding on man. Christ's intervention did not render man in the slightest degree less bound to obey every precept in Heaven's moral code. That code is as immutable as God Himself. Secondly: Not by dispensing with any of the settled conditions of spiritual culture and improvement. Christ does not make men good in any miraculous way. Observation, reflection, study, resolution, faith, practice, these are the means by which souls must ever advance. Thirdly Not by effecting any change in the Divine mind. Christ's intention did not alter God's feelings towards man. That He quenched the wrath of God by His sufferings, is the blasphemous dream of a barbarous theology. The mission of Christ was the effect— not the cause-of God's love. Christ was its messenger and minister, not its creator. Nor did He change God's purpose. It was according to His eternal purpose that Christ came, and to work that purpose out was Christ's mission.

:

He

"God was in

When a recon

What, then, does He do? He is the Reconciler. reconciles not God to man, but man to God. Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." ciliation takes place between men at enmity, who were once friends, there is generally a mutual change to some extent; each concedes a something, until the minds meet in love, and $ 2

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