AMBROSE AND HIS HYMNS.

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eloquence which formerly he had displayed in the forum, became more brilliant when employed in the service of Christ. One of his first cares after his ordination, we are told, was to divest himself of the charge of private property. As a member of a wealthy family he possessed both money and lands. What he did not give away to the poor or the church, or reserve as an income for his sister, he placed entirely under the management of his brother.

Not having been specially prepared for his spiritual office, Ambrose had to labour hard to qualify himself for the work. He had to begin, as he ingenuously declares, to learn and to teach at the same time. "He studied in order to teach, and he taught with a constant eye to edification. He was constantly thinking how he could give the best instruction to the flock committed to his charge, from the Emperor to the lowest of the people, so as to train them in soundness of faith and purity of life." Like the most renowned of his successors, Carlo Borromeo, he was a man in whom the spirit of true humanity shone splendidly. When, for instance, dire calamities befell the empire, in consequence of the successes of the Goths, and a great number of captives were carried off by the barbarians and were exposed for sale by their captors, Ambrose used every effort to effect their ransom. He exhausted the whole available resources of the church, and when everything else had been taken he did not scruple to break up and sell the sacramental vessels; justifying his conduct by saying, "If the blood of Christ redeemed their souls, should not the vessels which hold the blood be used to redeem their bodies ?"

But it is in the noble, and courageous, and successful part that he took in the great conflict between Church and State, truth and heresy, that Ambrose is most renowned. When the Empress Justina claimed for the Arians the use of the Portian Basilica of Milan, her demand was met by a stern refusal on the part of the bishop. The churches, he said, were not the bishop's, but Christ's, and the bishop, as His steward, could not relinquish them without treachery to those who denied His deity. The Empress, irritated by defeat, sought to banish him, but he simply refused to go; and when at length the conflict rose to such a height that a body of the Imperial troops were sent to take possession of the Basilica, Ambrose carried the day by a passive resistance. The soldiers fell back as he threatened them with excommunication, and the citizens of Milan, who for the most part were one with the bishop in defence of the deity of the Son, crowded into the Basilica and adjacent buildings, and so took possession of them by quietly filling them. The troops made no attack, but simply besieged them, hoping to exhaust their patience and enthusiasm. To sustain them in both, to confirm them in the faith, and to confute their adversaries, Ambrose set the people singing hymns in praise of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These hymns were used as responsive chants, and resounded night and day through the beleaguered Basilica with nearly the whole city for a choir. And thus was introduced into the Western church the practice of antiphonal or responsive singing, long prevalent in the Eastern churches. Augustine, in his Confessions, thus speaks of the power of Christian psalmody in the church at Milan. "The hymns and songs of thy church moved my soul intensely: thy truth was distilled by them into my heart. The flame of piety was kindled, and my tears flowed for joy."

The troops of the empire in the Arian interest were powerless to produce apostasy among the Milanese, for their souls were saturated with the truth by the singing of these simple hymns. Thus one of the earliest victories of the Church over the State, and of truth over error, was won by means of hymns. Ambrose did not live to a great age he died in the year 397; and the great church where he is buried was called after his name, Basilica Ambrosiana. J. H. ATKINSON.

CONSCIENCE.

CONSCIENCE is your magnetic needle. Reason is your chart. But I would rather have a crew willing to follow the indications of the needle, and giving themselves no great trouble as to the chart, than a crew that had ever so good a chart and no needle at all.-Joseph Cook.

The Need of an Instructive Ministry.

A SIGNAL FOR PREACHERS AND TEACHERS.

THAT this is a prodigiously busy age everybody admits. We are, for the most part, living at high pressure. Men are fearfully pre-occupied. Business is all-engrossing. Public life is wider and more various and attractive than formerly. Christian activity is carried on at high pressure. The claimants upon human sympathy and effort were never more numerous or clamorous than now. Music and painting, science and song, politics and philosophy, trade and pleasure, so absorb the small stock of individual human energy that it is only a scant portion indeed that is left for the patient acquisition of Scriptural knowledge and the sure mastery of the wide domain of Christian facts. At no time, we fear, was there less accurate acquaintance amongst hearers generally with the Gospel of Christ, its contents, its origin and end, the literature it has created, the civilization it has originated and inspired, the gigantic evils it has crushed, and the wide and manifold good with which it has enriched our human life. Biblical knowledge is becoming more and more rare save in the professional classes." Any preaching to the "people" that assumes much more scriptural and spiritual knowledge than what was possessed on leaving the Sunday-school, runs serious risk of being wasted or misunderstood. The real history of Christianity is as strange to nine-tenths of our congregations as are the stages that led up to the grand discovery of the constituents of the sun. Few know the annals of Church history, fewer still can interpret their Bibles, and as for any fair statement of the doctrinal drift of the New Testament, this is as rare as rubies in London Macadam.

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The preacher's first work, therefore, in this age, not less than in any other, is to give religious knowledge. He is an expositor, an instructor, a teacher; and his main business is to state, interpret, and apply spiritual facts to men's consciences and lives. He must deal with the Bible as a living book, as fresh as the newspaper of this morning, and yet surpassing it because it is at the same time a luminous exposition of the past experience of the human race. To him it is the voice of the eternal God,-the God of to-day and of to-morrow, as well as of yesterday; and therefore his use of it is not that of the doctrinal dogmatist who loudly vociferates his Divine authority, but that of the spiritual utilitarian, who makes its authority and inspiration felt, by showing what large and unique help it, and it alone, can render to man; nor is his interpretation of its words a "dry-as-dust" giving of the "sense," as if he were only a vocal dictionary; but a fresh and vivid statement made in the current speech and feeling of the hour, of the everlasting truth of God.

Nor are the Old and New Testaments the only Scriptures he reads to men. Human nature is a book whose freshly-opened page invites his thought every day; and from its confused and blotted records he gathers many an argument, and the material for many a vigorous appeal. His arrows are feathered with experience. His examinations are radiant with the various lights of human sorrow and joy. His words clear up perplexities, lift the mists, and brighten the horizon of life to troubled and tempted men. Universal history is made to expound individual, and pre-eminent is the use he makes of those eighteen centuries that ring so resonant to every trained ear with the name and triumphs of the Nazarene. In short, the succesful preacher "teaches knowledge," opens and alleges," instructs as well as warns, and "builds up" as well as persuades. He feels that exhortation is wasted breath if it is not based on information relevant to the needs of the soul, and freshly and vivaciously imparted; and that persuasion is like a race without a goal, if it is not saturated with informing truths.

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The successful ministry is a ministry of instruction in religious facts. Scientific men deal with facts, and rarely have a drowsy auditory. Newspapers are full of facts, and men bury their heads in them for hours. Novelists make all they say wear the dress of fact, and their readers are "legion." History and biography are potent in literature because they deal with facts of deep and abiding human interest. But Christianity is itself the central fact of all

history, and the only safe key to the interpretation of every other fact in the various annals of mankind, and the skilfulest preacher is he who can make the best use of this master-key. A plain man told Dr. Dabney that the reason John Randolph was so appreciated by the common people was "because Mr. Randolph was so instructive; he taught the people so much which they had not known before."*

An effective ministry is an informing ministry; and that in no narrow or partial sense.

Every successful preacher is one who gives INSTRUCTION IN THOSE THINGS RELATING TO THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, THE BEGINNINGS AND NOURISHMENT, GROWTH, AND PERFECTION OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.

JOHN CLIFFORD.

Captain Cook.

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

ONE hundred years ago, how easily spoken, but, how full of events. England was all astir with the discoveries made by Captain Cook, the great navigator. Who was he? How was it that he became so noted? He was what he was by manly determination, heroic perseverance, and courage never to submit or yield. He leaves behind him his deeds of daring and exploits in learning as a heritage for the young of this generation to imitate, and emulate.

He was born at Marton, in Yorkshire, in 1728. His father was chiefly engaged in agricultural pursuits, but rose by steady perseverance, to become an under-steward. His family of nine children was a great task to cope with, and the education he gave them was of a most limited kind.

James Cook received the rudiments of reading, writing, etc., through the generosity of a friend who lived in the village. At an early age he was placed out to learn the trade of haberdashery; but being suspected of dishonesty, he felt the stigma so keenly and was so indignant, that he obtained his immediate discharge from his master, and at once apprenticed himself to a company in the coasting coal business; and then, from the life of a common sailor, he raised himself to the rank of Captain, having, without a master, acquired such mathematical and astronomical knowledge as was necessary for navigation.

In the service of his country he became distinguished, being present with General Wolfe in the engagement against Quebec, and taking part in the recapture of Newfoundland. By the order of the government Captain Cook performed three voyages round the globe. His various discoveries, and interesting researches, when made known, thrilling his own countrymen and awoke a deep interest in other lands. In his last voyage which he undertook, in 1776, to ascertain whether there was a northern communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, he made the circuit of the New World, gained the north-west of America, and attempted to pass into Hudson's Bay through Behring's Straits, but was compelled to give up the undertaking. He descended toward the south, arrived at Owhyhee, of the Sandwich Islands, where he hoped to winter, and to repair his ships. There a quarrel ensued between his crew, and the natives, and Captain Cook was stabbed in the fray, at the age of 51 years, on Valentine's-day, 1779. T. WATKINSON.

BE VITAL.

IT is life that tells in the church, the school, the home. The dead can do nothing; they are buried out of sight. Do everything you can to keep your vitality. Never let it go down so long as you have work to do. Be at your best physically, mentally, spiritually. Walk, ride, bathe, exercise thyself unto bodily vitality. Feed the mind on the truth; get your heart pervaded with love to Christ and men, and your work will be living; and being living it will tell.

"God's Word in Preaching," by Dr. J. Hall, p. 78.

Scraps from the Editor's Waste-Basket.

I. THE "BELL" LIBEL CASE has collapsed under the direction of Chief Justice Coleridge, and our brethren Rev. R. F. Griffiths and Mr. Stevenson, are not only acquitted, but the plaintiff is condemned to pay the costs. The Sheffield Independent says:- "We congratulate the defendants in the name of public morality. They have had the courage to expose the character of a man who was bringing disgrace on the cause of religion. At great cost and risk to themselves they stood in the breach; they have borne the brunt of a public prosecution, and have fully succeeded in the object at which they aimed. Ranking as public benefactors, Messrs. Griffiths and Stevenson ought not to be allowed to suffer any pecuniary loss, and we trust the Christian public will see that they come off entirely harmless from legal charges. Such is the least that can be done in evidence of public appreciation of the great service these gentlemen have rendered." need not say how heartily we endorse these congratulatory words. We should have rejoiced in the courage if it had failed, and been mulcted in heavy damages, we rejoice in it, not the less now it is successful.

We

It

Surely Christian churches and Christain men will see, before long, that it is time they had done with advertising "converted clowns,' "prize-fighters, "singing preachers converted during an attack of delirium tremens," and all that ilk. We have had it ad nauseam. is a waste of good money, a discredit to Christianity; and a depravation of the tone of Christian work. "Conversion" is so great a good, that we rejoice in any one's conversion: and preaching the gospel is so useful a work, that we are glad to know any one can do it. But men should have time to CLEAN themselves a little before they are taken up and petted by Christian men, and pushed to the front; and it should never be forgotten that the first qualification for any preacher is a stainless character. We hope this "trial" may tend to make Christian work a little more manly, and much less sensational.

II. MR. SPURGEON.-On the day before Mr. Spurgeon left for Mentone, we spent an hour or two with him, and were grieved to find that, in addition to the acute and distressing pains due to his disease, he was acutely suffering from the wild and reckless statements originated by Neal Dow, and circulated throughout the United States. We under

stand Mr. Dow says that he did not mean Mr. Spurgeon, when he spoke of a "famous London preacher who goes every year to the South of France." But surely he must have known that the notoriety of Mr. Spurgeon, and of his annual visits to the South of France, would lead all who heard or saw his statement to regard it as directed against him. All who know Mr. Spurgeon at home, know that he is practically a Total Abstainer, and that his sons are active workers for the Temperance cause, and that his household is a Temperance household. Mr. Dow ought, therefore, to admit that he was wantonly and inexcusably careless, and to circulate, far and near, his own correction of his false and injurious declaration.

III. ANONYMOUS LETTERS. - A distressed correspondent writes to us asking what he should do with " anonymous letters." That depends upon what is in the letter. Suppose the letter to contain a £5 note, we advise it to be sent to the Home Mission. Our Treasurer will not trouble about the anonymity of the kind donor. But suppose it to contain advice, censure, abuse, and the like, then we say, read it carefully, and ask what good use you can make of it? Is the advice wise? Is the censure deserved? Does it hit a real fault? As for the abuse, treat it as you would the unmusical notes of a familiar and stubborn quadruped. Get out of the letter all you can that will help you in your work; and then, if the letter has only been written on one side of the paper, you can use the other for some profitable scribbling. Of course you will not depart from your conviction of duty by a single hair's breadth because the postman has brought you a little scribble from an individual who rates his work so low and disreputable that he dare not claim the paternity of it. A thousand to one Mr. Anonymous hasn't a head, but only a pimple. You wouldn't be afraid of that if you saw it. should you fear when you do not see it. You do not take your rules of preaching from the opinions of one "hearer;" nor set your style to suit the special taste of a solitary person, who thinks heaven has given him no work to do except to criticise other people. Hear the "bray," get to know its meaning, if it has any, inquire scientifically into its causes and conditions; and if you can extract anything intelligible and usable out of it, do so. The "jawbone of an ass" is a fine weapon in the hands of a Samson, and Shamgar did fearful execution with an oxgoad.

Why

REVIEWS.

Reviews.