magnifying glass to exaggerate it a thousand fold! Whereas the memory, by employing the thoughts on something extraneous and something fresh, prevents us from worshipping these little diminutive idols. Pride, or any other disorder of the mind, may be kept away by this means, without any further adventitious resources. Without a companion, without a book, in solitude, in darkness, even in dressing and undressing, memory may be employed with advantage. It may bring every thought into captivity to the gospel of Christ. It may help in a very great degree to form the character of a Christian, of love and vivacity towards the Lord, making us more abundant in labours, more honest in our purposes, more strenuous in our efforts, warming our heart, exercising our understanding, sustaining our attention, and giving life to our prayers. Are those persons happy who rise with alacrity to a business which they love? Are those happy who have companions whom they love? Are those happy whose minds are always occupied? Memory employed on scriptural truths affords occupation, companionship, business; occupation without worldly care, companionship without contagion, and both without any chilling intervals of vacancy.

Shall we not seek for some fountain from whence the milk of the word may flow, as a lamb (according to St. Chrysostom's simile) pushes with repeated attacks the udder of its parent, till it have fixed upon the flowing stream? Shall we not

endeavour to see with our eyes and handle with our hands the word of life? Shall we not prepare for the mind, in a tangible shape, materials for meditation? Shall we not endeavour to bring our sanctification within our reach? Shall we not try to render all the means of grace as definable, and intelligible as possible? If I were to assert that Christians should consider themselves as vessels to receive and communicate Divine grace, and that in proportion as they keep that grace alive within them they may hope to communicate grace to each other, I should make a very right observation, but I should convey no very clear idea to any one's mind; whereas, if I assert that so much hortatory and scriptural matter devoutly and in the spirit of supplication committed to memory, is so much of the means of grace treasured up to be improved at leisure, I certainly convey a clearer, and I hope not an extravagant or erroneous, but an encouraging notion. If I were to say that meditation (for instance on the passion of the eternal Son of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ) will produce hatred of sin, self-condemnation and shame, holy desires, holy resolutions, Divine love, resignation of our appetites, conformity to the Divine will, I should say what is perfectly true; but surely it is more intelligible to say that these affections may be suggested and brought into action by devotionally and solitarily repeating from memory such sen

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tences as these suggested by one of Bishop Beveridge's sermons on the crucifixion.

"They scourge him; they put a crown of thorns upon his head; they bow the knee before him in mockery; they put a reed into his hand instead of a sceptre, and loading him with his own cross, they drag him to the place of execution, where, the cross being laid upon the ground, they nail his sacred body to it, fastening the hands and feet with nails driven through them; and raising it up, they fix it in the ground; and thus they leave my Saviour and my King, my Lord and my God. O see his hands stretched out. See them nailed, nailed to the cross-beam at the upper end of the cross! See his feet one put over the other towards the bottom of the cross with one large nail driven through both of them! See his hands and his feet covered with blood! the blood gush out from the dreadful wounds which the nails have made! What agony must he feel, having these tender nerves pierced through with iron! The pain raised there begins to diffuse itself through the whole body. His head begins to ache; his whole soul is in an agony ;-for what? For the sins of the world; for mine: for these the pure the holy God manifested in the flesh was thus afflicted. O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep night and day for the death of my Saviour, and for my sins which were the occasion of it! How grievous

How fast does

is the remembrance of those sins! How intolerable is the burthen of them!" Who that thus meditates can help saying, "O blessed Jesu! I confess that I have nothing to plead for myself before thee! I adore and worship thy name that thou didst vouchsafe to suffer for my sins; and I loathe and abhor myself that I have not sufficiently abhorred those sins for which thou wert pleased to suffer. I humbly crave thy pardon for what is past, and for the future beseech thee to endue me with such a measure of thy Holy Spirit that I may crucify within myself those evil tempers for which thou didst suffer on the cross. O let thy Spirit be my guide and comforter! O guide me with thy counsel here in all I say and do and think! I will daily try to do all that thou dost command; I will pray, read, meditate, visit the poor, purify myself as thou art pure. I beseech thee to help me to do so. Have mercy upon all my relations and friends, and admit us into thy kingdom with the poorest cripple that ever was the object of thy compassion. I desire nothing but thy grace. I loathe the pomps of the world which rejected and crucified thee. I disclaim its honors. I despise its lucre. I renounce its vanities. I abhor its wickedness, and most of all my own."

Now is memory, which in the hours of devotional retirement assists the meditation with such reflections as these, available to sanctification or is it not? Is there no humiliation in such an exercise? Will it suggest no holy affections, no

ejaculatory prayer, no unutterable groanings of the spirit? Is there any holy affection which memory may not thus put into action?

"But getting by heart"

is a term which serves to throw a slight degree of darkness on the question, because it does not convey a clear idea, but a confused one, if it convey any idea at all. Let things be called by their right names. Learning by heart is learning. Those who grow old in learning by heart grow in learning, and learning implies teachableness. "But learning by heart is a low and mechanical employment."

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This objection, though short, implies two things much in favour of the argument; 1st, that it is easy or possible for any one to learn by heart; and 2ndly, that it is despised by the world. Now the spirit of the world is, as it always has been, contrary to the spirit of Christ. Do we need to be reminded that St. Peter worked in a low and mechanical employment, that St. Paul worked in a low and mechanical employment, and that the Prince of Life was pleased to take His station among those who worked in a low and mechanical employment? If the world admired learning by heart, it might be looked upon with the more suspicion; but because it is despicable in the sight of the world it may be presumed to be otherwise in the sight of the Lord Jesus. Besides, learning by heart, though mechanical, is not irrelevant to the work which the Lord has appointed