and violence. But just in proportion as the business of a publican involved fraud and dishonesty, did it also involve wealth and profit; so that it attaches to the call of St. Matthew as a singular characteristic, that at the summons of the Saviour-for which, from the fact of his residence at Capernaum, he had probably been to some extent prepared-he cast off at once as well his professional and his personal covetousness, and forsook all to follow Him. Thus for poverty, he gave up plenty; for rich and powerful masters, he adopted a despised One; in short, he repu diated the world, and submitted to Christ.

What is the gold of all this world but dross?
The joy but sorrow, and the pleasure pain ;
The wealth but beggary, and the gain but loss;
The wit but folly, and the virtue vain ;
The power but weakness, and but death the life;
The hope but fear, and the assurance doubt;
The trust deceit, the concord but a strife,
Where one conceit doth put another out;
Time but an instant, and the use a toil;

The knowledge blindness, and the care a madness,
The silver lead, the diamond but a foil,

The rest but trouble, and the mirth but sadness?

Thus, since to heaven compared, the earth is such
What thing is man to love the world so much?

We have transcribed the foregoing Sonnet from the "Soul's Harmony" of Nicholas Breton, a worthy man and a prolific writer (1555-1624), because the duty which a consideration of St. Matthew's example is calculated to enforce, is the repudiation of covetousness, and the postponement of all the advantages and amenities of earth for the joys of Christ's conversation and devotion to His love. It was not that Matthew the publican did not understand the advantages of a plentiful subsistence; but that he knew there were other considerations to which those of mere worldly ease and prosperity were not even to be reckoned as real antagonists. The final use to which he put those

66 DELIGHT IN GOD ONLY."

437

gifts of fortune which he was about to forego and to abandon -the very feast at which he entertained the Saviour and His disciples-seems to have been an expression in symbol of the heartiness with which, loving all, he yet abandoned all, and the gladness with which he adopted the unsettled poverty of his just-recognised Master. It is possible that from the date of this feast, St. Matthew may have commenced the course of abstinence from luxuries which ancient authorities tell us afterwards attained to the dimensions of a negative asceticism-an asceticism, we mean, which stopped at self-denial, and short of the self-infliction of positive suffering. The austerity of the later life of St. Matthew may be suggestively connected with his former career as a publican; the abstinence of his age may have been a continued expression of penitence for the fact that he had spent so much of his youth in the exercise of a voracious profession. To him there was no pleasure in unblessed indulgence; and, as compared with other objects of even proper and lawful affection, he may be said to have had his "delight in God only," and to have been ready to ask, in the words of the Psalmist-which form the motto of the following poem from Quarles's "Emblems”"Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee" (Psalm lxiii. 25).

I love (and have some cause to love) the earth;
She is my Maker's creature, therefore good:
She is my mother, for she gave me birth;
She is my tender nurse; she gives me food:

But what's a creature, Lord, compared with Thee?
Or what's my mother, or my nurse, to me?

I love the air; her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me ;
Her shrill-mouthed choir sustain me with their flesh,
And with their polyphonian notes delight me ;

But what's the air, or all the sweets, that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to Thee?

I love the sea; she is my fellow creature,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store;
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:

But, Lord of oceans, when compared with Thee,
What is the ocean, or her wealth, to me?
To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky:

But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee?
Without Thy presence, heaven's no heaven to me.

Without Thy presence, earth gives no refection ;
Without Thy presence, sea affords no treasure;
Without Thy presence, air's a rank infection;
Without Thy presence, heaven itself's no pleasure;
If not possessed, if not enjoyed, in Thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven, to me?

The highest honours that the world can boast
Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are (at most)
But dying sparkles of Thy living fire:

The proudest flames that earth can kindle be
But mighty glow-worms, if compared to Thee.

Without Thy presence wealth are bags of cares ;
Wisdom, but folly; joy, disquiet sadness ;
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares ;
Pleasure's but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness;

Without Thee, Lord, things be not what they be,
Nor have their being, when compared with Thee.
In having all things, and not Thee, what have I?
Not having Thee, what have my labours got?
Let me enjoy but Thee, what farther crave I?
Aud having Thee alone, what have I not?

I wish nor sea, nor land; nor would I be
Possessed of heaven, heaven unpossessed of Thee!

After the vocation of St. Matthew to the Apostolate, he continued with the rest of the Sacred College until the

LABOURS OF ST. MATTHEW.

439

Ascension of our Lord; and then, for the first eight years, at least, preached throughout his native country of Judæa. On his preparing at length to betake himself to the conversion of the Gentile world, he was entreated by the Jewish converts, and even enjoined by the Apostles, to commit to writing the history of our Saviour's life and actions. Complying with a request thus authoritatively fortified, the Evangelist produced his Gospel, which, as having been written in Judæa, for the use of Jews, was by the ancients unanimously held to have been written in Hebrew.

"Matthæus Christi Miracula scripsit Ebræis."

The Gospel of St. Matthew was very soon translated into Greek; but by whose hand, whether of St. John, or St. James, or of some other, does not sufficiently appear. The Apostles approved the version, and it was received as of the same authority with the original text, which, after the production of the Greek, fell almost exclusively into the hands of the Nazarites and Ebionites, to favour whose heresies it soon came to be interpolated and generally corrupted.

After the completion of his Gospel, St. Matthew "withdrew into Egypt, and thence proceeded as far as Æthiopia, on which account St. Chrysostom says of St. Matthew, that 'he washed the Ethiopians white;' that is, he is stated to have converted them to the faith, because he was the Apostle of the Æthiopians, and to this day the Abyssinians profess that they received the faith from St. Matthew."*

As against this last pretension it has been held that the Æthiopia to which St. Matthew travelled was not that in Africa, but what was called the Asian Æthiopia, and conterminous, if not the same, with Chaldæa.

The labours of the Apostle were blessed with an abundant success, and over his many converts in divers places,

*Joachim Hildebrand: Diebus De Festis.

he took care to ordain men of piety and judgment for their edification and direction; especially during his own absence on a tour in Parthia. Returning from the country last mentioned, St. Matthew is said to have encountered martyrdom, but in what manner, or in what circumstances, has not been settled. Indeed, his claim to the honours of martyrdom at all has been challenged on the ground that he appears enrolled amongst the "noble army" for the first time in the records of the second century. This objection may be thought sufficiently critical; but, assuming his martyrdom, we have more than one account of that event. By Nicephorus it is stated that St. Matthew, whilst engaged in instructing the Anthropophagi in the city of Myrmena, was transfixed to the earth by a huge nail. He is said otherwise to have been slain at Nadabar, a city of Ethiopia, by command of King Hirtacus, who sent an assassin to transfix St. Matthew with a sword, as he stood praying with outstretched hands before the altar.*

In the Greek Church St. Matthew is commemorated on the 16th of April; and not, as in our Calendar, on the 21st of September. Concerning the origin or first institution of the festival little is known; and it is most likely that it did not achieve a universal observance till towards the end of the eleventh century.

But no uncertainty on points of minor importance can detract from the value of the lessons to be inculcated from the example of the unselfish and uncalculating Saint whom the day commemorates; a day with which, in conclusion, we wish to connect the verses entitled "The Quip,” by George Herbert.

The merry world did on a day

With his train-bands and mates agree,

To meet together, where I lay,

And all in sport to jeer at me.

* Hildebrand: De Diebus Festis Libellus.