Suggestions for Science Parables.

All material Nature is but a parable of spiritual realities.

"Two worlds are our's, 'tis only sin

Forbids us to descry,

The mystic Earth and Heaven within,
Clear as the sea or sky."

CIRCULARITY.

"IN seeking for the sources of the Thames we are led from the springs of the earth to the rain of the heavens, and from this to the watery vapour which forms part of the atmosphere, and thence to the great caldron-the ocean-whence the heat of the sun distils that vapour. The great stream of fresh water which flows over Teddington Weir is fed, in large measure, by vapour which has been raised far away on the Atlantic. South and south-west winds sweeping across that ocean become highly charged with watery vapours; and these warm, moist winds, striking the Cotteswold Hills, deposit their freight of moisture in showers of rain, much of which reaches the Thames basin. This water is ultimately carried out to sea by the flow of the river, and mingles once more with its parent ocean, but only to be removed in due course by further evaporation. The waters of the earth thus move in a continued cycle, without beginning and without end. From rain to river, from river to sea, from sea to air, and back again from air to earth, such is the circuit in which every drop of water is compelled to circulate. The observer, who, looking down upon the Thames, watches the fresh water hurrying onwards to the sea, must remember that the sea is not its resting place, but that most of what he sees, perhaps all, will be distilled afresh, and return to the earth in showers, which may enter into the stream of Thames again, or swell the affluents of some river on the other side of the globe, or be secreted for untold ages in subterranean reservoirs. In the words of a wise man of old'All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again!'"

HUXLEY.

Selected Seedlings.-May Meetings, 1883.

(Continued from page 418, Vol. II.)

MOSES AND PAUL.-" The only parallel to Paul was Moses; what the one did for the old law the other did for the new. Moses was a Hebrew by descent, but an Egyptian by Education. By nature he understood the one people, by culture the other. He was a mediator between Egypt and the Hebrews, just as Paul was a mediator between the Hebrews and the Greeks. Moses carried the vine out of Egypt and planted it in Palestine, and Paul brought the living vine out of Palestine and planted it throughout the world.”—Dr. Fairbairn.

MINISTERIAL CULTURE." They must not be satisfied in the future merely with varied acquirements gained late in life. There must be the cultivated powers, disciplined and trained from a very early age. There will be wanted the powers of just and acute reasoning. There will be needed that which comes of real cultivation-the absence of exaggeration."-Archbishop Benson.

REAL RELIGIOUS UNION.-" We are one, and getting to be more heartily and manifestly one by the growth of life, as you may have seen trees, held in unity, not by any external hoop of constraint, but by the intersection and intertwining of their mutually engrafted life."Dr. Edmonds.

WE PREACH NOT OURSELVES. "IT is possible for us who minister in holy things to preach from, 'Behold the Man," so that the man beheld is the man preaching, and not the Man preached of. I have known it sometimes when it might be pure gold that was shown, but you could not tell, for it was covered with the poor tinsel that was tacked on it. The flower might be the Rose of Sharon, but you could not say, for it was painted; and that destroyed its beauty and fragrance to."-Dr. Chown.

TEMPERANCE AND SPIRITUAL POWER.-"There were two reasons why all Christian men and women should unite with this movement. I believe that total abstinence promotes spiritual power, and I am quite sure that it preserves spiritual power. It is an act of self-control, an act in which the conscience predominates over the appetite, in which principle predominates over the appetite, in which principle predominates over passion, in which the higher nature of a man comes forward to rule the lower."Rev. J. R. Wood.

E

Correspondence Page.

[Enquiries or Answers will be inserted here concerning Books, or about Texts suitable for Special Occasions, or as to Sermons on given Verses or Topics. Brief letters on any matter that pertains to the work of the Gospel Preacher or Student will also be welcomed.]

ANSWERS.

DIVINE JUDGMENTS.

Do not the following extracts from Canon Kingsley's "Gospel of the Pentateuch" hint at an answer to C. R. T.'s question, in your last number, on "Divine Judgments?" He is speaking of the Plagues of Egypt, and -"Learned men have disputed how far these plagues were miracles. But whether they-whether the frogs, for instance- -were not produced by natural causes, just as other frogs are, and the lice and the flies likewise, that I know not, neither need I know. If they were not, they were miraculous; and if they were, they were miraculous still. As a wise man has said,—'If you believe in any real God at all, you must believe that miracles can happen.' He makes you and me, and millions of living things out of the dust of the ground continually by certain means, why can he not make lice, or anything else out of the dust of the ground without those means? We know that God has given all things a law which they cannot break. We know, too, that God will never break His own laws. But what are God's laws by which he makes things? We do not know. . . You think it very wonderful that God should cause frogs to come upon the whole land of Egypt in one day; but that God should cause frogs to come up every spring, in the ditches, does not seem wonderful to you at all; it happens every year, therefore, forsooth, there is nothing wonderful in it! Ah, my dear friends, it is custom which blinds eyes to the wisdom of God, and the wonders of God, and the power of God, and the glory of God, and hinders us from believing the message with which He speaks to us from every sunbeam, and every shower, every blade of grass, and every standing pool. 'Is anything too hard for the

Lord?'"

LYNMOUTH;

QUESTIONS.

E. T.

Will your readers give a list of great books on the History of the Early

Church.

STUDENS.

Reviews.

ECHOES FROM THE WELSH HILLS, or Reminiscences of the Preachers and
People of Wales. By Rev. DAVID DAVIES, Weston-super-Mare;
author of "The New Name, and other Sermons."
Alexander and Shepheard, Castle Street, Holborn.

London :

For many reasons, and not the least of them, from our own descent from as true and good an old Pembrokeshire minister as any of the Welsh worthies this book describes, we have been anticipating Mr. Davies' work ever since its approaching publication was advertised. Our anticipations are more than realised, for the book is so bright, so sympathetic, so charged with life, that we were fascinated into reading it from beginning to end in one day. Mr. Davies' aim "has been to illustrate in a popular form the religious and social life of the Welsh people, their generous hospitality, ardent patriotism, as well as the quaint humour, the poetic fancy, and rich pathos of their religious teachers." Most admirably has he fulfilled his labour of love, alike in the seventeen chapters in which he pictures scenes, narrates events, or records conversations; and in the thirteen "Appendatory" chapters that comprise a valuable essay on the "Characteristics of Welsh Preaching," reprinted from The Homilist of twenty-one years ago, and a dozen specimens of Welsh Sermons. Greece is not more identified with sculpture, nor Rome with arms, than is Wales with preaching. Traditions of famous preachers and of memorable sermons gather round every hamlet of "wild Wales." Preachers have been the princes of the Principality. The following sentence from the chapter, called "A Ministerial Chat," in this book indicates the tone of thought about preachers. "Mr. Jones, of Llanllyfni, preached a very powerful sermon in that field twenty-five years ago on the text, 'The Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek,' and taking those words as prophetic of Christ, he said, 'The Lord of Heaven had only one Son and He anointed Him to be a preacher. Young men in the ministry think highly of your calling!' The effect was thrilling." The volume, however, is not devoted entirely to preachers and preaching. Perhaps many will find keen enjoyment, as we did, in the chapter on "Mary Jones and her Bible," which narrates the origin of the Bible Society. It is an exquisite tale worthily told. Nor must we forget to thank the author for the chapters on "Anniversary Services at Horeb," "John Vaughan and his Bible Class," and "the Association."

SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL PLAYS, ROMAN AND ENGLISH, with Revised Text, Introduction and Notes, Glossarial, Critical, and Historical. By CHARLES WORDSWORTH, D.C.L. In Three Vols. Edinburgh : Blackwood and Sons.

The works of Shakspeare are generally regarded as the productions of a genius almost superhuman. His plays constitute the bible of the larger portion of Englishmen. Albeit they abound with imperfections in taste, sentiment, and art. Dr. Wordsworth, than whom a more competent man in every respect could not be found, has undertaken the task of purifying and correcting the productions of our matchless bard. His object has been, he says, "To endeavour in some measure to do for our immortal bard the special service which, were he living now, he might desire to do for himself. To relieve him from, at least, the more obvious imperfections which at once derogate from his supreme excellence and diminish the gratification to be derived from the perusal of his works, and so to obtain for him some portion of the justice of which from the circumstances which attended both their production and publication to the world, he has hitherto beeen deprived. And when it is remembered that no less than twenty out of the thirty-seven plays were not published in any known edition till seven years after the author's death, it will easily be understood in respect to these plays at least how much ground there must be to suspect the operation of other causes than those of the author's own mind or hand in the formation of the text as it now exists. The philologist, the grammarian, the lexicographer, the antiquarian, the deeper student of Shakspeare's mind and art will still seek and demand our poet's words in the entirety of the common text, but the ordinary reader, and especially the young student of either sex will not, I think, be sorry to receive an edition of all the more celebrated and important plays, if the editor's design is to be fully carried out, presented in such a form that they may read the volumes from beginning to end with unalloyed pleasure and unabated interest, or at least with no difficulties unexplained, no stumbling-block left to obstruct the path."

The author has devoted many years to the study of Shakspeare, and while his studies have been enlightened and severely critical, they have been judiciously appreciative and conscientious. His glossary and notes are of priceless worth. We have heard men say-blind admirers of the poet-Shakspeare cannot be improved, we want no expurgations or corrections, give the work to us as he produced it, with all its indelicacies, profanities, and grammatical blunders,-if you will. These wonderful men are ignorant of the fact that no Shakspeare's plays exist exactly as he produced them. His text in its original and genuine form exists not