While darkening clouds rest in the distant sky,
Nor wakes the anger of the sleeping storm.
We deem them lovelier, that no eye may see
The wasting of their petals, one by one.
In the lone darkness, and the mystery

Of midnight silence, death's cold work is done.
Perchance with them the evening sun went down
In cloudless splendour, smiling to his rest,
Tinging with glory many a flowery crown,
And scattering gold o'er many a starry crest.
So passed the heliotrope, unseen in death:

Twilight had left her blooming on her bed; So her last sigh of almond-scented breath Floated away, and morning found her dead. So the tall dahlia bowed her head and died; And we who had not praised her charms before,

When the first frost of autumn smote her pride, Told of her beauty, though she bloomed no

more.

Thus, when the light of human life and love Fades in a moment, ah, how bright it seems! In memory's pictures beautiful, above

All that the minstrel sings, or poet dreams. Gone from the flowery paths-for ever gone!

And yet we never knew them less than fair! We never saw the dismal grey steal on,

To scatter ashes o'er their sunny hair. Call not such partings sad. The first to die May be the meetest for the marriage-feast; Wakeful, and ready for the midnight cry,

May pass unquestioned in, a welcome guest.

Sad Tidings.

NCE more, my garden friends, I come to bring

My heart's sad burden and distress to

you.

Cease, little birds, I would not hear you sing;
I only want to sit beneath the yew,
And see, far off among the walks and bowers,
The graceful wreathing of my favourite
flowers.

I want to breathe my sorrow, all unheard,
Save by those silent listeners-friends of old:
I cannot bear the warble of the bird,

Who never knew a joy or grief untold: But the still flowers, their songs are soft and low,

In tones of beauty answering to my woe. My brother-he of radiant look and mien,

Who played beside you when a laughing boy, Who loved the garden walks, the woods of green,

And echoed back their summer songs of joyMy brother sleeps far off, where palm trees wave In fitful shadows o'er his lonely grave. His foot, that lightly trod the shining ways

Of life, too little caring where it strayed, Will never more, as in those early days, Seek the home garden,-rest beneath its shade,

Or spring elastic o'er some flowery bed,

Eager to follow where the sunshine led. My brother died alone. The friend who kept Untiring watch within his humble cot,

O'er wearied, for a few brief moments slept, Then woke, and called him, but he answered not:

Yet sure he thinks those blessed words had come,

Sermons preached at King's Lynn. By the late REV. E. L. HULL, B.A. Third Edition. London: James Nisbet and Co.

Refinement of style, freshness of thought, beauty of expression, and force of reasoning, will make these sermons attractive to all readers. But the spirit of sanctified experience which pervades them, and the power with which the writer grasps and grapples with those metaphysical difficulties which serve so largely to make up some men's discipline of probation, give them a special value. The author, it appears, died at the early age of one-and-thirty. His manuscripts were not revised by himself, and the sermons are partly reported from notes only. These disadvantages, however, have not deprived the sermons of a distinct and unbroken line of thought, and have rather added to that reality and closeness of appeal which more scholarly preparation might have hindered. The closing sermon is a very remarkable one, and the retired-we might almost say unknown-career of the gifted preacher affords a striking illustration of the truth which it enforces.

An extract from this sermon will show that our high opinion of the volume has not been too strongly expressed. The text is, "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." The argument, turning on the word "then," is thus stated:

con

"Our Saviour seems to imply that until then the glory of the righteous must be, in a measure, cealed. He appears to teach us that in this world righteous men are seen imperfectly-clouded by their frailties, and veiled in the garment of the flesh; and that it is only then, when the story of the world has ended, that the light which is in them shall break forth in all its splendour."

After pointing out how truly this concealment of the glory of the righteous is a reality, the author proceeds to inquire into the reasons of the concealment. Two reasons are advanced, the one rising from the nature of righteousness in man; the other from the discipline by which it is perfected. We give the treatment of these two reasons:

"(1.) We find the first reason in the nature of the only true righteousness in man.

"To perceive this, start the question, What is the righteous man? In the absolute sense of the word, to be righteous is to have so strong a sympathy with that which is everlastingly right and true, that no temptation to the wrong could make the man swerve aside, though it were backed by all the allurements of the world and all the forces of hell; it is indeed to

choose what the righteous God has chosen, and crush down the hesitation of self-will, and do what He has willed, although the whole universe stood as His foe; it is to have the whole body, soul, and spirit controlled by the love, and baptized in the purity, of the Eternal.

"But in that absolute and literal sense there never has been, nor can be, a righteous man upon earth, and hence the question returns, In what sense is man the sinner made righteous? In what way does he become so? The answer brings in that great paradox of Christianity which contains in itself one great secret of the present concealment of the glory of the godly. Man becomes righteous by denying his own righteousness, and accepting that of another. So long as a man claims any fragment of righteousness in himself, as his own, he will find his trusted virtues fade into the withered rags of self-glory, and his fancied power melt before the first great temptation that flashes on his way. It is when he feels that he is nothing, has nothing, and can do nothing; it is when, under that crushing sense of shameful impotence, he catches sight of Christ crucified, and commits himself utterly to Him, that he begins to be fighteous and holy. The old mystery, 'I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me'-in its intense utterance of self-renunciation and trust in another, expresses the secret of all the righteousness that can ever live in a human soul. For it is by that act of self-renouncing faith that the heavenly power of Christ enters a man's spirit. He lives in me,' such a man may say, 'and, therefore, by renouncing my own might, I have a might that can dash every temptation from my career. I own myself dead, and then, looking on Him, His living Spirit streams into my nature, and the holy, tender, victorious life of Jesus becomes manifest in my mortal flesh. By feeling that I have nothing, I begin to have all things; and God, whose far-seeing eye reads in that new life of faith the germ of a perfect and eternal purity, declares me to-day a righteous man.'

Our

"Taking that as the Christian idea of the nature of righteousness, you will perceive at once why the glory of the righteous is so greatly hidden now. faith is, as yet, only the germ of a new creation, and often it is cradled in tears, and made strong by storms. The very cares and duties attending our existence on this earth will tend sometimes to lessen our believing surrender to Christ; and we maintain it only by resisting their power. It is hard to maintain that upward look at the Saviour by which we grow righteous; we are tempted to look into our own experiences, and, trusting them, our purity ceases to grow. We fancy, in our hours of excited emotion, that we are strong enough to meet temptation; we try, and we fall, and learn, through bitter tears, how hard it is to keep that constant self-renunciation by which alone we become right and true. Slowly, very slowly, through struggle and through storm, are we changed by faith into righteous men; and who, then, can marvel if, amid that life-long conflict, our glory is but dimly seen? The germ of the golden grain is within the believer

already, though the hour of its brilliant maturity has not yet come. The morning dawn of the light that shall shine forth in the kingdom of the Father,' is rising in his spirit even now, but the clouds and storms of the early life yet veil it, and only the stray beams of its glory break upon our view.

"(2.) We find a second reason for this concealment in the discipline by which the righteous are perfected.

"We have seen that by faith we become righteous. Start, now, the question, how that faith is to become deepened?-and in the everlasting law of our nature, that faith grows strong only by trial, you have at once another source of the concealment of the glory of the righteous soul. For the man whose inward life is one upward glance at Christ must learn to look on Him with intenser stedfastness, by passing now and then through the valley in which the horror of great darkness' besets him behind and before, and voices of doubt whisper in the gloom. The heart that is to be kept surrendered to the Saviour must reach its full surrender by the shattering of its hopes and loves, and learn, through tears wept over vanished idols, that nothing but the Eternal Love can satisfy its passionate desires. The spirit that, walking by faith, follows the path of the Redeemer, must be trained by sharp unrest, and the sad sense of homelessness, to that pilgrim life that finds a home nowhere but in the mansions of eternity.

"Here, in that law-faith grows by trial--we find the solution of the mystery that has perplexed the thinkers in all ages-viz., the peculiar trials of the righteous. Unspiritual, worldly men, beholding the sorrows of the Christian Saint, imagine they are judgments for secret sin. No! a thousand times no! They form the discipline by which the faith of the righteous soul is purged from earthly mists and gifted with heavenly vision.

"But this necessary discipline of their faith inevitably conceals their glory. The world's eye sees little beauty in the crown of thorns, and is unable to perceive the grandeur of the faith that accepts the sorrow of the heaviest cross for the sake of the Christ it cannot see. There are, indeed, flashes of spiritual glory, beaming now and then from the Christian spirit in its agony, that are too bright to be concealed; but, usually, the mass of men are unable to hear the undertone of heavenly music that thrills through the cry of Christian sorrow, or detect the robes of the heavenly palace beneath the garments of great tribulation.

"We cannot see this ourselves when we are the subjects of trial. When by some gigantic sorrow a whole world of hope and affection is suddenly swept away when our highest and noblest efforts are broken into failures,-in those hours we are merely stunned and overwhelmed by grief, and it is not easy-nay, it is almost impossible-to see the glory brightening in the inner man, that at last shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father.'"

A True Briton. The Story of a Life. London: Jarrold and Sons.

Christian patriots should take a note of this tract. By circulating it they will promote true

reform. Whatever the result of the recent extension of the franchise may be-whether "the leap in the dark" will bring us to firmer ground or not-there can be no doubt whatever, that our national prosperity would be promoted by the general adoption of such counsel as this:

"The inborn love of home and country should make us feel that the welfare of the nation depends upon the way in which our homes are conducted; so that every man in his capacity as husband and father, to say nothing of more public duties, should feel that he is, in a measure, responsible for the well-being of the country."

The following words are quoted as having been addressed by "one of the highest-minded teachers of our age" to a company of working

men.

We wish every voter would get them by heart, and resolve to act upon them:

"The possession of a vote gives to the workingman a solemn responsibility. Let us not be told that the injury done by a wrong vote is small; it is not so that we measure responsibility. If there be a million voters, and a man votes corruptly, it is true it is but the millionth part of the injury which may arise from a bad law that is attributable to him; but responsibility is measured not by the amount of injury which results, but by the measure of distinctness with which the conscience has the opportunity of distinguishing between right and wrong. That man is not worthy of a vote in this country who gives his vote to the temptation of a bribe; neither is he worthy who bribes a man to vote against his conscience. That man is not worthy of a vote who intimidates another; nor is he worthy who suffers himself to be intimidated. That man misuses his privilege who corrupts by exclusive dealing; so does he who votes solely from self or class interest."

The Parish Tune Book. A selection of useful psalm and hymn tunes for various metres. Compiled by G. F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S., of the Inner Temple. The harmonies revised by R. REDHEAD. London: Warne and Co. The title of this Tune Book best describes it. The selection is excellent, and will supply the lack of peculiar-metre tunes which has so long been felt. The amount of labour the work has entailed may be judged from the fact that the compiler states he has sifted no less than two thousand tunes to get two hundred !

Hymns. By H. B. London: Crocker and Cooper.

One of these hymns will be found in our present number. The others are quite equal to it in excellence.