"LOCAL PREACHERS AND THEIR WORK.”

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Him void, but that He will make it accomplish the end whereunto He sends it.

5. And he must preach the gospel. This is the great purpose of all true ministry, whether lay or clerical; and seeing that we can do little else than preach, we of all men should be most careful to preach the whole gospel, and nothing else but the gospel. We are not to preach ourselves, not our narrowness or our breadth, not our prejudices or our bigotry, not any preconceived notions of the gospel which our own crude intellects may have formed; but it must be the gospel in all its breadth and fulness, comprehensiveness and grandeur, as it is revealed in Christ Jesus. Man's depravity, God's fatherhood, Christ's redemption, and the Holy Spirit's operation;-these and cognate doctrines which cluster around them should form the basis of all our preaching, for in them there is sufficient to meet all the necessities of man's being, to answer the cravings of his spiritual nature, to overcome his sins and lighten his sorrows, to brighten his hopes and allay his fears, and to fortify him against that which he naturally most dreads a dying hour. Of that gospel Christ is the sum and substance, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending, the first and the last. He it is that is to be proclaimed in every sermon, the one theme of all our ministrations and the subject of all our thoughts. It is to lift Him up before the eyes of the people as the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely that we go forth from Sabbath to Sabbath. Oh, brethren, preach Christ; never enter the pulpit without in some way speaking of Him. A sermon without Christ is like offering a stone to those who are asking for bread; and however beautiful your figures may be, or eloquent your appeals, without Christ there will be no life, and therefore no power; like a beautiful flower made of wax, and therefore no sweet aroma, no living loveliness. With such a theme as Christ there is no limit to the possibilities of good we may do. We may tell the story of the cross in the simplest language, or we may bring to its aid all the forms of rhetoric that learning or genius can give. Philosophy, art, and science, can be made to render homage to this theme. We may climb the heavens or delve into the earth, we may call upon the hoary mountains, or cull the flowers of the field, and make them all subservient to the one grand purpose of preaching Christ. Men of all classes and of all degrees of education have been called to this work, and by its magical spell have wrought wonders on the earth; thousands have been turned from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God. God is no respecter of persons in this matter; He can use us in our simple way just as easily as He can use men of learning and genius and power. Yea, often He has seen fit to use the simplest instruments in accomplishing His grandest purposes. It is for us to see to it that we, in our vocation as lay preachers, only preach that which He has revealed in His word-Christ the power of God, and Christ the wisdom of God— and thus shall we, in our measure, proclaim the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

6. The Lay Preacher has to preach that gospel for the most part in the VILLAGES. The same gospel and the same Saviour are required in the villages as in the towns. Go ye into all the world" includes the villages; and therefore those who go there receive their commission

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direct from the Master Himself, and need nothing else to uphold the dignity and importance of village preaching. There is much that is disheartening in village preaching; for while there are hearts as warm, and souls as good, and Christian love as cordial and tender and selfsacrificing as ever you will find in towns, there is much that is of a contrary kind; you will find ignorance so stolid, and hearts so hard, and souls so shrivelled that they seem but little more spiritual than the cattle they look after. It seems almost impossible to make any impression; and when impressions are made it is usually upon the young; and just as the preacher thinks he is about to reap the fruit of his toil, and gather the sheaf into his garner, the young man or young woman escapes him, and in the laudable pursuit of this world's good he or she goes away to the town. Many sermons are preached in the villages the fruit of which is reaped by the pastor of the larger churches in the neighbouring town.

The work of village preaching needs a large amount of patient endurance, of persevering effort in the face of expectation constantly disappointed, and of the spirit which looks for no reward save an approving conscience and the smile of God. Yonder I see a picture; it is a Christian man, a village preacher, who all the week has had to toil from early morn till late at night in order to provide for the wants of wife and children; with scarcely a moment to call his own, or even to enjoy the sweet endearments of his happy family. The Sabbath morn has come round, and it is winter, and ere it is light he sallies forth in face of wind and rain or snow to catch an early train; arriving as far as the train will take him, he has to trudge across wet fields or along narrow and dirty lanes for miles to the village where he, as God's ambassador, is to offer pardon and peace through a crucified Saviour. Coming near to the church, with its tall spire and Gothic architecture and stained glass windows, supported by no voluntary subscription but by compulsion from the coffers of the State, he meets the State-paid man they call a Priest, with clean shaven face and wearing a long coat of super broad cloth and "dog collar" all complete, who passes by him with a scornful look of supercilious contempt, much in the same way as a gamekeeper would look on a poacher whom he would like to expel, but dare not, from his preserves. Thinking of the message he has to deliver, on he goes until he comes to a building consisting of four square walls, plain to ugliness, which they call a meeting-house, and there he is greeted with brotherly affection by one and another, and he forgets his toil, and with a heart overflowing with love, in simple but feeling language, he speaks to the few who have gathered round him of "the light afflictions which are but for a moment working out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Burdened hearts are made lighter, sorrowing souls are made glad by his simple but heart-reaching words. Service being over he partakes of the frugal meal prepared for him, and the afternoon is passed in visiting the school and talking to the children, or by paying visits of consolation to the sick and the afflicted. Evening comes, and again another service; this time to a somewhat larger congregation, of a mixed character, and so, more pointedly and solemnly, he preaches the gospel, and bids his hearers, in beseeching and persuasive words, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world." The services of the day being con

cluded he turns his way again along the lanes, and across the fields, arriving at the station just in time to catch the last train, and reaches his home to find all his children gone to bed, and his wife in loneliness waiting his return. Weary and worn by his day's work, he "has earned his night's repose."

What would the villages be without the Lay Preachers? I have no hesitation in saying that in many of them there would be no gospel, as we understand it, preached at all. There might be a cold morality, accompanied by a cold formality, proclaimed in the State Church by the Statepaid preacher; but in too many of them there is an utter absence of the regenerating life-giving power to be found only in the gospel; and, therefore, without the continual visits of the lay preacher to the dissenting chapel, there would settle over the place spiritual darkness if not death, without a ray of light, and scarcely the hope of it, to chase away the gloom; but the village chapel is a standing monument to the truth as it is in Jesus. I gladly admit that in some of the rural churches of the establishment the gospel is preached in its purest and simplest form by the hard working parish clergyman, or the still more hard working curate, who deserve all the honours conferred upon them, and are true Christians as well as perfect gentlemen; but many others have had saddled upon them a man who, knowing nothing of conversion by experience, cannot possibly teach the necessity or the nature of the new birth, and therefore they need the gospel from other lips if they are to have it at all.

The villages have, indeed, much to be thankful for, and ought to appreciate the self-denying labours of the man who leaves the comforts of home and the needful Sabbath rest, and exposes himself to the risk of cold and fatigue for Christ's sake, and their sake, in order that he may break unto them the bread of everlasting life. On the other hand the lay preacher's work is a glorious work. In doing this he is closely following the footsteps of Him of whom it is said that He "went round about the villages teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom." W. ASHBY.

To be Nothing.

THE Christian Statesman has the following very timely and truthful things to say, and they are so good that they cannot be too generally repeated :-"A very popular and favourite hymn begins after this fashion

'Oh, to be nothing, nothing,

Only to lie at His feet,

A broken and emptied vessel,

For the Master's use made meet.'

"We do not doubt that the author of this wrote it in a spirit of deep humility and submission, desiring to be thoroughly devoted to the service of God. But we question the propriety of placing it in a collection for general use, for there are comparatively few who would sing it in just the frame of mind which inspired it. Too many people would be only too willing thus to lie-and never get up again; to be entirely emptied -and never filled up. There is a vast amount of moral laziness in the church, outside the minority who are willing to obey promptly whenever duty calls. People need stirring up, generally, and stimulated to energetic conflict with the spiritual adversaries that beset us all: and the sentiment expressed in such hymns as the one we have quoted is apt to exercise rather a soporific influence over the conscience in many cases.'

After the Association.

A GOSSIP.

"THE last scene of all" is generally the pic-nic. But for pic-nic purposes commend me to Mablethorpe, Miller's Dale, Clifton Grove, Bradgate Park, and such like places, and save me from the Alexandra Palace, where we loose ourselves amongst the "mixed multitude," and take tea at tables in a grand room, and are actually waited on by white cravatted and cut-a-way coated professionals. It spoils a pic-nic to have things too proper: they should be essentially free and easy, rough and ready, happy-go-lucky, and all-of-a-heap. Under the trees -fanned by a breeze-in a tumbled down shanty or a shaky tent, amid some hoary ruins or at a roadside inn, where there are a few inconveniences which make some call for gallantry, and stimulate good humour, and cause no end of fun-such is the place for a pic-nic. Of course no such luxuries are to be had within fifty or one hundred miles of London for love or money. So our excellent caterer took us to the nearest and newest of the public palaces, where we saw the nearly nude Nubians at a reduced fee; acrobatic antics and Equestrian exploits in the Hippodrome; performing beasts in a caravan; then strolled in twos and threes, like wandering Jews, wondering where we were, and how we could best kill time and get away.

THE BAPTISM OF A BABE.

Not having to hurry home for Sunday, one had the rare privilege of sitting still and enjoying the services of the sanctuary; and especially of hearing others preach. Going in the morning to the Marylebone Presbyterian Church, interest was heightened soon after service commenced by the appearance of a small group of persons, consisting of the chapel keeper, and a man and wife with an infant, around the font. The officiating minister, Dr. Donald Fraser, questioned the parents as to their faith; as to their desire to dedicate their offspring to God; read those passages in which the Saviour speaks so graciously about His readiness to receive the little ones, and indicates their exalted position in the heavens; and, as if in vindication of an infant's right to Christian baptism, referred to the baptism of households as recorded in the Acts, prayed for the parents and the child, and sprinkled hastily the youngster, who evidently felt that his turn to speak had come; but as he orated lustily and incoherently he was hustled off into the back settlements, whither the lonely father speedily followed. Notwithstanding this somewhat precipitate termination, the service, as a whole, was simple, and withal spiritual in tone, and seemed to leave quite a favourable impression upon the large congregation. Never had I seen so little that was objectionable in form, or heard so little that was questionable in doctrine at such a service. Surely there is something pretty, and pleasant, and poetic, in Pædo-baptism. Few things in religion seem more natural than that a smiling sinless babe should, in some simple service be dedicated to the Saviour. But so long as personal faith in the Son of God is the prerequisite of Christian baptism, however fascinating infant sprinkling may be, Bible Christians dare do no

AFTER THE ASSOCIATION.

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other than protest against the perversion of an ordinance, the spiritual significance of which is destroyed when administered to any but the approved subjects in the proper form. Dr. Fraser's sermon was a discriminating analysis of the probable motives which urged Judas to betray the Saviour into the hands of sinners, and of his subsequent remorse when he found that he could not recede from the wretched part the devil had urged him to play. The sermon was a graphic grouping of the incidents narrated in the gospels, in which the different parties named were represented with dramatic power.

But I pass to what I saw and heard in three places on my last day in London.

THE DORE GALLERY.

This is devoted to the exhibition of the pictures of the most ambitious, and in many respects the most accomplished, of French artists, M. Gustave Doré. Nowhere can more striking and suggestive sermons on canvass be witnessed. More exquisite, elaborate, and finished works may be named; but among modern painters no one has depicted scripture scenes so vividly and vigorously. His pictures are all alive; his characters move and speak. When gazing upon them one seems less an observer than a participant in what is represented. The chief works— "Christ leaving the Prætorium," "Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem," and "Moses lifting up the Serpent in the Wilderness"— each 30ft. by 20ft., are so massive, so crowded with characters, so brilliant in colouring, so original in grouping, as to disarm criticism and call forth wonder and surprise. The superabundance of power almost dazzles the spectator, and he reverts from the larger to the smaller pictures with a sense of relief, but still takes in fresh points of beauty at every glance. Doré was known as a most facile and forcible illustrator of books before he came to the front as an oil painter. There is scarcely an author of note in any nation whose works have not been enriched by his etchings. He has embellished the works of Æsop, Cervantes, Dante, Hood, Milton, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and a host of others; many of his most successful being for a superb edition of the Bible which bears his own name. His first large, and at present greatest work, was executed during the Franco-German War, and but narrowly escaped destruction at the seige of Paris. It depicts the majestic-white-robed -thorn-crowned-" Man of Sorrows," just at that moment when the vaccillating Pilate, cowed by the crowd which clamoured for the blood of the innocent One, had yielded Him up to be crucified, in spite of the protests of his conscience, and the warnings of his wife, declaring at the time, "I find no fault in Him." Pilate, in purple toga, upon the high pavement, affects an air of unconcern as he yields up the "Lamb of God" to those three vindictive looking priests, who, chuckling with malignant glee to think that they have gained their point, will now see that He is "led to the slaughter." The,weeping "daughters of Jerusalem," foremost among them His mother, through whose heart the sword of anguish is piercing, occupy a prominent place on the left foreground, and are being pressed back among the excited, irritated crowd by the stalwart Roman soldiery. While to the right a way is being forced that the grimly grand procession may proceed to Golgotha-the scowling conscience-stricken Judas seeming as if he would fain avoid