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CHESTER AND ITS MEMORIES.

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One commemorates "A soldier, a soldier to the last; peace be to his ashes." Others are described as "honourable gentleman, superior to everything mean and base," but nothing said of "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Such things are not creditable to us as a Christian people; and it is much to be deplored when the dark shades of the tomb are not lighted up by the bright hopes inspired by the gospel. "Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" expresses the state of mind in which death and the grave should be contemplated. On the history of the Cathedral, and the eminent men who, at different times, have been Bishops of Chester, I need not dwell, but may refer to Pearson, whose Exposition of the Creed" is a very able work; and to Bishop Sumner who, thirty years ago, was translated from Chester to be Archbishop of Canterbury. The present Dean (Dr. Howson) is a very excellent and useful writer. "The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, "by Conybeare and Howson, is a truly masterly work, and the best parts were written by Howson. His "Scenes from the life of St. Paul," published by the Tract Society and admirably illustrated, will well repay attentive perusal, and a similar remark may be made respecting his works on the "Miracles of Christ."

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Phoenix Tower, on the walls of Chester, is associated with the martyr history of England. George Marsh, one of the martyrs of bloody Mary's reign, was imprisoned here, and afterwards sealed his testimony near to the Spittal Boughton, which was then an open space. When the Bishop had pronounced his sentence he added, "Now I will no more pray for thee than I will for a dog." But Marsh answered, "Notwithstanding I will pray for your lordship." And when he went from his prison to the stake the Bible was in his hand, and his eyes earnestly fixed on its pages. It is said that there were a few citizens in Chester who sympathised with Christ's faithful witness, and who loved the truth which to him was dearer than life. His last words were, "Father in heaven, have mercy upon me." It may be added that Marsh was for a time curate of Lawrence Saunders, of Church Langton, in Leicestershire; and Saunders, like Marsh, died in defence of Christ's holy truth. The reader may remember that it was Saunders who kissed the stake, and when he was fastened to it, and the faggots lighted, said, "Welcome the cross of Christ! welcome everlasting life.". Some of Marsh's letters, written while in prison, are very excellent: he expresses a confident hope that the things which were happening to him would fall out to the furtherance of the gospel, and records his earnest desire that the friends to whom he wrote might be stedfast in the faith.

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"Now we

live," ," he said, "if ye stand fast in the Lord." It is very pleasing to notice the love to Christ which his letters breathe. We," he said, are poor, but He is rich in mercy towards all them that call upon Him. If we hunger and thirst after righteousness let us resort unto His table, for He is a most liberal feast-maker. He will set before us His own holy body, which is given to us to be our meat; and His precious blood, which was shed for us, and for many, for the remission of sins, to be our drink. He biddeth, willeth, and calleth for guests which hunger and thirst. Come (saith He) all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you, cool and ease you; and you shall find rest unto your souls.""

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Now let us change the scene a little. Chester was, in the same sanguinary reign, the scene of a very amusing trick played on a bigoted persecutor, Dr. Cole. The story is no doubt well known to many of my readers, but they may not be unwilling to be reminded of it, and to have another laugh at the expense of the old persecutor. Cole was on

his way to Ireland bearing the commission of the Queeen to institute proceedings against the Irish Protestants, and he stayed for a little time at the "Blue Posts," which was then the principal inn or hotel in the old city. While here he was waited upon by the Mayor, a violent Romanist; and the doctor, taking out a box, which contained the Queen's commission, said, "Here is that which shall lash the heretics of Ireland." The words were overheard by Mistress Edmonds, the landlady of the hotel, who was a sound Protestant. When the Mayor took his leave Dr. Cole ceremoniously attended on him as he walked down the stairs. While the doctor was out of his room, the good woman opened the box, took out the commission, and put in its place a pack of cards wrapped in paper. Cole returned to his chamber, suspecting nothing of what had been done, took up the box, and went to the water side. Happily, wind and weather were favourable, and at once he set sail for Ireland. In due time the doctor arrived in Dublin, and appeared before Lord Fitzwalters, the Lord Deputy, and the Privy Council. The Secretary, doubtless with due solemnity, opened the box; but great was their confusion and dismay when it was found that the Queen's commission against the Irish Protestants was not there, but only a pack of cards, the knave of trumps being uppermost. One would have liked to see how the persecutors "looked one on another" when they found the trick that had been played them; and, as we have the highest authority for saying that "there is a time to laugh," we may be amused to our hearts content over the confusion of those who plotted evil against the saints; and it cannot be wrong to pray, "So let all Thine enemies " be confounded, "O Lord; but let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might." Nothing could be done without a fresh commission, and Cole returned, chagrined and disappointed, to England to obtain it. In those days the journey was long and tedious, and while the doctor was waiting for a favourable wind, news came that Mary had been stopped in her persecuting career by death. Queen Elizabeth was so delighted with the story that she granted a pension of forty pounds a year to the worthy landlady-Mrs. Elizabeth Edmonds.

In another paper I hope to say a little about Matthew Henry and his connection with Chester; but as I wish all my young friends to understand about Popery, and Popish sovereigns, I will close with a remark from Bishop Burnet on the inglorious reign of Mary. "It does not appear," he says, that there was any one great or good design ever set on foot either for the wealth or glory of the nation" during her reign. And he justly adds, "God shortened the time of her reign for the elect's sake, and He seemed to have suffered Popery to show itself in its true and natural colours, all over both false and bloody, even in a female reign, from whence all mildness and gentleness might have been expected."

Sleeping in Chapel.

BY REV. A. C. PERRIAM, LOUTH.

IT is well that chapels are constructed with due regard for the convenience and comfort of worshippers. Some people will go to sleep, and it would be a pity if they should hurt themselves. By settling on a cushion in a quiet corner the chapel-sleeper avoids unnecessary risk. He gives to the more nervous members of the congregation an implied assurance that its all right with him, they needn't bother; and the preacher is permitted to reach the end of his prelection without being interrupted by heavy tumbles on to the floor.

A great deal might be said in extenuation of the conduct of some who go to sleep in chapel. There are the aged, whose faculties tire when strained by long attention; those who follow out-door occupations-gardeners, messengers, &c., acccustomed to breathe a bracing atmosphere; and the numerous class of operatives employed during the week in noisy workshops, to whom sustained silence, broken only by the monotony of one man's voice, proves irksome and oppressive. When minister's are "long preaching" they should not feel hurt if some portion of the congregation goes to sleep. Pulpit orators, the most gifted and God-honoured, have sometimes discoursed to drowsy, inattentive hearers. On one occasion we had the pleasure of hearing the far-famed Dr. Parker; ever and anon, his stentorian voice, and sudden bursts of excited rhetoric, made us almost start from off our seats; but within arm's-length was one wrapped all the time in the calmest and sweetest of soporific slumbers. Mr. Spurgeon confesses: "I remember, once in my life, having a sleepy congregation; they had been eating too much dinner, and they came to the chapel in the afternoon very sleepy, so I tried an old expedient to rouse them. I shouted with all my might, Fire! fire! fire!' When starting from their seats, some of the congregation asked where it was, I told them it was in hell for such drowsy sinners as they were." Ward Beecher, in a sermon recently delivered, was protesting strongly against the practice of keeping young children awake in chapel. "Bless me!" he exclaimed, "what harm is there in children's sleeping? Deacons sleep; class-leaders-men of approved orthodoxy-they sleep. I suppose that they must have visions of angels, and all manner of heavenly revelations, they take it so naturally and continuously." We may as well resign ourselves to this sort of thing; if an evil at all, it is evidently one of a necessary kind; it is to be met with in every country, and it re-appears in each succeeding age. Probably the best of us have, at divers times, slept in chapel; fortunately, we were not perched, as Eutychus was, near a lofty unprotected window, but seated at our ease in a modern sloping pew.

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We ought to "be kindly affectioned one to another;" and are resolved to construe good naturedly the conduct of our brethren whenever we can; then let us make every possible allowance for disturbed nights, summer heats, bilious headaches, depressing colds, etc., etc. Besides, if we estimate all his qualities, the man who goes to sleep is

sometimes better than his neighbour who keeps awake; more liberal in his giving, and consistent in his life; more anxious for the peace of Zion and the saving of the world. We shrink from passing even a mitigated condemnation upon any case where sleepfulness in chapel arises from "weakness of the flesh." But when it is deliberately induced, when it denotes a want of interest in the priceless word of life, whenever the chapel-sleeper is convicted upon moral grounds, he deserves to be-well, tenderly admonished.

In the 20th of Acts we have the record of an accident which befell one, who, perhaps, deserves to be canonised as the patron saint of chapelsleepers. Notwithstanding the sympathy that has been expressed for him, we cannot help thinking that a little blame is attributable to Eutychus. It is true the apostle was "long preaching," but others kept awake. Beside, from beginning to end, every statement Paul made was invested with the charm of novelty. It was not an "old, old story" that he had to tell. He visited Troas to make what was virtually a new revelation, full of interest and wonder. This was his farewell discourse too. And although the chamber was lighted, as Luke tells us, with many lights-oil lamps, of course-which must have made the atmosphere very foul and heavy, be it remembered, Eutychus was seated at an upper window in the draught. Yes! he ought to have kept awake. We fear, that if the truth were known, it would be found that this young man paid no proper attention to the preacher; that he brought to the task of hearing neither his intelligence, nor his imagination, nor his sympathies, nor his sense of veneration. He was possibly listless at the outset; and, so missing the thread of Paul's argument, he failed to see the cogency of his reasoning, or the point of his illustrations, and growing weary, fell asleep. If this were so, he merited his tumble, and any unenviable notoriety which it brought him.

The account we have is a brief one; but it shows that the service to which Eutychus paid such scant attention, was one calculated to sustain the deepest interest, and stimulate the liveliest emotion. The fellowship enjoyed in our day is perhaps less inspiring than that which was cherished between the first gospel-preachers, and the earliest Christian converts. It is not pretended that we commonly realise the scriptural idea of public worship; or that the exercises of the sanctuary are nearly as cheerful, helpful, and refreshing, or as instructive, or solemn as they ought to be. But the professed object of the weekly assemblage of the saints, the weighty words that are spoken, the ascriptions of praise hymned by the singers; and the avowal of faith in a present God, uttered by the prayer-leader on behalf of those who bow their heads in seeming reverence-all this, marks the incongruity of thoughtless trifling, and the unseemliness of encouraged sloth.

Generous and holy is the impulse quickened by acts of public worship! Hallowing are the memories that hover around the sanctuaries wherein the faithful love to meet! We believe not in consecrated bricks and mortar; but there are places that have been made holy by the laws of association and suggestion-ordinary, dingy-looking buildings they may be that have been transfigured, that have become as it were "the gates of heaven to our souls." If we have any imagination, any sense of reverence, will it be nothing that we meet where others

SLEEPING IN CHAPEL.

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have been face to face with God? Shall we give way to listlessness and drowsy indifference, where our loved ones-who are now crowned in heaven, but whose memories are still fragrant upon earth-were the subjects of the most solemn emotion or exquisite joy?

Few are conscious of the loss they sustain by entering the Lord's house unimpressed by its sacred associations, and unmindful of the holy purposes for which 'tis set apart. There was one who did not scruple to employ the choicest poetic language to express the fervour of hope with which he awaited admission into the house of God. A great deal depends always on the measure and kind of our expectancy. Let us indulge during the week pleasanter anticipations; and on the Sabbath we shall enjoy rarer spiritual privileges, and happier communion. The blessing will be according to our faith and prayerful preparation. When two or three meet together in the name of the Lord, He is with them, to bless them; and His Holy Spirit to comfort, and teach, and show the things of Christ." "Faith cometh by attention." Heaven's music is lost upon those who have "ears to hear, but hear not;" and saving truth is profitless to him who has no heart to understand. "Let us watch;" for we "know neither the day nor the hour," the chapter nor the verse, the hymn nor the prayer, nor the sermon, "wherein the Son of Man cometh." 'By the foolishness of preaching;" by the instrumentality of some ignorant, unimaginative speaker, towards the end of a rambling tedious discourse, He may be pleased to reveal Himself, so that "the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us."

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"Christ was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew him not." He talked with two of His disciples near Emmaus, but their eyes were holden so that they could not identify His person. He spoke to Mary in the garden, when her mind was preoccupied, and her search anxious, for the finding of a dead body; and she mistook Him for a gardener. He appeared on the shore of the Galilean lake while His apostles were worrying over their unremunerative work; and they could not tell who He was. And don't you think it's possible that when we are indulging our fancies, troubling about our earthly prospects, grieving over our losses, or anticipating our secular joys, until we forget that we ought all the time to be worshipping with the brethen around us-dont you think, my reader, it is very likely, that while we are inattentive and indifferent in this way, that the Lord may be in the place, unrecognised and unhonoured, speaking to our hearts, while yet we know Him not?

The foolish virgins slept, all through a blaze of light, and just as their lamps were going out, they woke. And there are foolish Christians who recover their attention in the house of God only in time to feel an uneasy sense of having missed something: some truth that might have strengthened them in the hour of temptation; some presentation of the divine love that would have warmed their hearts into gratitude and gladness; some of the light of the knowledge of God in Christ, by whose aid they could have found their way farther along the path of holiness, and nearer to the gate of heaven.

"Let us not sleep as do others," either actually or metaphorically. Let us wake to works of diligence, and to all the glorious realities of

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