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HOW SOON

Our new-born light

Attains to full-aged noon!

And this how soon to gray-hair'd night:

We spring, we bud, we blossom, and we blast,

Ere we can count our days, our days they flee so fast." Hieroglyphic IX. In Fuller's "Abel Redivivus," a very rare book, are the following lines on Ridley, most probably written by Quarles. They are marked by a certain sternness, which Quarles' vigorous unbending mind impressed on all his productions.

"Read in the progress of this blessed story
Rome's cursed cruelty and Ridley's glory;
Rome's siren song, but Ridley's careless ear
Was deaf: they charmed, but Ridley would not hear.
Rome sung preferment, but brave Ridley's tongue
Condemned that false preferment which Rome sung.
Rome whispered wealth; but Ridley (whose great gain
Was godliness) he wav'd it with disdain.
Rome threatened durance; but great Ridley's mind
Was too, too strong for threats or chains to bind.
Rome thundered death; but Ridley's dauntless eye
Stared in Death's face, and scorn'd Death standing by:
In spite of Rome, for England's faith he stood,
And in the flames he sealed it with his blood."

The following list comprises all the poetical works of Quarles with which I am acquainted: probably the list might be extended by one more deeply read in the tomes of bygone ages. "The Scripture Histories of Samson, Job, Esther, and Jonah;" "The School of the Heart;""Emblems;" "Sion's Elegies;" "Eleven Pious Meditations;" "Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man ;" "Quintessence of Meditation;" "Alphabet of Elegies;" "Solomon's Recantation," a paraphrase on Ecclesiastes; and the "Shepherd's Oracles."

The poetry of Quarles may be compared to an oldfashioned garden, in which the trees are carved into unnatural distortions and unimaginable monsters. As it was once the fashion thus to interfere with nature in the management of her offspring, so, when our poet wrote, verse was esteemed in the same degree as it exhibited the traces of painful and elaborate art. Unfortunately Quarles, Herbert, and Cowley, fell into the current of public opinion, instead of directing its stream into a more excellent channel. Had the former kept in remembrance his own advice, and elevated the standard of his own discerning judgment above the caprice of public opinion, his works, instead of meeting with neglect, ridicule, and contempt, would have received that attention which, after all, they well deserve and will richly repay.

But it was reserved for the immortal Milton to unite sublimity of thought with a corresponding sublimity of diction. Soaring aloft on the wings of imagination, he calmly sails through the regions of upper air, and, as he tells of the mysteries of redemption, inspiration breathes through his words.

Strongly contrasted with his calm sublimity are the fettered rhymes of a Quarles or Cowley. Occasionally

an original idea will burst these bonds, and sometimes feeling will clothe itself in the garment of simplicity. His prayers and meditations, as indeed all his prose works, are equally eminent for piety and eloquence.

"Clothe not thy language either with obscurity or affectation; in the one thou discoverest too much darkness, in the other too much lightness. He that speaks from the understanding to the understanding, is the best interpreter."

Quarles lived and died a zealous adherent of the Established Church. The last words which he spake were in Latin, and to this effect: "O dulcis Salvator mundi, sint tua ultima verba in cruce mea ultima verba in luce: In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.' Et quæ ore meo fari non possint, ab animo et corde sint a te accepta."

Garsden, 1839.

GOD'S REASONS FOR PERMITTING
IDOLATRY TO REMAIN.

GOD could, with the same ease, have enabled the Israelites to put out those heathen nations at once, as by little and little; but it was not for their good that it should be so. God saw the pride of their hearts, and that they would be apt to arrogate to themselves the merit of their success, and the honour of an entire conquest. He therefore thought it best to permit some of his enemies to survive, and to be as thorns in their sides; so that the continued sense of their danger might keep up as constant a sense of their dependence on his help and protection. Moreover, the land which God had promised them being too large to be sufficiently peopled by them at first, it was necessary, as God himself observes, that the old inhabitants should not be consumed at once, lest the beasts of the field should increase upon them: that the peopling of the whole country would, therefore, be a work of time, and cost them much pains and industry to improve. After the same manner doth God deal with his people under the new law; he gives them not power to subdue all their spiritual enemies at once; and for this very reason-because pride, which is one of the most dangerous of all those enemies, is usually an effect of the very victory we gain over our other vices. Hence it often comes to pass, that as the children of Israel were not suffered to put out some of those nations who lived among them, although they had utterly consumed others; so likewise it is with many faithful and sincere Christians: after their conquest over the main body of sin, some remainders of it, some petty vices, are still left in them, which, though they daily lament, and strive against, they are not able to get the better of it. And this, as St. Gregory observes, is permitted by our heavenly Father, that the daily conflict with these enemies of our souls may keep us in a daily state of humility and mortification. Besides, the edifice of virtue goes on but slowly in the soul, and there is no arriving at that state of perfection, to which God hath called us, without passing through the several stages which lead thereto. It is the nature of all things here below to grow only by little and little, and to come to perfection but by slow degrees, by exercise and much labour. And as it is thus in the works of art and nature, so is it also in those of grace. The material world is an emblem and image of what passes in the spiritual. The same God works in all, and alike in all. Let these reflections teach us patience, both towards ourselves and others, and not to be discouraged at the small progress of virtue in our own souls, nor be too much offended with the slow improvements of our neighbours, nor children of our friends. If we yield not up ourselves as slaves to our lusts, but continue to mainsincere, though frail endeavours to the end; we are tain the fight; if we still resist, still persevere, with

assured a time will come when the Lord our God shall deliver these enemies unto us, and that he will destroy them, even all of them, with a mighty destruction, until they be utterly destroyed; that he will deliver their kings into our hands, and none shall be able to stand before us: i. e. both the greater and lesser corruptions and vices shall be totally destroyed. But this

From Wogan.

will be only at the hour of death, in our last conflict. Then, and not till then, shall our blessed Lord "deliver Israel (all that are of Israel) from all their sins." Amen! So be it.

The Cabinet.

ON SOLITUDE.-There is in the human mind a natural dread of solitude. Nor is this to be wondered at; for solitude has no existence in the truth of things. It is a dark illusion of the mind; a spectre, which haunts the soul while dead in trespasses and sins; but which flies at the approach of light, and vanishes at the dawn of an eternal day. I repeat it, there is no such thing in real existence, as that solitude which the carnal mind pictures to itself, when sensible objects and visible witnesses are withdrawn. In theory all must admit this, who believe in the being and ubiquity of God. But there is, to the mind awakened to the life of faith, a practical and realising impression of the same great truth, which opens in the soul a sense of happiness unfelt before. "Ye are come," says the apostle, "unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant." Such is the brilliant and august assembly into which the believer is, as it were, introduced, when he passes from darkness unto light, and enters into the kingdom of heaven. He then becomes a member of a society, whose union neither time nor place can sever. That separation from human intercourse, which once was felt as solitude, in all its gloom, is now sought and welcomed, as the season of communion with the inhabitants of brighter scenes and happier worlds. The man who has been thus enfranchised as a citizen of heaven exults in the thought, that henceforth he will never be alone, and that the weariness of solitude is gone for ever. He has discovered a secret which can cast a light upon the darkest hour, and fill with animation and felt importance, those seasons when existence presses, with its deadliest weight, upon the children of this world. who is conscious of no witness but his fellow-men, and who feels that he has no part to act but in the eyes of the world, has lost all cheering motive to right conduct, when cut off by circumstances from human converse. In sleepless nights, and days of languor upon his couch, he has no employment but to count the hours, no companions but restlessness and pains. All worth living for, to him, hath fled. A burden to himself, and still left to himself, when, "in the night, he communes with his own heart, and searches out his spirit," what can he find there, but the mournful conviction, that he is "clean forgotten, as a dead man out of mind," that he is "become like a broken vessel?" How different is the experience of that man who knows that he is a "fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God!" Though cast into the deepest shade of what the world calls solitude, he is never less alone than when alone. He is cheered by the consciousness that God is "about his path, and about his bed, and spieth out all his ways.' "3 He has a never-failing and animating motive for the right performance of every, the most trifling action; for all is done in the presence of that Being "in whose favour is life," and whose smile is the sunshine of the world of spirits. In the chamber of disease, in silence, and in darkness, he has still his duties to perform, his part to act, his battles to fight, and victories to gain: and all this, not only in the sight of God, but in the view of that cloud of witnesses, before whom every candidate for an immortal crown runs his heavenward race. He feels that no silent submission to his cross,

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no patient endurance of his pain, no tear of penitence or sigh that breathes towards heaven, is forgotten before God. Nay, he is assured, that if God approves, angels and ministering spirits rejoice in witnessing how his "light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Such is the only solitude which the man of faith and prayer can know. Such are the scenes which open to his view in the loneliness of his closet ; such the stars and constellations which appear, when the light of this world is withdrawn and its sun gone down.-Rev. H. Woodward.

THE ESSENTIAL AND CO-EQUAL DEITY OF CHRIST THE ONLY GROUND OF THE BELIEVER'S HOPE. Whatever is ascribed to the Father and to the Spirit, is ascribed to the Son respecting his divine essence; and whatever names are peculiar to Jesus in the Scriptures, they are peculiar to him from some or other of his offices as man and mediator. If it were otherwise, by what a flimsy prop would the faith of God's people be supported? If Jesus was but a mere creature, he could merit but for himself; he could not atone for others. All his virtues, in that case, were they ever so many or ever so great, could avail but for his own justification; they would be due from him to the Author of his being, who bestowed upon him a capacity of exerting them. Not the highest angel in heaven, not a created potentate in the ethereal mansions, has a tittle more of goodness and obedience than he ought to have; consequently he has none to spare to them who need. If a sinner applied to them (as the deluded papists do to the saints), they would send him away, in the language of the wise virgins, saying, "Not so; lest there be not enough for us and for you: but go ye rather to them that sell (to those who have aught to dispose of, for we have not), and buy for yourselves." And, if there were no absurdity or blasphemy in the opinion of an inferior, dependent God, alas, what comfort can any distressed soul derive from him! He sees that his sins are so many and so great; that his nature is so radically evil and deceitful; that the world has so many temptations, calculated with the utmost sagacity and suitableness to ensnare him; and that, beyond all this (which alone would suffice to sink him into perdition), he has to wrestle against (spiritual) principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places." "whole armour of God" is requisite for his defence; the whole power of God is necessary for his perseverance and victory. But, if the Son of God be inferior to the Father, where is the line of inferiority to be drawn? Who can fix a point between that which is infinite and uncircumscribed, and that which is subordinate and derived? From whence are the ideas to arise of this comparison, and how can the principle be settled? And if the Son must be inferior to the Father, it would be right to determine (and it might be determined with much greater ease) how many degrees he is superior to an angel? But how are Deity and subordination compatible, unless upon the plan of heathenism and idolatry? The inferiority of Godhead has certainly no foundation in the sacred volumes. These, conjointly, attribute the essential glories of the Father to the personality of the Son, and reciprocate to each of the Persons those titles which express the eternal power, the infinite existence, and the adorable glories, of the Unity. They point out to the believer God in Christ, and Jesus in Jehovah, as the alone object and grounds of his faith and adoration. The Spirit of truth bears witness with the Gospel in the believer's heart, giving him to know, " to see, and to handle (perceptions that imply assurance of) the word of life;" and enables him to have a blessed "fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." This is a logic which the carnal mind cannot comprehend; this mode of reasoning is upon prin

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ciples that surely are not innate; and the deductions are formed upon premises and data laid down in a book, sealed and inscrutable to those who have not learned, as it were, the grammar of heaven.-Serle's Hora Solitaria.

TIMELY REPENTANCE.-If you find it so hard a thing to get from the power of one master-sin; if an old adulterer does dote, if an old drunkard be further from remedy than a young sinner, if covetousness grows with old age, if ambition be still more hydropic, and grows more thirsty for every draught of honour; you may easily resolve that old age, or your last sickness, is not so likely to be prosperous in the mortification of your long-prevailing sins. Do not all men desire to end their days in religion, to die in the arms of the Church, to expire under the conduct of a religious man? When ye are sick and dying, then nothing but prayers and sad complaints, and the groans of a tumultuous repentance, and the faint labours of an almost impossible mortification: then the despised priest is sent for; then he is a good man, and his words are oracles, and religion is truth, and sin is a load, and the sinner is a fool; then we watch for a word of comfort from his mouth, as the fearful prisoner for his fate upon the judge's answer. That which is true then, is true now; and therefore, to prevent so intolerable a danger, mortify your sin betime; for else you will hardly mortify it at all. Remember that the snail outwent the eagle, and won the goal, because she set out betimes.-Bp. Taylor.

Poetry.

NATIONAL BALLADS.-No. XIV.

BY MISS M. A. STODART.

(For the Church of England Magazine.)

"The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction within this realm of England."-Art. xxxvii.

THEY say, that we again may bend
Beneath the yoke of Rome,

Again may see the idol-mass

Rear'd in our sea-girt home.

But 'tis not so; our free-born hearts
Recoil e'en from the thought-
We cannot tamely yield the rights
Our fathers' lives have bought.

This land hath reek'd with martyrs' blood,
Hath glow'd with martyrs' fires,
And, phoenix-like, our Church reviv'd
Fresh from the funeral pyres:
Upon the ground on which we tread,

Our murder'd saints have pray'd -
Ye know not of what stubborn stuff
Our English hearts are made!
We're children of the islanders

Who drove the Armada back;
And still we keep the Spanish spears,
The torture, and the rack.
Sturdy and stout our fathers were,

And we are stanch as they,

With hearts too firm, and necks too stiff,
To bend to popish sway.

We 're sons of those who sent away
The Stuart in disdain,

And laugh'd to scorn the Gallic sword,
And spurn'd the Romish chain.

• In Queen Elizabeth's Armory in the Tower.

Italian priests shall never rule Where stands the English throne; Our Sovereign is God's minister, Nor other sway we own!

BISHOP MOORE,

Closing the Virginia Convention of 1839.
THEY cluster'd round, that listening throng,-
The parting hour drew nigh;

And heighten'd feeling, deep and strong,
Spoke forth from eye to eye;

For reverend in his hoary years,

A white-rob'd prelate bent,
And trembling pathos wing'd his words
As to the heart they went.

With saintly love he urg'd the crowd
Salvation's hope to gain;

While gathering o'er his furrow'd cheek
The tears fell down like rain.

He wav'd his hand, and music woke
A warm and solemn strain;

His favourite hymn swell'd high, and fill'd
The consecrated fane.

Then from the hallow'd chancel forth

With faltering step he sped,

And fervent laid a father's hand

On every priestly head;

And breath'd the blessing of his God,
And full of meekness said,
"Be faithful in your Master's work
When your old bishop's dead.

For more than fifty years, my sons,
A Saviour's love supreme
Unto a sinful world hath been
My unexhausted theme.
Now see the blossoms of the grave

Are o'er my temples spread — O, lead the seeking soul to Him When your old bishop's dead." Far wan'd the holy Sabbath-eve

On toward the midnight hour,
Before that spell-bound throng retir'd
To slumber's soothing power;

Yet many a sleeper 'mid his dream
Beheld in snowy stole

That patriarch-prelate's bending form,
Whose accents stirr'd the soul.
In smiles the summer-morn arose,
And many a grateful guest
From Norfolk's hospitable domes,

With tender memories, prest.
While o'er the broad and branching bay,
Which, like a flood, doth pour
A living tide in countless streams
Through fair Virginia's shore,—

O'er Rappahannock's fringed breast,
O'er rich Potomac's tide,

Or where the bold, resistless James
Rolls on with monarch pride,-

From the [United States]" Southern Churchman."

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INFLUENCE OF MUSIC.-The diffusion of a taste for music, and the increasing elevation of its character, may be regarded as a national blessing. The tendency of music is to soften and purify the mind. The cultivation of a musical taste furnishes to the rich a refined and intellectual pursuit, which excludes the indulgence of frivolous and vicious amusements, and to the poor a "laborum dulce lenimen," a relaxation from toil, more attractive than the haunts of intemperance. All music of an elevated character is calculated to produce such effects; but it is to sacred music, above all, that they are to be ascribed. Music may sometimes be the handmaid of debauchery; but this music never can. Bacchanalian songs and glees may heighten the riot of a dissolute party; but that man must be profligate beyond conception, whose mind can entertain gross propensities while the words of inspiration, clothed with the sounds of Handel, are in his ears. In the densely peopled manufacturing districts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Derbyshire, music is cultivated among the working classes to an extent unparalleled in any other part of the kingdom. Every town has its choral society, supported by the amateurs of the place and its neighbourhood, where the sacred works of Handel, and the more modern masters, are performed with precision and effect, by a vocal and instrumental orchestra, consisting of mechanics and work-people; and every village-church has its occasional holyday oratorio, where a well-chosen and wellperformed selection of sacred music is listened to by a decent and attentive audience of the same class as the performers, mingled with their employers and their families. Hence the practice of this music is an ordinary domestic and social recreation among the working classes of these districts; and its influence is of the most salutary kind. The people, in their manners and usages, retain much of the simplicity of "the olden time;" the spirit of industrious independence maintains its ground among them, and they preserve much of their religious feelings and domestic affections, in spite of the demoralising effects of a crowded population, fluctuating employment, and pauperism. Their employers promote and encourage so salutary a recreation, by countenancing, and contributing to defray the expenses of their musical associations; and some great manufacturers provide regular musical instruction for such of their work-people as shew a disposition for it. "It is earnestly to be wished," says a late writer," that such an example were generally followed, in establishments where great numbers of people are employed. Wherever the working classes are taught to prefer the pleasures of intellect, and even of taste, to the gratification of sense, a great and favourable change takes place in their character and manners. They are no longer driven, by mere vacuity of mind, to the beer-shop; and a pastime, which opens their minds to the impressions produced by the strains of Handel and Haydn, combined with the inspired poetry of the Scriptures, becomes something infinitely better than the amusement of an idle hour. Sentiments are awakened which make them love their families and their homes; their wages are not squan- ̧

dered in intemperance; and they become happier as well as better." In every class of society the influence of music is salutary. Intemperance may be rendered more riotous and more vicious by the excitement of loose and profane songs, and music may be an auxiliary to the meretricious blandishments of the stage. But the best gifts of nature and art may be turned to instruments of evil; and music, innocent in itself, is merely abused when it is conjoined with immoral poetry and the allurements of pleasure. "Music," says Burney, "may be applied to licentious poetry; but the poetry then corrupts the music, not the music the poetry. It has often regulated the movements of lascivious dances; but such airs heard, for the first time, without the song or dance, could convey no impure ideas to an innocent imagination; so that Montesquieu's assertion is still in force, that music is the only one of all the arts which does not corrupt the mind.'"-Hogarth's Musical History.

MARTYRDOM.-I will relate a remarkable instance of modern martyrdom. A young Greek, some years ago, whose name was Paniotes, was servant to a Turkish nobleman called Osman Effendi. He came with his master to Jerusalem; and when Osman Effendi went to worship in the mosque of Omar, this young Greek accompanied him. Soon after, Osman Effendi undertook a journey to Damascus, intending to return to Jerusalem, and left Paniotes to await his return. When the pasha of Damascus arrived here on his annual visit, Paniotes was accused to him of having profaned the mosque of Omar, by having entered it. He was summoned to appear before the pasha, and questioned as to why he did so; he answered, that he had followed his master, whom it was his duty to follow. The penalty was death, or to turn Muhammedan, which was much pressed upon him. Paniotes exclaimed, "Christ is risen, who is the Son of the living God. I fear nothing.' Pasha: "Say God is God, and Muhammed the prophet of God, and I adopt you as my son." Paniotes: "Christ is risen, I fear nothing." They led him out before the Castle of David, and drew up the soldiers around him, with their swords drawn ; but Paniotes exclaimed, "I am a Christian! Christ is risen! I fear nothing!" He knelt down and prayed to Jesus Christ the Son of God, and exclaimed, "Christ is risen! I fear nothing." Even Christians advised him to turn Muhammedan. He exclaimed, "Christ is risen! I fear nothing." The executioner lifted up his fine hair, which he wore, as many Greeks do, flowing down to the shoulders, and struck him several times with the sword, so as to draw blood, in the hope that he might relent; but Paniotes continued, "Jesus is the Son of the living God;" and crossing himself, exclaimed, "Christ is risen; I fear nothing!" and his head fell.— Wolff's Journal.

GOD'S CHILDREN MUST HAVE GOD'S QUALITIES.— The Roman censors took such a distaste of the son of Africanus for his wicked life, that they took a ring off his finger on which the image of his father was engraven, because he so much degenerated from his father's excellent qualities, that they would not suffer him to wear his father's image in a ring, whose likeness he bore not in his mind. Neither will God suffer any to bear his name, and be accounted his sons, who bear not his image, who resemble not his attributes in their virtues, his simplicity in their sincerity, his immutability in their constancy, his purity in their chastity, his goodness in their charity, his justice in their integrity. Featley's Sermons.

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BY THE REV. R. MEEK, M.A.,
Rector of Richmond, Yorkshire.

AMONG the principal benefits or fruits of the religion of Christ, which should endear it to our hearts, may be noticed the union it produces among those who are the subjects of it. In this its opposition to sin is manifest. The effect of sin has been to separate between man and his God, and between man and man. The religion of Christ was designed to counteract, and ultimately to destroy, this effect. The design of God, in this great dispensation of mercy, is thus declared by the apostle ;-" that in the dispensation of the fulness of the times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth, even in Christ" (Eph. i. 10). As, by the introduction of sin, disunion and strife were introduced into the moral world; so, wherever the religion of Christ prevails, and in the degree in which it prevails, order, union, and love, are restored. It restores fallen man to communion with his God. It unites man to man in Christian fellowship. It annihilates "the middle wall of partition" between Jew and Gentile; it becomes a bond of union between nations; and when it shall diffuse its influence over the world, it will convert the whole race of mankind into one happy family: wars and strife shall cease, and the innocence, the union, and the happiness of lost paradise shall be restored.

How interesting the view given us of this cementing and uniting tendency of the reli

VOL. VIII.NO. CCVIII.

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gion of Christ by St. Paul (Eph. iii. 15), where the great body of those who are true believers in Christ, who bear his name, and submit to his authority, of every age, language, and country, are spoken of as

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one family!" Though once "afar off by wicked works," and "children of wrath" even as others, and "children of the wicked one;" yet, converted by the grace of God, and spiritually united to Christ by a living faith, they are no longer "strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God." The representation of the apostle goes even beyond this. It makes this spiritual union of believers to extend beyond the limits of time and mortality; it tells us in effect that neither distance nor death can dissolve this union; for that blessed spirits above, in the church triumphant, and redeemed spirits below, in the church militant, are one family in Christ: " of whom," says he, "the whole family in heaven and earth is named." Keeping this lovely representation in view, we may consider-First, The state and circumstances of that part of the family of God, on earth. It is clear that all "named of Christ"-all who have fled to the Saviour as the refuge of their soulsbelong to one happy and redeemed family. God is their Father, Christ their elder Brother, the saints of every age their brethren; heaven is their Father's house, and their everlasting home. The questions will be asked, on what grounds do we claim for all believers in Christ this great honour and privilege, and how may we know whether we belong to this family?

They who belong to this family of God are spiritually born into it. By natural birth we

[London: Robson, Levey, and Franklyn, 46 St. Martin's Lane.)

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