Now in Scotland, for very many years past, the standard style of

preaching has been that which the lively yet gentle satirist wished

to see more common in England. Whether successfully or not, Scotch

preachers aim at what Sydney Smith regarded as the right way of

preaching--'to rouse, to appeal, to inflame, to break through every

barrier, up to the very haunts and chambers of the soul.' Whether

this end be a safe one to propose to each one of some hundreds of

men of ordinary ability and taste, may be a question. An unsuccessful

attempt at it is very likely to land a man in gross offence against

common taste and common sense, from which he whose aim is less

ambitious is almost certainly safe. The preacher whose purpose is

to preach plain sense in such a style and manner as not to offend

people of education and refinement, if he fail in doing what he

wishes, may indeed be dull, but will not be absurd and offensive.

But however this may be, it is curious that this impassioned

and highly oratorical school of preaching should be found among a

cautious, cool-headed race like the Scotch. The Scotch are proverbial

for long heads, and no great capacity of emotion. Sir Walter Scott,

in Rob Roy, in describing the preacher whom the hero heard in the

crypt of Glasgow Cathedral, says that his countrymen are much more

accessible to logic than rhetoric; and that this fact determines

the character of the preaching which is most acceptable to them.

If the case was such in those times, matters are assuredly quite

altered now. Logic is indeed not overlooked: but it is brilliancy

of illustration, and, above all, great feeling and earnestness, which

go down. Mr. Caird, the most popular of modern Scotch preachers,

though possessing a very powerful and logical mind, yet owes his

popularity with the mass of hearers almost entirely to his tremendous

power of feeling and producing emotion. By way of contrast to

Sydney Smith's picture of the English pulpit manner, let us look

at one of Chalmers's great appearances. Look on that picture, and

then on this:

The Doctor's manner during the whole delivery of that magnificent

discourse was strikingly animated: while the enthusiasm and energy

he threw into some of his bursts rendered them quite overpowering.

One expression which he used, together with his action, his look, and

the tones of his voice, made a most vivid and indelible impression

on my memory... While uttering these words, which he did with peculiar

emphasis, accompanying them with a flash from his eye and a slump

of his foot, he threw his right arm with clenched fist right across

the book-board, and brandished it full in the face of the Town

Council, sitting in state before him. The words seem to startle,

like an electric shock, the whole audience.

Very likely they did: but we should regret to see a bishop, or even

a dean, have recourse to such means of producing an impression. We

shall give one other extract descriptive of Chalmers's manner:

It was a transcendently grand, a glorious burst. The energy of his

action corresponded. Intense emotion beamed from his countenance.

I cannot describe the appearance of his face better than by saving

it was lighted up almost into a glare. The congregation were intensely

excited, leaning forward in the pews like a forest bending under

the power of the hurricane,--looking steadfastly at the preacher,

and listening in breathless wonderment. So soon as it was concluded,

there was (as invariably was the case at the close of the Doctor's

bursts) a deep sigh, or rather gasp for breath, accompanied by a

movement throughout the whole audience.

[Footnote: Life of Chalmers, vol. i. pp. 462, 3, and 467, 8. It

should be mentioned that Chahners, notwithstanding this tremendous

vehemence, always read his sermons.]

There is indeed in the Scotch Church a considerable class of most

respectable preachers who read their sermons, and who, both for

matter and manner, might be transplanted without remark into the

pulpit of any cathedral in England. There is a school, also, of

high standing and no small popularity, whose manner and style are

calm and beautiful; but who, through deficiency of that vehemence

which is at such a premium in Scotland at present, will never draw

crowds such as hang upon the lips of more excited orators. Foremost

among such stands Mr. Robertson, minister of Strathmartin, in

Forfarshire. Dr. McCulloch, of Greenock, and Dr. Veitch, of St.

Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, are among the best specimens of the class.

But that preaching which interests, leads onward, and instructs,

has few admirers compared with that which thrills, overwhelms,

and sweeps away. And from the impression made on individuals so

competent to judge as those already mentioned, it would certainly

seem that, whether suited to the dignity of the pulpit or not, the

deepest oratorical effect is made by the latter, even on cultivated

minds. Some of the most popular preachers in England have formed

themselves on the Scotch model. Melvill and M'Neile are examples:

so, in a different walk, is Ryle, so well known by his tracts.

We believe that Melvill in his early days delivered his sermons

from memory, and of late years only has taken to reading, to the

considerable diminution of the effect he produces. We may here

remark, that in some country districts the prejudice of the people

against clergymen reading their sermons is excessive. It is indeed to

be admitted that it is a more natural thing that a speaker should

look at the audience he is addressing, and appear to speak from

the feeling of the moment, than that he should read to them what

he has to say; but it is hard to impose upon a parish minister,

burdened with pastoral duty, the irksome school-boy task of committing

to memory a long sermon, and perhaps two, every week. The system

of reading is spreading rapidly in the Scotch Church, and seems

likely in a few years to become all but universal. Caird reads his

sermons closely on ordinary Sundays, but delivers entirely from

memory in preaching on any particular occasion.

It may easily be imagined that when every one of fourteen or

fifteen hundred preachers understands on entering the church that

his manner must be animated if he looks for preferment, very many

will have a very bad manner. It is wonderful, indeed, when we look

to the average run of respectable Scotch preachers, to find how

many take kindly to the emotional style. Often, of course, such

a style is thoroughly contrary to the man's idiosyncracy. Still,

he must seem warm and animated; and the consequence is frequently

loud speaking without a vestige of feeling, and much roaring when

there is nothing whatever in what is said to demand it. Noise

is mistaken for animation. We have been startled on going into a

little country kirk, in which any speaking above a whisper would

have been audible, to find the minister from the very beginning of

the service, roaring as if speaking to people a quarter of a mile

off. Yet the rustics were still, and appeared attentive. They

regarded their clergyman as 'a powerfu' preacher;' while the most

nervous thought, uttered in more civilized tones, would have been

esteemed 'unco weak.' We are speaking, of course, of very plain

congregations; but among such 'a powerful preacher' means a preacher

with a powerful voice and great physical energy.

Let not English readers imagine, when we speak of the vehemence of

the Scotch pulpit, that we mean only a gentlemanly degree of warmth

and energy. It often amounts to the most violent melo-dramatic

acting. Sheil's Irish speeches would have been immensely popular

Scotch sermons, so far as their style and delivery are concerned.

The physical energy is tremendous. It is said that when Chalmers

preached in St. George's, Edinburgh, the massive chandeliers, many

feet off, were all vibrating. He had often to stop, exhausted, in

the midst of his sermon, and have a psalm sung till he recovered

breath. Caird begins quietly, but frequently works himself up to

a frantic excitement, in which his gestulation is of the wildest,

and his voice an absolute howl. One feels afraid that he may burst

a bloodvessel. Were his hearers cool enough to criticise him, the

impression would be at an end; but he has wound them up to such

a pitch that criticism is impossible. They must sit absolutely

passive, with nerves tingling and blood pausing: frequently many

of the congregation have started to their feet. It may be imagined

how heavily the physical energies of the preacher are drawn upon by

this mode of speaking. Dr. Bennie, one of the ministers of Edinburgh,

and one of the most eloquent and effective of Scotch pulpit

orators, is said to have died at an age much short of fifty, worn

out by the enthusiastic animation of his style. There are some little

accessories of the Scotch pulpit, which in England are unknown: such

as thrashing the large Bible which lies before the minister--long

pauses to recover breath--much wiping of the face--sodorific results

to an unpleasant degree, necessitating an entire change of apparel

after preaching.

The secret of the superior power over a mixed congregation of the

best Scotch, as compared with most English preachers, is that the

former are not deterred by any considerations of the dignity of

the pulpit, from any oratorical art which is likely to produce an

effect. Some times indeed, where better things might be expected,

the most reprehensible clap-trap is resorted to. An English preacher

is fettered and trammelled by fear of being thought fanatical and

methodistical,--and still worse, ungentlemanlike. He knows, too,

that a reputation as a 'popular preacher' is not the thing which

will conduce much to his preferment in his profession. The Scotch

preacher, on the other hand, throws himself heart and soul into his

subject. Chalmers overcame the notion that vehemence in the pulpit

was indicative of either fanaticism or weakness of intellect:

he made ultra-animation respectable: and earnestness, even in an

excessive degree, is all in favour of a young preacher's popularity;

while a man's chance of the most valuable preferments (in the way

of parochial livings) of the Scotch church, is in exact proportion

to his popularity as a preacher. The spell of the greatest preachers

is in their capacity of intense feeling. This is reflected on the

congregation. A congregation will in most cases feel but a very

inferior degree of the emotion which the preacher feels. But intense

feeling is contagious. There is much in common between the tragic

actor and the popular preacher; but while the actor's power

is generally the result of a studied elocution, the preacher's is

almost always native. A teacher of elocution would probably say

that the manner of Chalmers, Guthrie, or Caird was a very bad one;

but it suits the man, and no other would produce a like impression.

In reading the most effective discourses of the greatest preachers,

we are invariably disappointed. We can see nothing very particular

in those quotations from Chalmers which are recorded as having so

overwhelmingly impressed those who heard them. It was manner that

did it all. In short, an accessory which in England is almost

entirely neglected, is the secret of Scotch effect. Nor is it any

derogation from an orator's genius to say that his power lies much

less in what he says than in how he says it. It is but saying that

his weapon can be wielded by no other hand than his own. Manner

makes the entire difference between Macready and the poorest stroller

that murders Shakspeare. The matter is the Baine in the case of

each. Each has the same thing to say; the enormous difference lies

in the manner in which each says it. The greatest effects recorded

to have been produced by human language, have been produced by

things which, in merely reading them, would not have appeared so

very remarkable. Hazlitt tells us that nothing so lingered on his

ear as a line from Home's Douglas, as spoken by young Betty:--

And happy, in my mind, was he that died.

We have heard it said that Macready never produced a greater effect

than by the very simple words 'Who said that?' It is perhaps a

burlesque of an acknowledged fact, to record that Whitfield could

thrill an audience by saying 'Mesopotamia!' Hugh Miller tells us

that he heard Chahners read a piece which he (Miller) had himself

written. It produced the effect of the most telling acting; and

its author never knew how fine it was till then. We remember well

the feeling which ran through us when we heard Caird say, 'As we

bend over the grave, where the dying are burying the dead.' All

this is the result of that gift of genius; to feel with the whole

soul and utter with the whole soul. The case of Gavazzi shows

that tremendous energy can carry an audience away, without its

understanding a syllable of what is said. Inferior men think by

loud roaring and frantic gesticulation to produce that impression

which genius alone can produce. But the counterfeit is wretched;

and with all intelligent people the result is derision and disgust.

Many of our readers, we daresay, have never witnessed the service

of the Scotch Church. Its order is the simplest possible. A psalm

is sung, the congregation sitting. A prayer of about a quarter of

an hour in length is offered, the congregation standing. A chapter

of the Bible is read; another psalm sung; then comes the sermon. A

short prayer and a psalm follow; and the service is terminated by

the benediction. The entire service lasts about an hour and a half.

It is almost invariably conducted by a single clergyman. In towns,

the churches now approximate pretty much to the English, as regards

architecture. It is only in country places that one finds the true

bareness of Presbytery. The main difference is that there is no

altar; the communion table being placed in the body of the church.

The pulpit occupies the altar end, and forms the most prominent

object; symbolizing very accurately the relative estimation of the

sermon in the Scotch service. Whenever a new church is built, the

recurrence to a true ecclesiastical style is marked; and vaulted

roofs, stained glass, and dark oak, have, in large towns, in a

great degree, supplanted the flat-roofed meetinghouses which were

the Presbyterian ideal. The preacher generally wears the English

preaching gown. The old Geneva gown covered with frogs is hardly

ever seen; but the surplice would still stir up a revolution. The

service is performed with much propriety of demeanour; the singing

is often so well done by a good choir, that the absence of the

organ is hardly felt. Educated Scotchmen have come to lament the

intolerant zeal which led the first Reformers in their country to

such extremes. But in the country we still see the true genius of

the Presbytery. The rustics walk into church with their hats on;

and replace them and hurry out the instant the service is over. The

decorous prayer before and after worship is unknown. The minister,

in many churches wears no gown. The stupid bigotry of the people

in some of the most covenanting districts is almost incredible.

There are parishes in which the people boast that they have never

suffered so Romish a thing as a gown to appear in their pulpit; and

the country people of Scotland generally regard Episcopacy as not

a whit better than Popery. It has sometimes struck us as curious,

that the Scotch have always made such endeavours to have a voice in

the selection of their clergy. Almost all the dissenters from the

Church of Scotland hold precisely the same views both of doctrine

and church government as the Church, and have seceded on points

connected with the existence of lay patronage. In England much

discontent may sometimes be excited by an arbitrary appointment to

a living; but it would be vain to endeavour to excite a movement

throughout the whole country to prevent the recurrence of such

appointments. Yet upon precisely this point did some three or

four hundred ministers secede from the Scotch Church in 1843; and

to maintain the abstract right of congregations to a share in the

appointment of their minister, has the 'Free Church' drawn from the

humbler classes of a poor country many hundred thousand pounds. No

doubt all this results in some measure from the self-sufficiency

of the Scotch character; but besides this, it should be remembered

that to a Scotchman it is a matter of much graver importance who

shall be his clergyman than it is to an Englishman. In England,

if the clergyman can but read decently, the congregation may find

edification in listening to and joining in the beautiful prayers

provided by the Church, even though the sermon should be poor

enough. But in Scotland everything depends on the minister. If he

be a fool, he can make the entire service as foolish as himself.

For prayers, sermon, choice of passages of Scripture which are

read, everything, the congregation is dependent on the preacher.

The question, whether the worship to which the people of a parish

are invited weekly shall be interesting and improving, or shall

be absurd and revolting, is decided by the piety, good sense, and

ability of the parish priest. Coleridge said he never knew the value

of the Liturgy till he had heard the prayers which were offered in

some remote country churches in Scotland.

We have not space to inquire into the circumstances which have given

Scotch preaching its peculiar character. We may remark, however,

that the sermon is the great feature of the Scotch service; it is

the only attraction; and pains must be taken with it. The prayers

are held in very secondary estimation. The preacher who aims

at interesting his congregation, racks his brain to find what

will startle and strike; and then the warmth of his delivery adds

to his chance of keeping up attention. Then the Scotch are not a

theatre-going people; they have not, thus, those stage-associations

with a dramatic manner which would suggest themselves to many minds.

Many likewise expect that excitement in the church, which is more

suited to the atmosphere of the play-house. Patrons of late years

not unfrequently allow a congregation to choose its own minister;

the Crown almost invariably consults the people; the decided taste

of almost all songregations is for great warmth of manner; and the

supply is made to suit the demand.

As for the solemn question, how far Scotch preaching answers the

great end of all right preaching, it is hard to speak. No doubt

it is a great thing to arouse the somewhat comatose attention of

any audience to a discourse upon religion, and any means short of

clap-trap and indecorum are justified if they succeed in doing so.

No man will be informed or improved by a sermon which sets him

asleep. Yet it is to be feared that, in the prevailing rage for what

is striking and new, some eminent preachers sacrifice usefulness

to glitter. We have heard discourses concerning which, had we been

asked when they were over, What is the tendency and result of all

this?--what is the conclusion it all leads to?--we should have been

obliged to reply, Only that Mr. Such-a-one is an uncommonly clever

man. The intellectual treat, likewise, of listening to first-class

pulpit oratory, tends to draw many to church merely to enjojr it.

Many go, not to be the better for the truth set forth, but to be

delighted by the preacher's eloquence. And it is certain that many

persons whose daily life exhibits no trace of religion, have been

most regular and attentive hearers of the most striking preachers.

We may mention an instance in point. When Mr. Caird was one of the

ministers of Edinburgh, he preached in a church, one gallery of

which is allotted to students of the University. A friend of ours

was one Sunday afternoon in that gallery, when he observed in the

pew before him two very rough-looking fellows, with huge walking-sticks

projecting from their great-coat pockets, and all the unmistakable

marks of medical students. It was evident they were little accustomed

to attend any place of worship. The church, as usual, was crammed

to suffocation, and Mr. Caird preached a most stirring sermon.

As he wound up one paragraph to an overwhelming climax, the whole

congregation bent forward in eager and breathless silence. The

medical students were under the general spell. Half rising from their

seats they gazed at the preacher with open mouths. At length the

burst was over, and a long sigh relieved the wrought-up multitude.

The two students sank upon their seat, and looked at one another

fixedly: and the first expressed his appreciation of the eloquence

of what he had heard by exclaiming half aloud to his companion,

'Damn it, that's it.'

The doctrine preached in Scotch pulpits is now almost invariably

what is termed evangelical. For a long time, now long gone by,

many of the clergy preached morality, with very inadequate views

of Christian doctrine. We cannot but notice a misrepresentation of

Dr. Hanna, in his Life of Chalmers. Without saying so, he leaves

an impression that all the clergy of the Moderate or Conservative

party in the Church held those semi-infidel views which Chalmers

entertained in his early days. The case is by no means so. Very

many ministers, not belonging to the movement party, held truly

orthodox opinions, and did their pastoral work as faithfully as ever

Chalmers did after his great change of sentiment. It is curious to

know that while party feeling ran high in the Scotch Church, it was

a shibboleth of the Moderate party to use the Lord's Prayer in the

Church service. The other party rejected that beautiful compendium

of all supplication, on the ground that, it was not a Christian

prayer, no mention being made in it of the doctrine of the atonement.

It is recorded that on one occasion a minister of what was termed

the 'High-fiying' party was to preach for Dr. Gilchrist, of the

Canongate Church in Edinburgh. That venerable clergyman told his

friend before service that it was usual in the Canongate Church

to make use of the Lord's Prayer at every celebration of worship.

The friend looked somewhat disconcerted, and said, 'Is it absolutely

necessary that I should give the Lord's Prayer?' 'Not at all,' was

Dr. Gilchrist's reply, 'not at all, if you can give us anything

better!'

Mr. Caird's sermon preached at Crathie has been published by royal

command. It is no secret that the Queen arid Prince, after hearing

it, read it in manuscript, and expressed themselves no less impressed

in reading it by the soundness of its views, than they had been in

listening to it by its extraordinary eloquence. Our perusal of it

has strongly confirmed us in the views we have expressed as to the

share which Mr. Caird's manner has in producing the effect with

which his discourses tell upon any audience. The sermon is indeed

an admirable one; accurate, and sometimes original in thought:

illustrated with rare profusion of imagery, all in exquisite taste,

and expressed in words scarcely one of which could be allered

or displaced but for the worse. But Mr. Caird could not publish

his voice and manner, and in warning these, the sermon wants the

first, second, and third things which conduced to its effect when

delivered. In May, 1854, Mr. Caird preached this discourse in the

High Church, Edinburgh, before the Commissioner who represents

her Majesty at the meetings of the General Assembly of the Scotch

Church, and an exceedingly crowded and brilliant audience. Given

there, with all the fkill of the most accomplished actor, yet with

a simple earnestness which prevented the least suspicion of anything

like acting, the impression it produced is described as something

marvellous. Hard-headed Scotch lawyers, the last men in the world

to be carried into superlatives, declared that never till then did

they understand what effect could be produced by human speech. But

we confess that now we have these magic words to read quietly at

home, we find it something of a task to get through them. A volume

just published by Dr. Guthrie of Edinburgh, the greatest pulpit

orator of the 'Free Church,' contains many sermons much more likely

to interest a reader.

The sermon is from the text, 'Not slothful in business; fervent

in spirit, serving the Lord.' [Footnote: Romans xii. 11.] It sets

out thus:--

To combine business with religion, to keep up a spirit of serious

piety amid the stir and distraction of a busy and active life,--this

is one of the most difficult parts of a Christian's trial in this

world. It is comparatively easy to be religious in the church--to

collect our thoughts and compose our feelings, and enter, with an

appearance of propriety and decorum, into the offices of religious

worship, amidst the quietude of the Sabbath, and within the still

and sacred precincts of the house of prayer. But to be religious

in the world--to be pious and holy and earnest-minded in the

counting-room, the manufactory, the market-place, the field, the

farm--to cany our good and solemn thoughts and feelings into the

throng and thoroughfare of daily life,--this is the great difficulty

of our Christian calling. No man not lost to all moral influence

can help feeling his worldly passions calmed, and some measure of

seriousness stealing over his mind, when engaged in the performance

of the more awful and serious rites of religion; but the atmosphere of

the domestic circle, the exchange, the street, the city's throng,

amidst coarse work and cankering cares and toils, is a very different

atmosphere from that of a communion-table. Passing from one to the

other has often seemed as the sudden transition from a tropical to

a polar climate--from balmy warmth and sunshine to murky mist and

freezing cold. And it appears sometimes as difficult to maintain

the strength and steadfastness of religious principle and feeling

when we go forth from the church to the world, as it would be to

preserve an exotic alive in the open air in winter, or to keep the

lamp that burns steadily within doors from being blown out if you

take it abroad unsheltered from the wind.

The preacher then speaks of the shifts by which men have evaded

the task of being holy, at once in the church and in the world; in

ancient times by flying from the world altogether, in modern times

by making religion altogether a Sunday thing. In opposition to

either notion the text suggests,--

That piety is not for Sundays only, but for all days; that

spirituality of mind is not appropriate to one set of actions, and

an impertinence and intrusion with reference to others; but like

the act of breathing, like the circulation of the blood, like

the silent growth of the stature, a process that may be going on

simultaneously with all our actions--when we are busiest as when we

are idlest; in the church, in the world; in solitude, in society;

in our grief and in our gladness; in our toil and in our rest;

sleeping, waking; by day, by night; amidst all the engagements and

exigencies of life.

The burden of the discourse is to prove that this is so; that

religion is compatible with the business of Common Life. This

appears, first, because religion, as a science, sets out doctrines

easy to be understood by the humblest intellects; and as an art,

sets out duties which may be practised simultaneously with all

other work. It is the art of being and of doing good: and for this

art every profession and calling affords scope and discipline.

When a child is learning to write, it matters not of what words the

copy set to him is composed, the thing desired being that, whatever

he writes, he learns to write well. When a man is learning to be

a Christian, it matters not what his particular work in life may

be, the work he does is but the copy-line set to him; the main

thing to be considered is that he learn to live well.

The second consideration by which Mr. Caird supports his thesis is,

that religion consists, not so much in doing spiritual or sacred

acts, as in doing secular acts from a sacred or spiritual motive.

'A man may be a Christian thinker and writer as much when giving

to science, or history, or biography, or poetry a Christian tone

and spirit, as when composing sermons or writing hymns.'

The third and most eloquent division of the discourse illustrates

the thesis from the Mind's Power of acting on Lattat Principles.

Though we cannot, in our worldly work, be always consciously thinking

of religion, yet unconsciously, insensibly, we may be acting under

its ever present control. For example, the preacher, amidst all

his mental exertions, has underneath the outward workings of his

mind, the latent thought of the presence of his auditory.

Like a secret atmosphere it surrounds and bathes his spirit as he

goes on with the external work. And have not yon, too, my friends,

an Auditor--it may he, a 'great cloud of witnesses'--but at least

one all glorious Witness and Listener ever present, ever watchful,

as the discourse of life proceeds? Why, then, in this case too,

while the outward business is diligently prosecuted, may there not

be on your spirit a latent and constant impression of that awful

inspection? What worldly work so absorbing as to leave no room

in a believer's spirit for the hallowing thought of that glorious

Presence ever near?

We shall give but one extract more, the final illustration of

this third head of discourse. It is a very good specimen of one of

those exciting and irresistible bursts by which Caird sweeps away

his audience. Imagine the following sentences given, at first

quietly, but with great feeling, gradually waxing in energy and

rapidity; and at length, amid dead stillness and hushed breaths,

concluded as with a torrent's rush:--

Or, have we not all felt that the thought of anticipated happiness

may blend itself with the work of our busiest hours? The labourer's

coming, released from toil--the schoolboy's coming holiday, or the

hard-wrought business man's approaching season of relaxation--the

expected return of a long absent and much loved friend; is not

the thought of these, or similar joyous events, one which often

intermingles with, without interrupting, our common work? When a

father goes forth to his 'labour till the evening,' perhaps often,

very often, in the thick of his toils the thought of home may start

up to cheer him. The smile that is to welcome him, as he crosses his

lowly threshold when the work of the day is over, the glad faces,

and merry voices, arid sweet caresses of little ones, as they

shall gather round him in the quiet evening hours, the thought of

all this may dwell, a latent joy, a hidden motive, deep down in

his heart of hearts, may come rushing in a sweet solace at every

pause of exertion, and act like a secret oil to smooth the wheels

of labour. The heart has a secret treasury, where our hopes and

joys are often garnered, too precious to be parted with, even for

a moment.

And why may not the highest of all hopes and joys possess the same

all-pervading influence? Have we, if our religion is real, no

anticipation of happiness in the glorious future? Is there no 'rest

that remaineth for the people of God,' no home and loving heart

awaiting us when the toils of our hurried day of life are ended?

What is earthly rest or relaxation, what the release from toil

after which we so often sigh, but the faint shadow of the saint's

everlasting rest, the rest of the soul in God? What visions of earthly

bliss can ever, if our Christian faith be not a form, compare with

'the glory soon to be revealed?' What glory of earthly reunion with

the rapture of that hour when the heavens shall yield an absent

Lord to our embrace, to be parted from us no more for ever! And if

all this be most sober truth, what is there to except this joyful

hope from that law to which, in all other deep joys, our minds are

subject? Why may we not, in this case too, think often, amidst our

worldly work, of the House to which we are going, of the true and

loving heart that heats for us, and of the sweet and joyous welcome

that awaits us there? And even when we make them not, of set purpose,

the subject of our thoughts, is there not enough of grandeur in

the objects of a believer's hope to pervade his spirit at all times

with a calm and reverential joy? Do not think all this strange,

fanatical, impossible. If it do seem so, it can only be because your

heart is in the earthly, but not in the higher and holier hopes.

No, my friends! the strange thing is, not that amidst the world's

work we should be able to think of our House, but that we should

ever be able to forget it; and the stranger, sadder still, that while

the little day of life is passing--morning, noontide, evening--each

stage more rapid than the last; while to many the shadows are already

fast lengthening, and the declining sun warns them that 'the night

is at hand, wherein no man can work,' there should be those amongst

us whose whole thoughts are absorbed in the business of the world,

and to whom the reflection never occurs, that soon they must go

out into eternity, without a friend, without a home!

The discourse thus ends in orthodox Scotch fashion, with a practical

conclusion.

We think it not unlikely that the sermon has been toned down a good

deal before publication, in anticipation of severe criticism. Some

passages which were very effective when delivered, hate probably

been modified so as to bring them more thoroughly within the limits

of severe good taste. We think Mr. Caird has deserved the honours

done him by royalty; and we willingly accord him his meed, as a man

of no small force of intellect, of great power of illustration by

happy analogies, of sincere piety, and of much earnestness to do

good. He is still young--we believe considerably under forty--and

much may be expected of him.

But we have rambled on into an unduly long gossip about Scotch

preaching, and must abruptly conclude. We confess that it would

please us to see, especially in the pulpits of our country churches, a

little infusion of its warmth, rejecting anything of its extravagance.

CHAPTER XIII

CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS.

Does it ever come across you, my friend, with something of a start,

that things cannot always go on in your lot as they are going now?

Does not a sudden thought sometimes flash upon you, a hasty, vivid

glimpse, of what you will be long hereafter, if you are spared in

this world? Our common way is too much to think that things will

always go on as they are going. Not that we clearly think so: not

that we ever put that opinion in a definite shape, and avow to

ourselves that we hold it: but we live very much under that vague,

general impression. We can hardly help it. When a man of middle

age inherits a pretty country seat, and makes up his mind that he

cannot yet afford to give up business and go to live at it, but

concludes that in six or eight years he will be able with justice

to his children to do so, do you think he brings plainly before

him the changes which must be wrought on himself and those around

him by these years? I do not speak of the greatest change of all,

which may come to any of us so very soon: I do not think of what

may be done by unlooked-for accident: I think merely of what must

be done by the passing on of time. I think of possible changes

in taste and feeling, of possible loss of liking for that mode of

life. I think of lungs that will play less freely, and of limbs

that will suggest shortened walks, and dissuade from climbing hills.

I think how the children will have outgrown daisy-chains, or even

got beyond the season of climbing trees. The middle-aged man enjoys

the prospect of the time when he shall go to his country house;

and the vague, undefined belief surrounds him, like an atmosphere,

that he and his children, his views and likings, will be then just

such as they are now. He cannot bring it home to him at how many

points change will be cutting into him, and hedging him in, and paring

him down. And we all live very much under that vague impression.

Yet it is in many ways good for us to feel that we are going

on--passing from the things which surround us--advancing into the

undefined future, into the unknown land. And I think that sometimes

we all have vivid flashes of such a conviction. I dare say, my

friend, you have seen an old man, frail, soured, and shabby, and

you have thought, with a start, Perhaps there is Myself of Future

Years.

We human beings can stand a great deal. There is great margin

allowed by our constitution, physical and moral. I suppose there

is no doubt that a man may daily for years eat what is unwholesome,

breathe air which is bad, or go through a round of life which is

not the best or the right one for either body or mind, and yet be

little the worse. And so men pass through great trials and through

long years, and yet are not altered so very much. The other day,

walking along the street, I saw a man whom I had not seen for ten

years. I knew that since I saw him last he had gone through very

heavy troubles, and that these had sat very heavily upon him. I

remembered how he had lost that friend who was the dearest to him

of all human beings, and I knew how broken down he had been for many

months after that great sorrow carne. Yet there he was, walking

along, an unnoticed unit, just like any one else; and he was looking

wonderfully well. No doubt he seemed pale, worn, and anxious: but

he was very well and carefully dressed; he was walking with a brisk,

active step; and I dare say in feeling pretty well reconciled to

being what he is, and to the circumstances amid which he is living.

Still, one felt that somehow a tremendous change had passed over

him. I felt sorry for him, and all the more that he did not seem

to feel sorry for himself. It made me sad to think that some day I

should be like him; that perhaps in the eyes of my juniors I look

like him already, careworn and ageing. I dare say in his feeling

there was no such sense of falling off. Perhaps he was tolerably

content. He was walking so fast, and looking so sharp, that I am

sure ho had no desponding feeling at the time. Despondency goes with

slow movements and with vague looks. The sense of having materially

fallen off is destructive to the eagle-eye. Yes, he was tolerably

content. We can go down-hill cheerfully, save at the points where it

is sharply brought home to us that we are going down-hill. Lately

I sat at dinner opposite an old lady who had the remains of striking

beauty. I remember how much she interested me. Her hair was false,

her teeth were false, her complexion was shrivelled, her form had

lost the round symmetry of earlier years, and was angular and stiff;

yet how cheerful and lively she was! She had gone far down-hill

physically; but either she did not feel her decadence, or she had

grown quite reconciled to it. Her daughter, a blooming matron,

was there, happy, wealthy, good; yet not apparently a whit more

reconciled to life than the aged grandame. It was pleasing, and

yet it was sad, to see how well we can make up our mind to what is

inevitable. And such a sight brings up to one a glimpse of Future

Years. The cloud seems to part before one, and through the rift you

discern your earthly track far away, and a jaded pilgrim plodding

along it with weary step; and though the pilgrim does not look like

you, yet you know the pilgrim is yourself.

This cannot always go on. To what is it all tending? I am not

thinking now of an out-look so grave, that this is not the place to

discuss it. But I am thinking how everything is going on. In this

world there is no standing still. And everything that belongs

entirely to this world, its interests and occupations, is going on

towards a conclusion. It will all come to an end. It cannot go on

forever. I cannot always be writing sermons as I do now, and going

on in this regular course of life. I cannot always be writing

essays. The day will come when I shall have no more to say, or when

the readers of the Magazine will no longer have patience to listen

to me in that kind fashion in which they have listened so long.

I foresee it plainly, this evening.--even while writing my first

essay for the Atlantic Monthly, the time when the reader shall

open the familiar cover, and glance at the table of contents, and

exclaim indignantly, 'Here is that tiresome person again with the

four initials: why will he not cease to weary us?' I write in sober

sadness, my friend: I do not intend any jest. If you do not know

that what I have written is certainly true, you have not lived very

long. You have not learned the sorrowful lesson, that all worldly

occupations and interests are wearing to their close. You cannot

keep up the old thing, however much you may wish to do so. You

know how vain anniversaries for the most part are. You meet with

certain old friends, to try to revive the old days; but the spirit

of the old time will not come over you. It is not a spirit that

can be raised at will. It cannot go on forever, that walking down

to church on Sundays, and ascending those pulpit steps; it will

change to feeling, though I humbly trust it may be long before it

shall change in fact. Don't you all sometimes feel something like

that? Don't you sometimes look about you and say to yourself, That

furniture will wear out: those window-curtains are getting sadly

faded; they will not last a lifetime? Those carpets must be replaced

some day; and the old patterns which looked at you with a kindly,

familiar expression, through these long years, must be among the

old familiar faces that are gone. These are little things, indeed,

but they are among the vague recollections that bewilder our memory;

they are among the things which come up in the strange, confused

remembrance of the dying man in the last days of life. There is an

old fir-tree, a twisted, strange-looking fir-tree, which will be

among my last recollections, I know, as it was among my first. It

was always before my eyes when I was three, four, five years old:

I see the pyramidal top, rising over a mass of shrubbery; I see

it always against a sunset-sky; always in the subdued twilight in

which we seem to see things in distant years. These old friends

will die, you think; who will take their place? You will be an old

gentleman, a frail old gentleman, wondered at by younger men, and

telling them long stories about the days when Lincoln was President,

like those which weary you now about the Declaration of Independence.

It will not be the same world then. Your children will not be always

children. Enjoy their fresh, youth while it lasts, for it will not

last long. Do not skim over the present too fast, through a constant

habit of onward-looking. Many men of an anxious turn are so eagerly

concerned in providing for the future, that they hardly remark the

blessings of the present. Yet it is only because the future will

some day be present, that it deserves any thought at all. And many

men, instead of heartily enjoying present blessings while they are

present, train themselves to a habit of regarding these things as

merely the foundation on which they are to build some vague fabric

of they know not what. I have known a clergyman, who was very fond

of music, and in whose church the music was very fine, who seemed

incapable of enjoying its solemn beauty as a tiling to be enjoyed

while passing, but who persisted in regarding each beautiful strain

merely as a promising indication of what his choir would come at

some future time to be. It is a very bad habit, and one which grows

unless repressed. You, my reader, when you see your children racing

on the green, train yourself to regard all that as a happy end in

itself. Do not grow to think merely that those sturdy young limbs

promise to be stout and serviceable when they are those of a

grown-up man; and rejoice in the smooth little forehead with its

curly hair, without any forethought of how it is to look some day

when over-shadowed (as it is sure to be) by the great wig of the

Lord Chancellor. Good advice: let us all try to take it. Let all

happy things be enjoyed as ends, as well as regarded as means. Yet

it is in the make of our nature to be ever onward-looking; and we

cannot help it. When you get the first number for the year of the.

Magazine which you take in, you instinctively think of it as the

first portion of a new volume; and you are conscious of a certain

though slight restlessness in the thought of a thing incomplete,

and of a wish that you had the volume completed. And sometimes,

thus locking onward into the future, you worry yourself with litile

thoughts and cares. There is that old dog: you Lave had him for

many years; he is growing stiff and frail; what arc you to do when

he dies? When he is gone, the new dog you get will never be like

him; he may be, indeed, a far handsomer and more amiable animal,

but he will not be your old companion; he will not be surrounded

with all those old associations, not merely with your own by-past

life, but with the lives, the faces, and the voices of those who

have left you, which invest with a certain saeredness even that

humble but faithful friend. He will not have been the companion of

your youthful walks, when you went, at a pace which now you cannot

attain. He will just be a common dog; and who that has reached your

years cares for that? The other indeed was a dog too, but that was

merely the substratum on which was accumulated a host of recollections:

it is Auld Lang syne that walks into your study when your shaggy

friend of ten summers comes stiffly in, and after many querulous

turnings lays himself down on the rug before the fire. Do you not

feel the like when you look at many little matters, and then look

into the Future Years? That harness--how will you replace it? It

will be a pang to throw it by, and it will be a considerable expense

too to get a new suit. Then you think how long harness may continue

to be serviceable. I once saw, on a pair of horses drawing a

stage-coach among the hills, a set of harness which was thirty-five

years old. It had been very costly and grand when new; it had belonged

for some of its earliest years to a certain wealthy nobleman. The

nobleman had been for many years in his grave, but there was his

harness still. It was tremendously patched, and the blinkers were

of extraordinary aspect; but it was quite serviceable. There is

comfort for you, poor country parsons! How thoroughly I understand

your feeling about such little things. I know how you sometimes

look at your phaeton or your dog-cart; and even while the morocco

is fresh, and the wheels still are running with their first tires,

how you think you see it after it has grown shabby and old-fashioned.

Yes, you remember, not without a dull kind of pang, that it is

wearing out. You have a neighbour, perhaps, a few miles off, whose

conveyance, through the wear of many years, has become remarkably

seedy; and every time you meet it you think that there you see

your own, as it will some day be. Every dog has his day: but the

day of the rational dog is over-clouded in a fashion unknown to his

inferior fellow-creature; it is overclouded by the anticipation of

the coming day which will not be his. You remember how that great

though morbid man, John Foster, could not heartily enjoy the summer

weather, for thinking how every sunny day that shone upon him was

a downward step towards the winter gloom. Each indication that

the season was progressing, even though progressing as yet only to

greater beauty, filled him with great grief. 'I have seen a fearful

sight to-day,' he would say, 'I have seen a buttercup.' And we know,

of course, that in his case there was nothing like affectation;

it was only that, unhappily for himself, the bent of his mind was

so onward-looking, that he saw only a premonition of the snows of

December in the roses of June. It would be a blessing if we could

quite discard the tendency. And while your trap runs smoothly and

noiselessly, while the leather is fresh and the paint unscratched,

do not worry yourself with visions of the day when it will rattle

and crack, and when you will make it wait for you at the corner

of back-streets when you drive into town. Do not vex yourself by

fancying that you will never have heart to send off the old carriage,

nor by wondering where you shall find the money to buy a new one.

Have you ever read the Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith,

by that pleasing poet and most amiable man, the late David Macbeth

Moir? I have been looking into it lately; and I have regretted

much that the Lowland Scotch dialect is so imperfectly understood

in England, and that even where so far understood its raciness is

so little felt; for great as is the popularity of that work, it

is much less known than it deserves to be. Only a Scotchman can

thoroughly appreciate it. It is curious, and yet it is not curious,

to find the pathos and the polish of one of the most touching and

elegant of poets in the man who has with such irresistible humour,

sometimes approaching to the farcical, delineated humble Scotch life.

One passage in the book always struck me very much. We have in it

the poet as well as the humorist; and it is a perfect example of

what I have been trying to describe in the pages which you have

rend. I mean the passage in which Mansie tells us of a sudden

glimpse which, in circumstances of mortal terror, he once had of

the future. On a certain 'awful night' the tailor was awakened by

cries of alarm, and, looking out, he saw the next house to his own

was on fire from cellar to garret. The earnings of poor Mansie's

whole life were laid out on his stock in trade and his furniture,

and it appeared likely that these would be at once destroyed.

"Then," says he, "the darkness of the latter days came over my

spirit like a vision before the prophet Isaiah; and I could see

nothing in the years to come but beggary and starvation,--myself a

fallen-back old man. with an out-at-the-elbows coat, a greasy hat,

and a bald brow, hirpling over a staff, requeeshting an awmous:

Nanse a broken-hearted beggar-wife, torn down to tatters, and

weeping like Eachel when she thought on better days; and poor wee

Benjie going from door to door with a meal-pock on his back."

Ah, there is exquisite pathos there, as well as humour; but

the thing for which I have quoted that sentence is its startling

truthfulness. You have all done what Mansie Wauch did, I know.

Every one has his own way of doing it, and it is his own especial

picture which each sees; but there has appeared to us, as to

Mansie, (I must recur to my old figure,) as it were a sudden rift

in the clouds that conceal the future, and we have seen the way,

far ahead--the dusty way--and an aged pilgrim pacing slowly along

it; and in that aged figure we have each recognized our own young

self. How often have I sat down on the mossy wall that surrounded

my churchyard, when I had more time for reverie than I have now--sat

upon the mossy wall, under a great oak, whose brandies came low

down and projected far out--and looked at the rough gnarled bark,

and at the passing river, and at the belfry of the little church,

and there and then thought of Mansie Wauch and of his vision of

Future Years! How often in these hours, or in long solitary walks

and rides among the hills, have I had visions clear as that of

Mansie Wauch, of how I should grow old in my country parish! Do not

think that I wish or intend to be egotistical, my friendly reader.

I describe these feelings and fancies because I think this is the

likeliest way in which to reach and describe your own. There was

a rapid little stream that flowed, in a very lonely place, between

the highway and a cottage to which I often went to see a poor old

woman; and when I came out of the cottage, having made sure that

no one saw me, I always took a great leap over the little stream,

which saved going round a little way. And never once, for several

years, did I thus cross it without seeing a picture as clear to the

mind's eye as Mansie Wauch's--a picture which made me walk very

thoughtfully along for the next mile or two. It was curious to

think how one was to get through the accustomed duty after having

grown old and frail. The day would come when the brook could be

crossed in that brisk fashion no more. It must be an odd thing for

the parson to walk as an old man into the pulpit, still his own,

which was his own when he was a young man of six-and-twenty. What

a crowd of old remembrances must be present each Sunday to the

clergyman's mind, who has served the same parish and preached in the

same church for fifty years! Personal identity, continued through

the successive stages of life, is a common-place thing to think

of; but when it is brought home to your own case and feeling, it

is a very touching and a very bewildering thing. There are the same

trees and hills as when you were a boy; and when each of us comes

to his last days in this world, how short a space it will seem

since we were little children! Let us humbly hope, that, in that

brief space parting the cradle from the grave, we may (by help

from above) have accomplished a certain work which will cast its

blessed influence over all the years and all the ages before us.

Yet it remains a strange thing to look forward and to see yourself

with grey hair, and not much even of that; to see your wife an

old woman, and your little boy or girl grown up into manhood or

womanhood. It is more strange still to fancy you see them all going

on as usual in the round of life, and you no longer among them.

You see your empty chair. There is your writing-table and your

inkstand; there are your books, not so carefully arranged as they

used to be; perhaps,--on the whole, less indication than you might

have hoped that they miss you. All this is strange when you bring

it home to your own case; and that hundreds of millions have felt

the like makes it none the less strange to you. The commonplaces

of life and death are not commonplace when they befall ourselves.

It was in desperate hurry and agitation that Mansie Waueh saw his

vision; and in like circumstances you may have yours too. But for

the most part such moods come in leisure--in saunterings through

the autumn woods--in reveries by the winter fire.

I do not think, thus musing upon our occasional glimpses of

the Future, of such fancies as those of early youth--fancies and

anticipations of greatness, of felicity, of fame; I think of the

onward views of men approaching middle-age, who have found their

place and their work in life, and who may reasonably believe that,

save for great unexpected accidents, there will be no very material

change in their lot till that "change come" to which Job looked

forward four thousand years since. There are great numbers of

educated folk who are likely always to live in the same kind of

house, to have the same establishment, to associate with the same

class of people, to walk along the same streets, to look upon

the same hills, as Iong as they live. The only change will be the

gradual one which will be wrought by advancing years.

And the onward view of such people in such circumstances is generally

a very vague one. It is only now and then that there comes the

startling clearness of prospect so well set forth by Mansie Wauch.

Yet sometimes, when such a vivid view comes, it remains for days

and is a painful companion of your solilude. Don't you remember,

clerical reader of thirty-two, having seen a good deal of an old

parson, rather sour in aspect, rather shabby-looking, sadly pinched

for means, and with powers dwarfed by the sore struggle with the

world to maintain his family and to keep up a respectable appearance

upon his limited resources; perhaps with his mind made petty and his

temper spoiled by the little worries, the petty malignant tattle

and gossip and occasional insolence of a little backbiting village?

and don't you remember how for days you felt haunted by a sort of

nightmare that there was what you would be, if you lived so long?

Yes; you know how there have been times when for ten days together

that jarring thought would intrude, whenever your mind was disengaged

from work; and sometimes, when you went to bed, that thought kept

you awake for hours. You knew the impression was morbid, and you

were angry with yourself for your silliness; but you could not

drive it away.

It makes a great difference in the prospect of Future Years, if

you are one of those people who, even after middle age, may still

make a great rise in life. This will prolong the restlessness which

in others is sobered down at forty: it will extend the period during

which you will every now and then have brief seasons of feverish

anxiety, hope, and fear, followed by longer stretches of blank

disappointment. And it will afford the opportunity of experiencing

a vividly new sensation, and of turning over a quite new leaf, after

most people have settled to the jog-trot at which the remainder

of the pilgrimage is to be covered. A clergyman of the Church of

England may be made a bishop, and exchange a quiet rectory for a

palace. No doubt the increase of responsibility is to a conscientious

man almost appalling; but surely the rise in life is great. There

you are, one of four-and-twenty,--selected out of near twenty

thousand. It is possible, indeed, that you may feel more reason

for shame than for elation at the thought. A barrister unknown to

fame, but of respectable stantling, may be made a judge. Such a

man may even, if he gets into the groove, be gradually pushed on

till he reaches an eminence which probably surprises himself as

much as any one else. A good speaker in Parliament may at sixty

or seventy be made a Cabinet Minister. And we can all imagine what

indescribable pride and elation must in such cases possess the

wife and daughters of the man who has attained this decided step

in advance. I can say sincerely that I never saw human beings walk

with so airy tread, and evince so fussily their sense of a greatness

more than mortal, as the wife and the daughter of an amiable but

not able bishop I knew in my youth, when they came to church on the

Sunday morning on which the good man preached for the first time

in his lawn sleeves. Their heads were turned for the time; but they

gradually came right again, as the ladies became accustomed to the

summits of human affairs. Let it be said for the bishop himself,

that there was not a vestige of that sense of elevation about him.

He looked perfectly modest and unaffected. His dress was remarkably

ill put on, and his sleeves stuck out in the most awkward fashion

ever assumed by drapery. I suppose that sometimes these rises in

life come very unexpectedly. I have heard of a man who, when he

received a letter from the Prime Minister of the day offering him

a place of great dignity, thought the letter was a hoax, and did

not notice it for several days. You could not certainly infer from

his modesty what has proved to be the fact, that he has filled his

place admirably well. The possibility of such material changes must

no doubt tend to prolong the interest in life, which is ready to

flag as years go on. But perhaps with the majority of men the level

is found before middle age, and no very great worldly change awaits

them. The path stretches on, with its ups and downs; and they only

hope for strength for the day. But in such men's lot of humble

duty and quiet content there remains room for many fears. All human

beings who are as well off as they can ever be, and so who have

little room for hope, seem to be liable to the invasion of great

fear as they look into the future. It seems to be so with kings,

and with great nobles. Many such have lived in a nervous dread of

change, and have ever been watching the signs of the times with

apprehensive eyes. Nothing that can happen can well make such

better; and so they suffer from the vague foreboding of something

which will make them worse. And the same law readies to those in

whom hope is narrowed down, not by the limit of grand possibility,

but of little,--not by the fact that they have got all that mortal

can get, but by the fact that they have got the little which is

all that Providence seems to intend to give to them. And, indeed,

there is something that is almost awful, when your affairs are all

going happily, when your mind is clear and equal to its work, when

your bodily health is unbroken, when your home is pleasant, when

your income is ample, when your children are healthy and merry and

hopeful,--in looking on to Future Years. The more happy you are, the

more there is of awe in the thought how frail are the foundations

of your earthly happiness,--what havoc may be made of them by the

chances of even a single day. It is no wonder that the solemnity and

awfuluess of the Future have been felt so much, that the languages

of Northern Europe have, as I dare say you know, no word which

expresses the essential notion of Futurity. You think, perhaps,

of shall and will. Well, these words have come now to convey the

notion of Futurity; but they do so only in a secondary fashion.

Look to their etymology, and you will see that they imply Futurity,

but do not express it. I shall do such a thing means I am bound to

do it, I am under an obligation to do it. I will do such a thing

means I intend to do it, It is my present purpose to do it. Of

course, if you are under an obligation to do anything, or if it be

your intention to do anything, the probability is that the thing

will be done; but the Northern family of languages ventures no

nearer than that towards the expression of the bare, awful idea

of Future Time. It was no wonder that Mr. Croaker was able to cast

a gloom upon the gayest circle, and the happiest conjuncture of

circumstances, by wishing that all might be as well that day six

months. Six months! What might that time not do? Perhaps you have

not read a little poem of Barry Cornwall's, the idea of which must

come home to the heart of most of us:--

Touch us gently, Time!

Let us glide adown thy stream

Gently,--as we sometimes glide

Through a quiet dream.

Humble voyagers are we,

Husband, wife, and children three--

One is lost,--an angel, fled

To the azure overhead.

Touch us gently, Time!

We've not proud nor soaring wings:

Our ambition, our content,

Lies in simple things.

Humble voyagers are we,

O'er life's dim, unsounded sea,

Seeking only some calm clime:--

Touch us gently, gentle Time!

I know that sometimes, my friend, you will not have much sleep,

if, when you lay your head on your pillow, you begin to think how

much depends upon your health and life. You have reached now that

time at which you value life and health not so much for their

service to yourself, as for their needfulness to others. There is

a petition familiar to me in this Scotch country, where people make

their prayers for themselves, which seems to me to possess great

solemnity and force, when we think of all that is implied in it.

It is, Spare useful lives! One life, the slender line of blood

passing into and passing out of one human heart, may decide the

question, whether wife and children shall grow up affluent, refined,

happy, yes, and good, or be reduced to hard straits, with all the

manifold evils which grow of poverty in the case of those who have

been reduced to it after knowing other things. You often think, I

doubt not, in quiet hours, what would become of your children, if

you were gone. You have done, I trust, what you can to care for

them, even from your grave: you think sometimes of a poetical figure

of speech amid the dry technical phrases of English law: you know

what is meant by the law of Mortmain; and you like to think that

even your dead hand may be felt to be kindly intermeddling yet in

the affairs of those who were your dearest: that some little sum,

slender, perhaps, but as liberal as you could make it, may come

in periodically when it is wanted, and seem like the gift of a

thoughtful, heart and a kindly hand which are far away. Yes, cut

down your present income to any extent, that you may make some

provision for your children after you are dead. You do not wish

that they should have the saddest of all reasons for taking care

of you, and trying to lengthen out your life. But even after you

have done everything which your small means permit, you will still

think, with an anxious heart, of the possibilities of Future Years.

A man or woman who has children has very strong reason for wishing

to live as long as may be, and has no right to trifle with, health

or life. And sometimes, looking out into days to come, you think

of the little things, hitherto so free from man's heritage of care,

as they may some day be. You see them shabby, and early anxious:

can that be the little boy's rosy face, now so pale and thin? You

see them in a poor room, in which you recognize your study chairs,

with the hair coming out of the cushions, and a carpet which you

remember now threadbare and in holes.

It is no wonder at all that people are so anxious about money. Money

means every desirable material thing on earth, and the manifold

immaterial things which come of material possessions. Poverty is the

most comprehensive earthly evil; all conceivable evils, temporal,

spiritual, and eternal, may come of that. Of course, great temptations

attend its opposite; and the wise man's prayer will be what it was

long ago--'Give me neither poverty nor riches.' But let us have no

nonsense talked about money being of no consequence. The want of

it has made many a father and mother tremble at the prospect of

being taken from their children; the want of it has embittered many

a parent's dying hours. You hear selfish persons talking vaguely

about faith. You find such heartless persons jauntily spending all

they get on themselves, and then leaving their poor children to

beggary, with the miserable pretext that they are doing all this

through their abundant trust in God. Now this is not faith; it is

insolent presumption. It is exactly as if a man should jump from

the top of St. Paul's, and say that he had faith that the Almighty

would keep him from being dashed to pieces on the pavement. There

is a high authority as to such cases--'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord

thy God.' If God had promised that people should never fall into

the miseries of penury under any circumstances, it would be faith

to trust that promise, however unlikely of fulfilment it might seem

in any particular case. But God has made no such promise; and if

you leave your children without provision, you have no right to

expect that they shall not suffer the natural consequences of your

heartlessness and thoughtlessness. True faith lies in your doing

everything you possibly can, and then humbly trusting in God, And

if, after you have done your very best, you must still go, with

but a blank outlook for those you leave, why, then, you may trust

them to the Husband of the widow and Father of the fatherless.

Faith, as regards such matters, means firm belief that God will do

all he has promised to do, however difficult or unlikely. But some

people seem to think that faith means firm belief that God will

do whatever they think would suit them, however unreasonable,

and however flatly in the face of all the established laws of His

government.

We all have it in our power to make ourselves miserable, if we look

far into future years and calculate their probabilities of evil,

and steadily anticipate the worst. It is not expedient to calculate

too far a-head. Of course, the right way in this, as in other things,

is the middle way: we are not to run either into the extreme of

over-carefulness and anxiety on the one hand, or of recklessness

and imprudence on the other. But as mention has been made of faith,

it may safely be said that we are forgetful of that rational trust

in God which is at once our duty and our inestimable privilege,

if we are always looking out into the future, and vexing ourselves

with endless fears as to how things are to go then. There is no

divine promise, that, if a reckless blockhead leaves his children

to starve, they shall not starve. And a certain inspired volume

speaks with extreme severity of the man who fails to provide for

them of his own house. But there is a divine promise which says to

the humble Christian,--'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.' If

your affairs are going on fairly now, be thankful, and try to do

your duty, and to do your best, as a Christian man and a prudent

man, and then leave the rest to God. Your children are about you;

no doubt they may die, and it is fit enough that you should not forget

the fragility of your most prized possessions; it is fit enough

that you should sometimes sit by the fire and look at the merry

faces and listen to the little voices, and think what it would be

to lose them. But it is not needful, or rational, or Christian-like,

to be always brooding on that thought. And when they grow up, it

may be hard to provide for them. The little thing that is sitting

on your knee may before many years be alone in life, thousands of

miles from you and from his early home, an insignificant item in

the bitter price which Britain pays for her Indian Empire. It is

even possible, though you hardly for a moment admit that thought,

that the child may turn out a heartless and wicked man, and prove

your shame and heart-break; all wicked and heartless men have been

the children of somebody; and many of them, doubtless, the children

of those who surmised the future as little as Eve did when she

smiled upon the infant Cain. And the fireside by which you sit, now

merry and noisy enough, may grow lonely,--lonely with the second

loneliness, not the hopeful solitude of youth looking forward, but

the desponding loneliness of age looking back. And it is so with

everything else. Your health may break down. Some fearful accident

may befall you. The readers of the magazine may cease to care for

your articles. People may get tired of your sermons. People may

stop buying your books, your wine, your groceries, your milk and

cream. Younger men may take away your legal business. Yet how often

these fears prove utterly groundless! It was good and wise advice

given by one who had managed, with a cheerful and hopeful spirit,

to pass through many trying and anxious years, to 'take short

views:'--not to vex and worry yourself by planning too far a-head.

And a wiser than the wise and cheerful Sydney Smith had anticipated

his philosophy. You remember Who said, 'Take no thought,'--that is,

no over-anxious and over-careful thought--'for the morrow; for the

morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.' Did you ever

sail over a blue summer sea towards a mountainous coast, frowning,

sullen, gloomy: and have you not seen the gloom retire before you

as you advanced; the hills, grim in the distance, stretch into

sunny slopes when you neared them; and the waters smile in cheerful

light that looked so black when they were far away? And who is

there that has not seen the parallel in actual life? We have all

known the anticipated ills of life--the danger that looked so big,

the duty that looked so arduous, the entanglement that we could not

see our way through--prove to have been nothing more than spectres

on the far horizon; and when at length we reached them, all their

difficulty had vanished into air, leaving us to think what fools we

had been for having so needlessly conjured up phantoms to disturb

our quiet. Yes, there is no doubt of it, a Very great part of all

we suffer in this world is from the apprehension of things that

never come. I remember well how a dear friend, whom I (and many

more) lately lost, told me many times of his fears as to what he

would do in a certain contingency which both he and I thought was

quite sure to come sooner or later. I know that the anticipation

of it caused him some of the most anxious hours of a very anxious,

though useful and honoured life. How vain his fears proved! He was

taken from this world before what he had dreaded had cast its most

distant shadow. Well, let me try to discard the notion which has

been sometimes worrying me of late, that perhaps I have written

nearly as many essays as any one will care to read. Don't let any of

us give way to fears which may prove to have been entirely groundless.

And then, if we are really spared to see those trials we Bometimes

think of, and which it is right that we should sometimes think of,

the strength for them will come at the time. They will not look

nearly so black, and we shall be enabled to bear them bravely.

There is in human nature a marvellous power of accommodation to

circumstances. We can gradually make up our mind to almost anything.

If this were a sermon instead of an essay, I should explain my

theory of how this comes to be. I see in all this something beyond

the mere natural instinct of acquiescence in what is inevitable;

something beyond the benevolent law in the human mind, that it

shall adapt itself to whatever circumstances it may be placed in;

something beyond the doing of the gentle comforter Time. Yes, it

is wonderful what people can go through, wonderful what people can

get reconciled to. I dare say my friend Smith, when his hair began

to fall off, made frantic efforts to keep it on. I have no doubt he

anxiously tried all the vile concoctions which quackery advertises

in the newspapers, for the advantage of those who wish for luxuriant

locks. I dare say for a while it really weighed upon his mind,

and disturbed his quiet, that he was getting bald. But now he has

quite reconciled himself to his lot; and with a head smooth and

sheeny as the egg of the ostrich, Smith goes on through life, and

feels no pang at the remembrance of the ambrosial curls of his

youth. Most young people, I dare say, think it will be a dreadful

thing to grow old: a girl of eighteen thinks it must be an awful

sensation to be thirty. Believe me, not at all. You are brought

to it bit by bit; and when you reach the spot, you rather like the

view. And it is so with graver things. We grow able to do and to

bear that which it is needful that we should do and bear. As is the

day, so the strength proves to be. And you have heard people tell

you truly, that they have been enabled to bear what they never

thought they could have come through with their reason or their

life. I have no fear for the Christian man, so he keeps to the path

of duty. Straining up the steep hill, his heart will grow stout in

just proportion to its steepness. Yes, and if the call to martyrdom

came, I should not despair of finding men who would show themselves

equal to it, even in this commonplace age, and among people who

wear Highland cloaks and knickerbockers. The martyr's strength would

come with the martyr's day. It is because there is no call for it

now, that people look so little like it.

It is very difficult, in this world, to strongly enforce a truth,

without seeming to push it into an extreme. You are very apt, in

avoiding one error, to run into the opposite error; forgetting that

truth and right lie generally between two extremes. And in agreeing

with Sydney Smith, as to the wisdom and the duty of 'taking short

views,' let us take care of appearing to approve the doings of those

foolish and unprincipled people who will keep no out-look into the

future time at all. A bee, you know, cannot see more than a single

inch before it; and there are many men, and perhaps more women,

who appear, as regards their domestic concerns, to be very much

of bees. Not bees in the respect of being busy; but bees in the

respect of being blind. You see this in all ranks of life. You see

it in the artisan, earning good wages, yet with every prospect of

being weeks out of work next summer or winter, who yet will not be

persuaded to lay by a little in preparation for a rainy day. You

see it in the country gentleman, who, having five thousand a year,

spends ten thousand a year; resolutely shutting his eyes to the

certain and not very remote consequences. You see it in the man

who walks into a shop and buys a lot of things which he has not

the money to pay for, in the vague hope that something will turn

up. It is a comparatively thoughtful and anxious class of men who

systematically overcloud the present by anticipations of the future.

The more usual thing is to sacrifice the future to the present; to

grasp at what in the way of present gratification or gain can be

got, with very little thought of the consequences. You see silly

women, the wives of men whose families are mainly dependent on

their lives, constantly urging on their husbands to extravagances

which eat up the little provision which might have been made for

themselves and their children when he is gone who earned their

bread. There is no sadder sight, I think, than that which is not

a very uncommon sight, the care-worn, anxious husband, labouring

beyond his strength, often sorrowfully calculating how he may make

the ends to meet, denying himself in every way; and the extravagant

idiot of a wife, bedizened with jewellery and arrayed in velvet and

lace, who tosses away his hard earnings in reckless extravagance;

in entertainments which he cannot afford, given to people who do not

care a rush for him; in preposterous dress; in absurd furniture; in

needless men-servants; in green-grocers above measure; in resolute

aping of the way of living of people with twice or three times the

means. It is sad to see all the forethought, prudence, and moderation

of the wedded pair confined to one of them. You would say that it

will not be any solid consolation to the widow, when the husband

is fairly worried into his grave at last,--when his daughters have

to go out as governesses, and she has to let lodgings,--to reflect

that while he lived they never failed to have champagne at their

dinner parties; and that they had three men to wait at table on

such occasions, while Mr. Smith, next door, had never more than one

and a maidservant. If such idiotic women would but look forward,

and consider how all this must end! If the professional man spends

all he earns, what remains when the supply is cut off; when the

toiling head and hand can toil no more? Ah, a little of the economy

and management which must perforce be practised after that might

have tended powerfully to pirt off the evil day. Sometimes the

husband is merely the care-worn drudge who provides what the wife

squanders. Have you not known such a thing as that a man should

be labouring under an Indian sun, and cutting down every personal

expense to the last shilling, that he might send a liberal allowance

to his wife in England; while she meanwhile was recklessly spending

twice what was thus sent her; running up overwhelming accounts,

dashing about to public balls, paying for a bouquet what cost the

poor fellow far away much thought to save, giving costly entertainments

at home, filling her house with idle and empty-headed scapegraces,

carrying on scandalous flirtations; till it becomes a happy thing,

if the certain ruin she is bringing on her husband's head is cut

short by the needful interference of Sir Cresswell Cresswell? There

are cases in which tarring and feathering would soothe the moral

sense of the right-minded onlooker. And even where things are not

so bad as in the case of which we have been thinking, it remains

the social curse of this age, that people with a few hundreds a

year determinedly act in various respects as if they had as many

thousands. The dinner given by a man with eight hundred a year, in

certain regions of the earth which I could easily point out, is,

as regards food, wine, and attendance, precisely the same as the

dinner given by another man who has five thousand a year. When will

this end? When will people see its silliness? In truth, you do not

really, as things are in this country, make many people better off

by adding a little or a good deal to their yearly income. For in

all probability they were living up to the very extremity of their

means before they got the addition; and in all probability the

first thing they do, on getting the addition, is so far to increase

their establishment and their expense that it is just as hard a

struggle as ever to make the ends meet. It would not be a pleasant

arrangement, that a man who was to be carried across the straits

from England to France, should be fixed on a board so weighted

that his mouth and nostrils should be at the level of the water,

and thus that he should be struggling for life, and barely escaping

drowning all the way. Yet hosts of people, whom no one proposes to

put under restraint, do as regards their income and expenditure a

precisely analogous thing. They deliberately weight themselves to

that degree that their heads are barely above water, and that any

unforeseen emergency dips their heads under. They rent a house a

good deal dearer than they can justly afford; and they have servants

more and more expensive than they ought; and by many such things

they make sure that their progress through life shall be a drowning

struggle; while, if they would rationally resolve and manfully

confess that they cannot afford to have things as richer folk have

them, and arrange their way of living in accordance with what they

can afford, they would enjoy the feeling of ease and comfort; they

would not be ever on the wretched stretch on which they are now,

nor keeping up the jollow appearance of what is not the fact. But

there are folk who make it a point of honour never to admit that

in doing or not doing anything, they are actuated for an instant by

so despicable a consideration as the question whether or not they

can afford it. And who shall reckon up the brains which this social

calamity has driven into disease, or the early paralytic shocks

which it has brought on?

When you were very young, and looked forward to Future Years, did

you ever feel a painful fear that you might outgrow your early home

affections, and your associations with your native scenes? Did you

ever think to yourself,--Will the day come when I have been years

away from that river's side, and yet not care? I think we have all

known the feeling. O plain church to which I used to go when I was

a child, and where I used to think the singing so very splendid!

O little room where I used to sleep! and you, tall tree,--on whose

topmost branch I cut the initials which perhaps the reader knows,

did I not even then wonder to myself if the time would ever come

when I should be far away from-you,--far away, as now, for many

years, and not likely to go back,--and yet feel entirely indifferent

to the matter? and did not I even then feel a strange pain in the

fear that very likely it might? These things come across the mind

of a little boy with a curious grief and bewilderment. Ah, there is

something strange in the inner life of a thoughtful child of eight

years old! I would rather see a faithful record of his thoughts,

feelings, fancies, and sorrows, for a single week, than know all

the political events that have happened during that space in Spain,

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Turkey. Even amid the great

grief at leaving home for school in your early days, did you not

feel a greater grief to think that the day might come when you

would not care at all; when your home ties and affections would be

outgrown; when you would be quite content to live on, month after

month, far from parents, sisters, brothers, and feel hardly a

perceptible blank when you remembered that they were far away? But

it is of the essence of such fears, that, when the thing comes that

you were afraid of, it has ceased to be fearful; still it is with

a little pang that you sometimes call to remembrance how much you

feared it once. It is a daily regret, though not a very acute one,

(more's the pity,) to be thrown much, in middle life, into the

society of an old friend whom as a boy you had regarded as very

wise, and to be compelled to observe that he is a tremendous fool.

You struggle with the conviction; you think it wrong to give in to

it; but you cannot help it. But it would have been a sharper pang

to the child's heart, to have impressed upon the child the fact,

that 'Good Mr. Goose is a fool, and some day you will understand

that he is.' In those days one admits no imperfection in the people

and the things one likes. Tou like a person; and he is good. That

seems the whole case. You do not go into exceptions and reservations.

I remember how indignant I felt, as a boy, at reading some depreciatory

criticism of the Waverley Novels. The criticism was to the effect

that the plots generally dragged at first, and were huddled up at

the end. But to me the novels were enchaining, enthralling; and

to hint a defect in them stunned one. In the boy's feeling, if a

thing be good, why, there cannot be anything bad about it. But in

the man's mature judgment, even in the people he likes best, and

in the things he appreciates most highly, there are many flaws and

imperfections. It does not vex us much now to find that this is so;

but it would have greatly vexed us many years since to have been

told that it would be so. I can well imagine, that, if you told a

thoughtful and affectionate child, how well he would some day get

on, far from his parents and his home, his wish would be that any

evil might befall him rather than that! We shrink with terror from

the prospect of things which we can take easily enough when they

come. I dare say Lord Chancellor Thurlow was moderately sincere

when he exclaimed in the House of Peers, 'When I forget, my king,

may my God forget me!' And you will understand what Leigh Hunt

meant, when, in his pleasant poem of The Palfrey, he tells us of

a daughter who had lost a very bad and heartless father by death,

that,

The daughter wept, and wept the more,

To think her tears would soon be o'er.

Even in middle age, one sad thought which comes in the prospect

of Future Years is of the change which they are sure to work upon

many of our present views and feelings. And the change, in many

cases, will be to the worse. One thing is certain,--that your temper

will grow worse, if it do not grow better. Years will sour it, if

they do not mellow it. Another certain thing is, that, if you do

not grow wiser, you will be growing more foolish. It is very true

that there is no fool so foolish as an old fool. Let us hope, my

friend, that, whatever be our honest worldly work, it may never

lose its interest. We must always speak humbly about the changes

which coming time will work upon us, upon even our firmest

resolutions and most rooted principles; or I should say for myself

that I cannot even imagine myself the same being, with bent less

resolute and heart less warm to that best of all employments which

is the occupation of my life. But there are few things which,

as we grow older, impress us more deeply than the transitoriness

of thoughts and feelings in human hearts. Nor am I thinking of

contemptible people only, when I say so. I am not thinking of the

fellow who is pulled up in court in an action for breach of promise

of marriage, and who in one letter makes vows of unalterable affection,

and in another letter, written a few weeks or months later, tries

to wriggle out of his engagement. Nor am I thinking of the weak,

though well-meaning lady, who devotes herself in succession to a

great variety of uneducated and unqualified religious instructors;

who tells you one week how she has joined the flock of Mr. A., the

converted prize-fighter, and how she regards him as by far the most

improving preacher she ever heard; and who tells you the next week

that she has seen through the prize-fighter, that he has gone and

married a wealthy Roman Catholic, and that now she has resolved

to wait on the ministry of Mr. B., an enthusiastic individual who

makes shoes during the week and gives sermons on Sundays, and in

whose addresses she finds exactly what suits her. I speak of the

better feelings and purposes of wiser, if not better folk. Let

me think here of pious emotions and holy resolutions, of the best

and purest frames of heart and mind. Oh, if we could all always

remain at our best! And after all, permanence is the great test.

In the matter of Christian faith and feeling, in the matter of all

our worthier principles and purposes, that which lasts longest is

best. This, indeed, is true of most things. The worth of anything

depends much upon its durability,--upon the wear that is in it. A

thing that is merely a fine flash and over only disappoints. The

highest authority has recognized this. You remember Who said to his

friends, before leaving them, that He would have them bring forth

fruit, and much fruit. But not even that was enough. The fairest

profession for a time, the most earnest labour for a time, the

most ardent affection for a time, would not suffice. And so the

Redeemer's words were,--'I have chosen you, and ordained you, that

ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.'

Well, let us trust, that, in the most solemn of all respects, only

progress shall be brought to us by all the changes of Future Years.'

But it is quite vain to think that feelings, as distinguished from

principles, shall not lose much of their vividness, freshness,

and depth, as time goes on. You cannot now by any effort revive

the exultation you felt at some unexpected great success, nor the

heart-sinking of some terrible loss or trial. You know how women,

after the death of a child, determine that every day, as long as

they live, they will visit the little grave. And they do so for

a time, sometimes for a long time; but they gradually leave off.

You know how burying-places are very trimly and carefully kept at

first, and how flowers are hung upon the stone; but these things

gradually cease. You know how many husbands and wives, after their

partner's death, determine to give the remainder of life to the

memory of the departed, and would regard with sincere horror the

suggestion that it was possible they should ever marry again; but

after a while they do. And you will even find men, beyond middle

age, who made a tremendous work at their first wife's death, and

wore very conspicuous mourning, who in a very few months may be

seen dangling after some new fancy, and who in the prospect of their

second marriage evince an exhilaration that approaches to crackiness.

It is usual to speak of such things in a ludicrous manner, but

I confess the matter seems to me anything but one to laugh at. I

think that the rapid dying out of warm feelings, the rapid change

of fixed resolutions, is one of the most sorrowful subjects of

reflection which it is possible to suggest, Ah, my friends, after

we die, it would not be expedient, even if it were possible, to

come back. Many of us would not like to find how very little they

miss us. But still, it is the manifest intention of the Creator

that strong feelings should be transitory. The sorrowful thing is

when they pass and leave absolutely no truce behind them. There

should always be some corner kept in the heart for a feeling which

once possessed it all. Let us look at the case temperately. Let us

face and admit the facts. The healthy body and mind can get over a

great deal; but there are some things which it is not to the credit

of our nature should ever be entirely got over. Here are sober

truth, and sound philosophy, and sincere feeling together, in the

words of Philip van Artevelde:--

Well, well, she's gone,

And I have tamed my sorrow. Pain and grief

Are transitory things, no less than joy;

And though they leave us not the men we were,

Yet they do leave us. You behold me here,

A man bereaved, with something of a blight

Upon the early blossoms of his life,

And its first verdure,--having not the less

A living root, and drawing from the earth

Its vital juices, from the air its powers:

And surely as man's heart and strength are whole,

His appetites regerminate, his heart

Re-opens, and his objects and desires

Spring up renewed.

But though Artevelde speaks truly and well, you remember how Mr.

Taylor, in that noble play, works out to our view the sad sight of the

deterioration of character, the growing coarseness and harshness,

the lessening tenderness and kindliness, which are apt to come

with advancing years. Great trials, we know, passing over us, may

influence us either for the worse or the better; and unless our

nature is a very obdurate and poor one, though they may leave us,

they will not leave us the men we were. Once, at a public meeting,

I heard a man in eminent station make a speech. I had never seen

him before; but I remembered an inscription which I had read,

in a certain churchyard far away, upon the stone that marked the

resting-place of his young wife, who had died many years before.

I thought of its simple words of manly and hearty sorrow. I knew

that the eminence he had reached had not come till she who would

have been proudest of it was beyond knowing it or caring for it.

And I cannot say with what interest and satisfaction I thought I

could trace, in the features which were sad without the infusion

of a grain of sentirnentalism, in the subdued and quiet tone of

the man's whole aspect and manner and address, the manifest proof

that he had not shut down the leaf upon that old page of his

history, that lie had never quite got over that great grief of

earlier years. One felt better and more hopeful for the sight. I

suppose many people, after meeting some overwhelming loss or trial,

have fancied that they would soon die; but that is almost invariably

a delusion. Various dogs have died of a broken heart, but very

few human beings. The inferior creature has pined away at his

master's loss: as for us, it is not that one would doubt the depth

and sincerity of sorrow, but that there is more endurance in our

constitution, and that God has appointed that grief shall rather

mould and influence than kill. It is a much sadder sight than an

early death, to see human beings live on after heavy trial, and sink

into something very unlike their early selves and very inferior to

their early selves. I can well believe that many a human being, if

he eould have a glimpse in innocent youth of what he will be twenty

or thirty years after, would pray in anguish to be taken before

coming to that! Mansie Wauch's glimpse of destitution was bad

enough; but a million times worse is a glimpse of hardened and

unabashed sin and shame. And it would be no comfort--it would be an

aggravation in that view--to think that by the time you have reached

that miserable point, you will have grown pretty well reconciled

to it. That is the worst of all. To be wicked and depraved, and to

feel it, and to be wretched under it, is bad enough; but it is a

great deal worse to have fallen into that depth of moral degradation,

and to feel that really you don't care. The instinct of accommodation

is not always a blessing. It is happy for us, that, though in youth

we hoped to live in a castle or a palace, we can make up our mind

to live in a little parsonage or a quiet street in a country town.

It is happy for us, that, though in youth we hoped to be very

great and famous, we are so entirely reconciled to being little

and unknown. But it is not happy for the poor girl who walks the

Haymarket at night that she feels her degradation so little. It

is not happy that she has come to feel towards her miserable life

so differently now from what she would have felt towards it, had

it been set before her while she was the blooming, thoughtless

creature in the little cottage in the country. It is only by fits

and starts that the poor drunken wretch, living in a garret upon

a little pittance allowed him by his relations, who was once a man

of character and hope, feels what a sad pitch he has come to. If

you could get him to feel it constantly, there would be some hope

of his reclamation even yet.

It seems to me a very comforting thought, in looking on to Future

Years, if you are able to think that you are in a profession or

a calling from which you will never retire. For the prospect of a

total change in your mode of life, and the entire cessation of the

occupation which, for many years employed the greater part of your

waking thoughts, and all this amid the failing powers and nagging

hopes of declining, years, is both a sad and a perplexing prospect

to a thoughtful person. For such a person cannot regard this

great change simply in the light of a rest from toil and worry; he

will know quite well what a blankness, and listlessness, and loss

of interest in life, will come of feeling all at once that you

have nothing at all to do. And so it is a great blessing, if your

vocation be one which is a dignified and befitting one for an old

man to be engaged in, one that beseems his gravity and his long

experience, one that beseems even his slow movements and his white

hairs. It is a pleasant thing to see an old man a judge; his years

become the judgment-seat. But then the old man can hold such an

office only while he retains strength of body and mind efficiently

to perform its duties; and he must do all his work for himself:

and accordingly a day must come when the venerable Chancellor

resigns the Great Seal; when the aged Justice or Baron must give up

his place; and when these honoured Judges, though still retaining

considerable vigour, but vigour less than enough for their hard

work, are compelled to feel that their occupation is gone. And

accordingly I hold that what is the best of all professions, for

many reasons, is especially so for this, that you need never retire

from it. In the Church you need not do all your duty yourself. You

may get assistance to supplement your own lessening strength. The

energetic young curate or curates may do that part of the parish work

which exceeds the power of the ageing incumbent, while the entire

parochial machinery has still the advantage of being directed by

his wisdom and experience, and while the old man is still permitted

to do what he can with such strength as is spared to him, and to feel

that he is useful in the noblest cause yet. And even to extremest

age and frailty,--to age and frailty which would long since have

incapacitated the judge for the Bench--the parish clergyman may

take some share in the much-loved duty in which he has laboured so

long. He may still, though briefly, and only now and then, address

his flock from the pulpit, in words which his very feebleness will

make far more touchingly effective than the most vigorous eloquence

and the richest and fullest tones of his young coadjutors. There

never will be, within the sacred walls, a silence and reverence

more profound than when the withered kindly face looks as of old

upon the congregation, to whose fathers its owner first ministered,

and which has grown up mainly under his instruction,--and when the

voice that falls familiarly on so many ears tells again, quietly

and earnestly, the old story which we all need so much to hear.

And he may still look in at the parish school, and watch the growth

of a generation that is to do the work of life when he is in his

grave; and kindly smooth the children's heads; and tell them how

One, once a little child, and never more than a young man, brought

salvation alike to young and old. He may still sit by the bedside

of the sick and dying, and speak to such with the sympathy and the

solemnity of one who does not forget that the last great realities

are drawing near to both. But there are vocations which are all very

well for young or middle-aged people, but which do not quite suit

the old. Such is that of the barrister. Wrangling and hair-splitting,

browbeating and bewildering witnesses, making coarse jokes to excite

the laughter of common jurymen, and addressing such with clap-trap

bellowings, are not the work for grey-headed men. If such remain at

the bar, rather let them have the more refined work of the Equity

Courts, where you address judges, and not juries; and where you

spare clap-trap and misrepresentation, if for no better reason,

because, you know that these will not stand you in the slightest

stead. The work which best befits the aged, the work for which no

mortal can ever become too venerable and dignified or too weak and

frail, is the work of Christian usefulness and philanthropy. And

it is a beautiful sight to see, as I trust we all have seen, that

work persevered in with the closing energies of life. It is a noble

test of the soundness of the principle that prompted to its first

undertaking. It is a hopeful and cheering sight to younger men,

looking out with something of fear to the temptations and trials

of the years before them. Oh! if the grey-haired clergyman, with

less now, indeed, of physical strength and mere physical warmth,

yet preaches, with the added weight and solemnity of his long

experience, the same blessed doctrines now, after forty years,

that he preached in his early prime; if the philanthropist of half

a century since is the philanthropist still,--still kind, hopeful,

and unwearied, though with the snows of age upon his head, and the

hand that never told its fellow of what it did now trembling as it

does the deed of mercy; then I think that even the most doubtful

will believe that the principle and the religion of such men were

a glorious reality! The sternest of all touchstones of the genuineness

of our better feelings is the fashion in which they stand the wear

of years.

But my shortening space warns me to stop; and I must cease, for

the present, from these thoughts of Future Years,--cease, I mean,

from writing about that mysterious tract before us: who can cease

from thinking of it? You remember how the writer of that little

poem which has been quoted asks Time to touch gently him and his.

Of course he spoke as a poet, stating the case fancifully,--but

not forgetting, that, when we come to sober sense, we must prefer

our requests to an Ear more ready to hear us and a Hand more ready

to help. It is not to Time that I shall apply to lead me through

life into immortality! And I cannot think of years to come without

going back to a greater poet, whom we need not esteem the less

because his inspiration was loftier than that of the Muses, who

has summed up so grandly in one comprehensive sentence all the

possibilities which could befall him in the days and ages before

him. "Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive

me to glory!" Let us humbly trust that in that sketch, round and

complete, of all that can ever come to us, my readers and I may be

able to read the history of our Future Years!

CONCLUSION.

And now, friendly reader, who have borne me company so far,

your task is ended. You will have no more of the RECREATIONS OF A

COUNTRY PARSON. Yet do not be alarmed. I trust you have not seen

the writer's last appearance. It is only that the essays which he

hopes yet to write, will not be composed in the comparative leisure

of a country clergyman's quiet life. And not merely is it still a

pleasant change of occupation, to write such chapters as those you

have read: but the author cannot forget that to them he is indebted

for the acquaintance of some of the most valued friends he has in

this world. It was especially delightful to find a little sympathetic

public, whose taste these papers suited; and to which they have

not been devoid of profit and comfort. Nor was it without a certain

subdued exultation that a quiet Scotch minister learned that away

across the ocean he had found an audience as large and sympathetic

as in his own country; and a kind appreciation by the organs of

criticism there, which he could not read without much emotion. Of

course, if I had fancied myself a great genius, it would have seemed

nothing strange that the thoughts I had written down in my little

study in the country manse, should be read by many fellow-creatures

four thousand miles off. But then I knew I was not a great genius:

and so I felt it at once a great pleasure and a great surprise. My

heart smote me when I thought of some flippant words of depreciation

which these essays have contained concerning our American brothers.

They are the last this hand shall ever write: and I never will

forget how simple thoughts, only sincere and not unconsidered,

found their way to hearts, kindly Scotch and English yet, though

beating on the farther side of the Great Atlantic.

After all, a clergyman's great enjoyment is in his duty: and I

think that, unless he be crushed down by a parish of utter misery

and destitution, in which all he can do is like a drop in the ocean

(as that great and good man Dr. Guthrie tells us he was), the town

is to the clergyman better than the country. The crowded city, when

all is said, contains the best of the race. Your mind is stirred

up there, to do what you could not have done elsewhere. The best of

your energy and ability is brought out by the never-ceasing spur.

Yet you will be sensible of various evils in the city clergyman's

life. One is the great evil of over-work. You are always on the

stretch. You never feel that your work is overtaken. The time never

comes, in which you feel that you may sit down and rest: never

comes, at least, save in the autumnal holiday. It is expedient that

a city clergyman should have his mind well stored before going to

his charge: for there he will find a perpetual drain upon his mind,

and very little time for refilling it by general reading. To prepare

two sermons a week, or even one sermon a week, for an educated

congregation (or indeed for any congregation), implies no small

sustained effort. It is not so very hard to write one sermon in one

week; but is very hard to write thirty sermons in thirty successive

weeks. You know how five miles in five hours are nothing: but a

thousand miles in a thousand hours are killing. But every one knows

that the preparation for the pulpit is the least part of a town

clergyman's work. You have many sick to visit regularly: many

frail and old people who cannot come to church. You have schools,

classes, missions. And there is the constant effort to maintain

some acquaintance with the families that attend your church, so

that you and they shall not be strangers. I am persuaded that there

ought to be at least two clergymen to every extensive parish. For

it is not expedient that the clergy should have their minds and

bodies ever on the strain, just to get througr the needful work of

the day. There is no opportunity, then, for the accumulation of

some stock and store of thought and learning. And one important

service which the clergy of a country ought to render it, is the

maintenance of learning, and general culture. Indeed, a man not

fairly versed in literature and science is not capable of preaching

as is needful at the present day. And when always overdriven, a man

is tempted to lower his standard: and instead of trying to do his

work to the very best of his ability, to wish just to get decently

through it. Then, as for other men, they have the great happiness

of knowing when their work is done. When a lawyer has attended to

his cases, he has no more to do that day. So when the doctor has

visited his patients. But to clerical work there is no limit. Your

work is to do all the good you can. There is the parish: there is

the population: and the uneasy conscience is always suggesting thia

and that new scheme of benevolent exertion. The only limit to the

clergyman's duty is his strength: and very often that limit is

outrun. Oh that one could wisely fix what one may safely and rightly

do; and then resolutely determine not to attempt any more! But who

can do that? If your heart be in your work, you are every now and

then knocking yourself up. And you cannot help it. You advise your

friends prudently against overwork; and then you go and work till

you drop.

And a further evil of the town parish is, that a great part of

your work is done by the utmost stretch of body and mind. Much of

it is work of that nature, that when you are not actually doing

it, you wonder how you can do it at all. When you think of it, it

is a very great trial and effort to preach each Sunday to a thousand

or fifteen hundred human beings. And by longer experience, and that

humbler self-estimate which longer experience brings, the trial

is ever becoming greater. It is the utmost strain of human energy,

to do that duty fittingly. You know how easily some men go through

their work. It is constant and protracted; but not a very great

strain at any one time: there is no overwhelming nervous tension.

I suppose even the Chief Justice, or the Lord Chancellor, when in

the morning he walks into Court and takes his seat on the bench,

does so without a trace of nervous tremour. He is thoroughly cool.

He has a perfect conviction that he is equal to his work; that he

is master of it. But preaching is to many men an unceasing nervous

excitement. There is great wear in it. And this is so, I am

persuaded, even with the most eminent men. Preaching is a thing

by itself. When you properly reflect upon it, it is very solemn,

responsible, and awful work. Not long since, I heard the Bishop

of Oxford preach to a very great congregation. I was sitting very

near him, and watched him with the professional interest. I am much

mistaken if that great man was not as nervous as a young parson,

preaching for the first time. Pie had a number of little things in

the pulpit to look after: his cap, gloves, handkerchief, sermon-case:

I remember the nervous way in which he was twitching them about,

and arranging them. No doubt that tremour wore off when he began

to speak; and he gave a most admirable sermon. Still, the strain

had been there, and had been felt. And I do not think that the like

can recur week by week, without considerable wear of the principle

of life within. Now, in preaching to a little country congregation,

there is much less of that wear: to say nothing of the increased

physical effort of addressing many hundreds of people, as compared

with that of addressing eighty or ninety. It is quite possible that

out of the many hundreds, there may not be very many individuals of

whom, intellectually, you stand in very overwhelming awe: and the

height of a crowd of a thousand people is no more than the height

of the tallest man in it. Still, there is always something very

imposing and awe-striking in the presence of a multitude of human

beings.

And yet, if you have physical strength equal to your work, I do not

think that for all the nervous anxiety which attends your charge,

or for all its constant pressure, you would ever wish to leave it.

There is a happiness in such sacred duty which only those who have

experienced it know. And without (so far as you are aware) a shade

of self-conceit, but in entire humility and deep thankfulness, you

will rejoice that God makes you the means of comfort and advantage

to many of your fellow-men. It is a delightful thing to think

that you are of use: and, whether in town or country, the diligent

clergyman may always hope that he is so, less or more.

THE END.