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noticed in the Pulpit Commentary, and we hope the editors will prevent the recurrence of such extreme bad taste and unfairness.

Mr. Lias has written a capital' Introduction to the Book of Joshua.' It treats, amongst other things, of the modern critical attacks upon the Book, and disposes of them in a workmanly and not too positive manner. It should not be forgotten, however, that the orthodox position affirms no more than the high probability that the Book proceeded from Joshua's pen. The inspiration of the Book is not the same thing as its authorship. Mr. Lias grapples honestly with the moral difficulties of Joshua, and says much that is helpful, though his discussion of the miracle of the Sun and Moon standing still is unsatisfactory. The Commentary is carefully and skilfully executed, and is particularly good and full in its treatment of the many geographical references. The 'Homiletics'

are thoughtful, but perhaps a little too mechanical in their divisions.

Of the Homilies by various authors, Mr. Glover's deserve special mention. Certainly they are somewhat fanciful, but are fresh, elegant and popular.

The Morning Star of the Reformation: Life and Times of John de Wycliffe. London: Religious Tract Society. There is much that is comparatively new in this handy volume concerning a period of Church history fraught with interest. The author acknowledges that his book is little more than a compilation from Vaughan, Lechler and others. But his selections are carefully made and pieced into a narrative which will profit the intelligent reader and prove a useful book of reference. Here and there is a misleading looseness of expression, and certain questionable traditions (e.g., Wycliffe's Wardenship of Canterbury Hall) are unguardedly recorded.

OBITUARY.

GEORGE BARLOW, born at Lancaster in 1822, was the son of the late Rev. Luke

Barlow, Wesleyan Minister. He was educated at Woodhouse Grove School, where, besides acquiring secular knowledge, he received religious impressions which influenced his character through life. On leaving school, he was apprenticed to a druggist. During the next few years he suffered spiritual declension; but in 1839 he made a full surrender of himself to God, and thenceforth gave abiding evidence that he had become a new creature' in Christ Jesus. He held in grateful remembrance the prayers and counsels of his parents, and often referred to the great benefit he had derived from them.

In 1842 he became a Local Preacher, and from that period to his death discharged the duties of that office with one purpose.' At one time his thoughts turned towards the Ministry, but Providence ordered otherwise.

In 1845 he took a situation at Northallerton, where he succeeded to his employer's business. During his residence at Northallerton, which extended over twenty-three years, he did much valuable work for Methodism, preaching not only in his own, but in adjoining Circuits also, to the edification of his hearers and the comfort of his own soul. In 1869 he

went to reside in Hull, where, notwithstanding increased business engagements, he continued his toil as a Local Preacher, Class Leader and Tract Distributer. A few years afterwards his health gave way, and he was frequently asked by friends to relax some of his duties in connection with the Church; but he persistently refused. His desire to do good was evinced by a request which he made only a few days before he died. Although extremely weak, he begged to be taken into an adjoining room and that a few people might be brought in from the streets,' that he might once more 'preach Christ crucified.' I am sure good would be done,' said he. To the friends, in dying, he gave the assurance that he had not the slightest anxiety on soul

matters.'

At times, during his last illness, this soldier of Christ had severe conflict with the tempter; but he obtained 'delivering grace In the distressing hour.' Perfect deliverance speedily came on December 9th, 1878.

Mr. Barlow's last entry in his diary was the following: In view of a speedy dissolution, I can say, "I have fought a good fight; ... I have kept the faith." I have nothing now to do. All, all is ready.' E. L.

HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, PRINTERS, LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

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WESLEYAN-METHODIST MAGAZINE.

NOVEMBER, 1881.

TEXTS FOR THE TIMES:

EARLY MORNING PRAYER: A SERMON TO YOUNG MEN :

BY THE REV. CHARLES STANFORD, D.D.

My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up.'-PSALM V. 3.

I. LET me ask you in the first place to pause with reverence, and look at the man who is speaking in this sentence. It is a man in the very act of secret prayer. Once I met with an old father who in his youth was walking one morning over a Wiltshire down in the wet, still twilight, when he heard sounding out from behind a thorn-bush, like a voice sounding out from another world, the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain in prayer, making him suddenly feel almost as Moses might have felt when he was told to put off his shoes, for the place whereon he stood was holy ground. Once, too, I met with a pilgrim who, in like manner, and with a similar solemn shock, accidentally came upon Robert Hall when he was in a rapture of secret prayer. But when we come upon David in a psalm, he is always thus. Almost every psalm of his is the public record of private prayer, for in him we have the sacred mystery of a man who, was irresistibly impelled to set down with an immortal pen his most secret, most sacred thoughts. His very soul lived in public. His very privacy was lighted up without his knowing it into the blazing centre of most intense publicity. His very whispers into the ear of the Eternal, as they flew from his lips entoned into thunders, travelling through all time. When curtained within his spirit's sanctum, he was all the while living a prayer that should ring out in all the languages of history. In David's life there was nothing covered that should not be uncovered, nor hidden that should not be made known. His secret prayers, in their process of formation, somehow wrote themselves down here. As we look into the depths and transparencies of a psalm, we see him think, and watch his thoughts as they shake and shoot, and mysteriously, beautifully crystallize. So does this wonderful man fill his own department in the Bible, which is the department of secret prayer, in which he helps the holy Church throughout the world while the world lasts.

In our day, when Christians seem to be always thinking aloud, or

* This sermon was preached at seven o'clock in the morning, at an autumnal conference of Christian Churches.

always on a platform, or always in a hurry—in the thick of a battle, or in the vortex of politics, or in the rattle of religious machinery, or in the strain of a life like a climax perpetualized-a subject like this is a subject in season. 'There is nothing so deadening to the Divine within us as daily mechanical contact with the outsides of Divine things.' I cannot remember where that sentence is written, but I say with a thrill that it is most true. To have the temper, to have the balance, to have the sound sense, to have the ready strength, yet strength under orders needful for the work we have on hand, we must, to borrow Bishop Latimer's phrase, segregate, before we congregate.' I hope that, please God, I shall help His cause in the hearts of young men, by calling attention to these ancient words, spoken by a man alone to God alone:

Impulses of deepest mood
Come to us in solitude.'

6

All great service begins, not in the committee-room, not in the public meeting, not in the electricity of a grand oratorical excitement; but in the cool, tranquil, shaded holy of holies, where God's separated priest and king keeps the appointment which thus he makes: My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up.'

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II. Mark the invocation in this sentence. What does it mean? When the speaker calls upon God, what does he mean by God? I wish to be clear about his theology, because, as he was an inspired theologian, his theology ought, in all essentials, to be our own. Well, to begin with, you see that at least he thinks of his God as a Person, for he says: My voice shalt Thou hear '-'I will direct my prayer to Thee, O Lord.' This is not a waste remark of mine. Simple people say that, of course, even without the use of personal pronouns, prayer itself implies a person to hear it as much as a person to speak it; but certain friends of ours, who are not simple, say No! They tell us that prayer is a natural and a noble thing, and that they sometimes pray themselves; yet we find on pressure, that in their opinion, no man of modern culture and scientific thought ever thinks of God as a Person! Then, I say to these men of exact and scientific definitions, You speak about your prayers, but we want to know by exact and scientific definition what you mean; prayer for what; and prayer directed whither? Do you pray to what Matthew Arnold calls a Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness'? Then, after all, you mean what I mean by a Person? No? Then I suspect that you are only scientific up to a certain point, but that when you come to the very thing that is in question, you are not scientific at all, and that you know no more about God than we do without a supernatural revelation. Tell me, you praying men, who do not believe that God is a Person, do you pray to God, yet know all the while that He is not alive? Do you pray to a certain word in the dictionary-a word beautiful with dim, poetic tints of meaning, but

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