of the famous Simeon gatherings, which were held for many years in the rooms of that worthy minister. There were clerical meetings, sermon classes, under ordinary social parties. The notes which compose the book were derived from the three last. It is the same in other connexions. We are not speaking of ministerial popularity, but of personal reputation and influence, connected with a mysterious individuality of life. The Bap-graduate Sunday evening parties, and tists have no Robert Hall now the Wesleyans no Jabez Bunting. Independents, as such, have always been in a measure true to the name they bear, and have never been wont to bow down to their great men with any particular intensity of homage. But we fancy, in former days, much more was thought of certain individuals among them who are gone than we do of any living men. Among the luminaries of dissent in general, Rowland Hill and Matthew Wilks,-not simply as preachers, but as men,-shone with a brightness half a century ago that nowhere meets us in the same spheres now. We We are become like the Greeks. don't sacrifice till after sunset. The living we sharply criticise, and measure them familiarly as not only coevals, but coequals; but memories awaken awe. Reverently we turn towards the shades of the departed. People generally question whether the former days were better than these but there is a sort of idea that the former men were better than these. We of the latter half of the nineteenth century are much more proud of contemporary things than of contemporary persons. What the comparative merits of the living and the dead may be-how far we over-estimate the past, and under-estimate the present-or to what extent there may be truth in a sentiment on the increase, namely, that there were men of a past generation of greater power than any in the present and how changes of the sort we indicate, accomplished within our lifetime, may be fully accounted for,-are questions worth the reader's while to turn over, though the discussion of them would load this article with too much heavy weight-and, which is more to the purpose-keep us away from Mr. Brown, with his interesting Recollections," whom we beg pardon for keeping so long by our side in silence. 66 He gives us some preliminary account Entering King's, after a stroll on the river banks, and round the glorious old chapel of perpendicular architecture, the sight of which sets our artistic enthusiasm on fire, we reach Mr. Simeon's rooms at six o'clock. We take care to be punctual, because the good man has a great horror of unpunctuality, and to wipe our feet on the mat, for which he rigorously stipulates with all comers. In a little time, when there are about sixty or eighty undergraduates in the drawing-room, seated in chairs and benches arranged for the occasion, and some occupying the window recesses— Mr. Brown enters, and gives his name. "Brown, Brown," says Mr. Simeon, with his sharp eyes and expressive countenance, capable of a grotesquely humorous form. "Brown, Brown; no name at all, sir. Is it Brown of Trinity, Brown of Queen's, or who?" Mr. Simeon takes his seat, and two servants hand the tea round. The seat is an unbacked chair, by the right hand of the fire-place, in full view of the faces before him-a little old quarto Bible is within reach-and quickly rubbing his hands, the clerical Nestor, full of affection, makes some playful remark when he sees any constraint among his youthful guests. There are some marble tables with slender legs, all gilt, standing by the hall, much valued by the host as gifts from a dear friend-and if a gownsman happens to crowd up against these precious pieces of furniture, he gets a hasty caution' - for the eyes of the owner are sure to be specially watchful in that quarter. Inquiries are made by the visitors-sometimes very queer or very silly-" What a fool so and so must be to ask such a question." "Too bad to bother and try to entrap old Simeon in that way;" "I wonder he did not show so and so the door," are comments after wards made by the disciples as they go downstairs, when their reverence for their master has been hurt. But for the most part the inquirers are reverential, if their inquiries be not very profound. Here are are a few samples of Simeon's talk on these occasions :— "I once, on a journey to London, twenty-five years ago, saw a shepherd who had followed a stray sheep a long way. When he came up with it, he lifted up his heavy staff, and I thought he was irritated, and was about to strike it down. The poor sheep was hedged up, and knew not which way to turn, and cowered from the blow; and my feelings were roused to anger at the expected brutality of the man. But instead of a blow, the shepherd gently lowered the staff, and I saw it had a crook at the end, with which he hooked the sheep and caught it safe. The incident made an indelible impression upon my mind; and I never now read the confession, We have erred and strayed like lost sheep,' without its recurring to my thoughts. It was a beautiful illustration of God's dealings with sinners." Again, speaking of Divine knowledge: "But all this knowledge, discerned and tasted by us, has its end for which God is to fill us with it. It is, 'That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.' Look at a balloon; at first it lies on the ground a shapeless and moveless heap of silk. It is slowly inflated with a buoyant gas, and begins to swell and swell scarce perceptibly; and its upper part begins to heave and mount upwards. At last it disdains to touch the ground at all, and rises upwards, but is tied down to the earth with many cords; and the gas within makes it heave, and writhe, and struggle from side to side, endeavouring to get loose. A cord is cut, and it only struggles more violently; another and another is cut, and its efforts to be free are redoubled; at last, every cord is severed, and it soars away to heaven. Such is the natural effect of our being filled with this knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual perception. It causes us to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.' It gives a distaste for the world; the inanimate becomes animated; and, as tie after tie is cut, the soul struggles more and more heavenward, until the last tie is cut, and we mount to glory. There, then, is the reason why the Apostle prays, did not cease to pray,' for the saints at Colosse. And we ought to have this object in our mind when we pray for the knowledge of God's will." As to recreation, he remarks: "We are made with bodies as well as souls, and our bodies need exercise and recreation. I see no harm in young persons engaging in a game of tennis, or taking horseback exercise, and enjoying it keenly; provided it be done with an eye to God's glory, and in a praying spirit, they should take their recreation with all their might. I think I could enjoy a game of tennis to-day, were I younger. My rides have ever been of the greatest delight to me. Few have more enjoyment in their Bible than I have in my rides; it is my season of intercession for all my dear absent friends, and I ramble over the world without interruption. We may enjoy any recreation which is lawful and expedient; for some lawful recreations are yet not expedient, and some which are expedient for others are not so for a clergyman. Serve God in your recreations, and enjoy Him; but we are too often, like the Jews or like the monks, afraid of God's blessings. We have the spirit of touch not, taste not, handle not,' but this is wrong. 'God giveth us richly all things to enjoy (1 Tim. vi. 17); and we ought to do so. Thus, a parent may, without idolatry, enjoy his children, always having an eye to God. Dick's Christian Philosopher' is a most admirable and rich little book, showing how to enjoy God in everything. For our rule should be to enjoy God in everything; to feel the delight of affluence, science, friends, recreations, children-in fact, of everything, as coming to us from God, who gives it sweetness, and for whose sake and glory it is. And the counterpart of that rule should be to enjoy everything in God, and, if we are deprived of outward blessings, to feel that then God is all to us. God is wealth, wisdom, friends, relatives, enjoyment, all to us. Enjoy His fulness.' Speaking on the words, "The Lord giveth wisdom," he observed :— "The inward teaching of God is the only way in which our natural hearts can be come enlightened to the realities which the Bible reveals; for we cannot otherwise receive, nor even know, the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned.--1 Cor. ii. 14. We may perhaps fully understand them with our minds; but who among us, without that teaching, will apply them to our souls, or perceive how they belong to us, and are adapted to our every necessity? Here is a sun-dial standing open on the grassplot; the hours of the day are marked upon it most accurately to tell whether it be morning or midday or eventide. Go and see what o'clock it is. There are the hours, and there is the gnomon, shaped with unerring exactness, to tell you the true time to a minute. You stand and pore over it in vain; it does not tell you what o'clock it is; and you may stand there till night comes, for it is a dark and cloudy day. One thing only is wanting the sunbeam from the sky. But see! the cloud divides; the sunshine touches the dial; and that, which else you could not have known, is manifested to you in a moment. The dial, without any change in it, and without any miracle, instantly teaches you what you really need to know, yet could not have known but for the gleam of sunshine." We could give many more such specimens of Simeon's Table Talk," plain, sensible, shrewd, useful, and often striking observations, inspired with the spirit of evangelical piety; and there is often a breadth of view and a general range of human sympathy, and an independence of conventional prejudices in the good man's conversations, not at all common at the time in that school of theologians to which Simeon was considered to belong. This volume altogether is a very interesting one; and though we cannot but condemn the narrow sectarian spirit of the author in some of his observationsfor, like many high churchmen who look haughtily on the sects, he has much of the essence of sectarianism in himself we can speak well of the volume on the whole. We have only room enough left for the following sketch of the hero of the book: "There was about Mr. Simeon the courtly polish of the old school. Those who knew him intimately, will also remember numberless little occasions, when it was impossible not to observe that affectionate cheerfulness and gentlemanly bearing, that manly patience, that inflexible uprightness, that common sense and tact, which at once commanded the those around. Not even the occasional, respect and conciliated the good-will of quickly passing hastiness of his temper, nor yet the often amusing peculiarities of influence which, without seeking it, he his manner, could permanently injure the acquired over those around him. An intimate friend would sometimes be admitted to his room, even when he was suffering from severe illness. It is not easy to forget the appearance of the aged servant of God, when labouring under an agonizing ing on his sofa, swaying himself to and fit of gout or other illness, half reclinfro, holding his anguished leg, while perspiration stood on his brow from the pain; yet saying playfully, and with a beaming smile,My brother, you see I vain to find a position in which the gout am chastened with strong pain, trying in will let my leg be easy; but my sad, discontented leg is like a scourged soldier, hit high, hit low, it will not be satisfied. Come, sit you down-at a due distance, mind-and tell me how,' &c.; and then with the tear in his brimming eye, he would break out in his peculiar way, and pour forth his humble confidence in his heavenly Father's love and tenderness; his grateful sense of the alleviations sent to mitigate the sharpness of the chastisement; and his glad comfort in looking forward to the time when sorrow, and sighing, and pain, and the curse would be at an end, and when we should be with the Lord for ever." The Old Lieutenant and His Son.* WE certainly owe, and we humbly make an apology to two friends in green, square-built, and with maritime badges stamped on their backs in gold, for having kept them so long without one “The Old Lieutenant and His Son." By the Editor of "Good Words." (London: Strahan.) VOL. XLI. word of notice, especially as they afforded us, several weeks ago, the highest gratification by their simple story, winning manners, and good words. "The Old Lieutenant and His Son" are worthy of the acquaintance of all the good and wise. It will make them wiser and better. And as for those who are not good and Ꭰ wise, it will be their own fault if they | continue as they are, after knowing the two worthies we now, with sentiments of admiring friendship, beg to introduce to them. Genius is not always genial. Too often it meets us with haughty scowls, contemptuous sneers, or sardonic smiles; but in this book by "the editor of Good Words,' it meets us with loving looks, eyes full of tender manliness, lips on which the law of kindness dwells, and a grasp of the hand, firm and hearty, which puts you at your ease as soon as you feel it. Then, moreover, geniality is not always accompanied by earnestness. Good-natured minds, full of marvellous power, are sometimes lamentably indifferent to truth and righteousness; but the writer of this volume never trims, and never forgets his responsibilities to God and man. He fights throughout the battle of right against wrong; religion against irreligion; faith against scepticism; and Christ against the world, with all the valour and fire of an old British sailor. The work is not a novel; it can hardly be said to have any plot in it. People judgments of men who were disposed to We do not remember anybody in the book exactly of the type we meet with in the religious novels patronized by cer who are fond of the hottest curry of tain schools; and we like it all the better romance, as commonly served up in the for that. Scenes on shipboard, converthree volumes of certain fashionable pub-sations among the sailors, attempts at lishers, will find the "Old Lieutenant and His Son" rather insipid. But for delineation of character, and clear, earnest, useful talk, it is from beginning to end first-rate. We like both father and son—to use an expression of a friend of ours-immensely. Here they are: "Ned's religious education, as it is termed, was perhaps not cut and squared in the exact pattern of what often passes under that name. Yet it had its own peculiar excellences. The captain's theological knowledge was not, as may be supposed, profound. But there were, nevertheless, a thousand truths moving to and fro in that bald head, without order or method, although he could not deliver them over to the tongue. How one of our scientific infants would have puzzled him! But there was a light too, and peace in that heart, which shone in his face, and was felt in his mind, and spread an atmosphere of gentle goodness and genuine truth about him; such as could not be disturbed by the harsh doing good, the discipline of a rough rude way of living, sin and its sorrows, and how God brings rude wayward creatures to Himself are admirably described, with all the truthfulness of nature, fact, and actual life. We cannot resist the temptation to quote the following sample of the way of instructing his shipmates, adopted by Ned, the “ Old Lieutenant's Son" :— "The first portion of Scripture which was selected was the voyage of St. Paul, recorded in the 27th chapter of the book of Acts, which he read, explaining, as he was able to do, some of the proper names and less familiar phrases. It was deeply interesting to watch the men's faces, and hear their remarks. The whole narrative was to them as real as that of any voyage which had taken place in their own time. The interest got so great, that Ned had to borrow an atlas from the captain, and show the ship's course; favour which Salmond gave with a growl, asking what had an atlas to do with the a Bible; and remarking that they might as well take a compass into the pulpit.' By the time Ned came to the thirty-third verse, the men were eager to hear the end of the story. And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for this is for your health: for there shall Lot a hair fall from the head of any of you. And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all: and when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some meat. And we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea.' Wilson observed, Well, I'm glad I was not on board of her. It must have been a wild job, with a leaky ship, a cargo of wheat-shifting too, no doubt-and two hundred and seventy-six souls on board, and she riding by four anchors off a lee-shore in a Levanter! Now, Fleming, as you are up to the Bible, tell me, was that man Paul a regular parson?' 'He was a holy apostle, Wilson,' replied Fleming. That is a parson, is it continued Wilson. 'In course he was,' said Lamont. Pity me, Wilson, ye surely hae heard o' the Apostle Paul?' 'Perhaps I have, as well as you,' said Wilson; 'but what I ་ ax is, was he what we call a parson? For if so, he was not like any that ever I know'd of.' In what way?' asked Lamont. 'Because the most of them chaps I have sailed with, I'm blest if they weren't fine gentlemen, rigged out with black coats that could not stand salt water and the ship's company. Now that man was all alive, I say, and fit for a quarter-deck.' 'What do you mean?' said Lamont. I meant as how he got rations served out to all hands, for'ard as well as aft, like a man, and kept a bright look-out for the crew, and for the passengers and sogers. And what I say is this, that he was an outer-and-outer! A right good fellow he must have been, when the sea was a washing over that old tub in a gale of wind before break of day, on a lee-shore, for him to rise up in that turmendous crowd of passengers, and to say grace as peaceful as if he was in a church; I say he was a tip-topper, and no mistake; and a man I'd hear preach, I would. Go on, Ned, I want to hear how they got along. It's first-rate.' Well,' said Ned, if you would listen to his preaching, I can read you many of his sermons, for there are many of them here.' This is capital. We could say and quote much more of a like kind, but time and space forbid; and we can only add, that this is one of the healthiest works of fiction we have ever met with. Brief Notices of Books. The Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ: an Introduction to the History of Christianity. From the German of J. J. 1. Dollinger, by N. DARNELL, M.A. 2 Vols. (London: Longman.)-It is curious to observe the changes that from time to time come over the spirit of historical inquiry. Some time ago, in presenting the moral and religious aspect of the teachings and habits of the ancients, it was common to find only one unmitigated spectacle of ignorance, folly, vice, and crime. The results so presented were employed for controversial purposes in the warfare against deists. Of late a different temper has been exhibited in the treatment of the old pagan world. Gleams of light are recognised amidst the darkness words of wisdom are found besides falsehoods and barren speculations. Much in old heathendom is discovered which turns out to be "an unconscious prophecy of Christianity." Perhaps of late the tide has set in too strongly in that direction. Where it is so, the "Gentile and the Jew" will act as a corrective. Here we have the darker side again uppermost. Heathen philosophy and religion are pourtrayed in gloomy but truthful colours. We do not believe that either Dr. Dollinger or writers of another school tell all the truth. If the pagan world had been only what he describes, it could not have existed as it did. If it had been only what others describe, it is difficult to see how the description of it in the Bible could be fair. To use a simile of Simeon's, the truth will not be obtained by keeping fixed to a golden mean, as it is called, but by oscillating-not vacillating-pendulum |