coincidence or not, it is certain that these words were the guiding star of his life. His earliest years were spent under his parents' roof, partly in the country, partly in the town; and there he was prepared by private tutors for the university. When he was fourteen he lost his father, whose last words to him were, "Be a man, and trust in the goodness of the Lord thy God." At the age of sixteen, the youth went to Frankfort to study jurisprudence. At the close of three years, his education being over, he travelled in France, England, Italy, &c.; and on his return was made page to his prince, the Elector of Brandenburg, who afterwards became King of Prussia. Next he entered the army, and fought against France. During this campaign his health was seriously shaken. On his recovery, he left the army, and returned to his mother, who was then living in Berlin. In October, 1694, she too died; and it was beside her coffin that the young baron first made the acquaintance of Philip Jacob Spener, then in his sixtieth year. The intimacy thus begun lasted till Spener's death; and the constant intercourse of the two led Von Canstein into friendly relations with several of Spener's friends, who were members of the Theological Faculty of the newly established University of Halle, and most especially with August Hermann Francke. Toward the end of the century, Canstein inherited a part of the property left by his relative, Count von Canitz, the poet; and somewhat later he married a wife likeminded with himself, but their union remained childless. After his return from the war, he seems to have retired into private life, instead of devoting his talent and culture to the political service of his country. His heart impelled him in another direction.

He had been from earliest childhood under favourable religious influences. His father, we are told, was a sincerely pious man, who held God's word and sacraments in deepest reverence, loved and honoured His ministers, delighted in the conversation of pious and learned theologians, and proved the reality of his faith by works of charity to all who were poor and suffering. But this excellent parent was called away just when his influence might have been of especial use to his son. God, however, preserved the youth from all openly sinful courses, though no doubt he passed through a period of vanity and conformity to the world, to which he afterwards looked back with sorrow, thankful that he was not then called away to the judgment-seat. The turning-point of his life appears to have been that severe illness at Brussels, when the fear of death fell upon him, and moved him to take a solemn vow in the presence of his personal attendant, that "if the Lord delivered him from his sickness he would serve Him for the rest of his life." It was in conformity with this vow that he avoided all entrance into public life, believing that he would thus be better able to "devote himself entirely to God, soul and body, goods and substance." At the same time he was still "very weak in spiritual knowledge." But the Lord went after him into the wilderness, and brought him safe into the fold. It was an especial blessing to him to become acquainted with Spener, and their meeting first beside the grave of the mother that he deeply mourned rendered the baron's heart more amenable to

that good man's influence. This he acknowledged with devout thankfulness in the preface that he wrote to Spener's posthumous works. "It pleased the great and merciful God to make use of Spener as the instrument of His grace to turn my poor heart to the contemplation, and subsequently the certainty, of salvation in Christ, the Saviour of the world." From that time, "to serve the Lord's cause" was his only aim. He conscientiously and prudently managed his possessions; he occupied himself with literature-how laboriously, the number of his works may show. But his heart's desire was to do good, to spend and be spent, to offer himself a living sacritice.

We are aware that exceptions have been taken to the theology of the Baron, and of his friend Spener. They have been accused of confounding justification by faith, with works; and there are certain exaggerated expressions in the works of Spener and his party, which, taken in connexion with their active benevolence, may have authorized the impression. But the principle of the Baron's life was, "I believe, therefore I love." And no man can read his commentary ou the Gospels, or the accounts of his conversation during his last days, without being convinced of the soundness of his views on the subject of the forgiving of sins. "No one can be truly merciful," he observed, "who has not known and received the mercy of God." What is this but another version of the truth, that "faith worketh by love?" And, two days before his death, he begged to be reminded in his last moments of the words, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." (Rev. xii. 11.) We may be confident that the Baron's charity sprang from the one truly Christian source.

Neither are we distressed because compelled to admit that his heart was at first too soft and indiscriminate in its sympathies. Christian sobriety and discretion are gifts to be won by prayer and experience. He learnt gradually to make use of the best existing agency for carrying out his benevolent intentions,-the agency of the ministers of God's word. The extraordinary influence of the Halle Pietists over the whole land,—and, more particularly, the prominent position which, after the death of Spener, August Hermann Francke occupied in the Lutheran Church,-depended in great measure upon the agency of the latter in a thousand beneficial undertakings. And the true greatness and beauty of the Baron's character are best displayed by his having for a space of five-and-twenty years been contented to do good indirectly, letting his charity pass through the hand of another, -a hand which he believed to be pointed out to him by God. Count von Zinzendorf tells us, that he himself had hoped in his youth that "God, who had appointed a Professor Francke to that sainted man the Baron vou Canstein, would send him, too, fit agents for carrying out his plans." The Baron sought and found the same efficient help from ministers in Berlin; and we think we are right in linking the amount of his success with this sagacious and humble course, to which he remained faithful to his life's end.

Meanwhile his own heart revelled in that blessedness of giving, which, we know from our Lord's own life, far exceeds that of receiving.

"I experience great delight," he writes in the year 1707, "in thinking over the resolve-now more fervent than ever-that I made years ago, of dedicating and spending my remaining life and all my energies in the Lord's work. I would not change it for anything else in the world, however great and high." In these words he was alluding to an especial work; but his charity confined itself to no one sphere. It was in constant exercise,-toward private individuals in distress ; toward all sufferers for conscience' sake, of whom there were many in those days; toward the young, who needed instruction, as well as toward the old, who needed shelter. It is not possible to estimate the part he may have played in promoting the kingdom of God. Who could have foretold, for instance, that one of the youths supported by the Baron, at the Berlin gymnasium, would, after a few years, be the first Lutheran Missionary to the heathen population of the East Indies? And many such cases there may have been, open and manifest in the eyes of God, though veiled from our own.

But it was not long before the Baron resolved, not only thus to supply immediate wants, but to found such institutions as might work permanent good long after his own departure. The first of these was a small hospital in Halle for poor widows, noticeable as having been the only institution which he founded and managed alone,-whereas he generally loved to keep himself in the background, behind his coadjutors. This Widow-House still endures, and is a blessing to its few inmates, for whose spiritual advantages, as well as bodily wants, ample provision was made.

The youthful university of Halle, then in its first flush of fervour and energy, also afforded a wide scope for his beneficence. He contributed to the support of many poor students; endowed a distinguished theologian from Wirtemberg, Johann Daniel Herrnschmid, thereby enabling him to settle in Halle to the profit of many; was a friend in various ways to the celebrated Michaelis, promoting his labours, and hospitably receiving him in his house for periods of repose. But, above all, he benefited Halle by contributing a great portion of his ample means to an Orphan-House, now bearing the name of the man whom he especially employed, as we have already seen, to carry out his charitable schemes,-to Francke's Institution. The veil cast over the part he took in this good work is a very transparent one; and we may safely attribute its wonderfully rapid success to his liberal support and zealous co-operation. Advance after advance, gift upon gift, were constantly passing from Berlin to Halle; and, finally, his last testament made this institution the inheritor of all his property.

But the Lord had reserved this true nobleman, who had laboured many years in His service, for a hitherto untrodden path of well-doing. It is true he was not able to carry out extensively the institution so peculiarly his own; it required more and other means than were within his reach in the epoch at which he lived; and with regard to this, as to all his other efforts, his humble spirit would gladly have kept his own name in the background. But his holy courage, his Christian chivalry, did not allow of this, in the first instance; nor was it the

will of Heaven that after generations should remain in uncertainty as to the source whence a wide stream of blessings has flowed down to them.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, the minds of earnest Christians were much occupied with the question, "How to spread God's word among the people at large?" For, though the amount of spiritual advantage that a universally accessible Bible would confer could hardly be conceived of, yet it was felt that Luther's version was a gift to all of German tongue, not only to the upper classes; and many voices loudly declared that it ought to be found in every family. But even in the cheapest form the Bible was so costly, that it was a rare thing indeed to find one belonging to the poor.

There is some obscurity as to the special causes that first led the Baron von Canstein, in 1710, to think seriously about remedying this evil. For several months, he exchanged long letters with the bookseller Elers, and with Francke in Halle; and the result was a matured scheme, of which the chief features were the following:

1st. Christian love was to furnish capital to set up a printing-press for Bibles only, which were to be sold at a very low profit.

2d. The stereotype was to be used,-an improvement then very recently introduced in Holland.

3d. The traffic in these cheap Bibles was to be carried on independently of and apart from the book-trade.

This last was a very important clause, because so likely to provoke enmity and opposition from booksellers in general. And, as this feeling might have been injurious to the Halle Orphan-House, of which the new institution was to be a branch, the Baron determined to make an exception to his rule, and to carry it on in his own sole name, till, all opposition surmounted, he could make it over, as "an ornament" of the beloved Orphan-House, to Francke. "As the booksellers," he writes, may complain of my scheme, (which, however, does not disturb my conscience, as I have the truth on my side,) for fear that the odium and abuse should fall on you in the Orphan-House, I have thought it good to take the matter upon myself...... When, however, I have got things into order, I shall make over the whole work to you, that you may truly say that it belongs to your institution, to which it will thus be an ornament."

A visible blessing attended each step that the Baron took during the nine years that yet remained to him to devote to the cause. Its fame was widely spread, and very soon its success was fully secured.

Of the various donations made to it, we shall only mention three, of a thousand dollars each; one, by the Baron himself; another, by Prince Charles of Denmark; and a third, by Sophia Louisa, third wife of Frederick I., King of Prussia. In 1712, the first New Testaments appeared, the following year the first Bibles. In both the Baron wrote prefaces, full of the joy he felt in the work-a joy that irradiated the whole evening of his days. He willingly undertook the fatigues connected with the management, which could not have been slight. He saw many thousands of Bibles issue from the press; he heard how to

all parts of his fatherland, as well as to foreign countries, even to India, the results of his scheme had reached. He knew what an eager demand existed for the sacred books at their places of sale in Halle, so that, on one occasion, the doors had actually to be closed lest copies that were already put by for some should be carried off by the impetuous desire of others. Finally he saw (and this rejoiced him, perhaps, most of all) that the opponents of the Halle Pietists, with Valentin Ernst Löscher at their head, met the undertaking with unqualified approval, and pronounced it to be a work of peace, over which they could join hands in friendship. Such honour before men, so that even his enemies should commend him, had not been sought by the good Baron for himself. It was even disagreeable to him. He was anxious to withdraw his name from the work of his heart. It was to be an ornament of the Orphan-House-nothing more. Neither in his lifetime, nor in the first years after his death, was a Canstein Bible Press or a Canstein Bible Society spoken of in public; but the Bibles "were to be found in the Orphan-House," and it was only the preface written by him that told whence the widely-diffused blessing sprung.

In 1775, however, a new preface was substituted for his; and, as a memorial, the words, "Press of the Canstein Bible Society," were placed on the title-page. Later, that striking building, the OrphanHouse at Halle, had shields put up, with memorial inscriptions. The Baron's portrait hangs in the workshops; and care is taken that his memory should not grow dim in the sphere where his love wrought so successfully.

In St. Mary's church, at Berlin, neither stone nor inscription marks the Baron's grave. But something more enduring than a funeral-stone is raised to his memory-something more living than an inscription speaks of him still.

MEMOIR OF THE REV. LUKE BARLOW:

BY THE REV. BENJAMIN SLACK.

RELIGION teaches by example, not less than by precept; and it is impossible to say how much of the hallowing power of the Bible itself is traceable to its inspired and faithful biography. Rich indeed are our own Connexional records of "the dealings of God" with both ministers and people; and it is hoped that the following may not be unworthy of a place among these "apples of gold in pictures of silver." Happily, there are materials for an edifying memoir, in a somewhat extensive journal, kept by the venerable deceased, and entitled "Texts and Travels." He describes his early religious life in the terms following:

"I was born at Congleton, Cheshire, September 23d, 1786. When very young, I felt the drawings of the Spirit. I can well remember, when at school, and reading of Jesus Christ, I thought, What a wonderful man He was !-and wished He were on earth again, for I would certainly follow Him. As my father and mother were hearers of the