parent? Neither should Christians dread the prospect of death. It is but going home to our Father's mansions. It is but lying down to sleep, and disencumbering ourselves of a weak and vile body. It is bidding adieu to all our sins, all our fears, all our burdens, and all our infirmities.

"Shudder not to pass the stream;
Venture all thy care on Him:
Him whose dying love and power
Stilled its tossing, hushed its roar.
Safe is the expanded wave;
Gentle as a summer's eve.
Not one object of His care

Ever suffered shipwreck there."

E. W.

THE MINISTRY A JOY.-A WORD FOR THE YOUNG. THE ministry is not a sorrowful life of self-denial, hardship, and privation. It is the most soul-comforting, heaven-inviting work that has ever engaged the sons of men. They who would be useful in any calling will find that they have to bow their backs to heavy burdens.

The soldier and sailor give up home, and often life, for their country. The loneliness of the wounded and dying on the battle-field is as sharp a cross as the missionary's death in any foreign field. The toiler in any worldly avocation grapples with real difficulties; he is as often weary in his work, thwarted in his plans, discouraged in his hopes, as the minister of Christ. The record of every village will show among its lawyers, physicians, merchants, and craftsmen, more failures than among the clergy of the Church. It is not the ministry which alone offers trials. They belong to every lot. The thorns are in every path. The grace of God may help us to bear them like men. It may even make the way of trial a way of roses. These callings may all bear the stamp of a higher service; and yet it is true that the happiest life that God ever gave to any man is that of a faithful minister. It is above all other honours to be the servant of the Church, the ambassador of God, the steward of the mysteries of the Gospel.

Think how short life is! Think how sad it is to work and toil and die, and carry nothing of this weary work to the world unseen! And yet this is the life of thousands. How much better for us all to seek, in our vocation and calling, to be God's messengers of love to the sad, the sinful, and the sorrowing! Can there be a holier joy than to be permitted in Jesus' name to bind up broken hearts, and tell a sinful world of redeeming love? Is it not a call to thrill a young heart with joy that he is called of God to be His ambassador ?-that by God's authority He may receive men into His kingdom?-that he may in Jesus' name feed them on that bread which came down from heaven, and which, if a man eat, he shall never hunger? There is no earthly calling which has such sunlight from heaven. No life is so blessed as that of one who, like Samuel, is consecrated from childhood to God's service. Saved from the snare of youth, trained in guilelessness to manhood; who can tell of the joy of dying, when we can look back upon life with no bitter consciousness of having betrayed innocence, or perverted the way of others, when we have never by example or precept caused others to fall? To such a life Jesus calls our youth. It has its sacrifices, but then sacrifice is the law of

love. These hearts of ours are never satisfied until we go out of ourselves to love others. Love deepens. Love unseals sympathies. Love unloosens affections. Love brings work, and work brings gladness and peace and rest with God.

Such, dear brethren, is the work of the ministry of Christ.
BISHOP WHIPPLE.

Correspondence.

THE MONASTERY OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.
To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,-You will be astonished to hear from me from such a place, but here I am enjoying the hospitality of the monks of St. Bernard. I arrived here with my young companion yesterday, on our way from Italy to Switzerland, and, as we did not wish to travel on Sunday, "the brotherhood" have kindly permitted us to stay till tomorrow. Nothing can exceed their kindness and hospitality, but, alas, all is darkness and superstition in a spiritual sense. I went to their "office" yesterday; my heart sunk within me; such a feeling of sadness and pity came over me that I was obliged to leave. I have visited the morgue, which contains the bodies of those who have perished in the snow. Many of them are almost perfect, the cold preventing decomposition. Amongst others was a mother with her child wrapped up in the same sheet in the position they were found. It was a painful and mournful sight. My companion has purchased one of the far-famed St. Bernard dogs to take home to England.

We have been over five weeks away, and have crossed the Alps several times, passed over the St. Theodule last Tuesday into Italy, and were three hours on the snow and ice; reached Val Tournanch in Piedmont late at night, and slept on a bed of dried Alpine moss; but rest was sweet, and I felt a hope that the Lord was my Keeper, and could say in some measure of humility and love, "He doeth all things well." "Oh, how richly I have experienced His mercy since I left home! Several times I have been ill, very ill, and full of fears and dark apprehensions; but He has proved better to me than all my fears. Adored be His precious name. Well may the poor Christian say, "Who is a God like unto our God?" One thing has struck me wherever we have been,-in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and especially in Italy,-the degrading nature of Popery. I have seen the darkness of its superstition, and am impressed more than ever that it is a system from beneath, and not of God. Oh that England but knew and prized its mercy in an open Bible and in its spiritual privileges! Oh that as a nation we were wise and honoured God in His rich goodness and mercy! May He be pleased to send times of reviving and refreshing from the glory of His presence!

Whilst at Lucerne I was in a very low state of mind, and took from my pocket a few lines which I had composed before leaving home; I found them very comforting to my own soul, and enclose a copy.

8th Sept., 1872.

I am, sir, yours very truly,

D. M. P.

CHEERING WORDS.

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

MY DEAR BROTHER,-Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Your Magazine has for some years been a very welcome guest, and has comforted my soul amidst all the conflict, we children of God are called to endure, and I look forward when one month's has been read to the next. When I have done with them I lend them to a few other poor children, who are in the same warfare as ourselves, and from which I have reason to thank God they also glean comfort. Among other reasons I love your monthly, is that it is free from all controversy, which I cannot say of other monthlies of the same faith and order. I thank God for many of your leading articles, as the press would say, one of the late ones in particular, that on "As thy days so shall thy strength be," and the one in the current number is very refreshing. Go on, my brother. Your drinking deeply of trials from within and without is only that the consolation they bring may gush out the more freely into the channel of the GOSPEL MAGAZINE, and come to other hearts who are similarly assaulted. "He that watereth shall himself be watered," and you know that the earth is sometimes watered by hailstones as well as by rain, and sometimes by drenching storms as well as by the gentle shower; and as in nature so in grace. Yet, blessed be God, neither the hail storms, nor the drenching rains, nor even the "gates of Hell" shall ever prevail, because we who are in Christ are built upon a rock, and that rock is Christ. Keep, my dear brother, to your present standard,-don't study the palate of the epicure. We want the children's bread. Care not for the popularity of the multitudestudy the family. "He that careth not for his own house," &c., &c. You have, I believe, a living family-it may be scattered, but the day is not far distant when we shall all be at home; and you know how it is even on earth, when the family is at home. But how much more then? Why then

"We'll make the heavenly arches ring
With loud hosannas to our King!

Yes, my brother, not to you, but to Him, who alone is worthy to receive honour and glory for ever and ever. May God in His mercy spare you, and make you more and more useful; and, when your work is done, send another to take your place! And this He will most assuredly do, if the GOSPEL MAGAZINE is to continue a channel for divine communication to the seed royal.

I should take it a favour if you will convey my thanks to "G. C.," and tell him how acceptable his communications are. The Lord bless him and help him! "The Man behind the Wall" was very much blessed to me last night (Sunday). I read it with much comfort. I am glad to find he is a "lapper of water" like myself. We know what the bustle and hurry of business is, and its worry and distraction. Our friend Wallinger's matter is always good. The Lord has spared him to do. battle, and even to hoary hairs he has been brought; but I must conclude my hasty scribble.

Shrewsbury.

Yours in the bonds of the Gospel,

G. D.

Reviews and Notices of Books.

Pastoral Letters of the Rev. John Hobbs, late Minister of the Gospel at Haberdashers' Hall Chapel, Staining Lane. Oxford: J. C. Pembrey. Pp. 511.

MR. HOBBS was very deeply taught in Divine truth, and these letters will be valued by many beyond the circle of his congregation. The volume commences with an autobiographical fragment giving an account of his early life, his conversion, and his call to the ministry. He was led in a most remarkable way, and was especially blessed under the preaching of Mr. Huntington. He fell asleep in Jesus on the 1st of June, 1871. The letters were for the most part addressed to his congregation on various occasions of absence from his pulpit. The following is an extract from one of them :

"Furthermore, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Observe the Father's promise made to His dear Son, and to all His spiritual seed in Him:-'As for me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord; My Spirit is upon thee, and My words, which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth, and for ever.' It is the Holy Spirit who is the Author of the whole work of grace in every saved sinner. And, as it is promised that the Spirit shall never be taken away from Christ and his spiritual seed, so the good work which He begins in the saints must be continued even to the end. Our Lord said to the woman of Samaria: 'He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst' (that is for any other water); but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.' The Holy and ever-blessed Spirit, with all His saving operations, is here intended; and our Lord told His disciples:-'I will send you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever.' Therefore, whatever fears may distress the hearts of those who are quickened into life lest the work of the Lord in them should cease through their own unbelief, the prevalence of sin, or the temptations of Satan, the immutability of God in His promises secures the perfecting of His work in the souls of all His regenerated family. It is because Jehovah changes not that the work of grace can never cease where it is begun until it is perfected in eternal glory. He that gives grace will crown it with glory. Gifts bestowed upon bond-servants may be withdrawn, but the inheritance of the children must and shall be theirs for ever. And why? Not through any merit in themselves, but because their Father is immutable. He is in one mind, and none can turn Him. It is this, and this alone, that secures the temporal, spiritual, and eternal welfare of all the saints. God's immutability is the foundation of all our hopes and expectations here and hereafter. Every poor, tried, tempted child of God is hereby encouraged to say :

'How can I sink with such a prop

As bears the world and all things up?""

The Beauty of the Great King, and other Poems for the Heart and Home. By W. POOLE BALFERN. London: James Clarke and Co. Pp. 215. WE are informed in the preface that "most of these poems were written when the writer was laid aside from preaching the gospel by illhealth; under such circumstances it was a solace to him to take down his harp from the willows and try to ring out a few notes of praise to Him who, although He may afflict His servants for a time, never forsakes them." These poems are of no high poetical merit, but many of them are pleasing, and all of them seem to be sound in doctrine. The following is, we think, a fair specimen :

There is a face more fair by far

Than nature can portray;
No morning's sun or evening's star
Its beauty can convey.

We need not say whose face we mean-
Jesus the pierced and marred;
Faith sees no face so fair as His,

Or by her sins so scarred.
From His majestic, awful brow
Imperial truth looks down;

While wisdom moulds His moving lips,

And hands to Him her crown.

Sweet purity His cheeks adorns,
Love fills His piercing eye;

While meekness through each feature beams,
In pensive majesty.

holy, beauteous, loving face,

So pierced and bruised by sin,

Reveal Thy glory to our hearts,

And reign supreme within.

Anoint our sin-dimmed eyes, O Love,

Thou fairest of the fair,

Where'er we go, O let us see

Thy beauty shining there!

The Story of the Nile; and Sunshine and Shadow in Rattern's Life. London: Religious Tract Society.

Two small books for young people, suitable for presents or prizes. The former gives an interesting account of the efforts made to solve the difficult problem of the source of the Nile. The latter is a story, with an excellent moral for these days of extravagance in dress.

The Bible Plan Unfolded. By JAMES BIDEN. London: Elliott Stock, Paternoster Row. Pp. 213.

THIS is one of the most absurd books that we ever remember to have met with. The author appears to imagine that he has made a great discovery-viz., that all previous interpretations of the Scriptures were completely wrong, and that he has discovered the only true interpretation. He says: "No commentator has discerned the principles which have governed the construction of the Bible. The writers, having no knowledge of the whole scheme, have necessarily failed in discerning the meanings and analogies of the several parts. Hence have arisen misunderstandings and a Babel of opinions." Well, what is this great discovery-this perfect interpretation-never before thought of? It is that the Scripture narratives are to be understood figuratively-that they "supply imagery for language in which a spiritual converse is maintained." So that, notwithstanding the testimony of the whole nation of the Jews, the witness of ancient monuments, and of the Holy Land, and the corroboration of secular history, the Scripture narratives are not to be understood as literally true-only figuratively so! The author, of course, can give no proof of this, but he merely asserts it, and then proceeds to show the results. He says:-"The patriarchs' lives are not historical; they are predictive ;" they "present predictively phases of Christian life." "The patriarchs were not living persons; they represent phases of religious life. The narrative is apparent history, but in truth is a prophetical allegory." "Eve is the spiritual or religious wife of Adam, so the offspring must be spiritual or religious." (!) "He (Cain) was a tiller of the ground; that is, engaged with the ceremonial