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to sternness and severity; and Lord Macaulay said that they objected to bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators; but my impression is, that of them were very far from being grim and gloomy. John Owen-who may be taken as a very fair example of the Independents of the Commonwealth-was as graceful and accomplished a gentle man, as polished, as courteous, and as free from artificial and conventional restraints, as can well be imagined. When he was a student he delighted in manly exercises-in leaping, throwing the bar, bell ringing, and similar amusements; he learnt to play the flate, the fashionable instrument for gentlemen in those days, from the most celebrated performer of the time, who was also tutor to Charles I.; and when Owen became Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, he made his old music-master professor of music in the university. He was a very different kind of person, even when he became Vice-Chancellor, from what those of us would imagine who suppose that the saints who reigned under Cromwell were a mortified race of men. The historian of the University of Oxford is very severe upon the great Independent for not being sufficiently dignified and solemn in his dress. Instead," says Anthony Wood, of being a grave example to the university, he scorned all formality, undervalued his office by going in quirpo (whatever that may be) "like a young scholar with powdered hair, snake-bone band-strings"—that is, band-strings with very large tasselslawn bands, a very large set of ribbons pointed at his knees, and Spanish leather boots, with large lawn tops, and his hat mostly cocked;" all of which means that John Owen was too much of a dandy for Anthony Wood, who hated the Puritans and all their doings. John Milton taught, that there was a time to laugh as well as to weep, and in one of his sonnets invites his friend Cyriac Skinner deep thoughts to drench in mirth that after no repenting draws," and, having said, "To measure life, learn thou betimes, and know, Towards solid good, what leads the nearest way,"

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"For other things, mild Heaven a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And when God sends a cheerful hour refrains."

* ད་

There are, no doubt, times when joy is impossible. When the heart is broken it cannot be "merry." But what is necessary for some people to remember is that cheerfulness, good spirits, light-heartedness, merriment, are not unchristian Bor unsaintly.

We do not please God more by eating bitter aloes than by eating honey. A cloudy, foggy, rainy day is not more heavenly than a day of sunshine. A funeral march is not so much like the music of angels as the songs of birds on a May morning. There is no more religion in the gaunt, naked forest in winter than in the laughing blossoms of the

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spring, and the rich ripe fruits of autumn. not the pleasant things in the world that came from the Devil, and the dreary things from God; it was "sin brought death into the world and all our woe;" as the sin vanishes, the woe will vanish too. God himself is the ever-blessed God. He dwells in the light of joy as well as of purity, and instead of becoming more like Him as we become more miserable, and as all the brightness and glory of life are extinguished, we become more like God as our blessedness becomes more complete. The great Christian graces are radiant with happiness. Faith, hope, charity-there is no sadness in them:-and if penitence makes the heart sad, penitence belongs to the sinner not to the saint; as we become more saintly, we have less sin to sorrow over,

No, the religion of Christ is not a religion of sorrow. It consoles wretchedness, and brightens with a divine glory the lustre of every inferior joy. It attracts to itself the broken-hearted, the lonely, the weary, the despairing, but it is to give them rest, comfort, and peace. It rekindles hope; it inspires strength, courage, and joy. It checks the merriment of the thoughtless who have never considered the graver and more awful realities of man's life and destiny, but it is to lead them through transient sorrow, to deeper and more perfect blessedness, even in this world, than they had ever felt before the sorrow came,

Take the representations of the Christian faith which are given in the New Testament, and you will see that, though it may be a religion for the sorrowful, it is not the religion of sorrow. Το hearts oppressed with guilt it offers the pardon of God; to those who dread divine displeasure it reveals God's infinite love; to those who are tor. mented with the consciousness of moral evil, and penetrated with shame and self-contempt by the habitual failure of every purpose and endeavour to live a pure and perfect life, it offers the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. If at the commencement of the Christian life, it relies on the purifying power of penitence, and if to the very end it encourages devout and reverential fear, it also teaches that the joy of God is our strength; and it is an apostolic precept that we should Rejoice evermore. As for the chief troubles which annoy and distress mankind, it possesses the only secret which can make them felt less keenly, and borne without that bitterness of spirit which often poisons grief, and transforms a calamity, morally harmless, into a curse and a sin. It tells the anxious to cast all their care upon God, and to "take no thought for the morrow;" the poor that they may be heirs of a divine glory; those who have had heavy losses, of riches which never take to themselves wings, treasures of which they can never be robbed; it tells those who have suffered from injustice and calumny, of a righteous Judge and an equitable judgment-seat; it reveals to the sick a life of immortal health; and to those whose hopes are wrecked in this world a world beyond death, in which they may have a career

brighter and more triumphant than their happiest imaginations can conceive. Nor is it silent and helpless when those we love pass from us, and are laid in the dust. It was not Christ who brought death into the world; nor by rejecting Christ can we or our friends become immortal. The brain was burned with the fires of fever, the limbs were struck with paralysis, the harmonious movements of the heart were troubled with fatal disease, before Christ came; and these evils would continue in the world if all memory of the Christian faith perished. But to the dying, and those who mourn for the dead, Christ reveals glory and immortality as the certain destiny of all who love and fear God. It does not become a Christian to be "melancholy."

It was the fashion thirty years ago to think that habitual melancholy made people interesting. When Lord Byron's poetry was most popular, it was a mark of distinction to be consumed by a hidden grief, to talk of a desolate life, to have a countenance pale with unutterable misery. There are still some very young persons whose health is not very good, and whose brain is not very sound, who affect this poctical gloom. Let me assure them that instead of making them interesting, it makes them extremely unpleasant, and that all sensible people regard this affectation with contempt.

There are other persons who have a most surprising genius for making the most of all the prosaic troubles of life. You never see them but they have some new calamity to talk of. At first, and until you come to understand them, you think them the most afflicted of mankind, and your sympathy is touched by the look of distress which has become habitual to their countenance, and by the tone of despair which is hardly ever absent from their voice. But you discover by and by that they are not worse off than other people. They have no severe sickness in their house; they are not in danger of bankruptcy; they eat well and sleep well; their children are not idiots or cripples; -why should they be always miserable? They have somehow got in the habit of being so. They carry about a moral microscope, which makes revelations to them of which other people are happily ignorant. No matter how clear the water is, they can always see in it disgusting creeping things. Every ache in their limbs is a threatening of horrible agony; every odd feeling the symptom of latent and, perhaps, mortal disease; if a chance dimness comes over their eyes, they are certain they will soon be blind; if they strain a tendon, they make sure of being lame for life. They see the dark shadows of dreadful vices in the slight follies of their children. They see impending ruin if their income falls five per cent. They think of the affairs of the world much in the same way, and make ready for the battle of Armageddon if the French emperor adds a few thousand men to his

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is not of much use telling these people to mix in cheerful society; it is only a very rare cheerfulness that can last very long in their presence. It is not of much use telling them to visit the sick and the poor, to learn what real trouble is, and so escape from imaginary evils; for however much good such visits might do to themselves, the unhappy victims of their sympathy, instead of being consoled and strengthened by their kindness, would only discover, after they had left, that their troubles, which seemed bad enough to bear before, have somehow been magnified and made more intolerable than ever. People of this sort are to be pitied, and all about them are to be pitied too. The only use, perhaps, that can be made of them is to take warning from them not to indulge too freely in the luxury of woe; it becomes a species of moral dramdrinking, or opium-eating, from which, when once yielded to, it is almost impossible to escape.

Solomon was right" A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." The Hebrew is rather more expressive than the English, and also more just. For medicine, though it may do us good, often does it in a very unpleasant way, making us miserable and disconsolate at first, though we are brighter and better for it afterwards, Cheerfulness, if a medicine at all, is medicine of a very agreeable kind. The Hebrew might read, translating it freely, “A merry heart keeps the body healthy and sound, makes a wound heal quickly, so that the bandage may soon be removed.". What a relief it is, after a limb has been long bound, to have the bandage taken off! How welcome the freedom from restraint ! How welcome the sense of recovered soundness! That is the kind of feeling which the proverb says comes from a cheerful heart; it keeps the body wholesome, so that if a wound comes it is soon cured. A moody spirit, like an unhealthy physical condition, makes slight wounds dangerous, and the cure very protracted and wearisome.

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If it be a part of Christian charity to alleviate the miseries of mankind, then the cultivation of a cheerful spirit is a Christian duty. Why should|| you lighten the sorrows of the poor by your alms, and make your own house miserable by your habitual gloom? And if you have learnt anything of human nature, you will know that among the pleasantest things that can find their way into a house where there is anxiety and want, are the music of a happy voice and the sunshine of a happy face. The best person to visit the aged and the poor-other things of course being equal-is the one whose step is the lightest, whose heart is the merriest, and who comes into a dull and solitary home like a fresh mountain breeze, or like a burst of sunlight on a cloudy day. No one can make a greater mistake than to suppose that he is too cheerful to be a good visitor of the sick and the wretched. Cheerfulness is one of the most precious gifts for those who desire to lessen the sorrows of the world. It can do that which wealth cannot do. Money may

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diminish external miseries; a merry heart can, for the time at least, drive the interior grief away.

It is possible to cherish and encourage this spirit of joyousness, even where it is not the result of natural temperament. Consider what it is that depresses you and makes you gloomy. If it is the consciousness of sin, often confessed, never heartily forsaken, appeal to Him who can purify as well as pardon; master for a single week the temptation to which you habitually yield, and you will find your self in a new world, breathing clearer air, and with a cloudless heaven above you. If it is incessant thought about your own personal affairs, escape from the contracted limits of your personal life by care for the wants of others. Determine, too, to think more of what is fair and generous and noble in human nature than of what is contemptible and selfish. Those who distrust the world and think meanly of it can never be happy. There is sin enough, no doubt, both in ourselves and others; but there is more of heroic goodness, more of saintly self-sacrifice, more of geniality and kindness than some of us seem to suppose. It makes my heart "merry" to think of the patience and courage with which many that I know are bearing heavy troubles; the generosity with which some of the poor relieve the distresses of those who are more wretched than themselves; the firmness which › some are showing in the presence of great temptations to wrong doing; the energetic devotion of others to the highest welfare of all whom their influence can reach; and I believe that a generous, hearty faith in the real goodness that adorns and ennobles mankind, is one of the best aids to that

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cheerfulness of spirit which will enable us to add to the general sum, at once of the happiness and virtue of our race. Christ has not come into the world for nothing. His work has not been a failWe may recognise in multitudes the bright image of His own perfections. The invisible Spirit is revealed in the visible excellences of innumerable Christian people, who "add" to their "faith, virtue... knowledge. . . temperance. . . patience... godliness . . . brotherly kindness charity." The morbid anatomy of human souls is not a pleasant study; I doubt whether it is very profitable; I am sure it is very depressing. I prefer to thank God for the spiritual health and strength of those in whom I see His promises translated into facts; and if sometimes it is necessary to dwell upon the moral evil which clings even to good men, and upon the terrible depravity of the outcasts of Christian society, I find in Him a "refuge" from the sore "trouble" which the vision of sin brings with it. He is ready to pardon the guiltiest, and to bring home to Himself those who have gone furthest astray.

'Why should those who have seen God's face be sad? "In His presence," both on earth and in heaven, there is "fulness of joy."

"Hence loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy; Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell."

R. W. DALE.

ALEXANDER SMITH.

18 'Sing, Poet, 'tis a merry world;
That cottage smoke is rolled and curled
In sport, that every mess

Is happy, every inch of soil :-
Before me runs a road, of toil,

With my grave cut across.

Sing, trailing showers and breezy downs,—
I know the tragic hearts of towns."

So sang. Alexander Smith, twelve years ago, in the freshness of his youth and strength. It seemed very unlikely then that the gloomy image suggested in the fifth and sixth lines expressed anything more than a poetic generality. For no one familiar with the singer's pleasant face and bright smile could associate with him the idea of anything tragic or dismal; even now, it is difficult to think of him as a dead man, whom we shall see no more. These lines probably seemed to some readers to strike a needlessly sad note in the prelude to that beautiful poem on Glasgow. But the poet himself knew better. Consciously or not, he was, as all true poets are, a vates, a seer of things hid from the common sight. In the midst of life, and

health, and cheerfulness, his thoughts never wandered far from the mysterious and awful borders of the Silent Land. References to Death and the Future run like a solemn undertone, heard at intervals more or less distinctly, through all the melodies of his verse or prose. They occur in his earliest as well as in his latest works. One of his best essays is expressly devoted to the subject of "Death and Dying;" and there is a most pathetic passage referring to it in that "On the Importance of a Man to Himself." In one of his latest essays, exquisite alike in thought and style, in the Argosy of December, 1865, “On an Old Subject," he seems as if pacing meditatively along the margin of that great unknown sea, and the chime of his closing words calls up a vision of the sun sinking beneath its distant waves. One comes upon these thoughts now, with a deeper sense than before of their truth and force. For they were not the mere play of fancy, but lay very deep in the poet's nature.

And now these visions have become reality, and that "grave cut across" the toilsome pathway has

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