Breviaries.

A Plausible Temptation.

"IT IS TOO MUCH FOR YOU TO GO UP TO JERUSALEM.”—1 Kings xii. 28

THERE is a principle in these words which is evil, seductive, and prevalent. It is the suggestion that some duty is too hard, too irksome, beyond what is required if not beyond what is possible. I. WHAT ARE THE MODERN INSTANCES OF THIS TEMPTATION BEING YIELDED TO ? (1) Reducing to lowest standard the attendances on the ordinances of Religion. Half-time worshippers. (2) Reducing to lowest level the claims for sacrifice. (3) Reducing to lowest test our customary morals. II. WHAT IS THE GUILT IN YIELDING TO THESE TEMPTATIONS? (1) Ingratitude to God. (2) Cherishing the spirit of expediency. (3) Repression of all best enthusiasms of our nature. III.-WHAT ARE THE EVIL RESULTS OF YIELDING TO THIS TEMPTATION? (1) Ruin to others. The consequence in Jeroboam's days was that soon national unity was gone, and religious unity. This spirit prepared the way for the worship of Ashtaroth and Baal. So church unity, all commonwealth suffers. (2) Ruin to self. Where the gift is deliberately less than we know it ought to be, the work deliberately more scanty, the life deliberately lower, the man becomes mean, emasculated, self-despised.

EDITOR.

The Source and Channel of Gospel Blessings.

"BLESSED BE THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST," &c. -Ephesians i. 3.

ONE of the distinguishing glories of Christianity is that it is a religion of facts. These facts reveal the principles of Christianity, and the principles of Christianity reveal the character of God and His method of saving Learn from the text-I-THE ULTIMATE SOURCE of Gospel blessings. "God." A Source (1) Adequate (a) in intelligence. (b) In heart. (c) In power. (2) Sympathetic "Father." The Fatherhood of

man.

God, and the Sonship, both of the Redeemer and the redeemed, are doctrines which should be held with a grip of steel in this age of rationalistic audacity and loose thinking. (3) Thankworthy. "Blessed

be the God, and Father," &c. The Greek evλoynrós rendered "blessed" here, literally means "worthy of praise, or worthy of all praise." Gratitude to God is seemly. II. THE CHARACTERISTICS of Gospel blessings. (1) Their nature. "Spiritual blessings." (2) Their quantity. "All spiritual blessings." The word ráon, rendered "all," by inspiration includes the thought of "every." (3) Their sphere. "In heavenly places." It means that there is a style of life that leads right into the midst of "spiritual" light, and Holy Ghost inspirations. That the Christian comes to "heavenly places' before he reaches Heaven. It means that the path of duty leads right through "heavenly places," where all spiritual blessings are within reach of our appropriating hand. Lessons.-(1) If the path of duty leads through "heavenly places," and within reach of "all spiritual blessings," are we in that path? (2) If so, the text is appropriate :-" Blessed be the God and Father," &c. PHILADELPHIA, Pa.

,,

THOMAS KELLY.

The "I Wills" of Christ.

"I WILL."-Mark i. 41. "I WILL."-John xvii. 24.

THIS is the same word though used in such different places, circumstances,

and, it may be, tones.
Christ, and so heard it is
dependent on knowledge and emotion. Christ knows and cares about the
leper, and about His disciples. Hence each of these "I wills." They
reveal, so far, the Heart of God. II.-An indication of PURPOSE. There
may be interest without will: e.g., mere sentiment or bewilderment.
here is distinct, definite purpose. This is a revelation of the Mind of God.
III. An indication of POWER. Rightly the leper said to Christ, "If
Thou wilt, Thou canst." Which is the mightier, the "I will" of Christ's
prayer or of His miracle? This a revelation of the Arm of God.

It is a calm, intense, majestic word on the lips of
I.-An indication of INTEREST. The will is

EDITOR.

But

Pulpit Handmaids.

The Broader Congregationalism.

WHETHER the Broader Congregationalism (for of this I would venture to speak from the chair to which you have so kindly called me) floats only in men's imagination, or whether it exists in some degree in actual fact, I do not think is the chief question to ask about it. I believe, if it be a dream, it is a dream of a possible good; or that if it already has an existence anywhere, it might be profitable for the ministers and delegates of the hundred or so Churches in our Union to consider whether all such Churches might not well cultivate somewhat of the spirit, and wisely adopt many of the methods of what, for want of a better name, I am thus calling the Broader Congregationalism. I am justified in this description of it because

IT IS DISTINGUISHED BY BREADTH IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER CHURCHES. The narrower Congregationalism cares only for its own one congregation; or, at best only for other congregations of its own denomination. Now, in the first case it matters not how elegant the structure, how crowded the assemblies, how exquisite the singing, how eloquent the preaching, how numerous, and cultured, and comfortable the membership; if there is no consideration of, or contribution to, or prayer for the Congregational Churches in the poorer neighbourhoods of our great cities, or up and down the rural districts of our country, this Congregationalism is a narrow, mean, selfish, and what the Romans would scornfully have called, a provincial thing. And, in the second case it matters not how vigorous in many ways a church may be, if it has no fellowship with the spirit, and, I will add, with the work of churches of other communions; if its life is a life of jealousy, or of rivalry, or even of isolation, as far as other denominations are concerned, then the Congregationalism represented thus, is a narrow, mean, sectarian, and, what we may truly call, a schismatic thing. The Broader Congregationalism denounces and disowns selfishness in churches as emphatically as in individuals. It believes the principle to apply to a church as well as to a man, that "he that will save his soul shall lose it," and that a church that supremely searches for, and cares concerning its own life, will inevitably ensure its own death.

*An Address delivered to the Annual Assembly, by the REV. URIJAH R. THOMAS, Chairman of the Congregational Union of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire.

Such a church's passion for its own private progress is an inspiration rather from the dark, yawning hells of selfishness, than from the bright and broad heavens of love.

We cannot too strongly insist on breadth in our relationship to other churches, whether of our own "faith and order," or of other Communions. We are here this morning-our Union exists-our Church-Aid Society is struggling through its infant life, in order that Congregationalism may fulfil some of its duties to its own poorer churches, and to its own underpaid— may I not say shamefully underpaid, ministers. And is there not a cause? Looking at the incomes of ministers in our churches now, there are four counties in which the average income of pastors of aided churches does not reach £80 a year, and there are nineteen counties in which it is below £100. And what does this mean? I will quote, not from any diary of our own ministers—many, I have no doubt, might be found written with a trembling hand on a tear-blotted page-not from any official document of our Society; but I will cite a few sentences from the esteemed and thoughtful vicar of the parish* in which we are met to-day, for what he says of his fellow-ministers will largely apply to ours-"The sad fact is that there are hundreds upon hundreds engaged in this holy service who are dragging wearily and painfully through life, ground to the earth by the cares of abject poverty. The cases are numerous indeed, in which a young man has accepted the office and stipend of a curate, and after a certain period of waiting and probation, has contracted marriage, imprudently it may be said, but with hope in his heart, and trust in God, which whatever may have happened, we will not dare to say was misplaced and the years have proceeded, and his work has been done, as far as his power lay, with constant strain of thought, and through many difficulties and anxieties, and, perhaps, with little appreciation and a good deal of carping criticism; but all this time there has been gathering upon him a load of care, ever growing weightier and more portentous because of the wants of those who now look to him for support; and the means at his disposal are only the same as when they just met his own necessities. The same pitiful £80 or £100 a year; and that train of humbling and dejecting things-the shifts and devices to keep up a decent appearancethe stinting of necessary food, that pity of the world which is so nearly allied with contempt; and, perhaps, hardest of all, the cruel necessity to apply to one of those benevolent societies which furnish to the indigent clergy crumbs from the tables, and cast-off clothes from the wardrobes of

* Rev. David Wright, St. Mary's, Stoke Bishop.