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and prosperity. On the day of his funeral, we are told that his remains were accompanied to the grave by a procession of many hundreds :-" But the most touching spectacle was that of multitudes of the poor, and of children from the Mission districts, who stood gazing in little groups all the way to the extremity of Newington, and shedding unforced tears as they looked on the hearse which contained all that now remained on earth of their gentle benefactor." Truly, "the memory of the just is blessed."

The Memoir, the work of Dr Thomson,-is written with singular taste and judgment. It is enriched by pointed remark and felicitous illustration, like "apples of gold in pictures of silver." In speaking of Mr Trench's early religious impressions, it is mentioned that Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, was the means of his conversion; and the biographer goes on very happily to observe of such great life-books of the age in which they appeared, that" even when the new work has appeared, the force of the old has not been spent, or the prayers with which it was given to the world exhausted, but the dead soul, when touching the remains of one of these old prophets, has awaked to life." A most important feature in Mr Trench's character, namely, the conscientious care with which he prepared himself for his Sabbath Classes, is alluded to thus:-"He knew, what so many inferior teachers do not seem to know, that it requires study and effort to speak simply, and that the skill of adaptation to a child's mind, neither comes by accident nor by inspiration." That it is an easy thing to ask pertinent and useful questions of children is a very false opinion. We call to remembrance here, that Christ's wisdom among the doctors in the temple, was seen in "asking them questions." To ask questions judiciously, then, is not so easy as may be supposed, and those are the best Sabbath School teachers who are most deeply impressed with this truth, and who prepare themselves accordingly.

Did space permit, we should like to have made a quotation from one of Mr Trench's Discourses, bringing out a point too much neglected and forgotten by evangelical Christians, namely, the sympathy of Christ from the fact of his human nature, and the confidence with which we should therefore betake ourselves to him. In contending for the divinity of Christ, we are apt to overlook his humanity, and to lose the rich comfort derivable therefrom. All who knew Mr Trench, must, we are sure, revere his memory, and, to them, this memorial of his worth must be very dear; while those who had not the pleasure of knowing him personally, must, we are equally sure, after a perusal of this volume, regret their loss, and long to know him in glory.

The Certainty of Christianity. A Sketch by a Layman. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable & Co.

THIS is a clever sketch, but it is only a sketch. The author endeavours, from classical authorities and Old Testament prophecy, to prove the certainty of the prediction regarding the place of Christ's appearing in, viz., Judea. Secondly, as respects the time when our Saviour was to appear; thirdly, his death as predicted by the Jewish prophets; fourthly, the character of Him that in Judea, and in the time of Tiberias, was to appear and suffer such ignominy; and fifthly, the fate of the Jewish nation since their rejection of our Saviour; which our author affirms has been very peculiar, and in some measure misunderstood. He says very beautifully:

"The tribe of the weary heart and wandering foot has found its way into every land almost on which the sun shines, and its dispersion is familiar to every one as a theme at school; without a territory of its own, it forms the

chance population of other states. But we must remember that the wanderings of the Jews can be traced back into a very remote antiquity. They were the consequences of more than one captivity, and perhaps of a national bias to varied life and commerce. And hence, long before the time of our Saviour, there were Jews settled in every country of the East,-in the Isles of Greece as well as in Spain, and on the banks both of the Nile and the Euphrates.

"It is not then their exile in foreign lands that we would remark on here, as it was nothing new, nor yet on the destruction of their nationality, for this has been the fate of many a tribe besides, from the Lycians and the Etruscans of the old world to the Aztecs of the new. But what is to be said, if we find it was just when the guilt of the Jews was at its height, that their aggravated sufferings began, and that those who gazed on the dying agonies of our Saviour, lived to see the Temple a mass of ruins, and the whole nation in exile,-an exile which had no end? Yet so it was. The wars of Titus came first, which spoiled the Temple of its glories, and laid it in the dust; and within a few short years there followed Hadrian's frightful butcheries, and a new city for a colony of the strangers rose on the spot where Jerusalem had stood. Ever since, down to the present hour, there has been no nation of the Jews anywhere on the earth, with a country and a policy of their own. In the very words of the prophets, (2 Samuel vii. 10, and Jeremiah vii. 14,) who always linked their fortunes with their temple's, they have ceased to dwell in a place of their own' ever since it fell; and what was formerly their country has been a province alternately of Rome, of Persia, of Egypt, and of Turkey, for the last eighteen centuries. During several years, indeed, there was a patriarch at Tiberias, and subsequently the Talmud of Babylon gave the law in religious matters to the whole race of Israel. But civil power the Jews never knew in any form after the times of Titus and Hadrian, unless indeed in subordination to some foreign sway, as in the case of their Archons and Ethnarchs.

"How complete this extinction of the Jews as a nation, and, in connexion with guilt, how very striking. The peculiarity of their case is not so much that they were dispersed, but that they fell at once, and also for ever, from a nation to outlaws, banded together here and there, their fate following close upon their guilt, so close that there were doubtless old men alive who could tell the tale of both.

"It would be easy to cite authorities of all kinds, Jewish and Roman, for the destructive wars to which we have alluded, and their consequences. But both are so well known, that we think it quite unnecessary. Why quote Josephus and Tacitus, when every stranger who visits Rome may see graven upon the arch of Titus the sacred vessels of the Temple, which were carried off by the Roman soldiers as the spoils of their victory; and, turn his steps next where he may, he comes everywhere upon the outcast race, whose wan derings cannot indeed be said to have commenced then, but whose wanderings, without a home to return to, certainly may. If before they were as birds whose flight was often far from the nest, they have since been as birds whose nest has been pulled down and strewed to the winds.

"Now all this was predicted in Jewish prophecy. We have it in the sacred writings of the Jews themselves, as we shall now see.

"Among the various prophecies which ushered in and foretold the changes in the chequered history of the race, we may observe some which had reference probably to the Assyrian conquest and the Babylonish captivity, and others expressly to the time of our Lord. It is with the latter alone that we have to do here. And yet it would be wrong to pass the others by altogether; for, along with the distinct and specific notice of certain events which were to happen, and which did happen, they occasionally depict in a

general way some leading peculiarity in Jewish history, that should overrule and attend all their destinies. Of this nature is a prediction in Ezekiel vi. 8, and one in Amos ix. 9. The words of Amos are these:- For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.' The words yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth,' would seem to imply, that the Jews scattered everywhere should yet neither perish as some seeds do, nor take root and establish themselves as happens with others. It is remarkable that there is nothing in the terms of the prediction that limits it to any particular period. On the contrary, it takes the whole range of time, and up to the present day it has known no check. So long indeed as the Temple stood, which rallied the Jews together periodically wheresoever dispersed, that venerated shrine and its services must have helped to keep them from sinking absorbed and lost in other nations. But when it fell, we should hardly have expected them to have had any heart longer for a marked isolated existence, baited with the rabble's curse.' Yet this feverish life they have endured, and, what was fully as improbable, have been permitted to endure; and thus they have never fallen upon the earth,' either to perish or to prosper. Had their fate differed, and their course taken either direction, all we can say is, that they would not have remained *an instruction and an astonishment' to other nations. For, peopling a province, they would have been like other tribes, and undistinguished, and disappearing altogether, they would have been unseen, perhaps unremember. ed. But as it is, their fate has been palpable as well as peculiar; and, we might add, their return to their own land one day has continued to be possible."

ECCLESIASTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Presentation.-The Queen has appointed the Rev. Malcolm M'Intyre to the parish of Tobermory, in the Presbytery of Mull, vacant by the transportation of the Rev. David Ross to the church of Kiltarlity.

Presentations.-The Queen has appointed the Rev. David Brown to the parish of Scoonie, in the Presbytery of Kirkcaldy; and the Rev. Thomas Brown to the parish of Collace, in the Presbytery of Perth.

- The Chaplains in the Crimea.-The various Presbyterian Chaplains sent out to the Crimea have been appointed to separate spheres of labour as follows: -the Rev. J. Campbell will be attached to the 42d and 79th Regiments of Highlanders; the Rev. Mr Ross will be attached to the 71st Highlanders; the Rev. Mr Watson will be attached to the Scots Greys and the permanent hospital of the 93d Regiment at Kadikoi ; the Rev. Mr Fraser will be attached to the 93d Highlanders; the Rev. F. Cameron will be attached to the 72d Regiment, and also visit the hospitals on the heights above Balaklava.

The Militia Encampment at Stirling. The appointment of Chaplain to the Encampment at Stirling, to which is at, tached a salary of L.150 per annum, will, on the recommendation of Lord Panmure, be conferred by Her Majesty's Government on the Rev. Charles Roger, LL.D., in addition to his present post as Chaplain to the garrison of Stirling Castle.

Presbytery of Brechin.-This Presbytery met on Monday the 6th ult. Melville Church having been erected by the Court of Teinds into a separate church, the Rev. R. Smith, the minis ter, was duly admitted a member of Presbytery.

Appointment. The Town-Council of Stirling have appointed the Rev. Mr Thomson, Pennicuick, third minister of Stirling.

Died, at Morebattle Manse, on the 16th inst., the Rev. Joseph Thompson.

Died, at Kincaldrum, Forfarshire, on the 6th inst., the Rev. John Paterson, D.D., aged seventy-nine.

MACPHAIL'S

EDINBURGH ECCLESIASTICAL JOURNAL.

No. CXVII.

OCTOBER 1855.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN LITERATURE. It does not appear to us that the literature of the present day is peculiarly distinguished for originality. We have certainly reason to be proud of a few original authors; but as some of their leading, and not most valuable, peculiarities are of a very prominent character, they have certain sins for which they must be answerable. If any man has a social position so exalted as to render whatever he does an object of imitation and apology, that man would do well to be extremely careful that his vices are few and his virtues many. The same holds good with reference to original writers: they have a heavy responsibility resting upon their shoulders; for a hundred men,-to give an illustration of the truth we are stating,-are ready to follow Dickens in his caricature, for one who can at all approach him in those more precious beauties which have endeared him to the hearts of the lovers of humanity. It is at once the glory and the misfortune of the original writer, that, whether he will or no, he must give birth and activity to a numerous literary progeny, who, out of sheer admiration, do him no small injury. It is his glory, for it testifies to his power, which can kindle emulation and ambition in the soul of mediocrity. And it is also his misfortune, for, in spite of himself, repentance comes too late, his defects having been perpetuated by an offspring who have generally no more ability than to perceive and adopt the blemishes, which are often rendered more conspicuous by the literary beauties among which they are sprinkled.

What features of the celebrated Cowley, for example, were most frequently copied by his admiring contemporaries? Not the simplicity and elegance of his pure and vigorous prose, but the crudities and conceits of his crabbed, metaphysical poetry. In what respects did the genius of Chaucer, of Shakespeare, and of Congreve, find favour with a

VOL. XX.

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host of imitative rhymsters? Not in its exquisite perception and anatomy of the human character,-not in the pithy, epigramatic touches of the first, or in the flexible and splendid diction of the two last,-not in the quaint, dry humour of the old Canterbury Pilgrim, or in the skill and tact with which the two dramatists could sweep their hands across the strings of the passions and feelings, evoking by a touch the most marvellous melodies; but in the coarse farce in which they indulged; and above all, in the indecencies which unhappily leave a stain upon many of their pages.

What, again, we may go on to ask, are the peculiarities about Johnson which his bungling imitators labour to reproduce? Not his broad views of moral subjects,-not his minute yet comprehensive grasp of any topic whatever introduced to his notice,-not his inflexible sense of justice, his manliness of bearing upon all occasions, his deep-rooted generosity, his stern and uncompromising denunciations of the mean and base, or his candid and noble espousal of worth, though veiled in rags and starving in obscurity; but the pomposity of a style, which his own bighearted thoughts could alone fill out, and the ponderous swing of his periods, which his own massive sense could alone support. After Hervey (we do not include him among the great writers) gave to the world his peculiarly tumid productions, we all know what a lachrymose effect they produced upon imitative authorship. Truth seemed to have fled, with the demoniac, to the grave-yard; and the numerous pages of a weeping authorship appeared like so many tombstones, written on both sides with words and signs of lamentation and woe. The incomparable Bunyan has long run a sad chance of being vulgarized and caricatured by a baby school of theology, which deals in little allegories for little people, planned, it would appear, by little minds, little impressed with the solemn grandeur and beauty of the Truth, which they do their best to make ridiculous by the weak familiarity of their illustrations and metaphors. And, to sum up, we are old enough to recollect when a mock-melancholy air, a folded-down collar, a little rhyme, and a good deal of blasphemy, were supposed to impart to an unfledged bardling a striking resemblance to the lofty, misguided spirit from whose intellectual agonies were produced the dark confessions of a Giaour, and the gloomy glories of a Manfred.

In no walk of literature are men so ready to become imitators as in that of fiction; not certainly from any special aptitude in themselves for the calling, but simply because a very trifling degree of success in this line meets almost instantly with a golden shower of applause. The original writer generally looks towards fame as his first object; the imitator cultivates the friendship of fame's illegitimate sister, Notoriety, chiefly from a love of the more mundane fruits which are gathered from the fertility of popular editions. Never did any age so teem with the productions of the novelist as the age in which we live. Tales of all sorts and sizes fall as thickly from the press as snow-flakes from the wintry sky. It would almost appear that some ingenious Mr Babbage had invented, not merely a "calculating machine," but an apparatus for

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