equally suggestive, engage the attention of the thoughtful visiter. Should he indulge too greatly in recollections of the past, or prove oblivious to the flight of time, the shriek of the "express" of the South Yorkshire railway, as it emerges from the Cadeley tunnel, and, in defiance of the age of chivalry and poetry, skirts its base, and quickly bids adieu, may disturb his reverie, and once more restore the realities of ordinary life, and the busy scenes of the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Could William de Warren have revisited his feudal residence on July 12th, 1855, we might conceive of his amazement on finding its picturesque and ample area occupied by about two thousand persons, who were attending a Wesleyan-Methodist Missionary Meeting, presided over by John Otter, Esq. The Revs. B. Gregory, W. M. Punshon, J. Sugden, P. Samuel, J. Moorhouse, J. P. Lockwood, with Cooper Howard, Esq., and Mr. J. Marsden, took part in its proceedings. Addresses distinguished by great power and beauty were delivered, in which historical and poetical allusions to the marked contrasts between the days of "venerable eld" and the present stirring age were introduced. About one thousand persons took tea in a spacious marquee; and after an appropriate sermon by the Rev. J. Sugden, the vast assembly dispersed, after leaving an honourable and substantial token of their attachment to the cause of Wesleyan-Methodist Missions, in contributions amounting to £65.

How transient are the dreams of worldly glory! The proud and haughty De Warrens are gathered home to their fathers, and their family honours exist only in the records of the past. Incomparably happier are they whose record is on high, and whose reward is with their God.

J. P. L.

YOUNG PROFESSOR MELANCTHON.* ARRIVED at Wittenberg, he conciliated the favour and admiration of all the University, whither an unexampled

* From a forthcoming Life of Philip Melancthon by Dr. Rule.

multitude of students crowded in from all parts of Germany. For his part he was ready to discharge every duty vith exactness, and, at the same time, with skill and genius. A good Grecian, Richard Crocus, formerly of Leipsic, had brought the study of Greek into considerable favour; but Melancthon had an exquisitely accurate method of teaching grammar: his lessons were clear beyond comparison, and his readings enriched with such opulence of learned illustration, that students and listeners thronged his lecture-room, and Wittenberg wondered at the fascination thus exerted by a young man of twenty

one.

The secret of all this lay in his genuine love of knowledge and of labour, a thirsting after excellence, and an incredible fixedness of purpose. It was not hope of higher dignity, nor craving after wealth, nor passion for praise; but calm and unwavering perseverance in the career he had chosen to pursue. So strong was this quality, and so high his native talent, that he outshone all the accredited scholars whom the Elector had collected in the University, poured a new light upon the scant rudiments of learning, and, by his own lovely wisdom, charmed away the dread of study. His disciples were all cheerful, all willing. No one feared him, none distrusted his impartiality. To his elders and superiors he showed studious respect; to his equals he rendered offices of unconstrained and sweetly familiar kindness; to others he delighted in doing service. Poor students he taught, and assisted in every possible way. Every one he made his friend, and enjoyed the singular happiness of exemption from the annoyances of enmity, dislike, or envy. Already he won the love, and was honoured with the reverence, of all persons of every rank.

Before the innovations of Melancthon, Aristotle was the supreme authority at Wittenberg. In his books of dialectic, known as the Organon, the Stagirite treated a multitude of subjects, but left them in obscurity and confusion. Yet the sages who professed to guide the studies of youth, held the writings of Aristotle in greater veneration than the

word of God; and both the teachers and the taught laboured in vain to strike a gleam of light out of the darkness. Ignorant of any true method of learning languages or arts, their powers dwindled away in the stint of perpetual infancy. Neither for literary composition, nor for oral eloquence, could they acquire any considerable ability. To throw light on Aristotle, or to escape from their own darkness by the light of a pure philosophy, was equally impossible. Hence it came to pass that, if the fountain of Aristotle was not clear, the academic streams were black. Many masters arose to proffer their skill for the explication of Aristotle, and obtained followers for a time. The favourite scholastic at Wittenberg just now was one Tartareus: his wisdom commanded the homage of the whole school, and on his book some wit wrote this epigram:

"Tartara quod vincis et cæcæ nubila mentis,

Nomen conveniens ergo, libelle, tenes."

And, indeed, the obscurity of the book seemed to vie with that of Tartarus. Yet this was the manual with which students of philosophy at Wittenberg were doomed to be ever learning, never to attain to the knowledge of the truth.

A young man, just in his twenty-second year, came from Tubingen, to disentangle these intricacies. At his first appearance, the Doctors were not entirely persuaded of his ability to sustain the dignity of his office,-much less to raise it beyond every other professorial chair in Europe, --and could not promise any great results to the University. He was, as Luther said, "a slender person, of almost contemptible appearance."

Four days after his arrival, he delivered a Latin oration to the University on the Improvement of Studies of Youth, ("De Corrigendis Adolescentiæ Studiis,") in a style altogether new to them. Simple, chaste, unassuming, yet bold, as became one whose duty was to dispel delusion, as well as remove ignorance, he astonished and charmed the audience. After paying honour to illustrious names of

higher antiquity, he traced the declension of letters, arts, and philosophy, until they fell into the state of barbarism that was then to be deplored.

Thence he proceeded to laud the munificence of the Elector Duke of Saxony, founder of the Academy, and to point out the course of study which he should advise the youth of Wittenberg to follow. Greek and Latin classics and history, with a more correct method of philosophizing, were to engage their labours, yet not exclusively. At this point Melancthon could not stop, nor did he heed the prohibitions of biblical teaching which his Church had multiplied, and which the Academies respected. He knew that, in Paris, for example, no master presumed to open the sacred volume, and had seen abhorrence of scriptural teaching carried so far by the Bishops of Misnia, in a statute printed at Leipsic a few years before, as to forbid "the Rectors of schools and their associates to explain the books of holy Scripture, either publicly or privately." But the time was past for suppressing the truth of God.

He, therefore, closed his oration by earnestly exhorting them to give their mind to sacred studies. Above all others, these pursuits demand a careful mind and unwearied application. They are as a Divine perfume shed on human learning; and for gaining proficiency in them, the Holy Spirit must be guide, and assiduous culture the companion. Thus wrote Synesius to Herculianus, that he should make use of a fruitful philosophy to advance to the knowledge of that which is Divine, even as the Tyrians brought their precious metals to adorn the house of God. "The fountains of theology," he says, "are partly Hebrew and partly Greek, whereas the Latins could only drink humbly of their own streams." In these originals, he affirms, the beauty and propriety of the text are to be unfolded, and its true meaning shown clear as in the light of day. Yet he would not have them to linger over the letter only, but, casting away frigid glosses, concordances, discordances, and other clogs of genius, follow the evidence of things revealed.

"And when," said he, "we can bring up our minds to

J

those fountains, we shall begin to know Christ, His commandment will be made clear to us, and we shall delight ourselves with that nectar of Divine wisdom. But when we gather spikenard in the vineyards of Engaddi, the spouse will come bounding over the mountains, and over the hills exulting, will bring you into the palaces of Eden, anoint you with fragrance that cannot rest on the minds of the impure, and exalt you into seats of honour. Made members of Christ, we live, we breathe, we flourish, we gaze on Sion, and, veiled in silence, we fall down and worship toward Salem. This is the effect of heavenly wisdom. Therefore, let us hold it fast in purity, no more polluted by our idle quibblings." Then he quoted the Epistle of St. Paul to Titus, descanted on the great religions benefit to be expected from the revival of learning, and closed his oration without the slightest taint of superstition on the one hand, or the most remote allusion to ecclesiastical corruptions on the other. He took his audience with him to the highest ground, sure that, if they would use a sure and sanctified philosophy as a manuduction into the knowledge of Christianity itself, gathering that philosophy from its incorrupt and only source, the word of God, he should have prepared a host of teachers for the generation then to come. This was the Gospel, not covert, but exhibited in academic eloquence.

The very next day Luther wrote thus to Spalatine, Secretary of the Elector of Saxony: "He delivered an oration, on the fourth day after his arrival, altogether so erudite and terse, with such acceptance and admiration of all, that you cannot now imagine with how good reason you recommended him to us. We soon gave up the opinion we had formed of him from his stature and appearance, and with delight and wonder see the thing itself in him." And, not content to render empty praise, he begs the Secretary to endeavour to get a higher salary for the new Professor, hoping that Pfeffinger, as usual, will not try to draw the Elector's purse-strings tighter, but consider that, if he is not made sure of at Wittenberg, they will get him away for Leipsic. And, in the same week, he repeats his