God makes His appeal to that within us which retains traces of His own goodness and love. It may sound strange, as coming from the pulpit of a church which has still a creed of the Calvinistic shape, to hear the following sentiments : :- "That would be miserable, insufferable doctrine, if the education of these outcasts (those who are so wicked and wretched here that all men shrink from them in dismay and hopelessness; who do not seem to be born for anything but to be examples of evil; who have not a chance given them from birth to death), if their education 'began and ended' here; but if it goes on from state to state, the doctrine has a wild gleam of comfort in it. For I can fancy the marvellous change, the rush of softening tears, the penitence-bringing tenderness which might come to some poor, wicked, ruined criminal when it was given to him to know, in the world to come, that his evil life had stirred a philanthropist to better his whole class, or that his punishment had been over-ruled to bless and save even one of his brother-men." It would be expected that a Broad Churchman would have earnest words to utter in regard to the social iniquities which he found hindering and spoiling the national life. It has been a feature of the movement from its beginning that the leaders of this section of the Church have been known as thoughtful and persistent social reformers. Arnold of Rugby, who, more than any man perhaps, shaped for an earlier generation the thoughts and principles which are generally identified with the faith of a Broad Churchman, was a passionate leader in all earnest movements towards the elevation and purification of social and national life. His keen sense of the need of ecclesiastical reform was not more remarkable than his anxiety that our people should be delivered from the trammels of a bad social system. The late Rev. F. D. Maurice was almost an enthusiast whenever he touched such matters; but his province and mission were different from Arnold's-he was essentially, and well-nigh alone, the divine of the new party. He had to expound, and often to defend, its doctrinal position. Though he was a preacher for many years in two London churches, and mingled in the busy whirl of our modern life, he was able to accomplish as much work in the way of actual theological writing as we were accustomed to believe could only be got through by a competent scholar of the old time. But Mr. Brooke looks fearlessly at our social foibles and habits; and when he speaks of them it is with all the energy of his soul. The question has lately been raised in an important quarter as to whether the preaching of the present day is not far less practical than it should be. It is held that sin is exposed and condemned with unabated earnestness; but it is sin in the abstract. What is wanted is, that the particular frauds and impositions should be pointed out, and denounced with the zealous energy of a champion of the morality of the Bible. We should hear more, these critics claim, of pottles of strawberries with the finest fruit at the top to take the eye and delude the customer; of reels of cotton marked “a hundred yards," but holding only fifty; of cloth looking smooth and feeling strong, which is nothing but shoddy; of sanded sugar, watered milk, dirty tea compounds, and, in short, the almost numberless imitations which are palmed upon an unsuspecting public. What with men of business, who defy the parson when he trenches upon matters about which he is altogether ignorant, and critics, who think they know how sermons could be made to yield greater profit to the hearers, the preacher of to-day is not always in an enviable position. There is, no doubt, a medium place which wisdom will assign when she is fairly trusted. We believe Mr. Brooke has, upon the whole, found that place. In November, 1866 —that is, before the passing of the Act which may be held to have made some difference-he thus denounced the notorious election practices : 66 "Our elections are so conducted that the future members of Parliament are in many cases wittingly actors of a lie, shutting their eyes, on the pretence that the money is given for expenses which they know is for bribery. The money goes to debase and enslave the voter, and it is plain that those who bribe are, morally, more guilty than those who are bribed-as much more as the tempter is worse than the tempted. The worst feature in the casc is the amusement which this corruption seems to afford to English society." Mr. Brooke claims that the last sentence is now untrue, but wishes he could say the same for those which follow: 'Step lower in the social scale; come from Parliament to monetary life. English honesty was once a proverb; English dishonesty, unless we repent, will soon become the second reading of the proverb. There is no need to dwell upon the dishonesty of speculations, the made-up balance-sheet, the ruin of thousands by selfish greed, which have disgraced our banks, railways, and commercial houses; the false balance and the cruel adulteration, the lying advertisements which dishonour our trade. It is enough to say that no man who loves his country can see this widespread system of theft and falsehood without dismay." It would be unfair not to point out that Mr. Brooke is a faithful reasoner with his brother clergymen upon the difficulties by which they, as a class, are now beset. unctuous, and yet woe-begone assumed, at once gives the cue He does not speak with that manner, which, when it is to what we may expect. He addresses them as a man would his fellow-men who had deep and earnest convictions of what their danger and duty was, and meant to help them to rise into a higher condition of Christian life. In the same year (1866) he said: "The clergy run into all sorts of theories, without clearly knowing whither they are going. They say they are pursuing truth; but there is no method in the pursuit. They are like men lost in an Australian wood, who run to and fro, and, after many hours, find themselves at the place they started from. Many, in despair of rest, rush to find it, and only find stagnation, in the Church of Rome. "All kinds of experiments are tried. A bishop sets his face like a flint, and calls in question the authenticity of nearly all the early history of the Old Testament. He destroys, he does not dream of constructing. Some of the younger clergy employ their time in only opposing the old forms of religion, forgetting that they ought to build, and not to overthrow; forgetting that every work of opposition is a negative work, and that a negation has no force. Another body of clergy have fallen in love with the past, and seek by a retrograde movement to find God again in life, forgetting that God is always in front of men. They attempt to revive that power of the priesthood which England spent so much blood and so many years in destroying, and they are so blind as to imagine that England will suffer its revival. In a hundred ways the spirit of men is stirred, but how or for what end no one can yet tell." Mr. Brooke has the faculty for expressing in a very pointed, and sometimes almost epigrammatic way, a fine conception of a truth, or the principle which underlies a fact. These sentences have the charm of apophthegms and maxims; they are fitted at once to fix their place in heart, conscience, memory. We wonder if Mr. Brooke has written poetry? he has the feeling and passion of the poet, and he gives proof of possessing that charm and spell in the selection and management of words which imparts to them their living hold upon our hearts. We quote the following sentences from a few of his sermons which will confirm our opinion: "We cannot understand any portion of our life when we are involved in it. We see it too closely and too passionately." "There is nothing without its compensation in this world. Some are happy all their lives. Set over against that, that they never know what exquisite, passionate joy may be." "Remorse is slain by belief in love." "One of the sad comforts of trial is this, that it is the touchstone of friendship." "We often lose in trial what is calculable; we oftener gain what is incalculable." "Mary's silence is, next to that of Christ's, the most remarkable thing in this history. She was a woman of quiet thought, of solitary prayer, of tacit power." (A fine description in a few words.) "The Law, as a set of literal maxims, of negative precepts, culminated in Pharisaism." "The Pharisees deified the husk, the shell; Christ rejected the shell, and discovered the kernel." "It is only when joy is most passionate that we are dimly conscious how awful sorrow may be in its supremest depths." "What would life be without its ideals? It is only ideals which kindle continued action." "The world is too much with us, and God too little." "God wrestles with us now, when our life comes to its Jabbok in the midnight, and the path divides to heaven or to hell." Mr. Brooke looks upon human nature, as a whole, with more breadth of view and depth of feeling than the eloquent Canon who fills St. Paul's with his lofty appeals and powerful statements of truth. There is more real homeliness in the Queen's Chaplain. He is not so far away from you, lost in the meditative heights of an isolated ecclesiasticism. He comes to you where you wish to meet him, as a brother and a friend. You are not indignant at the prospect of discovering some possible difference in nature, requiring the preacher to treat you as if he were an archangel and you a wretched mortal creature, full of gross imperfection and misery. This man is not a priest in that objectionable sense which makes you feel as if your preacher were charged with a Divine authority so to represent God to you, that you must not dare to speak with Him unless under priestly guidance and with priestly help. Mr. Stopford Brooke would say to any prostrate inquirers, "Stand up! I myself also am a man!" We are not addressed in a preacherish, soft-sawder way; but as men and women having the seal of God upon our brows. He does not shirk any duty of inquiry or speech which you may lay upon him: be is free to think out for himself, and for you any of the great problems of life which may ask for solution. All history is bright for him as it was for that devout and lofty thinker who, more than any other man, gained the end of his mission in impressing his brethren in the Church with the feeling, that the Divine Almighty Being is working in all things for the everlasting good of every one of us. Hence he leaves the beaten paths which so many still are treading, and looks everywhere for tracks which may help him to wider knowledge of His fellow, but at last bring him to the feet of God. It is superfluous to remark upon the beauty and perfectness of Mr. Brooke's style. There is a clearness and felicity in it which savours of the culture of that old university which is his Alma Mater. But there is all the force and strength which could only be imparted by deep convictions and earnest feeling. He may not possess the faculty for speaking to that now restless, upheaving mass of life which will soon stir our people as with the throes of a revolution. He is not gifted with a tongue which, like that of the illustrious "Tribune of the people," could lead forward a nation in its passionate enthusiasm; but he can take a high place -indeed does take one-among those who are sharing in God's great purpose to save mankind. He sympathises with the keen hunger for freedom which is laying hold on men; and loses few chances of uttering a hearty-" God-speed you!" to all that yearn for its destined day of joy and triumph. He recognises the preacher's true place in this hour of dawning; and is ready always with a cheerful hope and an inspiring word as a proclaimer of the Kingdom of God. ANDREW MARVEL AND HIS FRIENDS. A STORY OF THE SIEGE OF HULL. BY MARIE HALL, née SIBREE. Author of "Sermons from the Studio," CHAPTER XIX.-ALICE'S DIARY. "O who will give me tears? Come all ye springs, That Nature hath produced."-HERBERT. May 1st, 1642.-I can neither spin nor sew, for I am walking in thick darkness, and these national troubles seem all one with my inward griefs. My father looks at me, and sighs; but he has no comfort to offer, save his kisses and caresses, and sometimes I think he knows more than he dares to say. Surely Andrew cannot be living, or did ten thousand miles, or did an ocean lie between us, his spirit could not be unconscious of my sorrow and despair. Or perhaps he is slowly dying, as I have seen him in my dreams, with none to lift his head or smoothe his pillow. What wonder, then, if my life withers too? Could he untwine these strings and loose these cords that bind us together, and I not bleed? Once an evil whisperer muttered in my ear that he whom I trusted had forgotten; that where he dwelt were dark-eyed women |