much to endure from evil-speaking and persecution, says, 'These things cause me much less fear on his account than what I experience in hearing from others that his blessing has worked miracles, and that the sick have been healed. through it. We do not desire to see miracles such as those the saints have wrought,-they render us apprehensive; but we strongly desire those interior invisible miracles which make

the saint.1

'Even human love,' he adds, 'is humble and patient, because it lessens itself before that which is loved. But the love of God is humble with glory, because it humbles men for the sake of His love who is glorious above all.'

'Umile in tanta gloria.'

RULE GIVEN BY M. DE SACI.

'Paix de l'âme, humble aveu, rentrez au fond du cœur, Portez un tems le poids des fautes volontaires,

Réparez les péchés par les vertus contraires, Implorez Dieu seul saint, seul stable, et seul Sauveur.'

1 In the original French there is a certain play on words which brings out the beautiful opposition and apposition included in M. de Saci's thought in a way which translation misses,-'Nous ne désirons pas les miracles qu'ont font les saints, mais les miracles qui font les saints.' Of this we say in other words,-' It is God's miracle, not man's, which the Church at present needs.'

'I WOULD AND I WOULD NOT.'
(AN OLD POEM.)

'This would I be, and would none other be,
But a religious servant of my God,
And know there is none other God but He,
And willingly to suffer mercy's rod,

Joy in His grace, and live but in His love,
And seek my bliss but in the heaven above.

And I would frame a kind of faithful prayer
For all estates within the state of grace,
That careful love might never know despair,
Nor servile fear might faithful love deface.
And this I would both day and night devise
To make my humble spirit's exercise.

And I would read the rules of sacred life;
Persuade the troubled soul to patience;
The husband care, and comfort to the wife,
To child and servant due obedience,
Faith to the friend, and to the neighbour peace,
That love may live, and quarrels all may cease.

Pray for the health of all that are diseased,
Confession unto all that are convicted,
And patience unto all that are displeased,
And comfort unto all that are afflicted,
And mercy unto all that have offended,
And grace to all that all may be amended.

Flatter not folly with an idle faith,

Nor let earth stand upon her own desert, But show what wisdom in the Scripture saith, The fruitful hand doth show the faithful heart. Believe the Word, and thereto bend thy will, And teach obedience by a blessed skill.

Chide sinners as the father doth his child,
And keep them in the awe of loving fear.
Make sin most hateful, but in words be mild,
That humble patience may the better hear,
And wounded conscience may relieve relief,
Where true repentance pleads the sinner's grief.
Yet flatter not the foul delight of sin,

But make it loathsome in the eye of love,
And seek the heart with holy thoughts to win,
Unto the best way to the soul's behove,
So teach, so live, that both in word and deed,
The world may joy thy heavenly rules to read.
Thus would I spend in service of my God,

The ling'ring hours of these few days of mine,
To show how sin and death are over-trod,

But by the virtue of the power divine.

Our thoughts are vain, our substance slime and dust,
And only Christ for our eternal trust!

This would I be; and say

"would not" no more,

But only-not be otherwise than this;

All in effect, but, as I said before,

The life in that life's kingdom's love of His,
My glorious God, whose grace all comfort gives,
Than be on earth the greatest man that lives.'

'The estate of grace and that of glory are not only so inseparably connected, but so like one to the other, yea, so essentially the same, that the same expressions in Scripture do often fit both of them; and so fit them, that it is doubtful for which of the two to understand them; but the hazard is not great, seeing they are so near and so closely united,-grace being glory begun, and glory grace

completed, and both are often called "the kingdom of God."":

In a basket, whether it is filled with flowers, fruit, or more homely viands, arrangement is not to be looked for; it can but hold and convey its contents. Still, it seems that the following passage from the letters of the poet Cowper finds its fitting place here:

'That Jesus is a present Saviour, from the guilt of sin by His blood, and from the power of it by His Spirit; that, corrupt and wretched in ourselves, in Him, and in Him only, we are complete; that being joined to Jesus in a lively faith we gain such an interest in His obedience and sufferings as justifies us before the face of our heavenly Father; and that all this inestimable treasure, the earnest of which is in grace and its consummation in glory, is freely given to us by God, who has opened the kingdom of Heaven to all believers, are truths which, under the influence of the Spirit of God, have become the very life of my soul and the soul of all my happiness. I place them upon my heart as a throne whereon the Saviour Himself shall sit to sway all its actions, and reduce that world of iniquity and rebellion to a world of affectionate allegiance to God's most holy will.'

1 Archbishop Leighton.

ON FAITH AS THE ROOT-PRINCIPLE

C

OF OUR LIFE IN CHRIST.

OLERIDGE says of those who attempt to substitute charity for faith, or of that mode of confounding the two which makes them as it were identical, including in the term Faith the whole circle of Christian graces,-' To many, even to myself formerly, it has appeared a mere dispute about words, but it is by no means so harmless a thing, as it tends to give a false direction to our thoughts, by diverting the conscience from the ruined and corrupted state in which we are without Christ. Sin is the disease. What is the remedy? Charity? Pshaw! Charity, in the large apostolic sense of the term, is the health, the state to be obtained by the use of the remedy, not the sovereign balm itself, which is faith of grace,-faith in the Godmanhood, the cross, the mediation, the perfect