"Every accent of his voice spoke to the ear; every feature of his face, every motion of his hands, every gesture, spoke to the eye," says Dr. Gillies. Hence his personifications assumed the vividness of reality. "His thoughts," says Dr. James Hamilton, "were possessions, and his feelings were transformations; and if he spake because he felt, his hearers understood because they saw." His "Hark! hark!” recalled "Gethsemane with its faltering moon," and depicted Calvary with all its attributes of wrath and woe. When he cried, "Stop, Gabriel, stop, ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet carry with you the news of one sinner converted to God," the auditors almost fancied that they heard the rustle of the archangel's wing. Hume himself was nearly convinced as he heard that burst of passionate concern for souls. When he assumed the character of the judge, and said, with his eyes full of tears, "I am now going to put on my condemning cap; sinner, I MUST do it! I must pronounce sentence!" men feared as if they listened to the "Depart, ye cursed!" from the lips of the King of kings. When he wept for them, who of all his hearers could refrain their tears? All this in him was natural, and it was acted from the heart. "No man," says Mr. Philip, "ever lived nearer to God, or approached nearer to the perfection of oratory. He was too devotional to be cooled by rules, and too natural to be spoiled by art, and too much in earnest to win souls, to neglect system. He sought out acceptable tones, gestures, and looks, as well as acceptable

words.' Every time he repeated a sermon he did so with increased effect. He studied to gain this advantage from it, and did not fail.”

His labors in the work of the Lord were untiring. He traveled over Great Britain and America many times: was in Scotland fourteen times, crossed the Atlantic thirteen, and journeyed in America seven times, all with one grand object of preaching the Gospel. He preached as many as eighteen thousand sermons in a ministry of thirty-four years, or five hundred a year. How does this rebuke the indolence of many in the sacred office? His pulpit was truly "his joy and throne," where he loved most to be, and where God honored him so highly. He preached his greatest sermons at six o'clock in the morning, and he did so four times every week. ·

His letters were very numerous, often minute, and displayed a tender concern for his converts and his friends all over the land. "Like the bulletins of a general," says Mr. Philip, "they were chiefly written on the field of battle, and thus came to his friends associated and enshrined with his victories. No matter, therefore, what they are as epistolary writing, they came from the 'conquering hero' of the day, to those who were praying for and expecting him to go on from conquering to conquer. '. . . The man is to be pitied who can criticize them, and so is he who can read them without being refreshed by them; for they are only surpassed by Luke's Acts of the Apostles." These, as well as his

whole habits, he subordinated to the one grand aim of his life; the saving of souls. His maxim was "to preach as Apelles painted, for eternity." He seldom indulged in egotism when he preached; and if he did it, it was with the greatest modesty. This is a virtue evangelists at large have need of. He never went into details; and even what he did "in the first sketch of his life, he carefully pruned in a subsequent edition."

His influence upon the Church of Christ, and the world where he moved, was as remarkable as that of apostles, reformers, or missionaries. He stood alone among evangelists, though there were eminent ones in his own age and country. He allowed no party spirit to circumscribe his affections, no opposition to restrain his labors, no selfishness to divert his philanthropy, no failure to damp his courage, no weakness to enfeeble his strength, and no weariness to repress his ardor.

He loved the world that hated him; the tear
That dropped upon his Bible was sincere;
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life;
And he that forged and he that threw the dart
Had each a brother's interest in his heart.
Paul's love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed,
Were copied close in him, and well transcribed.
He followed Paul-his zeal a kindred flame,
His apostolic charity the same;
Like him, crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas,
Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease:
Like him he labored, and like him content
To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went.
COWPER.

JAMES MONTGOMERY,

THE CHRISTIAN POET.

Be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.-EpH. v, 18.

There is a living spirit in the Lyre,
A breath of music and a soul of fire;
It speaks a language to the world unknown;
It speaks that language to the Bard alone;
While warbled symphonies entrance his ears,
That spirit's voice in every tone he hears;
'Tis his the mystic meaning to rehearse,
To utter oracles in glowing verse,
Heroic themes from age to age prolong,
And make the dead in nature live in song.

Though graven rocks the warrior's deeds proclaim,
And mountains hewn to statues wear his name;

Though shrined in adamant, his relics lie

Beneath a pyramid that scales the sky;

All that the hand hath fashioned shall decay,
All that the eye admires shall pass away;

The mouldering rocks, the hero's hope, shall fail,
Earthquakes shall heave the mountains to the vale;
The shrine of adamant betray its trust,

And the proud pyramids resolve to dust.

The Lyre alone immortal fame secures,

For song alone through Nature's change endures;
Transfused like life, from breast to breast it glows,
From sire to son by sure succession flows,
Speeds its unceasing flight from clime to clime,
Outstripping Death upon the wings of Time.

"THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD."

"POETRY," says Bishop Lowth, "must be allowed to stand eminent among the liberal arts, inasmuch

as it refreshes the mind when it is fatigued, relieves and invigorates it when it is depressed, and elevates the thoughts to the admiration of what is beautiful, what is becoming, what is great and noble. Nor is it enough to say that it delivers the precepts of virtue in the most agreeable manner; it insinuates or instills into the soul the very principles of morality itself. . . . But, after all, we shall think more humbly of poetry than it deserves, unless we direct our attention to that quarter where its importance is most eminently conspicuous; unless we contemplate it as employed on sacred subjects, and in subservience to religion. This, indeed, appears to have been the original office and destination of poetry; and this it still so happily performs, that in all other cases it seems out of character, as if intended for this purpose alone."

The poet must, therefore, deservedly occupy a high place among men. He has long been esteemed a sacred and oracular personage. In ancient times the bard was second only to the priest. In all ages his writings are perused, and his statue fills a niche in the temple of fame beside the statesmen, warriors, and divines who have been conspicuous among their countrymen. But the Christian poet merits a more lofty distinction and a more lasting memorial. There have been many names high in song who never uttered praise to God, whose genius was brilliant, whose influence has been mighty, and whose words, read with interest by ardent youth, become the "lights to lead astray." It is only