masters, in the exercise of which they will oftentimes resort to measures of extreme hardship.

Then they say that unly those who have had episcopal hands laid on their heads are constituted ministers of Christ, the gospel, and the Church. By this laying on of hands the ministers of the Church of England claim to have received their office and ministry direct from the apostles. They claim to use certain distinctive titles, as reverend, to the exclusion of other men who minister to assemblies of Christians. Thus they refuse to recognise the assertion of Paul to the Corinthians, that God has given the power to lead men to faith to every member of the Church, and not to its officers only. They have no sympathy with the heart-breathing desire of Moses that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that He would put His Spirit upon all. They most certainly cannot enforce the charge of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who told them that when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God."

Then, again, the worship they proclaim as true is a worship which in its smallest minutiæ is prescribed by Act of Parliament, even to the postures of the clergy and people when certain things are said. However much the argument may be urged that a person attending Church voluntarily accepts the services prescribed for the use of the Church, it is nevertheless the fact that the Church which is regarded as the true Church in these realms can only worship God according to the Act of Parliament, which has appointed the Prayer Book as the instrument of its worship.

In our day great litigation has risen as to how this ritualistic machinery should be worked, and Parliament has passed a special Act to preserve the Prayer Book from being used otherwise than as the ritual prescribes. This Act was thought to be necessary because some of the clergy had begun to use vestments, assume positions, and adopt practices not appointed by law and which had been put aside in the days of reformation. The controversy on these points is waxing exceedingly warm; whilst Dissenters are called schismatics because they affirm that the worship of God does not consist in of any these things, but solely in the lifting up of the heart in grateful acknowledgment of His mercy and love.

The date of the origin of ritualism cannot now be fixed. It entered largely into the worship of the Jews as it was appointed by Moses. The whole, however, was evidently substitutionary for that pure heart-worship which Israel did not offer to God. If among the Jews there had been love to God, leading to the offering of heartpraise and service, there had been no need of either tabernacle, priest, or sacrifice. We can quite see that God could have no delight in them. The intention of God was to lead by them to Christ, that in Him men might find the power for spiritual service.

Ritualism is adopted undoubtedly by vast numbers of people who,

recognising the existence of God, feel it necessary to do something to propitiate or please Him. The systems have, however, been carefully arranged by the priesthood; and the leading idea of all is that God can only be approached by and through a man who has been officially and ceremonially appointed to that position. The complicated ritual, with its observances of times and seasons, seems to require the skill and memory of men specially trained to work it without difficulty. It is, moreover, a singular fact that ritualism is always associated with an episcopal form of government, as though it was arranged for the purpose of suppressing individual freedom in the service of God.

In supporting ritualism, the teachings of the New Testament are passed over, and the models for Church and service are sought for in the Old. The Fathers of the Church, too, are quoted by these men in support of their plans, though an honest reading of these writings would reveal differences of opinion as great as those which at present prevail. The Church of England now supports its ritualism, episcopacy, and union with the State, not from the New Testament, but from the Old, in conjunction with the teachings of Church Fathers and Church Councils. The figments of the apostolic succession and the true Church, perpetually taught to unthinking votaries, the enormous amount of wealth it pours into the pockets of the aristocracy, the many streams of charitable doles directed really for the bribery of the poor, have produced their results. But there is one thing they have not been able to do; that is, suppress the New Testament or prevent it from being read. Neither can they avoid the rending throes of that destruction which Christ declared should come upon His "heavenly Father had not planted."

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every plant" which

In effecting the redemption of the human heart from ritualism Christ first revealed the disposition of God towards all mankind. He has declared the love of God to be as high as heaven and broad as the whole compass of human necessity. In this manifestation of love God seeks to approach every individual heart, that it might know that it is loved by God. In this there is no recognition of human societies at all. Even the old nation which He brought up from Egypt is not dealt with as a nation, but its integral elements are dealt with individually. Redemption is a grand effort on God's part to establish individual relations with every member of His great human family.

When the fact of God's love is revealed to and in the heart of a man, he becomes possessed of the same love and disposition which God has displayed towards him. The nature of the two is one. The convert becomes a child, possessing the spirit of the Father. This spirit, man's first and true nature, has become his again by redemption. He heard the invitation of Christ when he was thirsty, and went to Him for drink. Jesus gave him the Spirit of God. Becoming a lover of God, the Father and Jesus have come to him, and taken up Their abode with him. Jesus promised that the Comforter whom He would send to His disciples from the Father, and which proceedeth from the

Father, would testify of Him, guide them into all truth, and glorify Him. Paul, who wrote by that Spirit, said, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Again, Paul wrote, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?" And then, as though anxious to cut off all vagueness, he asked again, "What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God?" These, with other passages, show that God dwelling in man is the true relation which should subsist between man and God. The God that fills the universe also fills the man. The man comes into personal oneness with the great source of light and life. Wherever the man is, there is God. Whether he rise up or lie down, he is still with God. This is the great redemption of Jesus, and out of it rises a most pertinent question: Does this man thus redeemed require the services of another man to enable him to hold communion with his own spirit or converse with his inner nature, which is also that of God? Does he need legally ordered and appointed prayers to enable him to address the Divine Inhabitant of his own body? Does he want a ritual to tell him of postures and changes of postures in his intercourse with God, when the Being he adores possesses and commands his reason, conscience, heart, and tongue, and from the throne of the heart commands their conditions and acts? Most certainly not. And yet ritualists want to come in as mediums of communication between a man and his own spirit, which is God.

When the operator on the telegraph machine 'moves its handle the wire is instantly magnetised throughout its entire length. The machine at the far end of the wire is under the control of the operator at the near end. So the Spirit of God that dwells in a man brings him into harmonious oneness with the Spirit that fills the universe. The Spirit is one, and being the Spirit of God in the man, He knows the things of the God of the universe, and reveals them to him in whom He dwells. God reveals Himself, not so much to a man as in him. Paul said, "When it pleased God . . . to reveal his Son in me." John wrote, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, which abideth in you,

...

and teacheth you all things."

Now, if this is the relationship that Christ has established in and with His people, what has become of ritualism or the priesthood or the temple? The whole have been destroyed by the very nature of this fellowship. There is now no place where the man may go to meet his God; for, God dwelling in him, there is no place where God is not. Whether he be on land or sea, ploughing the surface or delving in the mine, they dwell together in the most intimate and hallowed communion. The times of meeting with God, as the new moon, solemn assemblies, and Sabbath days, are all gone; for there is no time when the grateful homage and praise of the heart are not presented to, and accepted by, an indwelling God. This union and liberty is the privilege of every

believer, and it constitutes one of the most glorious features of that vast and comprehensive work of redemption which Jesus accomplishes in the hearts and experiences of men.

Stony Stratford.

A TRUE STORY.

ONE cold day in winter a lad stood | splitting wood, I see," pointing to at the outer door of a cottage in the yard. Scotland. The snow had been falling fast, and the poor boy looked very cold and hungry.

"Mayn't I stay, ma'am?" he said to the woman who had opened the door. "I'll work, cut wood, go for water, and do all your errands."

"You may come in, at any rate, until my husband comes home," the woman said. "There, sit down by the fire; you look perishing with the cold." And she drew a chair up to the warmest corner; then, suspiciously glancing at the boy from the corners of her eyes, she continued setting the table for supper.

Presently came the tramp of heavy boots, and the door was swung open with a quick jerk, and the husband entered, wearied with his day's work.

"Yes; do you know him?"

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"I have seen him," replied the

pedler.

"Where? Who is he? What is

Oh! there was something so dreadful in the word "gaol." The poor woman trembled as she laid away the things she had bought of the pedler; nor could she be easy till she called the boy in and assured him that she knew that dark part of his history.

Ashamed and distressed, the boy hung down his head. His cheeks seemed bursting with the hot blood, and his lips quivered. 66 He

A look of intelligence passed between his wife and himself. had looked at the boy, but did not seem very well pleased; he nevertheless made him come to the table, and was glad to see how heartily he ate his supper.

Day after day passed, and yet the boy begged to be kept "until to-morrow; so the good couple, after due consideration, concluded that as long as he was such a good boy, and worked so willingly, they would keep him.

One day, in the middle of winter, a pedler who often traded at the cottage called, and after disposing of some of his goods, was preparing to go, when he said to the woman, You have a young lad out there

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Well," he muttered, his fraïne shaking, "there's no use in me trying to do better; everybody hates and despises me; nobody cares about me.'

"Tell me," said the woman, "how came you to go, so young, to that dreadful place? Where is your mother?"

"Oh !" exclaimed the boy, with a burst of grief that was terrible to behold-"oh, I hadn't no mother! I hadn't no mother ever since I was a baby! If I only had a mother," he continued, while tears gushed from his eyes, "I wouldn't have been bound out, and kicked, and cuffed, and horse-whipped. I wouldn't have been saucy and got

knocked down, and run away, and | saken, deserted child. She poured then stole because I was hungry. from her mother's heart sweet, Oh! If I'd only had a mother!" kind words, words of counsel and of tenderness.

The strength was all gone from the poor boy, and he sank on his knees, sobbing great choking sobs, and rubbing the hot tears away with the sleeve of his jacket.

The woman was a mother, and though all her children slept under the cold sod in the churchyard, she was a mother still. She put her hand kindly on the head of the boy, and told him to look up; and said from that time he should find in her a mother. Yes, even put her arms around the neck of that for

Oh! how sweet was her sleep that night-how soft her pillow! She had plucked some thorns from the path of a little sinning but striving mortal.

That poor boy is now a promising man. His foster-father is dead, his foster-mother is aged and sickly, but she knows no want. The "poor outcast" is her support. Nobly does he repay the trust reposed in him. "When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.'

INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF MOSES.

I.

BY THE REV. G. SHORT, B.A.

THE ARK OF BULRUSHES.

"And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes."-Exod. ii. 3.

THE children of Israel, when settled in Egypt, were placed at the north-eastern extremity of the country for a twofold reason. First, that part of the country was eminently a pasture land, and therefore adapted to the occupation of the Israelites; and next, there they might serve as a barrier to the roving tribes of the East, who were a terror to the inhabitants of the Nile valley.

In process of time there arose another king, "who knew not Joseph," and who determined to diminish their numbers, and to crush their independent spirit. Day after day their lives were made bitter with cruel bondage, while beneath a burning sky, in gangs, and halfnaked, they were compelled to work in the brick-kilns of the haughty despot. The expedient failed. "The more they were afflicted, the more they grew. Other expedients were tried and also tried in vain, till at last instructions were given that every Hebrew boy subsequently born should be thrown into the Nile.

It was at this juncture that Moses was born. I need only briefly repeat a history which every child must know: how for three months the fond mother managed to elude the Egyptian inquisitors and preserve her beautiful boy; how, at the end of that time, finding escape no longer possible, she constructed an ark of the papyrus reed, daubed it with slime and pitch, put the child therein, and placed it among the rushes at the river's brink; how Pharaoh's daughter, coming to bathe, espied the basket, ordered it to be fetched, opened it, and was moved by