ACTIVITY. The Sphere of

The sphere of beneficent activity was never so large. To infuse the leaven of purity into the disordered masses-to thaw the death-frost from the heart of the misanthrope-to make the treacherous one faithful to duty to open the world's dim eye to the majesty of conscience-to gather and instruct the orphans bereft of a father's blessing and of a mother's prayer-to care for the outcast and abandoned, who have drunk in iniquity with their mother's milk, whom the priest and the Levite have alike passed by, and who have been forced in the hot-bed of poverty into premature luxuriance of evil,-here is labour which may employ a man's whole lifetime, and his whole soul.-Dr. Punshon.

ADORATION-Defined.

Adoration is devout emotion awakened by the thought of what Jehovah is,the praise of the divine perfections.-Dr. J. Hamilton.

ADORATION.-The Employment of

Adoration is the noblest employment of created beings.-H. More.

ADORATION-Expressed by Song.

Adoration is a state of soul that can only be expressed by song.-Professor

Tinet.

ADORATION.-Man the Priest of

Man is not only the temple of God, but is also the adorer of God for all those creatures who, being unable to know Him, present themselves to man as if to invite him to render homage to God for them. Thus man is the contemplator of visible nature in order that he may be the priest and adorer of invisible and intellectual nature.-Bishop Bossuet.

ADORATION and ADMIRATION.

Adoration may be an intensified reverence, but it certainly is not intensified admiration. The difference between admiration and adoration is observable in the difference of their respective objects; and that difference is immeasurable; for, strictly speaking, we admire the finite but adore the Infinite.-Canon Liddon.

ADVENT.-The

What sudden blaze of song

Spreads o'er the expanse of heaven?

In waves of light it thrills along,

The angelic signal given

"Glory to God!" from yonder central fire

Flows out the echoing lay beyond the starry quire;

66

Like circles widening round

Upon a clear blue river,

Orb after orb, the wondrous sound

Is echoed on for ever:

Glory to God on high, on earth be peace,

And love toward men of love-salvation and release!"-Keble.

ADVENT.-The First and Second

Christ came the first time in the guise of humanity; He is to come the second time in brightness, as a light to the godly, a terror to the wicked. He

came the first time in weakness, He is to come the second time in might; the first time in our littleness, the second time in His own majesty; the first time in mercy, the second in judgment; the first time to redeem, the second to recompense, and recompense all the more terribly because of the long-suffering and delay.-Hildebert.

AFFECTATION-Defined.

Affectation is an awkward and forced imitation of what should be genuine and easy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural.-Locke.

AFFECTATION-Loathed.

In man,

And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation: 'tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.—Cowper.

AFFECTATION-the Result of Inertness.

Affectation in gesture, speaking, and manner is often a result of inertness or indifference; and it seems as if devotion to an object or serious business made men natural.-Bruyère.

AGE. The Intellectual Tendencies of the

In viewing the work of the Christian teacher in relation to the intellectual phenomena which surround him, it is exceedingly necessary that he should be thoroughly alive to the sceptical and rationalizing tendencies of the age. These tendencies show themselves among high and low, among learned and ignorant, in the playful sallies of the drawing-room, and in the bold cavils of the workshop.' But in the higher classes, these tendencies take a more covert and subtle form. The Bible is disallowed only as the Bible; that is-as an authoritative guide to the religious conscience-as the accredited exponent of Heaven's law and purposes as the inspired and exclusive medium through which God's Spirit communicates to man's spirit a knowledge of the things which belong to his peace. The disciples of this school have confidence in Revelation, not as it is a fact of history, but as it agrees, and only so far as it agrees, with what they assume to be the light of their own consciousness. And this principle is applied to all subjects whatsoever. Moral good and evil, the modes of the Divine Subsistence, the inspired veracity of the sacred writers, miracles, angels, devils, heaven, hell,— one and all of these are to be believed just so far as man has other, beside the authority of Scripture, for believing them to be true. Works of recent date are indications, mighty and portentous, of this diminished reverence for ancient truth-of this impatience of any revealed rule of faith-of this determination to dislodge the Scriptures from their prescriptive supremacy over the human conscience, and, indeed, to leave every man to be a Bible to himself,-his own law, his own inspiration, his own God !-D. Moore.

There is a rising spirit of interest and inquiry into theological questions among the educated laity, of which many seem but little aware. No longer content to adopt their creed ready made, to let the old technicalities bury thought, the old assertions pass unexamined, the old conventional verbiage play pleasantly on the ear, there are men, not a few, who now read and think for themselves. They come to Church with minds sharp, educated, well informed, perhaps anxious

and unresting, disturbed by the deeper problems of thought and life, longing for intelligence and earnest teaching, eager to welcome the words of thoughtful wisdom and piety from one whose special education and calling have given him a presumptive right to speak.-Professor Caird.

AGE.-The Positive Demands of the

The direction of the popular mind is onward, steadily, resolutely, in every department, onward. Every grade of society bears its distinctive and emphatic marks of progress. Hence, as ministers, we owe it to all classes of our people, owe it to the great cause of intellectual progress, owe it to the Gospel as a "reasonable service," that we keep pace with these outward signs-that we be not in arrear of the minds we are addressing-that we do not allow the reproach to be cast upon us that religious teachers are less generally informed than other teachers, or that the pulpit lags behind the age. Not that we are to follow our congregations into their thousand topics, or to think of catering for the omnivorous mental appetite of a reading age, but only that, on topics of general information, we ought to be on a par with the most educated of those to whom we minister. Many a teacher has lost his influence, with the intellectual section of his people, by the ignorance he has shown in the department of secular knowledge. They have detected him, perhaps, in some faulty reference to the facts of history, or a bungling misapprehension of the principles of science, or a very superficial acquaintance with the rules of philosophy, or grammar, or verbal criticism, and they lose confidence in him. They think he is likely to be as loose and ill informed on theology as he has shown himself to be on other subjects. At all events he does not read; and they begin to think, with Dr. Arnold, "when a man ceases to learn, that moment he becomes unfit to teach."-D. Moore.

ALLEGORIES.-The Interpretation of

In interpreting allegories, their general design is to be ascertained, and then the primary word or words are to be sought for, and their force expressed by a word or words that are not figurative, and explained accordingly. It must never be forgotten that the comparison is not to be extended to all the circumstances of the allegory. Thus, in the parable of the good Samaritan, the point to be illustrated is the extent of the duty of benevolence. Most of the circumstances in the parable merely go to make up the verisimilitude of the narration, so that it may give pleasure to him who reads or hears it. But how differently does the whole appear when interpreted by an allegorizer of the mystic school! According to him, the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam wandering in the wilderness of this world; the thieves are evil spirits; the priest is the law of Moses; the Levite is good works; the good Samaritan is Christ; the two-pence, the price of atonement; the oil and wine-grace, etc. What may not a parable be made to mean, if imagination is to supply the place of reasoning and philology? And what riddle or oracle of Delphos could be more equivocal, or of more multifarious significancy than the Bible, if such exegesis be admissible ?— Professor Stuart.

ALLEGORIES.-The Use of

Allegories and spiritual significations, when applied to faith, and that seldom, are laudable; but when they are drawn from the life and conversation, they are dangerous, and, when men make too many of them, pervert the doctrine of faith. Allegories are fine ornaments, but not of proof.-Luther.

ALMS.-The Bestowment of an

An alms reluctantly bestowed is like a rose spoiled and discoloured with fumes of sulphur,-like sanded flour, or over-salted meat.-Scriver.

ALMS. The Duty of Giving

It is proper that alms should come out of a little purse as well as out of a great sack; but surely where there is plenty, charity is a duty, not a courtesy; it is a tribute imposed by Heaven upon us, and he is not a good subject who refuses to pay it.-Feltham.

ALMS.-An Injunction to Give

Make God your

You go into the Church to obtain mercy: first, show mercy. debtor, and then you may ask of Him, and receive with usury. We are not heard barely for the lifting up of our hands. Stretch forth your hands, not only to heaven, but to the poor. If you stretch out your hands to the poor, you touch the very height of heaven; for He that sits there receives your alms. But if you lift up barren hands, it profits nothing.-St. Chrysostom.

ALMS. The Proportion of

Let us proportion our alms to our ability, lest we provoke God to proportion His blessings to our alms.-Bishop Beveridge.

ALMS. The Reason for Giving

I give no alms only to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of God. I draw not my purse for his sake that demands it, but His that enjoined it. I relieve no man upon the rhetoric of his miseries, nor to content mine own commiserating disposition; for this is still but moral charity, and an act that oweth more to passion than to reason. He that relieves another upon the bare suggestion and bowels of pity, doth not this so much for his sake as for his own; for by compassion we make other's misery our own; and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.-Professor G. Wilson. ALMS.-The Widow's

These, which she noiselessly dropt into the treasury of the Temple, deserved more attention than the stones and ornaments of the Temple itself. It was not a mite, but an invisible act of the mind which the alms had made visible. There was something great in this action, greater than the Temple with its stairs, its peristyles, its arches, and colossal walls. And, indeed, all comparison is injurious; for between the luxurious prince, who built this house out of the super-abundance of his treasure, or the sweat of his subjects slowly transformed into gold, and this poor woman, stealthily throwing in the treasury a tribute levied from her misery"her whole living," says Christ, what a difference! How great the poor woman! how little the monarch !—Professor Vinet.

ALMS.-The Witnesser of our

The best check and the truest comfort to remember in our alms-Jesus sees what we give.-Bowes.

ALTAR.-The Antiquity of the

The altar is of great antiquity, some say as early as Adam; but there is no mention made of it till Noah, after the flood, built one, and offered burnt-offerings

thereon. The Jews had two altars in and about their Temple:-the altar of burnt offerings, and the altar of incense.-Buck.

ALTAR.-Christ the

The heathen and the Jews had a material altar with a material blood sacrifice; and so, too, have Christians-not now on earth, for there is no blood sacrifice, but in heaven, whither our Lord carried His own body, on which flowed His own blood, thus concentrating in Himself the whole work of priesthood-Christ the Priest, Christ the Victim, Christ the Altar.-Phillipps.

ALTAR.-The Sanctity of the

The altar was the most sacred of all the furniture that graced either the Tabernacle or the Temple, or stood before the Seat of Mercy.—Mudge.

AMBASSADOR.-Christ's

Any man may read the Scriptures, or make an oration to the people; but it is not that which the Scriptures call preaching the word of God, unless he be sent by God to do it; for "how can they preach except they be sent?" A butcher might kill an ox or a lamb, as well as the high-priest; but it was no sacrifice to God, unless one of His priests did it. "And no man taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron." Any man may treat of public affairs as well as an ambassador; but he cannot do it to any purpose without a commission from his prince. If I was not fully assured that I had a commission to be an ambassador for Christ, and to act in His name, I should never preach or execute any ministerial office; for I am sure that all I did would be null and void of itself, according to God's ordinary way of working; and we have no ground to expect miracles.-Bishop Beveridge.

AMBASSADOR.-The Commission of an

The Christian ambassador must ever act in the spirit of his commission. He is not to go forth with his creed in one hand, and a thunderbolt in the other; but with the hymn in which the Saviour's birth was sung, and the cross on which the Saviour's sacrifice was made.-Dr. Cumming.

AMBITION.-Counsel respecting

I charge thee, fling away ambition:

By that sin fell the angels.-Shakspeare.

AMBITION.-The Poison of

Ambition is the rankest poison to the Church, when it possesses preachers. It is a consuming fire.-Luther.

AMEN. The Import of

In this word concentre all the requests, and are put up together: so be it. And there is in it withal, as all observe, a profession of confidence that it shall be so. It is from one root with those words which signify believing and truth.Archbishop Leighton.

The term imports-an assent to the truth, a confession of its reasonableness, an acknowledgment of its excellency, and an approbation of it with regard to our own particular case.-Simeon.