so many details of Christian conduct be unfolded there ? Holy Scripture treats much of matters of practice. Should we not in our thoughts, studies, instructions (if we are engaged in instructing others,) endeavour to preserve the same proportions in reference to faith and practice which we find there? Is not the leaving it to faith to produce obedience, very nearly as great an extravagance as that of those who leave it to God's election to produce both.

It is worthy of remark that both these (I will venture to call them) mistakes spring from following a notion of consistency-(which both experience and God's word falsify)-rather than in a child-like spirit following God's word. Now, I think, Dr. Arnold's sermons admirably develop the practical element in the Christian scheme; and I think this full development of it in a Christian way, is a corrective many of us

need.

But it would be a very meagre description of Dr. Arnold's sermons merely to say that their tone is practical: they are indeed eminently so: and they develop the heights of the Christian walk on earth, with a distinctness, and bring Christian principles to bear upon the Christian man, with a universality of application to every element of his nature, and under all circum

stances, and at all times, which I think is almost peculiar to them; but for the manner in which they do this, the power and attractiveness, which is brought to serve this end, they are quite as remarkable.

One of the most striking ingredients of the attractiveness which Dr. Arnold's sermons possess, is his intense love of truth which, being as it was such an eminent characteristic of his nature, so it is reflected in all that has fallen from his pen. In his writings it is first seen in the simplicity of his style. Its clearness proceeds from the vividness and fulness with which the subject was before him; and the power which this gave him of instantaneous arrangement. It is more the viva voce communication of an eloquent man, who was master of his subject, than composition. And I believe it was his intense love of what is. true and natural, and his intense dislike of what is false, (to which, in some degree, all that is artificial is akin,) which thus exhibited itself. Again, his subjects are all contemplated in the same truth seeking, and truth loving light. There is no artificial colouring-no exaggeration-no concession, beyond what he conceived to be due to received opinions; no overstrained use of a subject-not for the holiest purpose. Anything but truth seems to have been

beneath his regard. This he pursued without fear; and when he conceived he had found it, nothing deterred him from announcing it. This, I think, was Arnold's pre-eminent and most charming characteristic; and, combined with his noble enthusiasm for whatever was true, or good, or great, it makes him a religious teacher, whose words carry with them a double weight, and go a double depth into the soul. In Arnold's sermons one learns with the heart and head at once; nor would his ability, his gushing and natural eloquence, his enthusiasm, nor all the complex of his other qualities, high as they were, have enlisted the love of all who knew him; and the deep sympathy of all who dip at all deeply into his works-if it had not been for this noblest of his characteristics-his love of truth. This it is which pre-eminently distinguishes him from the Oxford school of divines, to which he was so deeply hostile. His soul loathed their artificial system. And, verily, it may be said of the rival systems of theology, of which he and the Oxford divines are representatives, that to that plain sense which God has given us to walk by-truth is not more clearly stamped upon the one, than falsehood is branded upon the other. A man's moral sense may decide the question between them-almost before the intellect has taken it in

hand.

But what are the features of that practical system to the enforcing of which Arnold brings his high moral and intellectual endowments? The following extracts will show that it was not less remarkable for the comprehensiveness of its application, embracing as it did, in the most defined and distinct manner, the most secular of the employments of life,—than it was eminent for the height and spirituality of that standard of Christian devotedness which it enjoined.

The first is in connexion with the text, "Whatsoever ye do in word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him." (Col. iii. 17.)

"This, (the text,) like the other general rules of the gospel, is familiar enough to us all in its own words; but we are very apt to forbear making the application of it. In fact, he who were to apply it perfectly would be a perfect Christian; for a life in which every word and deed were said and done in the name of the Lord Jesus would be a life indeed worthy of the children of God, and such as they lead in heaven, it would leave no room for sin to enter. The art of our enemy has been, therefore, to make us leave this command of the apostles in its general sense, and avoid exploring, so to speak, all the wisdom contained in it. Certain actions of our lives, our religious services, the more solemn transactions in which we are engaged,-we are willing to do in Christ's name; but that multitude of common words and

ordinary actions by which more than sixty-nine out of our seventy years are filled, we take away from our Lord's dominion, under the foolish and hypocritical pretence that they are too trifling and too familiar to be mixed up with the thought of things so solemn.

We

"This is one fault, and by far the most common. make Christ's service the business only of a very small portion of our lives; we hallow only a very small part of our words and actions by doing them in his name. Unlike our

Lord's own parable, where he compares Christianity to leaven hidden in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened, the practice rather has been to keep the leaven confined to one little corner of the mass of meal; to take care that it should not spread so as to leaven the whole mass." "There is a story told that in times and countries where there prevailed the deepest ignorance, some who came to be baptized in the faith of Christ-converted from their heathen state, not in reality, but only in name-were accustomed to leave their right arm unbaptized, with the notion that this arm, not being pledged to Christ's service, might wreak upon their enemies those works of hatred and revenge which in baptism they had promised to renounce. Is it too much to say that something like this unbaptized right arm is still to be met with amongst us; that men too often leave some of their very most important concerns, what they call, by way of eminence, their business-their management of their own money affairs, and their conduct in public matters, wholly out of the control of Christ's law?" (Serm. Christian Life, p. 427-431.)

Again :

"And if we go to the active professions, the army or the navy, would it not sound even strange to the ears of many