character. In these moments, when the soul swings loose from its chains and goes whither it will, the direction in which it moves shows the flow of the current; it indicates where for the time the chief attraction of the soul lies, what is its governing affection. If, for example, a man habitually spends his evenings in the tavern, indulging himself with richer food and more generous liquors than his wife and children ever taste, we have no difficulty, no hesitation, in setting him down for a selfish sot and sensualist. If another hurries through his scanty meal to devour books or take lessons, secured only at the cost of threadbare clothes and stinted appetites, we may very certainly conclude that an ardent desire for knowledge has been kindled in him which many waters will not quench. And the same principle holds as in these grosser and more obvious cases so also with those which are more delicate and refined. Learn how men spend their leisure hours, and you may quite accurately infer their ruling passion, the affection or desire which for the time is supreme.

But now, to take a graver tone: Suppose that no one evening of the week is given to God and His service; suppose that of all these leisure hours absolutely none are devoted to prayer, or to study of the Inspired Word, or to acts of mercy and compassion: What then? Are we to conclude that this delicate criterion, this accurate test, has suddenly failed us? Must we not sorrowfully conclude rather that the man who thus drops God and God's service out of his leisure, is, whatever he may think himself, no true servant of God? Ah, Religion is no subordinate and occasional affection of the soul. It is the pervading and supreme affection. And if the week pass, and still it give no sign of its presence, must it not be because it is not there?

Suppose, again, that a man does give some portion of his leisure to the Divine Service, but makes it as little as he can: Suppose that he will take thought and make sacrifices to spend an evening with his friends or to join a pleasant game which he will not make to join the company of the faithful in the Father's House, or to visit the widow and the orphan in their affliction: Suppose he has so many objects of interest and desire that he can hardly make room for the thought and service of God, and the study of the Word, and the prayers which feeds the inward fires of the soul-What can we say of him? Must we not say that he is in great peril of letting his true life slip; that, although he may still be ranked among the servants of Christ, he is nevertheless in imminent danger of losing his place?

Or take another application of our test. A good many of us contrive to secure an annual holiday at the autumn season of the year. We are "let go" from our accustomed duties.

We

travel into new scenes, haunting the mountain-top or the shore of the sounding sea. We fling away from us the cords both of Labour and Conventionalism. We wear what we like, wander where we please, and sit loose to most of our usual habits. The sense of our unaccustomed liberty warms our very blood. We revel in our rare freedom. And wherever we go, we go each man "to his own "-to the place or people we like, to the form of exercise or the mode of rest in which we most take delight. We shout with rapture as the familiar mountain-peaks come into view, or as we plunge through the rough waves of the sea; or we sit in placid content by babbling brooks, and on rustic stiles, and in fragrant woods whose edges are all alive with song. We are with our own at last, with the things, perhaps alsolucky fellows that we are!-with the persons, we love best. The delicious languors of repose after long wearying toil are welcome to us; so too are the pure keen air and sweet water and springing turf of the hills. And if we are Christian in thought and feeling as well as in name, all these, and all other natural beauties about us, speak to us of the beauty and goodness of God; our joy in rest speaks to us of the profounder rest of the soul, and our joy in exercise of a more arduous and happy service.

But if it should chance that so soon as we leave our work and home and church, with their stringent yet most helpful restraints, we carefully discharge all trace of Christian thought and feeling from our hearts, all speech of Christian truth from our lips, and are even at pains to be rid of all signs of the Christian profession from our look and manner: if we assume strange freedoms of thought and word, and would rather be taken for men of the world than for servants of Christ,-a dismal affectation of which many examples are to be met where one would least expect them: How is it with us then? Why then we are with "our own," but God is not there, nor Christ-the God whom we call "Our Father," the Christ in whom we boast as our Saviour and Friend!

Must there not be something very wrong with us, some grave defect of faith or love, some secret dangerous insincerity even, if in our happiest moments we turn not to, but from, the Author of our happiness; if when we are most under the charm of natural beauty we draw away from Him who has made every thing beautiful in its season; if when we are most free from our customary restraints, and our soul turns lightly on its centre, we do not instinctively bend toward Him whose service is the true freedom, and yield to the magnetic attractions of His love?

LLENNARD.

SUNDAY EVENING.

BY REV. R. H. BAYNES, M.A.

'Tis Sunday eve in summer's sweetest time,
The sun just sinking 'neath the purple hills,
A strange, husht calm my inmost spirit fills,
As here I listen to the old Church-chime.

Before me-like the glassy sea of old-
Waveless in Sabbath-quiet sleeps the bay,
One white sail glimmering in the far-away,
Amid the waters tinged with dying gold.

Gently the twilight shadows all the land,

While from the ghostly clouds that fringe the sky, The moon all pale and new gleams forth on high, Like silver sickle held by Angel-hand.

Surely all nature owns the Sabbath hour,

Else why this peace so sweetly hovering round,
This silence, eloquent yet so profound,
That holds us in its deep, mysterious power?

O Evening flusht with gladness! how I love
Thy peaceful benediction! like the dew
Baptizing earth, and making all things new,
Thou liitest lower thoughts and hopes above!

I think of Eden and its sinless bowers,

Of God Himself walking in cool of day, Where yet no trail of deadly serpent lay, And gladdening Adam thro' the restful hours;

I think of Joseph's garden, and its cave

Rock-hewn, from whence the mighty Conqueror rose The Lord of Life, who vanquisht all our foes, And flung a ray of brightness o'er the grave!

But most I think me of that sunlit shore,
Where tempests beat not, and no shadows fall,
Where God and His dear love are all-in-all,
And we shall falter, sin, and weep no more!

That rest remaineth; yet these days of peace
Are foretastes sweet of that glad Home above,
Where all His, perfected in light and love,
At last shall meet, and every sigh shall cease!

Lord of the Sabbath! Whom our hearts adore!
Accept the feeble anthem of our praise,
And fit us holier, loftier hymns to raise
In Thy great Temple-blest for evermore.

PASTOR AND PEOPLE.*

By "people" here I understand the congregation as a whole, without making any sharp distinction between the "Church," technically so called, and the rest of the body of worshipers. "Pew-holders" may be an indispensable word in our dissenting nomenclature, but it has no place in a subject like this. All the habitual worshipers here constitute in reality "the people;" "church" if you like; ecclesia; or, bearing in mind the designation "pastor," we may say "the flock;" for all persons who join in Christian worship, by that fact, whether consciously or not, profess themselves Christians; and, by uniting in such worship here, they place themselves, or are placed by Providence, under the pastoral care of the minister.

I need not observe that "pastor" is another word for shepherd, and is therefore a relative term, and I am to say a word or two on the relation which subsists between the Pastor and the People; and which is a very real and important one, and the more real and important you recognize it to be the better for all of you. The designation "pastor" has this advantage, that it is a scriptural one, and as yet tolerably retains its purity of meaning. It has not been corrupted as so many other terms have been. If I lay stress on its being scriptural, it is because I remember other designations in use, and how hurtful may be the influence of

This Article is a very brief outline of an Address recently delivered at the settlement of a minister, and we should not have introduced it into the "CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR" but for local reasons, suggested as sufficient to justify an exceptional proceeding. As the address was a lengthened one, the interest felt in it must have been due rather to "the filling up" than to the outline of thought as here given. However, as we do not disapprove of the sentiment, we give it a place as desired.-ED.

undesirable ones; for we cannot ask with the young inexperienced Juliet, "What's in a name?"

Now the word "priest" is used by some, to denote, not so much a class as, in truth, an order of christian men, totally distinct from all other christian men. And in the Roman Catholic Church it is used with a certain consistency, for there the priest is supposed to offer sacrifice, and they therefore with design speak of what Protestants call the Lord's table as an altar. The Romanists therefore can with a sad and pernicious consistency use the word priest; but no true Protestant can do so consistently with sound Protestant principles, and it is deeply to be regretted that the Church of England retains the word, to which many of its most honoured ministers-not merely of "the high" Anglican party, but even such men as Frederick Denison Maurice, for example-cling with a strange tenacity, so explaining it moreover as to denude it to their own minds of its sacerdotal character, while they ought to be aware that their philological defence of it is without effect on the multitude. No christian man is or can be a priest in any other sense than that in which all the Lord's people are a holy priesthood. Neither is "clergyman" altogether a happy word, though I suppose it cannot now be got rid of, and all that remains is to take care that it shall as much as possible be used only as synonymous with more scriptural terms. All the Lord's people are his "clergy," his "portion," and the word ought not in strictness to be used for one christian man, be he who or what he may, more than for another; and there is no more sound reason, either in the nature of things or in philology, for the word clergyman than for the word clergywoman. However, the word is now so interwoven with our national arrangements and habits that it carries with it a technical meaning, and as such must be left to the exclusive use of those who assume it. "Do you know, sir, that you are speaking to your proper parochial clergyman?" was a question rebukingly put the other day to a parishioner who took the liberty of expressing his dissatisfaction with some recent alterations in the service at the parish church;-a question which our pastors neither are able nor would be willing to put. The relation of a christian pastor to a body of fellow-worshipers is not of this kind.

And I think the term very happily keeps the mean between two opposite errors. As on the one hand it excludes the sacerdotal, so on the other it tends to preserve from an under-rating of the character of the relation. For there are two opposite errors in this matter to which we find christians exposed: that of erecting those who minister into a separate order, and endowing them with prerogatives hurtful to the body and not less pernicious to