THE VIOLET. and sweet and gentle in disposition. Anna and Sophie promised indeed to be as beautiful as their mother one day. The vines in France and Switzerland had this year suffered much, and the vintage, in consequence, was not a good one. The wine of the previous year soon rose in price, and those who had wine to sell soon began to speculate, and take advantage of the opportunity to realize large profits. Daniel did not wish to act thus; but sold his stock as soon as he could secure a moderate profit, parting with it on the sole condition of being paid ready money. Had he waited another month, his gains would have been doubled. But he felt that, however lawful such a course might be, some would have said that he had only closed his wineshop to realize plenty of money without having the trouble to work for it; and some might have added that it was not conscience or principle which had caused him to change his manner of life, but the prospect of the rise in wine. But Daniel would not let his good be evil spoken of, and the mouths of such men were stopped. Carrying, then, with him the produce of the sale of his ten cart-loads of wine, besides the other money he had already in reserve, Daniel was seen to go forth, one fine morning, accompanied by his son. They were bound on a visit to Cousin Demiollet, who, from one hindrance or another, had been prevented paying them a visit since a certain memorable fast-day. They found him so busy in the midst of his numerous occupations and customers, that at first they did not appear to be very welcome guests. "What brings you here so early, cousin ?" said he. "You ought to have transacted what business you may have in the town first, and then come here to refresh yourself. You see, it is market-day, and we have hardly time to breathe. One must attend to business, and money is scarce just now." "Well, Cousin Demiollet, I am just come for the express purpose of begging you to receive back the sum you lent me some time since. The time is not quite up; it wants about a fortnight, I believe. But if you would oblige me by receiving it to-day, I should be glad. I will pay full interest up to the very day it is due." This was a new sort of way for a debtor to approach a creditor. But Demiollet consented to receive his money back again, and Daniel counted out the 3000 francs, which included the old debt of 1000 francs also. He paid besides 150 francs interest, and on receiving it his cousin presented Jules with a tenfranc piece, in consideration of the anticipated fortnight. The two receipts were duly made out and signed, and given to Daniel, his cousin saying, as he did so "You have, then, closed your establishment. I think you have taken a hasty step; for you were in a very prosperous position. If only you had consented to have dances, and such like exciting amusements, you might soon have made a little fortune." "It might be so," answered Daniel," but I should have acquired it at the price of peace and all domestic happiness. When we see things near, and can test them at their real value, as I have been enabled to do of late, we begin to reflect, and "Nonsense, nonsense! interrupted Demiollet. "You country people are always afraid of drowning yourselves in a glass of water." "Not in a glass of water," answered his cousin; 275 "but in the depths of that abyss from whence none can return." "Yes, yes, yes; I had been told that you have taken up certain high-flown notions. But as my customers are waiting, and I am overwhelmed with business, I must leave you. Go with your son, and take a look at the town. We dine at three o'clock. Come back, and take pot-luck with us.” "Thank you, cousin, but we shall have to return home almost directly." "Well, in that case, good-bye to you. If you should change your mind, you know that all I have is at your service; and that reminds me to say we shall not be able to pay you our visit on the federal fast-day. Goodbye. Remember us to your wife." "And pray offer our kind compliments to your family, and when you can come and see us, remember we shall be glad to welcome you." This Daniel and his son went away, and took a walk about the town to see what was worth looking at. was a great pleasure to Jules. As they went along, his father stopped at a goldsmith's, and bought a plain gold ring, on the inside of which he ordered something to be engraved. They then went to the public walks, and partook of some refreshment while they heard the band play. Jules bought a little present for each of his sisters, and a plaything for little Paul; and as the second bell rang, the father and son took their places in the boat, and by the evening found themselves at home. The gold ring, which was destined for Margaret. bore on the inside the date of what Daniel called the day of their emancipation. He placed it himself upon her finger, close to that other ring, which reminded them both of the day when they had promised in the sight of God, to live a godly life, and to share always in each other's joys and sorrows. And now, my reader, if you desire to hear any further tidings of our two friends, I am able to tell you that they have not halted on their way. Life is not to them, any more than to others, all roses, without thorns. Neither are they in their Christian character free from faults and infirmities. In a word, they are not perfect. But this one thing they most certainly do: "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, they are pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God, in Christ Jesus." They are also diligent in their worldly calling, yet not greedy of gain, but large-hearted, and ever ready to give to those who are in want. Jules Osterd and Daniel Veily are a blessing to the place where they reside; they are ever striving to do good to all, to be useful to all; and as this is seen and acknowledged by all those among whom they live, they enjoy the respect and consideration they so well deserve. Were you to ask these two men what they consider the prevailing evil of their time, they would answer that while drunkenness is the most common, as it is the most brutalizing of all sins, as well as the one most difficult to overcome-there is really but one great universal sin, to which all are by nature inclined, and that is the love of evil-in other words, disobedience to the commands of God; and that it is from this root that all the sin which prevails over the face of the whole earth springs. And they would also tell you that the only remedy for all this moral misery is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ: the experimental knowledge that it is his precious blood alone which cleanseth from all sin; his atonement upon the cross which can alone procure us acceptance before God, as it is the power of the Holy Spirit alone which can convert the heart, renew the mind, and bring it into subjection to the holy will of God. ISAAC BARROW. II. friends thought that he was unmercifully cruel "to himself, not taking sufficient sleep or food. He used alway to sleep with the means of procuring a light beside him, and he would at times get up while it was yet dark, and pursue his studies. He was a most kind and obliging man. When he was young, he used to do their college exercises for his idle friends, and when he was Master, his learned friends were freely made welcome to one of his manuscripts after another. He appears to have been careless and inattentive to his personal appearance, even beyond the OUR notices of Barrow's latter days are scanty, but wont of the most negligent scholars. There is a very full of interest. Once a year there is an election of curious narrative about this. One day he was going scholars at Westminster school, to go up to Christ to preach for a friend at St. Lawrence, Jewry. At Church, Oxford, or Trinity College, Cambridge. On the appointed hour, a pale, meagre, unpromising-lookthese occasions, Barrow, as a matter of official duty, ing man made his appearance in the pulpit, dressed in used to come up to town. He stayed "in mean lodg- a slovenly manner, with his collar unbuttoned and his ings, at a saddler's near Charing Cross, an old, low, hair uncombed. It so happened that an alarm of fire ill-built house, which he had used for several years." was raised, and most of the congregation went away. His affectionate friend Dr. Pope, thus writes: "The The preacher was utterly unmoved by the commotion, last time he was in London, he went to Knightsbridge, gave out his text, and went through his sermon to the to give the Bishop of Salisbury a visit, and then made two or three people present. It so happened that the me engage by word to come to him at Trinity College great and good Baxter was one of the persons who immediately after the Michaelmas ensuing. I cannot remained. Some of the parishioners thought fit to call express the rapture of joy I was in, having, as I upon Dr. Wilkins "to expostulate with him, why he thought, so near a prospect of his charming and in- suffered such an ignorant, scandalous fellow to have structive conversation. I fancied it would be a heaven the use of his pulpit." Dr. Wilkins appealed to Mr. on earth; for he was immensely rich in learning, Baxter, who was present. Baxter had already told and very liberal and communicative of it, delighting Wilkins that he had never heard a better discourse; in nothing more than to impart to others, if they de- he had declared that he could have sat and listened sired it, whatever he had attained by much time and all the day long. The complainants must have been study; but of a sudden all my hopes vanished, and very astonished at hearing this. They changed their were melted like snow before the sun.' During this tone, and confessed "they did not hear one word of visit to London he had preached a remarkable sermon at the sermon, but were carried to mislike it by his Guildhall, on the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. unpromising garb and mien, the reading of his prayer, Dining with his friends, Dr. Pope and the Bishop of and the going away of the congregation." They even Salisbury, he was observed not to eat. He said begged Dr. Wilkins to procure them the pleasure of that he had a slight indisposition upon him, with hearing Barrow preach again. But we are told, in which he had struggled two or three days, and he language more curt than courteous, that he "could hoped by fasting and opium to get it off, as he had not by any persuasions be prevailed upon to comply removed another and more dangerous sickness at Con-with the request of such conceited, hypocritical stantinople some years before. The sickness increased into high fever. It was thought that his way of treating himself by opium aggravated the disease. Unfavourable symptoms manifested themselves; the physician was struck with horror at his appearance, and when he left him, thought to himself that he should never see him more. Thus, at the age of forty-seven, in the prime of his age, fame, and usefulness, he was cut off. The fever was first caused by a cold which he had taken by his devotion in preaching. That sermon, one of the noblest and most eloquent which he ever delivered, was on "Glorying in the Cross." He employed his dying band in preparing it for the press. In the language of his simple-hearted biographer, Abraham Hill: "His death was suitable to his life not this imperfect, slight life as I relate it, but that admirable, heroic life which he lived." We should all be very glad to know something of the personal appearance, something of the characteristic traits of this celebrated man. We are told that he was thin, and rather below the usual height: "of extraordinary strength, of a fair and calm complexion, a thin skin, very sensible of the cold; his eyes gray, clear, and somewhat short-sighted; his hair of a light auburn, very fine and curling." His * The sermon in last week's Pulpit in the Family was the introduction to this discourse. coxcombs." The sermons of Barrow are very unlike the great majority of all other sermons. They were written in a very unusual mode, and are, therefore, to be judged according to exceptional rules. Barrow had no settled pulpit. He never at regular intervals addressed regular congregations. He was himself conscious that if this had been the case, a different system would have been necessary. He says he would then have shortened his sermons, and have trusted to his memory. As it was, when he meditated upon a text he produced a treatise. The subject was exhaustively treated: nothing was left unsaid which ought or could be said. His plan was to think over some important subject, and then, selecting a text, write a sermon upon it. ; The preaching the sermon was with him a secondary point; his first thought was to deal thoroughly with the whole length and breadth of his subject. was to prosecute the matter thoroughly to a termination.' He even speaks of this as his "imperfection, not to be able to draw his thoughts easily from one thing to another." This is an "imperfection" of a very peculiar kind; it would indeed be well if it were only more common. Nothing is more rare than this faculty of sustained attention. Indeed, some philosophers have given a definition of genius very little different from this "imperfection" of which Barrow speaks. His auditors were occasionally severe His method ISAAC BARROW. sufferers from these excellencies. Various stories are told of the portentous length to which his sermons extended. His friends allow that they were not "orations designed to be spoken in an hour." On one occasion he was going to preach in Westminster Abbey. The Dean told him not to be long: the Abbey congregation liked short sermons, and were used to them. Hereupon Barrow produced his sermon. The Dean of Westminster glanced over it, and begged him to give them only the first part. With visible reluctance, Barrow consented. It occupied one hour and a-half. On another occasion he preached before the lord mayor and aldermen. He then gave them the whole of his sermon. It occupied three hours and a half. Some one asked him whether he was not tired. "Yes, indeed," said he, "I began to be weary with standing so long." It is, of course, manifest that sermons such as these were not fitted for ordinary ministerial use. They could not be so by reason both of their great length and their great learning. But though scarcely sermons in themselves, they form a storehouse from which multitudes of sermons have been, and always will be drawn. "He must be either a perfectly good or prodigiously bad man that can read them without being the better for them." Of his posthumous work, the "Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy," a modern critic speaks thus: "We can imagine nothing whereunto to liken the glorious work of Barrow, but the mighty telescope of Herschel--an instrument which brings up from the abyss of space a countless multitude of luminaries which hid themselves from the search of unassisted vision. Even so does the gigantic labour of Barrow call up from the depths of antiquity a galaxy of witnesses, who pass over our field of view in perfect order and distinctness, and shed a broad and steady illumination over the path of the inquirer." It is difficult which to admire most, Barrow's natural or attained powers. His mind was one of the very highest order. It exhibits that admixture of logical with rhetorical power which the critics hold to be the perfection of written or oral eloquence. His object is kept before him with severe simplicity; his reasoning is of mathematical cogency; but as he proceeds with his subject the rigid lines burst into fruit and flower, and his diction, exuberant and energetic, rises to a grave and impressive eloquence. Such qualities are those which are found in our greatest masters, not only in the sermons of Barrow, but the essays of Francis Bacon and the speeches of Edmund Burke. A characteristic anecdote is found about Barrow and his sermons in an old book by one of his contemporaries:-"We were once going from Salisbury to London, he, Barrow, in the coach with the bishop, and I on horseback. As he was entering the coach, I perceived his pockets sticking out near half a foot, and I said to him, 'What have you got in your pockets?' He replied, 'Sermons.' 'Sermons!' said I, 'give them to me; my boy shall carry them in his portmanteau, and ease you of that luggage. But,' said he, 'suppose your boy should be robbed? That is pleasant,' I said. 'Do you think that there are persons padding on the road for sermons?' 'Why, what have you?' said he. It may be five or six guineas,' I answered. Barrow replied, I hold my sermons at a greater rate, for they have cost me much pains and time.' 'Well, then,' said I, 'if you will secure my five or six guineas against lay-padders, I will secure your sermons against ecclesiastical highwaymen.' This was agreed. He 6 277 emptied his pockets, and filled my portmanteau with his divinity; and we had the good fortune to come safe to our journey's end, and bring both our treasures to London." We desire to lay a few passages from Barrow's sermons before our readers. The difficulty is to make a selection out of the multiplicity that might be quoted. It is impossible to take up any volume of Barrow, and examine it at all carefully, without being struck with the great number of passages which might well deserve a most familiar place in our hearts and recollections. The poor man." He whose need moves our bounty, whose misery demands our mercy, what is he? He is not truly so mean and sorry a thing as the disguise of his fortune under which he appears doth represent him. He who looks so deformedly and dismally, who to outward sight is so ill bestead, and so pitifully accoutred, hath latent in him much of admirable beauty and glory. He within himself containeth a nature very excellent; an immortal soul and an intelligent mind, by which he nearly resembleth God himself, and is comparable to angels; he invisibly is owner of endowments rendering him capable of the greatest and best things. What are money and lands? what are silks and fine linen? what are horses and hounds, in comparison to reason, to wisdom, to virtue, to religion, which he hath, or, in despite of all misfortune, he may have if he please? He whom you behold so dejectedly sneaking, in so despicable a garb, so destitute of all heaven's ease and comfort, he comes of a most high and heavenly extraction; he was born a prince, the son of the greatest King eternal; he can truly call the sovereign Lord of all the world his Father, having derived his soul from the mouth, having had his body formed by the hands of God himself. That same forlorn wretch, whom we are so apt to despise and trample on, was formed and constituted lord of the visible world, had all the goodly brightnesses of heaven, and all the costly furniture of earth created to serve him. .. Vile and contemptible as he looks, God hath so regarded and prized him, as for his sake to descend from heaven, to clothe himself with flesh, to assume the form of a servant; for his good to undertake and undergo the most grievous troubles and most sharp pains incident to mortal nature. God hath adopted him to be his child; the Son of God hath deigned to call him brother; he is a member of Christ, a temple of the Holy Ghost, a free denizen of the heavenly city, an heir of salvation, and candidate of eternal glory. The greatest and richest peerage is not capable of better privileges than God hath granted him, or of higher preferments than God hath designed him to. He, equally with the mightiest prince, is the object of God's especial providence and grace, of his continual regard and care, of his fatherly love and affection. fine, this poor creature whom thou seest is a man and a Christian, thy equal whoever thou art in nature, and thy peer in condition: I say not in the uncertain and unstable gifts of fortune, not in his worldly state, which is very inconsiderable; but in gifts vastly more precious, in title to an estate infinitely more rich and excellent." And again he writes of those who are poor in this world's goods, but rich in grace: .... In "There are considerations which may qualify poverty even to dispute the place with wealth and to claim precedence to it. If the world vulgarly doth account and call the rich man happy, a better Author has pronounced the poor man such. Blessed are the poor doth march in the van of the beatitudes; and a reason goeth along therewith, which associates its right to the place, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; for that they are not only in an equal capacity as men, but in a nearer disposition as poor to the acquisition of that blissful state; for that poverty (the mistress of sobriety and honest industry, the mother of humility and patience, the source of all virtue) renders men more willing to go, and more expedites in the way towards heaven. By it also we conform to the Son of God himself, the heir of eternal majesty, the Saviour of the world, who for our sake became poor that we through his poverty might become rich. He willingly chose, he especially dignified and sanctified that depth of poverty which we so proudly slight and loath. The greatest princes and potentates in the world, the most wealthy and haughty of us all, but for our poor beggars had been irrecoverably miserable. To poverty it is that every one of us doth owe all the possibility there is, all the hopes we can have of our salvation." Wisdom."It remains that we endeavour to obtain this excellent endowment of soul by the faithful exercise of our reason, careful observation of things, diligent study of the divine law, watchful reflection upon ourselves, virtuous and religious practice; but especially by imploring the divine influence, the original spring of light and fountain of all true knowledge, following St. James's advice, If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth liberally.' Therefore, O everlasting Wisdom, the Maker, Redeemer, and Governor of all things, let some comfortable beams from thy great body of heavenly light descend upon us, to illuminate our dark minds and quicken our dead hearts; to inflame us with ardent love unto thee, and to direct our steps in obedience to thy laws, through the gloomy shades of this world into that region of eternal light and bliss, where thou reignest in perfect glory and majesty, one God ever blessed, world without end. Amen." Virtue." Virtue is not a mushroom that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep and regard it not, but a delicate plant that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather: happiness is a thing too precious to be purchased at any rate; heaven is too high to be come at without much climbing; the crown of bliss too noble to be won without a long and a tough conflict." Vice." Vice, as it groweth in age, so it improveth in stature and strength; from a puny child it soon waxeth a lusty stripling, then riseth to be a sturdy man, and after a while becomes a massy giant, whom we shall scarce dare to encounter, whom we shall be very hardly able to vanquish : especially seeing that as it groweth taller and stouter, so we shall dwindle and become more impotent; for it feedeth upon our vitals and thriveth by our decay; it waxeth mighty by stripping us of our best forces, by enfeebling our reason, by perverting our will, by corrupting our temper, by debasing our courage, by seducing all our appetites and passions to a treacherous compliance with itself; every day our mind growing more blind, our will more restive, our spirit more faint, our appetites more fierce, our passions more headstrong and untameable; the power and empire of sin do strangely by degrees encroach, and continually get ground upon us till it hath quite subdued and enthralled us. First we learn to bear it; then we come to like it; by and by we contract a | friendship with it; then we dote on it; at last we become enslaved to it in a bondage which we shall hardly be able or willing to shake off."* Industry." If the water runneth it holdeth clear, sweet and fresh; but stagnation turneth it into a noisome puddle: if the air be fanned by winds it is pure and wholesome; but from being shut up it groweth thick and putrid: if metals be employed they abide smooth and splendid; but lay them up and they soon contract rust: if the earth be belaboured with culture, it yieldeth corn; but, lying neglected, it will be overgrown with bushes and thistles, and the better its soil is, the ranker weeds it will produce all nature is upheld in its being, order, and shape by constant agitation; every creature is incessantly employed in action conformable to its designed end and use; in like manner the preservation and improvement of our faculties depends on their constant exercise, . . . to it God hath annexed the best and most desirable rewards; success to our undertakings, wealth, honour, wisdom, virtue, salvation; all which, as they flow from God's bounty and depend on his blessing; so from them they are usually conveyed to us through our industry, as the ordinary channel and instrument of attaining them." Ejaculatory Prayer.-"Most businesses have wide gaps, all have some chinks at which devotion may slip in. Be we never so urgently set or closely intent upon any work (be we feeding, be we travelling, be we trading, be we studying) nothing yet can forbid but that we may together wedge in a thought concerning God's goodness, and bring forth a word of praise for it; but that we may reflect on our sins and spend a penitential sigh on them; but that we may descry our need of God's help and despatch a brief petition for it: a God be praised, a Lord have mercy, a God bless, or God help me will no wise interrupt or disturb our proceedings. As worldly cares and desires do often intrude and creep into our devotions, distracting and defiling them, so may spiritual thoughts and holy affections insinuate themselves into and hallow our secular transactions." THE CHURCH OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON. THE church of Stratford-on-Avon is one of the most perfect types of rural and architectural combination in all England. The tall, heaven-pointing spire, the graceful avenue of dense overhanging lime-trees, the gently-flowing river reflecting the fine old chancel window, the quaint old grave-stones, the quiet beauty and venerable antiquity of the whole scene, render the place attractive, even without the special interest belonging to it as the burial-place of Shakespeare. Dugdale, the Warwickshire antiquary, says that it is "of a very ancient structure, little less than the Conqueror's time, as I guess by the fabric of the tower steeple, but part thereof besides hath been rebuilt at several times." In the reign of Edward III., John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, rebuilt the south aisle. The same prelate had, in 1332, founded a chantry in the chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr, adjoining the south aisle. The residence of the priests, on the west side of the churchyard, was called the * Pope may have had this passage in his mind when he wrote :— "Vice is a monster of such hideous mien As to be hated needs but to be seen; But seen too oft, familiar with its face We first endure, then pity, then embrace." THE CHURCH OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON. College, whence the church obtained the title of colle- | giate, which it still bears. This college, and also the Guild of the Holy Cross, established in the middle of the thirteenth century, shared the fate of all similar foundations at the dissolution of monastic houses in the reign of Henry VIII. The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is built in the form of a cross. The tower was originally surmounted by a wooden spire, lined with lead, about half the height of the present spire, erected in 1763, which is eightythree feet, the tower being eighty. The chancel, or choir, the finest part of the edifice, was erected by Dr. Thomas Balsall, Dean of Stratford, between 1465 and 1491. His monument is within the communion rail. The principal entrance to the church is into the nave, which is "raised on six pointed arches on each side, and supported by hexagonal pillars, above which, on both sides, is a range of twelve clerestory Gothic windows, cach subdivided by two upright mullions, terminating in open tracery, and the roof is surmounted by plain battlements." The north aisle, referred by some writers to the time of Edward 1., contains some curious monuments, chiefly of the Clopton family, one of whom, Sir Hugh Clopton, was Lord Mayor of London in 1492. Other parts of the church contain ancient monuments, but the mind refuses to dwell on any object not associated with the name of Shakespeare, so that it has even been said that the whole pile seems but as his mausoleum." This feeling is natural, but how far is it justifiable? Was there in the great poet of nature and of life, whose spirit was in sympathy with all the outer world, anything to excite feelings consonant with the sacred precincts of the house of God? We rejoice to think that there was, and that the honour given to man is in this case consistent with the reverence and worship due to Flim who is the giver of genius as well as of grace. We may hope that in his later years of tranquil retirement at Stratford, holy influences were felt in the home of Shakespeare, and that there was more than solemn formality in the words with which his will commences: "I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping, and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." Hugh Miller, in the account of his pilgrimage to Stratford, remarks that, "the truth had somehow got into the family," referring especially to the inscription on the tomb of Shakespeare's favourite daughter, Susanna, the wife of Dr. Hall : Witty above her sexe, but that's not all, To weepe with her that wept with all? That wept, yet set herself to chere Them up with comforts cordiall? The inscription on the tomb of Shakespeare's widow expresses, in terms of pious affection, the sorrow of this "good Mistris Hall." It is probable that before the poet's death they formed one family circle, where the fear of God ruled. There is a curious entry in the town records of Stratford which gives a glimpse into the religious history of the time, as well as the tendencies in the family at New Place. In the Chamberlain's account there is an entry for wine given "to a preacher at the New Place." The persecution against the 279 Puritans had already commenced, and we know from Heylin and others that Warwickshire was strong in its hostility to the Popish tendencies of the party in power. The preacher at New Place, in 1614, two years before Shakespeare's death, was probably a guest of Mrs. Hall, and may have been one whom the worthy magistrates were pleased thus to compliment. Richard Byfield, the vicar of Stratford from 1596 to 1618, is said to have been "one of the most zealous of the Puritan ministers" (C. Knight's Life of Shakespeare, chap. ii.) Long before this, however, the mind of Shakespeare had been imbued with at least the outward knowledge of divine truth. Not to refer to the teachings of Protestant church or school, it is evident from his works that the language of Holy Writ was familiar to him, as it only could have been through early home training. In a volume entitled "Shakespeare and the Bible," by the Rev. J. R. Eaton, some hundreds of passages are collected, in which the ideas, and usually the very words, of the version then in use occur. Some of these quotations may be frivolous, and others objectionable, but the proof is complete of "the vastness of Shakespeare's Bible lore." "It is reasonable," says Mr. Eaton, "to believe that he was indebted to his mother for early lessons of piety, and that he was conversant with the Holy Scriptures from a child." In a sermon preached before the university of Cambridge in 1808, by the Rev. James Plumptre, many passages were quoted to the same effect, "with the approbation," we are told, "of the pious Bishop Horne." Another writer, the Rev. J. Price, in a volume on "The Wisdom and Genius of Shakespeare," refers to many passages of Scripture quoted throughout his works as showing the strong tincture of divine truth, affording evidence of his mind having been deeply imbued with the pure morality of the gospel.' While it is therefore all the more to be regretted that this knowledge did not deter its possessor from ever lending his genius to the service of vice or folly, the most spiritually-minded reader may derive instruction from his works. Good Mr. Cecil, in his "Remains,' says, "A man whose heart and taste are modelled on the Bible nauseates Shakespeare in the mass, while he is enraptured and astonished by the flashes of his pre-eminent genius." Though mercy be thy plea, consider this; Nor was he a believer in the vague attribute of mercy apart from divine justice, like those in our own day who despise the doctrine of the atonement Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once, The commentators explain this as referring to "Man at his first creation, innocent as Adam!" The poet is a better theo |