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instantaneous and radical change of the heart and will, wrought by the new creative power of the Holy Ghost. What need is there of divine regeneration if the will is not radically corrupt? On the one hand regeneration is made to degenerate into a mere resolution, determination, or emotion of the sinner. On the other it becomes a result of baptism, or follows gradually the observance of certain forms, rights, or church ordinances.

The fourth step is one of general doubt in regard both to the full inspiration of the Scriptures and the supernatural in religion. Most that cannot be resolved into general laws is rejected by one process or another. Here the way becomes slippery, and humid fogs, and murky and thick atmosphere prevail. Few that go down thus far ever return. They do not always give up the general forms and vague hopes of religion. The immortal dreamer of Bedford Jail presents the shepherds leading the Pilgrims, first to the top of a hill called Error, which was very steep on the farther side, and bidding them look down to the bottom. "So Christian and Hopeful looked down, and saw at the bottom several men dashed all to pieces by a fall that they had from the top." Then they led them to the top of Mount Caution and bid them look afar off upon several men walking up and down among the tombs; and they say to their astonished guests, "These men (pointing to them among the tombs,) came once on pilgrimage, as you do now, even until they came to that same stile. And because the right way was rough in that place, they chose to go out of it into that meadow, and there were taken by Giant Despair, and cast into Doubting Castle, where, after they had awhile been kept in the dungeon, he at last did put out their eyes, and led them among those tombs, where he has left them to wander to this very day, that the saying of the wise man might be fulfilled, "He that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.”

ARTICLE II.

GEORGE HERBERT.

Boston Crosby, Nich

:

Walton's Lives: The Life of Mr. George Herbert, Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral. By IZAAK WALTON. New edition, with Illustrative Notes, Index, etc. ols & Co. For William Veazie. The Complete Works of George Herbert. burgh T. Nelson & Sons. 1854.

1861.

London and Edin

SAYS the thoughtful author of that charming little volume, "The Patience of Hope," "Some quaint old English poems and devout essays send a fragrance into the very soul; to look into them is to open the tomb of a saint, and find it full of roses." Such has been our experience with the writings of George Herbert.

But in this age, whose face is set towards the future, the treasures of the past are apt to be overlooked or depreciated. The richly stored caskets of jewels which the fathers have bequeathed to us, have, to many, seemed too dusty and unprom ising to be worth unlocking. Happily there are signs that the craving for novelty is becoming somewhat satiated, and that truth and beauty, of whatever age and circumstance, are finding more just appreciation. Let us hope that Herbert, that true poet of the church, may share in such a restoration. The quaint conceits and crowded imagery which have been superseded by a simpler and more natural style, were in his day esteemed the richest setting for the jewels of thought. And it cannot be creditable to our taste or judgment if we throw away the precious stone, because its casket does not please us. To change the figure if "the outside of the vase is scrawled over with odd shapes and writing, within are precious liquors, and healing medicines, and rare mixtures of far-gathered herbs and flowers."

The life of Herbert is itself a nobler poem than any which he wrote. He was born at the Castle of Montgomery, in Wales,

April 3, 1593; being the fifth of ten children of Richard and Magdalen Newport Herbert. He "spent much of his childhood in a sweet content under the eye and care of his prudent mother," who seems to have been unusually fitted for the task which devolved upon her at her husband's death. It was probably as true of her with regard to George, as to her eldest son, Edward, that "she managed her power over him without any such rigid sourness as might make her company a torment to her child; but with such a sweetness and compliance with the recreations and pleasures of youth, as did incline him willingly to spend much time in the company of his dear and careful mother." Dr. Donne has characterized her in one of his poems as "The Autumnal Beauty," and dedicated to her a volume of "Holy Hymns and Sonnets," of which Walton says, in his quaint and touching way: "These hymns are now lost to us; but doubtless they were such as they two now sing in heaven." At the age of fifteen (1608) Herbert entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where his progress is sufficiently indicated by the fact that he was made Bachelor of Arts in 1611; Major Fellow of the College in 1615; and in 1619 was advanced to the distinguished position of Orator for the University, which he retained for eight years with signal honor to himself and his college; attracting the favorable notice of the most eminent men of that period, and of the king himself, who gave him a sinecure which Queen Elizabeth had formerly bestowed upon her favorite, Philip Sidney. It seems probable that he entertained, for a long time, strong expectations of preferment, which, however, were doomed to disappointment, "God having provided some better thing" for him than worldly advancement. Upon resigning his hopes at court he retired to Kent, where he lived in the most secluded manner, and in this retreat

"He had many conflicts with himself, whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a court life, or betake himself to a study of divinity, and enter into sacred orders, to which his dear mother had often persuaded him. These were such conflicts as they only can know that have endured them; for ambitious desires and the outward glory of this world are not easily laid aside; but at last God inclined him to put on a resolution to serve Him at His altar."

The date of Herbert's ordination is not certainly known,

but in 1626 he was made Prebend of Layton Ecclesia, in Huntingdonshire. Three years later, being out of health, he paid a visit to a friend in Wiltshire, and while there married Jane Danvers, the daughter of a great admirer of Herbert — Charles Danvers, of Bainton. Herbert and Miss Danvers had long known each other by report, and a short courtship sufficed. They were married three days after the first interview, nor had they ever reason to repent their haste. Walton says of them:

"The Eternal Lover of mankind made them happy in each other's mutual and equal affections and compliance; indeed, so happy that there never was any opposition between them, unless it were a contest which should most incline to a compliance with each other's desires; . . . and . . . this mutual content and love and joy did receive a daily augmentation, by such daily obligingness to each other as still added such new affluences to the former fulness of these divine souls, as was only improvable in heaven, where they now enjoy it."

Some three months after his marriage, Herbert was presented with the living of Bemerton, near Salisbury, where he spent the remainder of his life.

"Here," says Walton, "I must stop, and bespeak the reader to prepare for an almost incredible story of the great sanctity of the short remainder of Herbert's holy life; a life so full of charity, humility, and all Christian virtues, that it deserves the eloquence of St. Chrysostom to commend and declare it."

For the space of a little more than two years which Herbert lived after his removal to Bemerton, he was unwearied in the labors of his office. Careful in the instruction, and tender in the consolation of his flock; solemnly exhorting to the way of holiness, and steadily pursuing it himself; "he made every day's sanctity a step towards that kingdom where impurity cannot enter." His chief relaxation was music, "in which heavenly art he was a most excellent master, and did himself compose many divine hymns or anthems which he set to music, and sung to his lute or viol." He went regularly to a private "music meeting," at Salisbury, saying that music "did relieve his drooping spirits, compose his distracted thoughts, and raise his weary soul so far above earth that it gave him an earnest of the joys of heaven before he possessed them." Herbert has written thus of "Church Musick":

"Sweetest of sweets, I thank you: when displeasure
Did through my bodie wound my minde,

You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure
A daintie lodging me assign'd.

Now I in you without a bodie move,

Rising and falling with your wings:
We both together sweetly live and love,
Yet say sometimes, God help poore Kings!

"Comfort, I'll die; for if you poste from me,
Sure I shall do so, and much more;

But if I travell in your companie,

You know the way to heaven's doore."

From these joys he was not long to be detained. Consumption had fastened itself upon him. But his increasing weakness, while it compelled him to give up, one by one, those labors in which he had so delighted, revealed to him more fully day by day the pleasing prospects of eternity. He sends this message to a friend: "Tell him that I do not repine, but am pleased with my want of health; and tell him my heart is fixed on that place where true joy is only to be found; and that I long to be there, and do wait for my appointed change with hope and patience." "The Sunday before his death, he rose suddenly from his couch, called for one of his instruments, took it into his hand, and said—

'My God, my God,

My music shall find Thee,

And every thing

Shall have His attribute to sing.""

And, having tuned it, he played a simple prelude, and then sang:

"The Sundays of man's life, Threaded together on Time's string,

Make bracelets to adorn the wife

Of the eternal, glorious King:

On Sundays heaven's door stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife,

More plentiful than hope."

Thus he continued, "meditating, and praying, and rejoicing, till the day of his death." Then, surrounded by his family,

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