"Another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hands" (viii. 3, 4).

But now, when we have made all these allowances, and have fully admitted that the children of Israel might be taught the feelings and sentiments of prayer, even when no express command to pray was given them, and no express forms of prayer were prescribed to them; and might be taught the nature and value of prayer, and all other parts of spiritual worship through the medium of outward ceremonies and actions, the offering of incense and sacrifices, which were figures, emblems, and symbols of prayer and praise; and when we have admitted also, that they could never have been ignorant of the duty of prayer, and that they observed, for many years at least before Christ, the practice of prayer, private and public,-still we shall find a marked and surprising difference between the law and the Gospel as to the duty and privilege of prayer. It is scarcely necessary for me to cite passages to point out this difference. Every one must recollect abundance of passages in the New Testament enjoining prayer, exhorting us to pray, encouraging us to pray, and promising an express blessing upon our prayers in Christ's name; passages which must needs appear in marked and striking contrast with those few sentences which we gathered from the law. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?" (Matt. vii. 7, 8, 11). "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." These are the words of Christ (Matt. vii., Luke xi., John xv. xvi). And hence the commandments, exhortations, and promises to his disciples, "Be sober, and watch unto prayer;" "pray without ceasing;" "I will that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting;" "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much;" "this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us; and if we

know that he hear us, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him" (1 Thess. v. 17; 1 Tim. ii. 8; James, v. 16; 1 Pet. iv. 7; 1 John, iii. 21, 22). A wide difference this between the commands and promises in the law and those in the Gospel, on the subject of prayer.

And yet it can scarcely be pretended, that the greater knowledge of the elder people made them stand less in need of instruction; and if it be alleged, that they would be more disposed to pray, because the allowed subjects of their prayers were temporal blessings, and the grant of their petitions was frequently immediate and extraordinary, yet this would furnish an additional reason for full instruetion under circumstances so peculiar and tempting, rather than lessen our surprise at so extraordinary a defect in the Mosaic law.

Why then was this? Can we at all account for it-for so considerable an omission in the law? It is obvious that the case before us is remarkably similar to that of the omission of the doctrine of a future state in the law; and the resemblance between these cases is well worthy of our attention. Scarcely any thing is said in the law of Moses on the doctrine of a future state, or of the duty of prayer; yet the people knew of the doctrine of the future state, and most of them believed in it long before the era of the Gospel; so also they knew of the propriety of prayer, and probably observed the practice of it in private and public long before the Gospel. But in both cases the prophets subsequent to Moses had gradually improved the knowledge of the people, and added to the light imparted by the law. Nevertheless, it was still the glory of the Gospel to shed full light upon the doctrine of "life and immortality." And so also it was reserved for Christ to teach his disciples how to pray aright; and when they knew at length in whose name they should pray, to promise a blessing upon their prayers. For indeed, as it is through Jesus Christ alone that we are made heirs of eternal life, so through him alone our unworthy prayers are really acceptable to Almighty God. And yet it was thought fitting that men should believe and hope in the doctrine of a future life, even before the grounds of that doctrine and foundation of their hopes could be clearly discovered. And in like manner we understand, that it was fitting that men should observe the duty of prayer to God, even before they could be fully instructed in His name through whom their prayers were acceptable; just as men teach their children to lisp their prayers to God before their understandings have attained even to that slight knowledge of his majesty to which we ourselves can attain.

And two of the uses of this gradual declaration of the truth would be these:-1st, The absence from the law of Moses both of express general injunctions to pray, and of distinct promises of blessing on their prayers, would greatly tend to make the Jews in later times acknowledge the inferiority of their law to the Gospel. And it was of great consequence, as we know from St. Paul's epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. vii. 18, 19; viii. 6, 7; x. 1, &c.), that the Jews should be taught and should feel that the law of Moses-nay, that the law and the prophets together, were far below the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It had been necessary for many ages that they should set a high value on the law; but now at last it was become necessary that they should learn its great inferiority to that Gospel, of which it was but the forerunner and the shadow.

2dly, The omission in the law of commands and promises respecting the great natural duty of prayer, would make not Jews, but Christians also, consider what it was which really gives efficacy to their unworthy prayers. It seems, therefore, to have been ordered, that the great sacrifice on the cross should be at hand before that duty was most distinctly enjoined, and the highest blessings distinctly promised to its observance; because prayer was, in fact, only acceptable to an offended God through the merits of that Saviour who died on the cross to reconcile to him a fallen and sinful world. Till that time was near at hand, the offering of sacrifices, which represented and typified the great atonement, and the offering up of incense, which, being offered only by the hands of the priest, represented not prayers simply, but prayers and mediation together,had a great and evident propriety in the economy of the Divine revelations. And thus the omission in the law was part of the great scheme of preparation for the Gospel.

I scarcely need remark, in the last place, that every additional circumstance which we can discover in the great scheme of Providence, by which preparation was made for the Gospel of Christ, was designed to impress more and more deeply upon our minds the immense value and importance of that Gospel. And most assuredly every Christian, of every age and condition, who will sincerely and carefully examine his own heart, must deeply feel the need of every circumstance which, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, that best gift of all that prayer can procure for us, may touch our hearts, and make us practically alive to the value and importance of the Gospel.

Again, as to the particular circumstances concerning the duty of prayer, which we

have now considered, let them enforce the great Christian lesson of our own unworthiness, teaching us habitually and practically to ascribe the acceptance of prayer to His merits alone, who presents the prayers of his saints before his Father's throne. Let us always remember that prayer is not only a great duty, but a high privilege; and let the thoughts of these great truths make us ashamed of the careless, proud, unworthy offerings which we too frequently dare to offer up before the majesty of God. I do not speak merely of the prayers of the wicked: even Solomon could tell us that "the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord." A Christian should not require to be reminded, that the hands which he lifts up in prayer must be " holy." But what we perpetually forget, is, the great majesty of God to whom we pray, and the great unworthiness of all who worship him,-their utter unfitness to pray unto him except through Christ. He is the Priest who offers up incense for us, and through his sacrifice alone our prayers are acceptable; and prayer is a great privilege, which Christ has procured for us. How little do we think of this, when we kneel down in our chambers, and hurry over a few short prayers, scarcely thinking of their sense and meaning as if this were serving God, or likely to profit ourselves! Nay, even in our churches, where we meet at stated seasons, and devote a short space expressly to prayer, even there our thoughts wander, our eyes are distracted, we slight the duty and forget the privilege of prayer. For our use of these high privileges we shall, indeed, give account hereafter; but let us, as we easily may, under grace, improve ourselves diligently by them, and value them aright whilst yet they are permitted to us; approaching the house of prayer with gladness and humility, as the redeemed servants of the most high God, and earnestly seeking through the grace of the Holy Spirit that our prayers may in truth and in deed ascend up to God as the incense, and that we may always offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to him through his Son..

AN ADDRESS

Delivered on the Anniversary of a Parish
Provident Society.

BY THE REV. J. MELLOR BROWN, B.A.

Late Incumbent of Hylton, Durham.

"I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down."-Prov. xxiv. 30, 31. WE here see an instance of the way in which the wisest of men judged of his fellow-creatures. Although Solomon had never heard that precept of the Gospel,

"By their fruits ye shall know them," yet it is evident that it was the rule by which he formed his opinion of men's characters. When he beheld a field overgrown with thorns, and a garden ruined with weeds, he concluded that they belonged to the slothful and inconsiderate man; and he was not mistaken.

And the same rule will be found equally useful and correct in discovering a man's character now, as it was in the days of Solomon. The ruined wall and the neglected garden will still point out the sluggard; and thorns and nettles are still the fruits which mark the man void of understanding. And as the rule may be as easily applied to ourselves as to those we see around us, it will enable a man to know his own character no less certainly than his neighbour's. Let us all, accordingly, endeavour to judge ourselves by this rule. Let us seek to know ourselves by our fruits, and by the condition in which our heritage is kept: so shall our works, if they are good, praise us; and if they are evil, lead us to repentance and amendment.

Among the ancient Jews, lands continued in the same families for ever. No man could sell his inheritance for more than fifty years; for the year of jubilee came round once in forty-nine years, and then all landed property returned back to the family to which it at first belonged. This law, which had been framed by the Almighty himself, made the sale of lands and vineyards difficult. No spendthrift had any encouragement to turn his field into money, for purchasers must have been few. No wealthy miser had any temptation to join field to field and house to house, for "the year of release was at hand," when his large estate would be again broken up into small parcels. Hence men would oftentimes be compelled to keep their inheritance, and to till it that they might obtain bread.

But although the laws discouraged the Israelites from parting with the inheritance of their fathers, we may readily conclude what was the disposition of some, at least, among them; they were slothful, they were void of understanding. They took no pleasure in their little fields; their gardens became a waste; their vineyard grew up into a wilderness; the king of Israel, as he passed through the villages of the land, saw many a neglected field. He saw vineyards and oliveyards which had become wild; thorns and briars had choked the vines, and brambles were climbing up the fig-trees. Instead of grass in the orchards, nothing but nettles could be seen. The stone walls, which some of the owner's industrious forefathers had built round his garden, were broken down, and he had never repaired them; where they fell down, there they lay and such as his vineyard was, such also, in all likelihood, was his cottage; the windows broken, and the roof dropping through. In wet and wintry weather he could not repair the breaches thereof, and in the warm and summer season he did not feel the need of a shelter.

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And if such was the habitation, what, we may naturally ask, was the state of the owner who dwelt in it? He is described as a sluggard, and a man void of understanding. He was an indolent, thoughtless, idle man. He loved sleep, and gave way to slumber as the royal company went along, he seems to have been standing at the door of his house "folding his hands together for sleep," or leaning over the ruinous wall, idly looking at the king as he passed by. Solomon appears to have stopped, and made those reflections which the scene was calculated to excite-reflections which, perhaps, were addressed to the man himself, and which are recorded for our admonition to the end of the world. "Then I saw," said the king, "and considered it well; I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man."

Scenes, in many respects similar to that which king Solomon describes, may sometimes be witnessed in England. Less frequently, however, do they occur now than in former days; for our laws give every encouragement for the sale of property. And whenever the sluggard or the wasteful prodigal wishes to sell his little field, industrious and thriving men in abundance are found ready to buy it, and to make that profit of it which its unworthy owner was unable to do.

On every hand, in every parish, we may meet with those two classes of character-the slothful man and the diligent man. And although it is not every man who has a field or a vineyard which he may neglect, yet every man has something which may be improved by care, or ruined by sloth. And I would remark, in further pursuing the present subject, that this holds true in things temporal, and in things spiritual.

Let the remark be first applied to things temporal, to the things and concerns of the present world. There is, perhaps, no man in this kingdom, however humble be his station, who has not had opportunities, in the course of his lifetime, of providing for a comfortable old age. What man is there who has arrived at three score years of age, but must confess, that if all the pence and all the shillings which he has spent in folly or in sin,-all which he has squandered at the publichouse, or wasted in idle bets, and wagers, and gambling, all which he has thrown away in vanity, or in clothes which ill became his rank,-were to be all collected together, it would make a goodly sum?

How many among the poor have on various occasions had opportunities of bettering their state and condition, if diligence and frugality had been employed in improving them! What master is there who does not value a careful and industrious, an honest and sober servant? And few masters are so hard and unjust as not to reward and encourage such. Although Joseph was brought into Potiphar's house a bondman and a slave, yet you will recollect that he quickly rose to a place of confidence and trust. And although the same Joseph was, on another occasion, unjustly and maliciously cast into prison, yet even there he was promoted to have authority over his fellow-prisoners. Joseph was diligent, and he was not only diligent, but conscientious. He made conscience of every duty; and it is impossible to say whether he served his God or his master with greater faithfulness; and thus also he found favour both with God and man. To Joseph the words of Scripture were eminently applicable: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean

men."

In this subject, however, there is a distinction which ought carefully to be made, and that is, between the diligent man, and the man who "maketh haste to be rich." Diligence is a virtue approved and commended by God; but over-anxious speed to be rich, is a fault, of which the Scripture declares, that the man who is guilty of it "shall not be innocent." "The love of money is the root of all evil." "Covetousness is idolatry." To set our hearts upon money, to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of carefulness, in order that we may gain wealth, so far from being according to the will of God, is directly contrary to it. Such habits will pierce a man through with many sorrows; they will harden the heart, and will at last shut us out from the kingdom of heaven. It is of the utmost importance, then, that whilst a man shuns one sin, he should not fall into another; whilst he guards against becoming a sluggard, he must also beware of worldly-mindedness and a miserly love of money. The grace of God, if we sincerely seek it, will preserve us from all errors, and enable us to walk safely in the narrow path of righteousness.

Would you know certainly whether it is Christian diligence or a worldly mind which influences you in your business, ask your conscience, how you wish, and

how you intend to employ your money, if you shall become rich? Is it your intention to spend it upon yourself, or upon others? Is it that you may have it in your power to provide necessary food and decent raiment for your household? or that you may purchase for yourself the luxurious enjoyments and vain pleasures of the world? If God should give you power to get wealth, would you honour him with your substance? would you be ready to say, with Jacob of old, "Of all which thou givest me, I will give unto thee the tenth?" Would you delight in almsgiving and charity? would you remember the heathen, and share your silver and your gold with the poor missionary, who carries the Gospel of grace to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death? Would you honour the house of God in your native land, and count it both a duty and a pleasure to adorn the place where he hath set his name? And would you, in your prosperity, cast your tribute in the treasury, that in desolate and destitute places a new sanctuary might be built, where the poor and needy might worship God "without money and without price?" Let a man thus search his heart, and prove his inward motives, and he will readily discover whether his diligence is the diligence of Joseph, or the covetousness of that fool who said to his soul," Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" whereas God was on the eve of saying to him, "This night shall thy soul be required of thee."

But I remarked, that in spiritual things as well as in temporal, every man has something which may be improved by diligence, or ruined by sloth. A man's heart may be called his garden or his vineyard; and there is as great a difference between one man's heart and another's, as there is between one man's garden and another's-between the field of the sluggard and the field of the diligent husbandman. And suffer me to remind you, that it is of infinitely greater consequence to cultivate the garden of the heart than any earthly heritage. Whatever becomes of your field, at least "keep thine heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."

Have you never beheld a man whose heart was a neglected wilderness? Have you never seen one whose passions had run wild, whose tempers, whose dispositions, whose will, judgment, and affections, were ungovernable, unmanageable, alike useless and pernicious to himself and others? Hear the description of a ruined and neglected heart, as given by our Lord Jesus Christ himself, in St. Mark, vii. 21: "From within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness." Is not this worse than the field of the sluggard? Is it not more shameful than the vineyard of the man void of understanding? Surely the weeds which grow in such a heart are more hateful than nettles, more dangerous than thorns and briars! What good can be expected from such a character? "Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?" Even so, such hearts as these-and, alas! how common and how numerous they are!-can yield nothing but guilt and misery, till such time as the great Husbandman is pleased to put forth his power and grace to root up sin, and to cast in the good seed of eternal life.

In conclusion, I would say in the words of St. Paul, "Judge yourselves, that ye be not judged of the Lord." Every thing around us is fitted to yield instruction to a thoughtful and serious mind; and when we consider how short and uncertain life is, and how surely "the hour of death and the day of judgment" are coming upon us, it will become us all, young and old, rich and poor, to prepare for that account of our talents which we must soon render up at the judgment-seat of Christ. We have all a Master in heaven, who has very

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plainly warned us, that he will take account of his servants. To every one of us he has intrusted something which we are bound to improve for his glory; some talent which at our peril we may not neglect. Let every man, then, consider his own heart as a garden, which it is his duty to cultivate for the use and pleasure of Christ. And let not your heavenly Master come year after year seeking fruit and finding none. Be ye not unfruitful towards God. Ye know the doom of the barren tree-" Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" And in the epistle to the Hebrews, vi. 7, 8, you may see the doom of the unfruitful garden, as well as the blessing of the profitable one: "The earth, which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, whose end is to be burned."

Biography.

JOSEPH BUTLER, D.C.L., LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM. THE Commencement of the last century must be regarded as presenting in our country an aspect very far from favourable to the advancement of Christianity. The zeal of puritan times, unquestionably not always "according to knowledge," had waxed cold a species of lethargy seemed to have crept over the Church, notwithstanding the vehemence of a Sacheverel. Infidelity had insinuated itself into the minds of many who outwardly professed to be believers; and the whole aspect of the times was such as could not but excite the deepest anxiety in the Christian mind. Many of the opponents of the truth were men of talent; and the insinuating mode of their writings, and the plausible arguments which they adduced, were all calculated to undermine an adherence to the truth as it is in Jesus. It pleased God, however, to raise up men eminently qualified, by their strength of mind and profound erudition, to stem the course of the pestilential currentmen fully able to sift to the bottom the sophistry of the deist, and to set forth the shallowness of the would-be philosopher: and of these, none occupied a higher place than the subject of the present memoir. "The Analogy of Religion, natural and revealed," has stamped the name of Joseph Butler with the impress of perpetual fame; and while this great work remains, a ready answer is prepared for the gainsayer.

"The German Reformation," says Dr. Croly, “revived the learning of the Scriptures. Rome was still the prominent adversary; but she had changed the ground of her title: she no longer reposed upon the mere arrogant assumption of power, nor attempted to silence all question by the sword. Her orb was falling into the wane; it could now no more scorch than enlighten. She now grounded her claims upon antiquity, the promise of miracles, and the deposit of ecclesiastical supremacy in the hands of St. Peter. To break through those barriers, the rustic hands of the Italian reformers would have been inadequate : learning, vigorous research, and practised intellectual activity, were the true means; and a race of scholars suddenly raised their heads in Europe, the vastness, variety, and perseverance of whose learned toil, still rank among the wonders of the human mind.

"Another age brought the struggle into our own country... A new enemy was now to be encountered, in the infidelity of France.... The dissolute manners of a French court, transferred to our country, at once enervated the national habits, corrupted the national mind, and repelled the national religion. Infidelity

• See Memoir of Bishop Butler, by Dr. Croly, appended to the edition of the Analogy in the Sacred Classics, edited by the Revs. R. Cattermole and H. Stebbing. London, Hatchards.

always shuns a direct collision with Scripture; and the force of the tempter was developed in leading the national understanding into metaphysical mysteries, obscure inquiries into the origin of things, and arrogant presumptions of the designs of Providence. The direct doctrines and plain facts of revelation were thus equally avoided; and the controversy was absorbed in inquiries into fore-knowledge, free-will, and fate-those exciting, yet bewildering subjects, which the great poet of England not unsuitably assigns for the endless and melancholy employment of fallen angels. But in this crisis, the manlier virtue of the country nobly vindicated itself by the genius of its Church. Stillingfleet, Conybeare, Cumberland, and a crowd of divines, whose learning had not blunted their original sagacity, nor their sagacity had been too fastidious for the labour of learning, stood forward to clear religion of the clouds raised by the malice of infidelity, to convict the deist out of his own lips, and to reinstate the national faith on the foundations of the Bible. Among those highly-gifted men, the foremost in force of understanding, the most fortunate in immediate and acknowledged victory, and the most permanently useful in laying down principles applicable in every future age to the great system of the divine dealings with man, was the author of the volume of the Analogy."

Of Bishop Butler, it is to be regretted, that, comparatively speaking, little is left on record. By a codicil to his will, he expressly required that his papers should be burned without being read. How great must have been the loss to religion by obedience to this requirement, it is not easy to determine; but judging from what he did publish, it may be regarded as almost irreparable; for "of all the uninspired authors," it has been well observed, "whose writings tend to clear up difficulties, to enlarge, and illuminate, and steady the mind, we know of none to be compared with Butler. 'That which doth make manifest is light;' and truly the manifestation that is made of the moral constitution of our nature, in his wonderful sermons on the subject, is as though the clear shining of a candle' gave us light. In nothing, perhaps, is the value of Butler's profound researches more evident than in the manner in which they thus serve to shew the wisdom, the fitness, and the excellence of the salvation provided for us in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Joseph Butler was born at Wantage, in Berkshire. His father, "a substantial and respectable woollendraper," was a Presbyterian; and it was his design to educate this son, his eighth child, as a minister of that communion. Joseph was first sent to the grammar-school of his native place, then under the tuition of the Rev. Philip Barton, a clergyman of the established Church, where his talents and assiduity gained him his master's regard. When nearly twenty, he entered a dissenting academy at Gloucester, which was afterwards removed to Tewkesbury; and of his fellowstudents, not a few distinguished themselves in afterlife. Among these were Archbishop Secker, and John Bowes, afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and created a peer as Lord Bowes of Clonlyon.

It was while at this academy that the vast powers of Butler's mind began more fully to be developed. Dr. Samuel Clarke's work on an "a priori Demonstration of the Divine Existence and Attributes," became the subject of an anonymous correspondence between the author and the young student.

Butler's modesty

would not permit him to acknowledge that he was the writer of the letters, which were conveyed privately to the post-office at Gloucester, and answers brought back by Secker. Dr. Clarke, however, subsequently learned the name of his correspondent, and suffered

See review in the "Christian Examiner," March 1839, of Memoirs of the Life, Character, and Writings of Joseph Butler, D.C.L., by Thomas Bartlett, A.M. London, J. W. Parker, 1839.

the correspondence itself to be appended to subsequent editions of his work.

Butler soon after this left the academy. "His mind had been exercised for some time on the subject of conforming to the established Church, and was at length made up on the duty of doing so. His father, and his father's Presbyterian friends, reasoned with him on the subject, but without being able to alter his determination. His design of becoming a dissenting minister being abandoned, he seems to have determined at once to seek admission into the ministry of the Church of England; and he entered as a commoner of Oriel College, Oxford, on the 17th of March, 1714. It would seem as if scruples about the nonconformist ministry had spread among the pupils at Tewkesbury; for Secker, being unable to make up his mind on the subject, left the academy, and commenced the study of medicine in London. Scott* removed at the same time to Utrecht; and Bowes applied himself to the study of the law, and conformed." It is important to bear in mind, that Mr. Butler's conformity must have been the result of rational conviction, and that in the mind of one peculiarly well qualified to form a proper estimate as to the true position of churchmanship and dissent. The habits of early years, the prejudices of early education, the anxious desire of those most dear to him, to whose suggestions he was bound to pay deference, and whose opinions must have swayed with him not a little, were all marshalled in favour of his exercising his ministry among dissenters; but his mighty mind was enabled fully to enter into the merits of the subject, and rational conviction led him to the established Church. And let it be borne in mind, that no worldly motive could possibly have actuated him to adopt this line of proceeding; no prospect of advancement, or attainment of high preferment. The son of a tradesman, a conscientious, still a confirmed, dissenter; himself the member of a dissenting academy,-what possible prospect had he, that he should fill any other than the humblest office in the ministry of the church-the humblest, not of course as far as usefulness, but as emolument, was concerned? and yet, on weighing the matter, he found he had no alternative. The evils of non-conformity he doubtless saw in all their length and breadth, their height and depth; and assuredly those evils are not diminished to the present day. It were well if many who rail at the established Church, and whose minds unquestionably are not precisely of the same grasp as that of Bishop Butler, would seriously consider whether the circumstance of his conformity should not induce them seriously, prayerfully, and humbly, and not politically, to view the important question of churchmanship and dissent. "No stigma of worldliness," observes Dr. Croly, "can attach to the conduct of the young inquirer on this occasion. The Church of England could offer but few hopes to an obscure youth; certainly none equal to balance the difficulties occasioned by the resistance of his family, the disappointment of his father's views, and the general bitterness of a period when party mingled strongly with religious opinion, and the convert to reason incurred the almost inevitable fate of being denounced as a traitor to principle; the connexions which so rapidly raised him were yet unformed; and when he at length entered himself of Oriel College in 1714, he probably looked forward to a life of privation, solaced only by the feeling that he had acted according to his conscience."

When Butler entered at Oriel, Edward Talbot, son of the Bishop of Oxford, was fellow of the college;

The son of a merchant in London, went to Utrecht, and took the degree of LL. D. He became a Baptist, but did not enter the ministry, and we believe adopted Socinian sentiments. See review of Bartlett's Memoirs of Bishop Butler, in the "Christian Examiner" for March 1839, to which the writer is indebted for much information.