TWO OF THE FATHERS ON FALSE HAIR.

ERTULLIAN says, "If you will not fling away your false hair, as hateful to Heaven, cannot I make it hateful to yourselves, by reminding you that the false hair you wear may have come, not only from a criminal, but from a very dirty head; perhaps from the head of one already damned?" This was a very hard hit indeed; but it was not nearly so clever a stroke at wigs, chignons, and false tresses as that dealt by Clemens of Alexandria. The latter informed the astounded wig-wearers, when they knelt at church to receive the blessing, that they must be good enough to recollect that the benediction remained on the wig, and did not pass through to the wearer! This was a stumbling-block to the people; many of whom, however, retained the peruke, and took their chance as to the percolating through it of the benediction. The mediæval preachers and theologians affected to discover the first denunciation of false hair in a passage in the third chapter of Isaiah, which is thus rendered in the Vulgate: "Decalabit Dominus verticem filiarum Sion, et Dominus crinem earum nudabit;" which was translated as follows: "The Lord will pluck the hair from the heads of the daughters of Sion, and will expose their periwigs."

SHUTE BARRINGTON.

HIS venerable Bishop of Durham died in 1826, at the great age of ninety-two, having exercised episcopal

functions for fifty-seven years. His charity was illimited, and fully one hundred thousand pounds of the bishop's money passed through the hands of one gentleman alone, for the relief of distress and misery. A military friend of Mrs Barrington, being in want of an income, applied to the bishop, with a view to becoming a clergyman, thinking that his lordship

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might be enabled to provide for him. The worthy prelate asked how much income he required; to which the gentleman replied that "five hundred a year would make him a happy man!""You shall have it," said the bishop; "but not out of the patrimony of the Church. I will not deprive a worthy and regular divine to provide for a necessitous relation. You shall have the sum you mention yearly out of my own pocket."

UNBELIEF.

N the correspondence of the Rev. John Campbell, a serious friend, Mr Ritchie, writing to him, says: "We must watch against unbelief. One day, whilst I was a boy, my mother heard me weeping in my room at prayer. She asked me, why? I said: "The Lord will not give me a new heart.' She answered: 'Dinna fear that; turn to Ezekiel xxxvi. 26.'—' Ay, but,' said I, 'it is no said there that He will give it to Jock Ritchie.''

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THE REV. DR HOWARD.

HIS clerical wit was chaplain to Princess Augusta. Princess - dowager of Wales, and mother of George III. He was also rector of St George's, Southwark. Delighting much in the good things of this world, he so far indulged his hunger and thirst after delicacies, that he found himself much in arrear to many of his trading parishioners. Fortunately for himself, he lived within the rules of the King's Bench, which shielded him from the rude intrusion of clamorous creditors. The doctor, however, was a man of humour, and frequently hit upon expedients to keep them in good temper. He once preached a sermon from the following text: "Have patience, and I will pay you all." He expatiated at great length

on the virtue and advantage of patience.

"And now, my bre

thren," said he, "I am come to the second part of my discourse, which is, And I will pay you all; but that I shall defer to a future opportunity."

QUESTION FOR QUESTION.

CLERGYMAN being engaged in catechising a number of his parishioners, asked a man, “How many years did the children of Israel sojourn in the wilderness?" To which he replied, "Forty. But can you tell me, sir,” said the catechumen, "how many knives the children of Israel brought back with them from Babylon to Jerusalem?" The clergyman paused and pondered, but could give no answer. "Well," said the man, "they just brought back twenty-nine knives; you will find it stated in Ezra i. 9."

acter.

REV. DANIEL BURGESS'S HUMOUR.

HIS popular dissenting divire was a remarkable instance of the extreme length to which pulpit waggery may be carried in England without injury to the clerical charHis piety and learning were unquestionable, but these were strangely mixed up with a species of humour and buffoonery, that gained him not only universal notoriety, but made him a prodigious favourite with "the million." As a preacher he became soon as celebrated as Hugh Peters. The jests of that puritanical saint were collected and published after his death in a small volume: those of Burgess, if collected, would have formed a cyclopædia of wit and facetiæ. His propensity to punning was uncontrollable, and often excited the mirth of his congregations. A specimen of his peculiar humour is recorded as follows:-Observing but a small congregation assembled

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one day, he suddenly roared out, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" The astonished and frightened congregation instantly exclaimed, "Where? Where? Where?"-"In hell," shouted the preacher, "to burn such wretches as regard not the glad tidings of the gospel."

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PULPIT HOUR-GLASSES.

REVIOUS to the Reformation, pulpit discourses appear to have been generally characterised by brevity. Many of St Austin's might be easily delivered in ten minutes, nor was it usual in the church to devote more than half an hour to the most persuasive eloquence. But from the days of Luther the length of sermons increased, until the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Puritan preachers inflicted discourses of two hours or more in duration on their hearers. To regulate these enthusiastic talkers, hour-glasses were placed on the desks of their pulpits-some churches being provided with half-hour glasses also; and we may imagine the anxiety with which the clerk would regard the choice made by the parson, as upon it would depend the length of his attendance. Sir Roger L'Estrange tells an amusing story of a parish-clerk who had sat patiently under a preacher "till he was three quarters through his second glass," and the auditory had slowly withdrawn, tired out by his prosing. The clerk then arose at a convenient pause in the sermon, and calmly requested, "when he had done," if he would be pleased to close the church-door, "and push the key under it, as himself and the few that remained were about to retire."

Many humorous stories originated from the use of the pulpit hour-glass. There is a print of Hugh Peters preaching, holding up the hour-glass as he utters the words, "I know you are good fellows, so let's have another glass." A similar story is told of the Rev. Daniel Burgess. That celebrated Nonconformist was at one time declaiming with great vehemence against the sin of

drunkenness, and in his ardour had fairly allowed the hour-glass to run out before bringing his discourse to a conclusion. Unable to arrest himself in the midst of his eloquence, he reversed the monitory horologe, and exclaimed, "Brethren, I have somewhat more to say on the nature and consequences of drunkenness, so let's have the other glass-and then!"—the usual phrase adopted by topers at protracted sittings.

The same phrase was also applied in a still more piquant manner by a Scotch divine, who was entertained at the table of one of the Earls of Airly. The glass circulated, perhaps, too freely; and whenever the minister attempted to rise, his lordship prevented him, saying: "Another glass-and then!" The next day, this reverend gentleman having to preach before the commissioner, he selected as his text: "The wicked shall be punished, and right airly!" Inspired by the subject, he was by no means sparing of his oratory, and the hour-glass was disregarded, although he was repeatedly warned by the precentor, who, in common with Lord Airly, thought the discourse rather lengthy. But the latter soon knew why he was thus punished by the reverend gentleman, whenever he turned up the hourglass, exclaiming: "Another glass-and then!"

LENGTH OF LIFE WITHOUT EXERCISE.

HE Rev. William Davies, rector of Staunton-upon-Wye, and vicar of All Saints, Hereford, died in 1790, aged 105. The life of this gentleman displays one of the most extraordinary instances of departure from all those rules of temperance and exercise, which so much influence the lives of the mass of mankind, that is probably to be found in the whole records of longevity. During the last thirty-five years of his life, he never used any other exercise than that of just slipping his feet, one before the other, from room to room; and they never after that time were raised but to go up or down