"ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM."

MINISTER of the "Kirk" of Scotland once discovered

his wife asleep in the midst of his homily on the Sabbath; so, pausing in the steady, and possibly somewhat monotonous, flow of his oratory, he broke forth with this personal address, sharp and clear, but very deliberate: "Susan!" Susan woke up with a start, and opened her eyes and ears in a twinkling, as did all other dreamers in the house, whether asleep or awake. "Susan," he continued, "I didna marry ye for yer wealth, sin' ye had none. And I didna marry ye for yer beauty; that the hail congregation can see. And if ye hae not grace, I hae made but a sair bargain wi' ye!"

HUMILITY.

WOMAN in humble life was asked one day, on her way back from church, whether she had understood the sermon—a strange minister having preached. "Wud I hae the presumption?" was her simple and contented answer.

A WITTY TEXT.

RADOCK, in his Memoirs, tells us, that when a preacher was very obnoxious to the students at Cambridge, it was the custom for them to express disapprobation by scraping their feet. A very eloquent but intriguing preacher, Dr James Scott, being one day thus saluted, signified his intention of preaching against the practice of scraping, and very shortly afterwards he performed it. Taking for his text, "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they con

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sider not that they do evil." On this announcement the galleries became one scene of confusion and uproar; but Scott called the proctor to preserve silence. This being effected, he delivered a discourse so eloquent as to extort universal approbation.

CHOOSING HIS OWN WEAPONS.

NTON WILHELM BOHME, who came over as chaplain with Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne, officiated at the German Chapel, St James's, from the year 1705 to 1722. He was a favourite of the queen, and a friend of Isaac Watts. On one occasion he preached against adultery in a way which gave great offence to one of the courtiers, who conceived that a personal attack on himself was intended. He accordingly sent a challenge to the preacher, which was accepted without hesitation. At the time and place appointed, the chaplain made his appearance in full canonicals, with his Bible in his hand, and gave the challenger a lecture which led to their reconciliation and friendship.

CONCORDANCE CRUDEN.

LEXANDER CRUDEN, the laborious compiler of an excellent concordance to the Holy Scriptures, was subject to a strange mental malady. He subsisted by correcting the press, and had a very acute judgment on literary subjects, as well as a great sense of religion; and yet he was guilty at times of such extravagances, that his friends caused him to be confined in a madhouse. After he was liberated he brought an action in the King's Bench against his sister, Dr Monro, and others, for false imprisonment. The cause was tried at Westminster Hall, July 17, 1738, and ended with the evidence of the noted Mr Bradbury, the dissenting minister of

Pinner's Hall, who, to prove Cruden's insanity, related the following anecdote. Mr Bradbury had one evening prepared an excellent supper for several friends, but the moment it was served on the table, Cruden made his appearance in the room, heated with walking. It happened that Bradbury's favourite dish, a turkey, was smoking at one end of the table, and before the company could be seated, Cruden advanced, put back his wig, and with both hands plunged in the gravy, began to wash his head and face over the bird, to the no small mortification of the pastor and his guests. When Bradbury had finished his story, Cruden abruptly addressed the chief-justice, and said: “My lord, don't believe a word that man says; he is very well in the pulpit at Pinner's Hall, but he is not a proper evidence in ti.is court." After the verdict was given Cruden said: “I trust in God;" on which the chief-justice remarked: “I wish you had trusted more in God, and not come hither.”

THE PAPAL CURSE.

HE odium theologicum is certainly the most virulent of all hatreds, and nothing can be in more direct contra

diction with the fundamental principle of Christianity, than the fierce, unrelenting fury of the ecclesiastical curse and excommunication. With the amenities of the excommunication, secundum usum Roffense, the reader will be acquainted through a passage in "Tristram Shandy;" another form of the papal curse is as follows:-

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By command of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; of the Blessed Virgin, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ; of St Michael, St John the Baptist, and of St Peter and St Paul, princes of the Apostles; of St Stephen, and all the martyrs; of St Silvester, and all the confessors; of St Aldegund, and all the holy virgins; and of all other saints whatsoever, both in heaven and on earth; we curse, and cut off from the holy mother, the Church, him,

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her, or them, that have [done so and so], or have known thereof, or have been advising, abetting, or assisting therein. Let them be accursed in their houses, granaries, fields, lands, ways, country-seats, towns, and villages. Let them be accursed in the woods, rivers, and churches; accursed in pleadings, trials, contentions, and quarrels; accursed in praying, speaking, and in silence; in eating, drinking, and sleeping; in waking, feeling, walking, standing, running, resting, and riding; accursed in hearing, seeing, and tasting; accursed in all their works. Let this curse smite their heads, eyes, and their whole bodies, from the crown of their head to the sole of their feet. I conjure thee, Satan, and all thy black host, by the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that ye do not rest day or night till ye have brought them both to temporal and to eternal shame, whether it be by causing them to be drowned, or hanged, or devoured by wild beasts, or torn into pieces by vultures, or eagles, or burned with fire, or murdered by their enemies. Make them odious to all creatures living. Let their children be orphans, and their wives widows. Let no man relieve them from this time forward, nor have any compassion for their fatherless children; and just as Satan was driven out of heaven, and Adam banished out of paradise, let them also be driven and banished out of this world, being despoiled of all their goods and possessions, and let them be buried with the burial of an ass. Let them partake of the punishment of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; of Judas, of Pontius Pilate, and of all that say to the Lord their God-'Depart from us, we will have no knowledge of thy ways!""

At these words the person who pronounced the curse extinguished two burning tapers which he held in his hand, with the following imprecation:

"I adjure thee, Satan, and all thy companions, that just as these candles are extinguished in my hands, thou likewise extinguish and take from them the light of their eyes, unless they repent, and make entire amends and satisfaction. Amen. Amen."

A HOPEFUL ARCHDEACON.

N 1443, Dr Thomas Gascoigne was Chancellor of Oxford. He seems to have deeply felt the profligacy with which ecclesiastical affairs were then conducted, for he thus expresses himself: "I knew a certain illiterate idiot, the son of a mad knight, who, for being the companion, or rather the fool, of the sons of a great family of the blood royal, was made archdeacon of Oxford before he was eighteen years old, and got soon after two rich rectories and twelve prebends. I asked him one day what he thought of learning? I despise it.' said he. 'I have better livings than you great doctors, and believe as much as any of you.'-'What do you believe?' said I. 'I believe,' said he, 'that there are three Gods in one person ; I believe all that God believes.""

A PROUD BISHOP.

HE Count de Clermont Tonnere, Bishop of Noyon in the first quarter of the present century, was notorious for

his excessive pride. Once he is said to have addressed his hearers with the words-"Listen, thou Christian mob, to the word of the Lord." At another time, when disturbed by the whispers of the inattentive while he was celebrating mass, he turned towards the congregation, crying out, in an angry, threatening tone of voice, "Really, gentlemen, judging by the noise with which you fill the church, one would conclude that it was a village priest, and not a prelate of rank, who officiated!" It was this same bishop who, when seized with a dangerous illness, sent for his confessor, and made known to him his fear of hell. This courtly priest replied: "You are very good, my lord, thus gratuitously to terrify yourself; but God will think twice of it before he damns a person of your high birth."