trust that such commission will never be issued." I see, therefore, such practical difficulties in the way of accomplishing what so many good scholars seem anxious to have, that I do maintain the best thing Mr. Heywood can do, is to mind matters of which he is a competent judge, and to let this difficult thorny subject sleep, where it has slept in quiet, in the bosom of a united Christendom. I do not deny that the time may come when a revision will be made; but I do maintain, from all that I have said, that the time is not yet come. The existing differences of judgment, the utter want of unanimity, where dispute has arisen,―the proved incapacity of giving a better translation, the undeniable unripeness of sacred hermeneutics at the present day, all irresistibly show that we are not ready for so responsible a work, and that our best course, at present, is to hold fast the sacred deposit and be thankful for it. Let us for a moment think what a noble memorial of learning and piety; what a glorious depositary of inspired truth; what a precious heirloom and heritage is our good old English Bible! Its simple words are consecrated sounds; they ring in the depths of our hearts like the holiest memories-like the very harmonies of heaven. Its texts are living influences; they rose through the morning air of our Protestant Church, and have shed a fragrance which three centuries have not exhausted; and which cheers, and refreshes, and strengthens the pilgrim on his way to Zion. These holy words are associated with fields of conflict; with meek and patient martyrdoms; with successful missions; with all that is dearest, and deepest, and most stirring in the great battle of Christian life. We were baptized with these words, our weddings were hallowed by the mention of them, and over the dear dead dust that, like Abraham's Sarah, we buried out of sight, these beautiful words rose like the voices of the T heavenly Jerusalem, and awoke in our weeping hearts the precious submission: "The cup that my Father gave me to drink, shall I not drink it ?" These old Saxon words have a certain rich depth in the very utterance of them, from the multitudes that have used them, as if they had been steeped in warm hearts that once beat below, but have now gone to beat above. Blessed book! it is full of the olden past, it is stored with the busy present, it is rich with all the gorgeous future; in it we have all the candour of the reasoner, all the humility of the man, all the inspiration of the evangelist, constituting a charm to which the gates of grand cathedrals and the doors of lowly chapels open of their own accord. The dearest interests of the present, the memories of the past, future hope and gratitude, the still call of the sainted dead, the voice that lives in our conscience the very echo of the words that are written without, the blunders of experimentalists, the quarrels of critics, the caricatures called "improved translations,”—all that it is given to the simplest to understand and to love, all that it is not given to the wisest, the greatest, and the best to exhaust, bid us hold fast our good old English Bible and thank God, with all our hearts, for so blessed and holy a heritage. *This lecture is published in its present form by the kind permission of Messrs. Hall, Virtue, and Co. who have already issued a larger pamphlet, by the Rev. Dr. Cumming, on the same subject, of which this forms an abstract. ABSTINENCE: ITS PLACE AND POWER. How is the national curse of intemperance to be stayed? That is one of the foremost questions of the day; and to a portion of that question I would turn your attention tonight, craving the indulgence which past experience tells me I shall not ask in vain. We know that the outgoings of this sore evil are manifold; and that, to oppose them with any prospect of success, a corresponding variety of remedial means is essential. These means I cannot consider now. Their bare enumeration would consume your time. Of one only am I to speak-Abstinence; meaning by that term the total and habitual abstaining from the ordinary use of alcoholic stimulants of every kind-in contradistinction to Temperance, which implies an ordinary use of these, within the strict limits of sobriety and moderation. In speaking of and for Abstinence, I am anxious to avoid every extreme statement, and to say nothing in its favour. but what shall secure the assent of cool heads as well as of kind hearts; believing that, as a means of social reform, it has had to contend not more with the opposition of fierce gainsayers, than with the imprudent advocacy of over-zealous friends. Let us begin with some propositions which nobody can well deny. |