delight of the assembly, who egg them on by their cheering. A generous rivalry,' says Dr. Pliable. 'Warm work,' says Mr. Deputy Pomegranate. But I say, these are free contributions;'-not like 'country cousins,' though, 'more free than welcome.'

Then we have the working meetings-those modern mysteries of the Bona Dea, into which no profane Clodius may intrude, but from which proceed, periodically, heavy boxes labelled for favoured localities abroad. What if, in after years, chests have been discovered in English cellars, bearing upon them no marks of travel, but thought, nevertheless, by beholders to resemble in a very wonderful manner certain of the boxes afore-named? Similarity is not identity; and all pamphleteers are wicked men !

At times, moreover, delicate fingers ply the needle in a more private manner; and the upshot is (Oh! that I should have to say it!) bazaars! Come hither, Romeo Jones, and say what a bazaar is; for you ought to know. You were at the last, and will be at the next; nor will you willingly miss one, so long as the fair Juliet Smith shall be found amongst the sales women. What sum, may I ask, in good and lawful money, did you give for that watchguard? or for that duck of a purse? or for those sacred slippers? Ah! you shake your head, as well you may. They gave change at the Great Exhibition;' but there was none for you at the fair Juliet's stall. There never is at those places. You gave Juliet the gold, and Juliet gave you the slippers, with some certain blissful glances for change that was all. Free contribution' enough on your part! Not bestowed, perhaps, with much inward reference to the wants of the Town and Country Stars;' but well adapted to extricate that society from its chronic state of difficulty.

Another ruse of Dr. Pliable's is the exhibition of real natives on the platform. This succeeded so well for a time, that, on one occasion, as I have been told, when some hitch had occurred, and the sable convert could not come, a pleasant fellow whispered to a friend, in confidence, that Pliable intended to black his own face for the nonce. Curious to see an advertisement of these exhibitions! Side by side, it may be, with the announcement on the wrapper of the Windbag,' that some of the other real natives' have just come in from Colchester!

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Then as time,' says Locke, 'is but duration set out by measures,' old Time himself must receive a fillip, in cases of extremity, and even the calendar be laid under contribution to aid the good cause. For as Cicero wrote home from his proconsulate in Cilicia, requesting the pontifices to shake their great hour-glass a little, and thereby shorten his year of government, so we find these anniversary services recurring with suspicious haste, and the autumnal equinox in some inexplicable manner slipping back into the spring. At Hodgeton, indeed, the annual sermons on behalf of the society poor Poll' represents, are regularly preached twice a-year; much as at boarding-school, that rogue Shrimpton always contrived to have two, if not three, birthdays in the course of the year-for the sake of the plum-puddings!

In order to silence all calumny, however, and to establish beyond controversy the fact that these contributions' are, as we now name them, free,' it is customary, in many places, to make the collection on this wise-Before Tritissimus has well seated himself, or you have left off clapping him, some smirking highwayman thrusts his money-box into your teeth, with a kind of stand-and-deliver' look, that effectually disarms all resistance. It is, your money or your blush-on the spot. Among the good people of one modern sect this may occur when you least expect it; for some of these are said to watch the size of the congregation, and the effect of the sermon, before they announce the collection at all; and with these, therefore, it is indeed a word and a blow.' Accordingly, so late as last month, I saw a famous preacher of theirs praised for an eloquence which knew how to surprise the covetous into benevolence.' [Sic!]

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But as John Bull has his prejudices, and is wont, honest fellow! to prefer even the tax-gatherer to the highwayman, these societies are not slow to accommodate themselves, in this respect, to his wishes.

if

For

you live in London, and are once down in any of their books for a guinea, in twelve months at longest look for a man at your door, with ink-bottle swinging at his button-hole, and cold determination in his eye, who has not come for the sewers'-rate, or the watch-rate, or the water-rate, but for that new rate, which you had quite forgotten. The per-centage allowed to these collectors I would rather avoid, if possible, as a delicate topic; but the world must not lose an ingenious suggestion emanating from the prolific brain of my friend Smarte. Let me name that, and hurry on. Silas Smarte, then-rather a 'cute Yankee friend of mine- guesses' that it might do if the cards and books were calculated to bring in so much each, and the collectors allowed a handsome discount for payment at the time of taking them, instead of waiting till the money should be actually gathered. He would take a few cards himself on those terms. I dare say he would; and play them well, I have no doubt.

Pour comble de bonheur, however, we must go together to a director's house. The hope of the family, I lament to say, has just been biting his sister's arm; and the treasured sixpence is justly forfeit in consequence. But does Miss B. propose to keep the coin herself? No, indeed; for Dick knows the law in that house, and he sees her drop it through a chink, sacred to the uses of that excellent society which his respected father is said to direct. How these deodands' for juvenile delinquencies will show in after times, when seen in the mellow moonlight of memory, likewise remains doubtful. Whether bright or dark-or whether these extremes shall have run together into a kind of dappledgrey-or whether the whole shall be enveloped in a sort of Scotch mist or London fog-one cannot say. But already, methinks, must Dick's moral perceptions be growing confused. Shall he bite his sister's arm again, that he may again have the luxury of giving? Or were it not better to leave off biting, even though the society must suffer for his abstinence? Yet what sort of beneficence can that be which is promoted by biting? Or can biting, in good sooth, be so very bad, when

it forwards the designs of benevolence? To be sure, it pains his sister; but then it gives pleasure to the directors; and his father is a director, and, therefore, it pleases his father; though it must be owned that Nancy's wound will pain him. What, is pleasure pain, then? and pain pleasure? No, not exactly: but, any how, evil is as good as good, or nearly as good, or not so very bad; and good is no better than it should be; and naught is everything, and everything is naught.' Poor Dick! Nay,' says Launce, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father; no, this left shoe is my father; no, no, this left shoe is my mother; nay, that cannot be so, neither; yes, it is so, it is so; it hath the worser sole. This hat is Nan, our maid. I am the dogno, the dog is himself, and I am the dog,-O the dog is me, and I am myself; aye, so, so.'

'Aye, so, so!' And with this gentle susurrus, let us drop the veil over much that remains behind. The res angusta domi, I repeat, has a great deal to do with the contrivances of these distressed societies; and they should not be too harshly censured. None but your poor gentleman should be set to judge them-for he it is who best knows to what cruel straits an empty exchequer may reduce even the most virtuous of men. And so-drop the veil.

But let us be consistent. Let us not expect any results from our misdirected efforts; or, at all events, let us only look for those results which resemble in kind the efforts we put forth. When Wilberforce sowed Pitt's garden with fragments of an opera-hat, I never heard that anything came of it; and the utmost that could have come would have been a crop of opera-hats. Nature is, in the first instance, exacting, in order that she may afterwards be bountiful. And in a far higher region than hers, I perceive traces of the same law. There, also, is a thrift observed, which will not allow of anything being lost; an economy which yields fruit in abundance, after his kind,' for the seed you sow. AFTER HIS KIND! The words are worth considering; for, in that region, and in all known regions, according as you sow, you shall reap. Not sow guineas, and gain souls-it is not so written; but what those guineas represent, the faith and love of the givers, or the importunity of the beggars, and the disgust of the donors; that shall be found exactly represented in the results secured-AS IT IS THIS DAY. X. Y. Z.

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Orthadarq.

'Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God and fully to enjoy him for ever.' - Assembly's Larger Catechism.

'Here is a great deal of "truth" among professors; but very little "mercy!" They are ready to cut the throats of one another. But when we are brought into the right way we shall be merciful as well as orthodox.'-Cromwell.

WHAT IS ORTHODOXY? We offer answers in two series.

There are, in West Indian forests, huge fallen trees. They were the growth of ages, but He who can stain the pride of all glory' has laid them low. Insect races, small and busy as the million moments of which Time consists, have wasted into dust the interior of these mighty masses. Firm they look to the eye, but hear the traveller's warning-You might as well,' he says, set foot upon a cloud as on one of these fallen giants.' Orthodoxy is such a fallen giant: to the eye huge, solid seeming; but will you take your stand on it? As well set foot upon a cloud. Will you build up with it your schemes and institutions? As well take the dim, grey mists of evening, and try to fashion of them a home to shelter you from the frosts of to-night and the heats of to-morrow.

Orthodoxy is a Goliath, bitter and boastful. With arrogant self-esteem and loud prophesyings of its own victory, amidst the plaudits of its company, proud to have a champion with a body and a voice so big, it advances to the battle, and begins each conflict, with a curse. Smitten ever where it is weakest-upon the brow, within which serene, dispassionate Reason should hold her seat-the heady, high-minded' champion falls before the stone and the stripling. By the stroke of plainest facts and truths has the zeal of spiritual youth oft humbled this great one.'

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Orthodoxy is the cast skin of the Serpent of Eternity.

With his

mighty muscle and voluminous folds, this serpent-the everliving Thought of the World-subtle and sinewy, is as active now as in any foregone age. But there be those who mistake the skin for a serpent, and the serpent for a skin. By the law of his life must he in each age change his vestment. The renewal of his youth is the con

dition of his everlastingness.

Is not this witness true? The fallen trunk-the champion with big body and cursing mouth-the skin now dead and empty, though once alive, and the product, the protection, and the ornament of life ;is not the orthodoxy that you oft hear of, this and no more? The orthodox seemeth right in his own eyes, but the Lord searcheth his heart. But audi alteram partem, reader! Again we ask, What is Orthodoxy?

Did you ever hear one of Beethoven's symphonies? Doubtless God

can so gift the musicians of heaven, that the best strains of earth shall appear faint and dull to theirs. But it seems to us that if the Highest, impersonating himself in creature-form to veil his glory, should with train of angels visit some one of his worlds, such music as this of Beethoven's-music so full, so various, so jubilant-might attend his entering. Yet the subjects,' the chief, prominent phrases of melody, in the work, are as simple as the effects are sweet and grand. And they recur and echo endlessly-instrument answers instrument, uttering the same theme with continual change of expression. Orthodoxy is a symphony, sweet and grand, whose subject is, 'Thou art the King of glory, O Christ!'-a symphony of all the souls, of all the saints; who, with most various capabilities of differently expressing the one truth, join with and and answer one another. 'Thou art the King of glory, O Christ!' Still the theme echoes; ever new, yet ever the same. All secondary subjects it so subdues unto itself, rising and reigning, that what if ungoverned would be but wandering discordancy, it makes freely to bring in tributary riches to heighten and perfect the harmony. This music,' said one who was listening with us to Beethoven's symphony in C minor, 'seems as if it could not leave off'-like a towering granite mountain that strains itself up, peak after peak, as if to peer into very heaven. And orthodoxy is such a symphony. It redoubles and prolongs its effort to sound forth as nobly and melodiously as man may, the chief truths concerning God, and his Christ, and his Spirit. It seems as if it could not leave off.'

Orthodoxy is the full-orbed wisdom of the Church, the orb spotty and shaded, but with plenary light, mild and solemn, shining on the dark world of men. It is the Church sending fully on the world the completed lustre it receives as turned fully to the Saviour. Yet, moonlike, orthodoxy is a light that decreaseth in its perfection.' It is not a sun, without variableness;' though it walketh in brightness,' and in the very shades of its lustre the sorrow and mortality of the earth find comfort and sympathy. And how often, when orthodoxy has waned, and the truth of the Church has been hid in a vacant interlunar cave,' is the way that they call heresy,' as the new moon, with its sweet promise, sure herald of full moon, perhaps harvest moon, speedily to bless the earth.

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·

Orthodoxy is an old family mansion in an old family garden. Here they dwelt and were recreated who ruled in the land, who served it and blessed it. The capacious home of capacious minds. With wings and additions it stands. the long, slow work of the most various diligence. There is mould on the stones, but they are still strong. There is moss on many a garden path, but it is sacred as trodden by the feet of the elders. Here is the very throne and shrine of the respectability that duration, tranquillity, and amplitude can give. But shall we denounce those who call for repairs, because it were sacrilege to cry, Raze it to the foundations?" Because so much that is quaint is good for a memorial, and so much that is old is as serviceable as if new, and is nobler-shall we, therefore, modernize nothing? May we