The Press. — London, England, 1858-06-19 00:00:00

he might here throw the weight of his talents and reputation on the side of that kind of preach ing which is already too common, and against that way of dealing with mankind from the pulpit which we earnestly wish to see more ex tensively followed than it is. But we h ave b een ag reeably disappointed. To that inquiry which is now so often made, " Why has the pulpit so little power in the pre kient day ?" we never find it difficult to give an answer. The cause we believe to be, chiefly, that preachers voluntarily forsake and neglect the main elements of their strength ;—that, having for their theme the grandest and noblest topics that can be conceived, they almost univer sally turn aside to lower and more trivial subjects. Their message and mission is, to speak to men of things celestial. They prefer to fill their sermons with things terrestrial. They are sent to tell us of God, and Christ, and Heaven. They choose rather to dilate upon men, and human things, and human doings. Tired of the wretched scuffles of human beings for six long days, the aspirant of heaven comes to church on the seventh, to be refreshed and elevated by thoughts of nobler scenes and more enduring interests; when he is vexed to find the world still meeting him, and the sermon filled with discussions of earthly affairs, and advice for the guidance of earthly combatants. And we natu rally feared, that when a volume of sermons was announced, by the author of " Religion in Com mon Life," we were likely to have fresh examples of this kind of preaching. The book, however, is of a far higher kind. In the opening sermon, on " The Self evidencing Nature of Divine Truth," we find the following noble passage : Now, it is this deep necessity of the awakened spirit which, in the revelation of God in Christ, the Gospel meets—a revelation in the person, life, and death of Jesus, which includes at once the most complete condemnation of sin, and the most ample forgiveness of the sinner. For hero, for one thing, we have set before us, in the Peteon of Christ Infinite Purity taking the very nature of the guilty into most intimate union with itself; and surely this, to the troubled conscience, is no slight indication of Divine forgiveness. It were no light thing for some poor outcast from society, if, while brooding over its misery and despair, some good and holy man should, setting all false dignity at defiance, come to the home of infamy, and offer to that poor child of sin and shame hi t love, his friendship, his affiance. Abandoned of society, lost to others' respect and to its own, yet yearning for one ray of hope or comfort, what cheering, elm hopefulness, what new life would re• animate that saddened spirit when it discovered itself not so utter!) lost as that a gentle, pure, and good man could not love and care for it ! Bat here, in this revelation of God in Christ, is the assurance that that Holy One, in whose presence angelic purity grows dim, stoops to take the very nature of the guilty, and blend it in mysterious affiance with His own. Surely the trembling heart may cease to despair of itself, or regard the past with hopeless despondency, when that very Being, in whom all law and right are centred, who is Himself essential Holiness, iden tified in His very being with absolute Good, condescends to wed the nature of man, guilty and fallen though he be, into closest affinity with Himself. But more than this : the Gospel brings relief to the self-condemned spirit by exhibiting Infinite Purity, not only condescending to assume the nature of the guilty, hut also in that nature passing through a history which brings it into ceaseless contact with sin in all its undisguised hatefulness and hostility to God. As if it were designed to prove to the as tit alarmed and desponding conscience that it is from no inadequate perception of man's guilt that mercy is ex tended to him, the Purity of heaven Incarnate exposes itself to a long continued contiguity with evil in its most hateful forms; permits itself to be pierced with all the anguish which sin's hostility could inflict upon it; stands with the sensitive front of innocence the mark of all the poisoned arrows from sin's quiver; suffers earth and hell to brand upon that holiest. geetlest spirit, as if in letters of fire, sin's hatefulness ; and at last yields up itself as sin's victim into the hands of death. Yet, with all this, from first to last, infinitely loving right, unerringly cognisant of mall's guilt, taking the full gauge of the abhorrent nature nf that which He forgave, Jeans is seen with mercy ever on His lip, forgiveness, compassion, love to sinners in His every look and act. And finally, the Gospel permits us to think of Christ as one who. in conveying pardon to guilt, instesi of relaxing the strictness, or bringing slight on the unbending rectitude of God's law, offers up the grandest possible tribute to its majesty, and the most awful atone ment for the sins that infringed it. Here, therefore, in this gospel of Christ is the most ample provision made for the guilty spirit's needs. Though my sin cannot be literally unsinned, though the past is irrevocable, though no moral act once done can ever be annulled, yet surely in this my trembling heart may find the rest for which jt craves—:the assurance that the past may be forgotten, and that sin is blotted out by an act in which its guilt is most fearfully condemned and expiated—when I behold the very God who is Lag, Righteousness, Absolute Justice, in human form offering Himself up to the death to save me. Another very fine sermon is that on " The Solitariness of Christ's Sufferings." From it we cite the following : THE PRESS, JUNE 19, 1858. There is a sort of sentimental melancholy which gathers over the mind of one who surveys the scene of some great nation's bygone glory, now, it may be, strewn only with wreck of departed greatness. When the traveller visits those countries with which from childhood his mind has been accustomed to associate everything that is noble and elevated in humanity; when he surveys around him the indications of former majesty and power, now long past away, or inspects those exquis.te remains on which human genius and art had lavished ell their splendour, now rudely marred and defaced and hastening t, inevitable decay— there is a certain pensive sadness which not unnaturally passes over the mind, and to which many 'MVO given ex pression. But surely an emotion of a far deeper kind may well be called forth in the thoughtful mind when contem plating the mournful word and spiritual degradation of humanity, as enntrasted with the glory of its original structure, and the splendours of that destiny for which it was created? What are the most exquisite productions of human thought and toil compared with that work on which, even in its ruins, the impress of Omnipotence may be traced? What is the destruction of the noblest fabrics reared by human hand, in comparison with the dishonour and desecration of the temple of the Holy Ghost ? What are the overshadowing of all earthly greatness, and the extinction of all material glory, in contrast with the spiritual and eternal ruin of the soul of man ? Even the body, the mere tabernacle in which the soul resides—even the human body, that fabric so curiously and wonderfully wrought by the hand of God, so marred and diahononred by the effects of tin—even that, a work which only Deity could create, is a work over whose ruin even Deity might mourn. Yet every sickbed by which Jesus stood, and every sufferer's cry He heard, and every bier and grave to which His steps were led, were to His eye the ruthless tiestruc• tion of another and another glorious work of God—the proofs of the triumph of the destroyer over the results of infinite wisdom and skill. But the destruction of the body is insignificant in com parison with the rain of the soul. The former is but the dissolution of a thing of material elements, the latter is the deforming and corrupting of a thing ready in the image of God, partaker of a divine nature, and destined for His service and glory for ever. The former is but the breaking up of insensate matter ; the latter is the reducing to impurity and wretchedness, a thing that shall survive in the con sciousness of its misery when the material universe shall have passed away. Shall we wonder, then, that the Creator of sncli a work as this—so noble, so deathless, so divine, should have ex perienced bitter grief for its ruin ? When Jesus walked our world, His eye, we may well believe, was not arrested by the bustle and importance of Its outward scenes and interests. From all mere external things His observation was ever diverted to what from all outer eyes was hidden, the awful mystery and moral deformity of the secret world of souls. Could a human being for a single week be in vested with a mysterious power of seeing into the hearts of those around him, and detecting all the feelings and motives that are working beneath the breasts of his fellow men, doubtless, even to man's imperfect moral sensibility, the disclosures thus made would be too horrible for en durance, and the fatal power of inspectim world be gladly resigned. But that which would be intolerable even to a fallen and imperfect being was a spectacle from which the eye of the pure and holy Jesus could never for a moment escape. All hearts were unveiled to him. He surveyed not merely the forms and countenances of human heirgs a thousand indications tell us that He knew what was in man "—that He read their souls. And everywhere as He looked He saw that soul that had sprung a pure, holy, happy thing from His hands, now filled with selfishness and pride, and envy and impurity, and all ungodliness ; that soul that had been destined for the companionship of God and angels, now ripening for the blackness of dark ness for ever ! And can we doubt that His was an anguish at tht sight iota which no finite mind can enter? He could feel for external snfferings. He looked up to heaven and sighed for the deaf. He wept, and groaned in spirit for the dead. But what were external suffering and death to this? To Him the world was strewn with a more awful than material desolation—with the wreck of spiritual grandeur, the memorials of lost and ruined souls. " 0 my Father," we almost hear Him exclaim, " is this the world over which the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted fur joy !" These are the entrancing and inspiring topics which every preacher has at his command. The whole Bible is full of germs of thought, lifting us above the present moment and the present scene, and raising us to " high and heavenly places." And if man is to be moved,—if the ',pulpit is to show any power of moving him, it must be in this way that emotion is to be ex cited, and the heart really stirred. Hints for the guidance of our conduct, and cautions against "evil communications" and dangerous habits, may be proper and unobjectionable, but they will leave the congregation asleep : and then the inquiry will again be propounded, " Why has the pulpit, in our day, so little power?" The Odes of Horace. Translated by Lord Ravensworth. London : Upham and Beet. THE present age is one of material progress; the genius of it is essentially mechanical, secular, and worldly. And men in their all-absorbing desire to accumulate the conveniences of life, and to advance the limits of human power over nature, are likely to forget or despise those elegant arts and :accomplishments which form 585 the most graceful embellishments and the sweetest delights of civilization. In an age when nobles are chairmen of railways, and men of the highest rank speculate in stock—when peers turn mechanics, and the Exchange is a stepping stone to the House of Lords—in an age of almost universal admiration and worship of Mammon, it is plain that the study of ancient classical literature is likely to be neglected, or disparaged, as unprofitable and useless. Yet sure we are that the wisdom, the enlightenment, the enlarged views, the real power of a great and civilized nation, are intimately connected—nay, indis solubly bound up—with a knowledge ofthe mag nificent and unrivalled literature of antiquity. Gainsayers may sneer as they please ; but the difference between a man who is distinguished by a love for ancient literature, and a man whose acquaintance with letters is confined to a know ledge of modern works, is the difference between a man of superior and one of inferior cultivation and refinement. Believing, as we do most sincerely, that we are in danger of seeing ancient literature thrown into the shade, and believing as we do that the degradation of classical studies would be a heavy national calamity—would lower us as a thinking, enlightened, intellectual people—we hail with unfeigned delight the ap pearance of Lord Ravensworth's translation of the Odes of I lorace. To translate those incomparable works was a bold and adventurous undertaking ; but Lord Ravensworth has performed it with remarkable and singular felicity of success. He has written the only translation of llorace's Odes at all worthy of the name. His transla tions are what they ought to be,—not mere bald interpretations in rhyme, but elegant and beauti ful poems. Who will not thank Lord Ravens worth for giving him renewed and improved pleasure in reading Horace ? What writer is there, whether ancient or modern, whom we love as we love Ilorace ? how does the music of his verse, of marvellous structure, ever linger in our ears ! Almost every stanza is an inspiration. What artificial refinement, yet what natural case and simplicity, there is in his diction ! One can only describe his poetry by contradictions; for his graces baffle systematic description, as his wonderful variety of' subject and style admits not of regular method or rule. how gentle is Horace ! yet how wise ! how affectionate ! learned, without a scrap of pedantry ; tender even to tears, yet a bold, vigorous, energetic patriot. And , then, what a gentleman he is ! how perfect are his manners! What a companion he must have been ! how guileless, yet bow witty ! What a treat it must have been for a man of understanding to take a stroll in the " evening Forum" arm in arm with Horace, and to hear his humorous and acute remarks on the extra ordinary variety of characters with which that strange place abounded ! Perhaps, too, he would drop in at Cinara's, and musically, playfully, repeat the last ode he had composed in her honour. But we are straying too far with the pleasant little Venusian poet ; and we are forgetting his translator. Lord Ravensworth has justly and deservedly surpassed all rivals in his work, because he has brought the qualities requisite for its accomplish ment in far greater perfection and abundance than any predecessor. It is not sufficient for the translator of llorace to be a scholar and a man of taste : he must be a poet. And Lord Ravens worth has proved himself to be the master of great and varied power of poetic expression. lie is endowed with a just and delicate perception of the niceties of melodious versification ; so that there really is not a single inharmonious line in his whole volume. His translations represent the meaning of the original with remarkable accuracy; and the "observations" which tbllow a considerable number of the Odes prove him to possess critical and discriminating judgment in scholarship. Ile appears to have composed his translations when he "was in the vein ;" for the work has been more or less going on in his mind for the last forty years. And this is undoubtedly the right way to produce good poetry—not to work at it as a task, but to do it according as inclination may lead, or opportunity offer. We do not know that any one ode is much better translated than another : we might quote a sample almost at random. We will take, how ever, the eleventh ode of the second book. There is a pleasant mixture of serious solemnity of