The Press.
London, England, 1857-04-18 00:00:00

THE NOEL'S JOURNEY.

Thou hest called me from Egypt, the land of the stranger,
Thou hest rolled back the waves of a desolate sea,
Thou hast guided my soul through a long night of danger,
The Pharaoh of pride has been conquered by Thee !
I came to the desert ; the waters of sorrow
Were bitter at first ; but I sought for Thy tree,
And soon from the Cross such a taste did they borrow,
No fountain was ever so welcome to me.

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Thou bast led me to Elim when downcast and weary ;
The wells and the palm trees were dear to me there ;
But oh ! be the wilderness ever so dreary,
With Thee for my Saviour, I cannot despair.
Lead on, blessed light ! for thy beauty is o'er me ;
O guide me through Jordan to glory and rest
The blue hills of Sion are rising before me,
The land Thou halt promised!—the Laud of the Blest!
These lines are not merely the melodious
nonsense tdf the small fry of poetasters which
infest literature—there is both thought and
feeling contained in them ; nor are the above
extracts gems picked mit from a mass of infe-
rior matter. The bulk of the poems have great
merit, and we shail hail the appearance of the
writer on a larger scale.

The Seasons of the Church, What they Teach.
Edited by the Rev. Henry Newland. Vol. I.
London: Mozley.
TILE nature of these discourses cannot be
better shown than by the following extract
from the preface :

We may observe that He first caused the attention of the
world to be drawn to the fact of His own Advent, sug-
gestive of the preparation necessary for such an event;
that lie then selected certain men, whom He tried and dis-
ciplined individually, and taught to imitate Him, by living
before them upon earth as man ; that when they had been
thus tried, and disciplined, and instructed unto the King-
dom of God, the Lord's mission on earth in respect of
teaching was complete, His Church had been created and
framed, and was now ready to receive the breath of life :
that it was then, and not before, that the great atonement
was made, which was the condition of this life—that im-
mediately afterwards came the resurrection, the first fruits
of it—and that after this, the doctrines dependent on the
atonement and the resurrection were revealed ; so that
whereas before this He had instructed His disciples in
their duties as men, He now taught His Apostles their
office as churchmen, explaining to them all that up to this
time had been incomprehensible for want of the revelation■
of Good Friday and Easter, those revelations which St. Luke
terms emphatically, the " things pertaining to the King-
dom of God :" that when they began to understand these
things, and not before, He explained to them what He had
before announced of the doctrines connected with the
Third Person of the Trinity, bidding them, however, tarry
at Jerusalem until they were endowed with power from
on high; and that it was then, and not till then, that He
sent them out into the world on their several missions as
perfect Christians, fully instructed in their duties (1 ) as
Christian men, (2) as Christian churchmen, and now at
last fully enabled to perform them.
We trace here a distinct plan, a complete scheme of
teaching, and my belief is, that the Church in her Christian
Year has followed this implicitly; and, that not only the
successions of her seasons, but also the several Sundays
and Festivals belonging to those seasons, are successive
developments of this scheme.
I mean, not only that Advent is the season for the pre-
paration of the Lord's coming, but that each succeeding
Sunday opens a new help to this preparation, in (1) the
Scriptures, (2) the Ministers, and (3) the Invisible
Presence of the Lord Christ.

I mean not only that Christmas is our call to follow the
Lord on earth, but that its festivals are so arranged as to
show us the disposition of the mind and heart, which the
preparations of the former season ought to have produced,
and which are absolutely necessary fir us before we can
hope to follow that example ; and that these are, (1)
Readiness, St. Andrew ; (2) Faith, St. Thomas; (3)
Courage, St. Stephen ; (4) Love, St. John; (5) Purity,
Holy Innocents; concluding with (6) Obedience, Circum-
cision.

Epiphany, I imagine to convey far more than the his-
torical fac:, that the Gentiles were admitted to the fold of
Christ. 1 take it to signify the Epiphania, or Manifests.
lion of Christ in the character of the Sun of Mau, dwelt in
" without measure" by the Spirit. The manifestations of
this being the virtues recorded in the Gospels of the
Season, such as obedience to parents, considerateness to
friends, beneficence to mankind in general, while glimpses
of the indwelling Godhead are also afforded by the circum-
stances which accompany these manifestations; such as
obedience to earthly parents, combined with "My Father's
business ;" assistance given to a relation, combined with
" woman, what have I to do with thee ?" the healing of the
sick, with " speak the word only;" the deliverance of His
followers from danger, with "what manner of man is this,
that even the winds and the sea obey Him ?" Epiphany
in relation to us, I imagine to signify the exhibition of the
Perfect Christian, in the Person of Him who alone is
perfect.
The Season which follows this, I imagine to be in-
tended by the Church as a time of warning, corresponding
with the warnings by which the Lord Himself used to
check the over-confidence of His followers ; suggesting as
it does a comparison of our own actual lives and conduct,
with that of the pattern just exhibited, and bringing before
us (1) the work given us, (2) the means afforded us, (3)
the perfect Pattern of Christian Love which is set be-
fore us.

Lent, I imagine to be the Church's scheme for amend-
ment and return to this pattern ; which scheme is unfolded
in the successive Sundays as (1) ➢fortification of th•
Flesh, (2) Self•distrust, (3) Confidence in Uod, (4)
Reliance on Divine Orlinances, (3) Perseverance, (6)
Voluntary Humiliation.
Holy Week and Easter teach of course the Atonemen4
and the Iteaturection, and at the same time open tbq

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understanding of the Churchman to other doctrines which
depend on these two revelations.
These I imagine to bo (I ) The continued Presence of
Christ in His Church, (2) The Commission of His Mi.
nisters, (3) The office of His Church, (4) The office of the
Comforter, (5) The efficacy of Common Prayer, and (6 )
The Mission of Christ's representatives ; all which subjects
ate successively unfolded during the Season from Easter.
tide to Whitsuntide ; while the prize of our high calling,
the Acceptance of Human Nature, is placed before our eyes
by the doctrines of Ascension Day.
On Whitsuntide, I imagine that the reason why the
Christian and the Churchman is called upon fur the per-
formance of works so far beyond his natural capacity as a
child of Attim, is fully disclosed to us ; and that the whole
scheme of doctrine is summed up and concluded on Trinity
Sunday, by a revelation of the Great Name into whio'i we
ate all baptised.

This completes the doctrinal part of the year—the
remainder is the application of those doctrines to the
ordin try and overy.day life of the Christian. The Church
having led us through this regular chain of systematic
teaching, seems to consider us as the Lord considered
those', who, having accompanied Him through His mission
on earth, having worked out the meaning of His successive'
nvelations, and having " tarried hitherto at Jerusalem,'
abided, that is to say, in the Church until they had been
" endued with power from on high ;" had now been taught,
also by that power, to understand the nature of the gifts
they had been endued with. We are now sent forth on
our several missions in the world, in order to let our light
shine before men, and to set forth the glory of God, by
practising the virtues which we have been taught and
enabled to perform. These virtues, I believe, the Sundays
after Trinity are intended to unfold, each after each, ac-
cording to their natural succession, growth, and develop-
ment.

Much has been said recently on the subject
of sermons and preachers, and people are
dissatisfied that they do not hear from the
pulpits of the Church the same exaggerated
declamation which delights sectarian eongre-
ptions. But such persons should remember
that it has ever been the aim of the English
Church to discredit these appeals to the
emotions, as being apt to create a delusive
spiritual excitement, which is accepted in lieu
of real religion. A highly wrought state of
the feelings—the ecstacies of despair and
hope—the rapture springing from a conviction
of God's favour, or the horror of his abandon-
ment—are not conducive to the better per•
formancc of the nractical duties of life; nor
do they seem much in consonance with the
spirit of that creed whose most perfect
realisation is, we are told, to visit the father-
less and widow, and to keep oneself unspotted
from the world.

Be it right, therefore, or be it wrong, the
tone of pulpit instruction which prevails in
the Established Church is not the result of
any decline of earnestness or lack of ability ;
it is designed and systematic, and the present
publication is an admirable specimen of its
excellence. The Church here speaks as with
the voice of one having authority, who believes
that florid exhortation would be as much out
of place in addressing her children as in the
mistress of a household when directing her ser•
vants' tasks.

" A perverse generation seeketh after a sign,"
and flocks to hear Mr. Spurgeon ; but if that
sober and sensible divinity fur which our
Church has ever been distinguished will not
suffice them, neither vulgar vehemence nor
maudlin sentimentality will improve their
frame of mind. When people find practical
religion irksome they fly for relief to enthu-
siasm, and are doubtless delighted to find that
they can he dissipated and devotional at the
same time. Against all such errors, sermons
like those before us are a sound standing pro-
test ; they exhibit the teaching of the Church
in a methodical and clear style, and are cal-
culated to please, instruct, and strengthen all
true Churchmen.

On Preaching and Preachers. The Inaugural
Address at the Opening of the New Baptist
College, Regent's•park. By the Rev. John Leif.
child. London : Ward and Co.

Tins little work seems to be something like an echo
of a complaint recently put forward by a person
signing himself " Habitans in Sicco," whom, if
those words imply that he is thinity, we could not
address more appropriately than in the words of
Johnson—" Go, my lad, and drink some beer." We
are as sensible as any one of the deficiencies of
pulpit eloquence at the present day, but we greatly
doubt the virtue of such exhortations as Mr. Leif.
child's. We believe, however, that he is in earnest,
and, as a well•written academic praileetion, have
nothing to say against his volume. His language is
well chosen, and his style impressive ; and if he