ARGUMENT.-A Good

A good argument, like an impetuous stream, drives all obstructions before it, and is a tributary to the great ocean of truth.-Dr. Davies.

ARGUMENT-Indispensable.

Whether in the direct form of propositions or otherwise, argument or reasoning is indispensable in a sermon. Doctrines must, by all preachers, be stated, proved, and defended. There is always, and everywhere, something to be proved. We cannot state or affirm a thing, but we must proceed to show that the thing is true, or right, or desirable. For even all that part of a discourse called the persuasive must be grounded upon the truth, or equity, or eligibility, of the premises themselves, which afford a basis for argumentation. In such familiar instances, the formalities of reasoning may and ought to be dispensed with; but the essence of the argument must remain, and be diffused throughout the lecture or sermon. And, though the principles of reasoning are less apparent in some discourses, they are always existent or supposed, or implied, or couched in some of the infinite varieties of language. Arguments suited to each kind will be supplied by the fertility of the mind in study, and those are especially to be preferred which arise from Scripture fairly and justly interpreted.-Dr. Sturtevant.

ARRANGEMENT-Enjoined.

A well-written sermon should be like a simple and well-arranged piece of mosaic work, each part naturally falling in with what goes before and with what follows after. In a word, let your sermon have a regular and connected begin. ning, middle, and ending.-Bishop Stanley.

You must adopt your centre or chief idea, and subordinate to this idea all the rest in such a way as to constitute a sort of organism, having head, organs, and limbs, by means of which the light radiates, just as in the human body the blood circulates to the extremities.-Professor Bautain.

ART-Christian

The interests of Christian art and the integrity of Scripture are indissolubly connected. Where superstition mingles, the quality of Christian art suffers; where doubt enters, Christian art has nothing to do. It may even be averred that if a person could be imagined deeply imbued with aesthetic tastes and sentiments, and utterly ignorant of Scripture, he would yet intuitively prefer, as art, all those conceptions of our Lord's history which adhere to the simple text.Eastlake.

ART. The Employment of

Never was art more nobly employed than by our forefathers, when they raised those beautiful piles-our cathedrals, our churches, our universities, our abbeys, to the honour of that religion which God had given to man.-Bray.

ART. The Holiness of

Every art is holy in itself; it is the son of Eternal Light.-Bishop Tegnér. ART. The Might of

Art is mighty; for art is the work of man under the guidance and inspiration of a mightier power than man.--Archdeacon Hare.

ART.-The Religious Character of

Never is piety more unwise than when she casts beauty out of the Church, and by this excommunication forces her fairest sister to become profane. It is the duty of religion not to eject, but to cherish and seek fellowship with every beautiful exhibition which delights, and every delicate art which embellishes human life. So, on the other hand, it is the duty of art not to waste its high capabilities in the imitation of what is trivial, and in the curious adornment of what has only a finite significance. The highest art is always the most religious; and the greatest artist is always a devout man. A scoffing Raphael or Michael Angelo is not conceivable.-Professor Blackie.

ARTICLES.-The Authors of the

Let me remind you that they who, though dead, yet speak in these formularies of our Church, were men who, living in troublous times, knew the importance, better than we do, of correct or incorrect expressions in the things of God, and proved their sincerity, in many well-known and memorable instances, by sealing their testimony with their blood. Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, with many others-Fathers of the English Church they are rightly called-speak to us in these Articles from a martyr's grave.-Dr. C. J. Vaughan.

ARTICLES.-The Importance of the

The thirty-nine Articles contain the best body of divinity extant. They shine clear as the noonday sun in the firmament of theology. Hence, they take rank next to the Holy Scriptures themselves.-Dr. Davies.

ASCENSION-DAY.

The Church keeps high festival on this day, in memory of Christ's ascending up into heaven after His resurrection, in His human nature, and in presence of His disciples. Wonderful fact! He came from heaven in His divine nature only; now, having perfected salvation on this day, He goes back again, but He takes with Him the human nature as well as the divine, that it may be glorified also, and thus become the meet pattern of "that which shall be" in regard to His ransomed ones. His ascension is a sure pledge of their exaltation.-Buck.

We must not stand to gaze too long,

Though on unfolding heaven our gaze we bend,
Where lost behind the bright angelic throng
We see Christ's entering triumph slow ascend.

No fear but we shall soon behold,
Faster than now it fades, that gleam revive,
When issuing from His cloud of fiery gold
Our wasted frames feel the true Sun and live.

Then shall we see Thee as Thou art,

For ever fixed in no unfruitful gaze,

But such as lifts the new-created heart,

Age after age, in worthier love and praise.-Keble.

ASCETICISM. The Christian and

Asceticism is not dead yet. A man may be poor in spirit without being poor in his garments. Because a man is a Christian he is not called to forswear the

treasures of refinement. Consecrated using, and not despising and throwing away, is God's law for riches, and beauty, and all earthly good. All secular good belongs to the Christian more than to any other man. In God's wish, he is not only the heir of God hereafter, but it is declared that he shall now inherit the earth. A Christian, who every day carries home his gifts to Christ, may be heaped with treasure, and with all things that are beautiful in the world. The world only waits till Christians can bear it without self-indulgence, before it pours all its bright possessions into their lap. It is enough that Christ was born in a manger; His children are not always to tabernacle there. Christ is not to be the pauper of the universe for ever: He is to be the King of Glory.H. W. Beecher.

ASCETICS.-The Self-Righteousness of

The men who have embraced such voluntary humiliation have too commonly accounted it quite proper to indemnify themselves by deriving from the meagreness of their diet supplies whereon their self-righteousness may fare sumptuously every day, and from the spareness of their apparel abundant reason for compassing themselves with pride as with a garment. Their humility has been less that of the violet than that of the willow, which, while it bends its head with a graceful submissiveness, seems to be constantly employed in contemplating its own image in the stream.-Dr. R. Vaughan.

ASH-WEDNESDAY.

Called the first day of Lent, when true penitents express their humiliation in sentiments akin to those of the fifty-first Psalm, and feel that the dust, and not the throne, is their proper place.-Buck.

Let us keep our fast within,

Till Heaven and we are quite alone,
Then let the grief, the shame, the sin,
Before the mercy-seat be thrown:
Between the porch and altar weep,
Unworthy of the holiest place,
Yet hoping near the shrine to keep
One lowly cell in sight of grace.

Nor fear lest sympathy should fail

Hast thou not seen, in nigl-hours drear,
When racking thoughts the heart assail,
The glimmering stars by turns appear,

And from th' eternal home above

With silent news of mercy steal?

So angels pause on tasks of love,

To look where sorrowing sinners kneel.- Keble.

ASPIRATIONS.-Devout

O Lord! let me live out of the world with Thee if Thou wilt; but let me not live in the world without Thee.-Bishop Hall.

Oh that my soul were holy, as He is holy! Oh that it were pure, even as Christ is pure, and perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect!-Brainerd.

I long to see this Excellence

Which at such distance strikes my sense:
My impatient soul struggles to disengage

Her wings from the confinement of her cage:

Would'st Thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free,
How would she hasten to be linked to Thee!

She'd for no angels' conduct stay,

But fly, and love on all the way.-Norris.

among the sons of men!

Oh, that time would post faster, and hasten our communion with that Fairest But a few years will do our turn, and the soldier's hourglass will soon run out. I am sure the saints, at their best, are but strangers to the weight and worth of the incomparable excellency of Immanuel. We know not the half of what we love when we love Christ.-Rutherford.

ASPIRATIONS.-Glorious

Our glorious aspirations, which give us life, grow torpid in the din of worldly bustle.-Goethe.

AUTHOR.-The Delight of an

The delight of an author, on launching a fresh volume on the sea of thought, is akin to that of the husbandman, when the last golden sheaf is safely housed, and "harvest home" is ringing on every side. And his feeling is all the more intense, if he believes its contents are in perfect harmony with eternal truth, and that when he sleeps in death, his book will yet live on, and, like an angel of goodness, bless the world with its light and influence.-Dr. Davies.

AUTHOR.-The Farewell of an

Read this, world! He who writes is dead to thee,
But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired:
Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired,
Like blood to his heart. The course of study he
Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree
He took was high: it was wise wretchedness.
He suffered perfectly, and gained no less
A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see

A few bright seeds: he sowed them-hoped them truth:

The autumn of that seed is in these pages.

Peace to thee, world!-farewell! May God the Power,
And God the Love, and God the Grace, be ours!-P. J. Bailey.

AUTHOR.-The Invocation of an

Come, gracious Influence, Breath of the Lord!

And touch me trembling, as Thou touched the man

Greatly beloved, when he in vision saw

By Ulai's stream, the Ancient sit, and talked
With Gabriel, to his prayer swiftly sent,

At evening sacrifice. Hold my right hand,
Almighty! hear me; for I ask through Him

Whom Thou hast heard, whom Thou wilt always hear,
Thy Son, our interceding great High-Priest!-Pollok.

AUTHOR.-The Motives of an

If the great pains and labour I take spring not from the love and for the sake of Him that died for me, the world could not give me money enough to write only one book, or to translate the Bible. I desire not to be rewarded and paid of the world for my books; the world is too poor to give me satisfaction.-Luther. AUTHOR.-The Reflections of an

The morning after my exit, the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green, the world will proceed in its old course, and people laugh and marry as they used to do.-Pope.

AUTHOR.-The Responsibility of an

An author had need narrowly to watch his pen, lest a line should escape it which by possibility may do mischief when he has been long dead and buried. What we have done, when we have written a book, will never be known till the Day of Judgment; then the account will be liquidated, and all the good it has occasioned, and all the evil, will witness either for or against us.—Cowper. AUTHORITY-must be Asserted.

What though the winds of doctrine and opinion should be let loose from every quarter of the heavens, to fight against the honour of the Church and the autho. rity of her ministers;-what though a feverish thirst should come-as it undoubtedly has come-upon the intellect of man, and many a hand should be eagerly stretched out toward the tree of knowledge, even while the tree of life is often scornfully passed by;-what do these signs tell us, but that we are fallen upon days in which the word of authority must be uttered in no faint or languid accents, if we would stir the spirits of the people? It must be uttered as if it came forth from a heart in which the truth of God is enshrined. It must sound like a response from the sanctuary of Him who sitteth between the cherubim.-Bas. AUTHORITY-an Enemy.

It is the greatest and most irreconcileable enemy to truth and argument that this world ever furnished. All the sophistry, all the colour of plausibility, all the artifice and cunning of the subtlest disputer in the world may be laid open and turned to the a lvantage of that very truth which they are designed to hide; but against authority there is no defence. It was authority which crushed the noble sentiments of Socrates and others: by authority the Jews and heathens combate the truth of the Gospel; and when Christians increased into a majority, and came to think the same method to be the only proper one for the advantage of their cause which had been the enemy and destroyer of it, then it was the authority of Christians which, by degrees, not only laid waste the honour of Christianity, but well-nigh extinguished it among men. It was authority which would have prevented all reformation where it is, and which has put a barrier against it wherever it is not.-Bishop Hoadley.

AUTHORITY.-Human

It is my hearty prayer to the Father of Light and to the God of Truth-that all huxan authority in matters of faith may come to a full end; and that every one who has reason to direct him and a soul to save, may be his own judge in everything that concerns his eternal welfare, without any prevailing regard to the dictates of fallible men, or fear of their peevish and impotent censures.-Bishop Chandler.