MAN'S REDEEMER.-HIS HU- FRATERNALNESS. "For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren."-Heb. ii. 11. First: The humanity of Christ. "Are all of one". one nature. "He was made in all parts like unto us," &c. He had a real human nature, with all its natural infirmities, appetites, impulses, affections, faculties. He is Christ. What is His great us from all iniquity," &c. This Thirdly: The fraternalness of Christ. "He is not ashamed to call us brethren.' (1) If Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren let us not be afraid to approach Him. Let us draw near to Him in confidence. (2) If Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren let us not be so foolish and wicked as to be ashamed of called "The SON OF MAN." Not the son of a Jew, an Egyptian, Greek, or Roman. Such a son would have some class peculiarities and sympathies. (1) His humanity serves to enlist our sympathies, and (2) To encourage our hopes. He knows our infirmities. He wears our ashamed to call us brethren nature now in Heaven. let us not be ashamed of His Secondly: The function of followers, however humble. Him. (3) If Christ is not ས་ The Pulpit and its Handmaids. HISTORY, SCIENCE, ART. THE OLD PULPIT'S HOMILY TO THE MODERN, IN WEIGHTY WORDS OF WITTY WISDOM. The author of the following inimitable sketch of the true minister of Christ is no other than the quaint, shrewd, imaginative, and witty Thomas Fuller, who was born in 1608, and died in 1661. His writings are exceedingly numerous; although he was a man of action, in times which made violent partizans. An adherent of the Royalist cause he was deprived of all preferment, and his little property in books and manuscripts seized upon in the early part of the contest between the king and the parliament. But he subsequently held various livings and was tolerated even by those to whom he was politically opposed. THE TRUE MINISTER. I. He endeavors to get the general love and good-will of his parish. This he doth, not so much to make a benefit of them as a benefit for them, that his ministry may be more effectual; otherwise he may preach his own heart out, before he preacheth anything into theirs. The good conceit of the physician is half a cure; and his practice will scarce be happy where his person is hated. Yethe humors them not in his doctrine, to get their love; for such a spaniel is worse than a dumb dog. He shall sooner get their good-will by walking uprightly, than by crouching and creeping. If pious living, and painful laboring in his calling, will not win their affections, he counts it gain to lose them. As for those who causelessly hate him, he pities and prays for them: and such there will be. I should suspect his preaching had no salt in it, if no galled horse did wince. 66 II. He is strict in ordering his conversation. As for those who cleanse blurs with blotted fingers, they make it the worse. It was said of one who preached very well, and lived very ill, that when he was out of the pulpit, it was pity he should ever go into it; and when he was in the pulpit, it was pity he should ever come out of it." But our minister lives sermons✔ And yet I deny not, but dissolute men, like unskilful horsemen, who open a gate on the wrong side, may, by the virtue of their office, open heaven for others, and shut themselves out. III. His behaviour towards his people is grave and courteous. Not too austere and retired; which is laid to the charge of good Mr. Hooper the martyr, that his rigidness frightened the people from consulting with him. "Let your light" saith Christ, "shine before men;" whereas over-reservedness makes the brightest virtue burn dim. E'specially he detesteth affected gravity, (which is rather on men than in them,) whereby some belie their register-book, antedate their age to seem far older than they are, and plait and set their brows in an affected sadness. Whereas St. Anthony the monk might have been known among hundreds of his order by his cheerful face, he having ever (though a most mortified man) a merry countenance. (To be continued.) RAYS FROM THE WELSHMAN'S PULPIT. THE REV. W. WILLIAMS of Wern. Among other high qualities for which the late Rev. W. Williams of Wern, was distinguished as a preacher, was the quickness with which he detected the analogies existing between human and spiritual operations. If there was one thing, more than another, in which he excelled as a preacher, it was in the novelty and pertinence of his illustrations. Never, perhaps, since the days of the Great Teacher, did any preacher lay the objects of nature and the pursuits of men under greater contributions for the exposition and enforcement of reli gious truth. All things seemed to whisper something to him which had never been disclosed before, and to point out for his occupation, new and highly advantageous points of observation. Some men appear to examine the same objects always from the same spots, and hence the sameness of their reflections; but Williams seemed to look at every thing from unfrequented points, that commanded fresher and bolder views. Every object in nature, every human avocation, every incident in life, seemed to have fastened on it some new and striking truth. To simplify, rather than embellish a subject was his great aim, and hence the rejection of mere flowers, and the employment of only expository images. His mind was of too masculine a cast, and too solemnly pledged to usefulness in all pulpit engagements, to admit of his dallying with the mere ornaments of oratory. His use of comparisons was sufficient to convince any one that he attached no value whatever to them, except so far as they subserved the explanation or application of truth. Unlike certain showy but weak-minded preachers, who are so enamoured of tinsel and glare that they often employ even religious truths only as pegs on which to suspend a fine simile, he, on the contrary, with almost instinctive severity of taste, allotted to figures only a subordinate department in expounding the great verities of the Bible. Here is an example :— THE GOSPEL FIRST PREACHED AT JERUSALEM IN ORDER TO TEST ITS POWER. "Beginning at Jerusalem." On preaching from these words he stated as one reason why the apostles were to begin atJerusalem, that it was necessary to test the converting power of the gospel. "At the village of Bersham, near which I reside, there is," he said, "a foundry for casting cannons; and after they are cast, they are tested by the founders, who first of all put in a single charge, and if they bear that, then a double charge, and if they bear that without bursting, they are pronounced fit for the deck of a man-of-war or the battle-field. And the casters act wisely and safely; for should there be a flaw in these engines of war, it is better it should be detected in the foundry-yard than when in the act of being fired against the foe. The gospel was a new and an untried instrument. It was first to be tested; and where, on the face of the whole earth, was there a more fitting place than Jerusalem for making the first experiment? If the gospel proved itself instrumentally equal to the conversion of the sinners at Jerusalem, no misgivings could ever afterwards be entertained respecting its fitness to do execution in the lands of the Gentile. Peter was the man appointed to test this new gun. He charged and fired it. Three thousand were converted in one day. After this triumphant trial the fishermen of Galilee went forth everywhere boldly to preach the word,” fully assured that in no quarter of the globe were there to be found more hardened sinners than those who had stoned and killed the prophets, and who had reached the climacteric of guilt by putting to death the Heir of Heaven Himself. Well might the great apostle of the Gentiles declare his readiness to preach the gospel in Rome, knowing it was the "power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." He was not ashamed of what had so often proved itself a power. 66 ACCORDING TO YOUR FAITH. 'According to your faith be it unto you, According to the size and number of windows in a house will be the quantity of light admitted into it. According to the size of the vessel let down into a well will be the quantity of water which will be brought up. THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER. "How," he once enquired in a sermon preached at Bala, where the humbler classes are engaged in knitting stockings "How is character formed? Gradually-just as you Bala women knit stockings—a stitch at a time."-REV. R. KILSBY JONES, Literary Notices. [We hold it to be the duty of an Editor either to give an early notice of the book sent to him for remark, or to return them at once to the Publisher. It is unjust to praise worthless books; it is robbery to retain unnoticed ones.] THE REVIEWER'S CANON. In every work regard the author's end, Since none can compass more than they intend. THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO, and the Platonic Philosophy, unfolded and set forth. By DR. ACKERMANN, Archdeacon at Jena. Translated from the German by SAMUEL RALPH ASBURY, with an Introductory Note by WILLIAM T. C. SHEDD, D.D. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. JI B.A.; THE man who essays to unfold the relation of Platonic philosophy to Christianity, ought to be endowed with rare powers of thought, keenness of intuition, and sources of information. He ought to know thoroughly and accurately, both Platonism and Christianity. But how few philosophers even of the highest type are agreed in all the interpretations of the former, and but few of our best theologians are agreed in all their views of the latter. Whilst conceited smatterers will, of course, be found in both cases, who will profess thoroughly to understand both the philosophy of Plato, and the teachings of Christ, scarcely a profound thinker and an accomplished scholar will be met with, who will venture to assert that he has mastered either. The work therefore undertaken by our author is somewhat Herculean, and implies on his part a consciousness of powers rarely possessed. He however, seems profoundly impressed with the difficulty of the work, and hence he only undertakes a part of it, and that after many years preparation. He does not profess to exhibit the speculation and metaphysical phases of the philosophy of the Academy-although his incidental references to them, indicate their clear subjection to his intellect—but aims to present the special points of contact between it and the gospel system. The book is chiefly occupied with those features in Platonism which have an affinity with Revelation, and are favourable to the Evangelical scheme; and it plainly shows how far short the cogitations of the most illustrious sages fall of the sublime discoveries of Jesus of Nazareth. All that great Plato could do for humanity, was to provoke enquiry, and to whet the strong appetites of the soul. It was for Jesus to propound the solutions, to satisfy the hungry with bread, and the thirsty with living waters. Regarding Platonism as involving the highest theological conceptions that the unaided intellect of man could form, we may consider the work before us, as a profoundly interesting and edifying treatise upon the relations of what is called natural and revealed religion. The Theologian and the Preacher, to whom this work will be especially valuable, will find that Dr. Ackermann has done for them in a masterly way, a most desirable work, which no one else has accomplished, and which but few of the most competent philosophic students of the Bible would dare attempt. THE PRODIGAL SON; a Series of Sermons. By WILLIAM ROBINSON CLARK, M.A., Vicar of Taunton, St. Mary Magdalene. London: Bell and Daldy. THE RESURRECTION AND THE NEW CREATION. Two Sermons by WILLIAM ROBINSON CLARK, M. A. London: Longman and Co. THE parable of the Prodigal Son has been called, "the pearl and crown of all the parables of scripture ;" and so it is. It is God's great Bible epitomized. The unbridled imaginations of not a few of the more sensuous expositors have at various times sadly disfigured this Heavenly picture. With their dirty paint, and clumsy brush, they have thrown into it not a few of their own miserable creations. Heartily do we rejoice at the many specimens of a more chaste and truthful treatment of this inimitable parable, which are |