who was fairer than the sons of men,' will be able, in some measure, to appreciate the justice of these remarks."

Much as Dr. Waugh's mind was imbued with a taste for the classic writers, and much as he had cultivated almost every subject connected with sacred literature, never was a ministry more devoid of every thing like learned parade; and never was there one which more simply and uniformly presented the doctrine of Christ and him crucified to the view of men sinking and withering under the curse of sin. His sermons, in general, were distinguished by the strength and soundness of their theological bearings ; with him the trumpet was never per

mitted to give an uncertain sound. The love of God, the atonement of Christ, and the gracious and regenerating influences of the Divine Spirit, producing holiness of heart and life, were his themes, and imparted a distinct and unequivocal character to all his discourses. When he spoke of the love of God in Christ Jesus, it seemed as if a live coal from off the altar had touched his lips. In the pulpit, and particularly at the sacramental table, his whole soul was animated at the thought of Christ dying for the ungodly. Could a collection of his most striking sayings on this subject be made, it would prove at once the originality of his conceptions, and the glowing warmth of his piety. The system of theology which he had adopted led him to proclaim with equal fearlessness the doctrine of free grace to the chief of sinners through Jesus Christ, and the universal and eternal obligation of moral precepts on the whole family of man..... Nothing was held by him in such deep abhorrence as that mode of preaching which tends to weaken and relax the sacred obligation of the Divine law on the heart and life. Many years ago, a very popular clergyman had preached a sermon at the annual meeting of the London Missionary Society, on the influences of the Spirit,-a sermon which certainly excited a considerable sensation through the church in which it was delivered. Dr. Waugh, whose general disposition was to praise, was silent. At length he said: I am always afraid when I hear any minister speak on the influences of the Spirit without appealing to the word of God: it is a dangerous practice: I know not where a man will land who goes to sea without chart or compass. Never let us separate what God has united, and let all the evidences of the Holy Spirit's influence be decided by the word of God.' Facts, years afterwards, justified these observations. That clergyman gradually went off into all the peculiarities of a school bordering on Antinomianism, and has left in his later writings a nidus which will spread the moral pestilence among his admirers and readers." pp. 178–181.

That he was not idle in this part

of his beloved duties is proved by the following calculation.

"From 1802, when he had become generally known, it was very common for him to preach eighteen or twenty times during the month. A friend, who has been at the pains to take from his memorandum-book the number of his public discourses, finds that they amount to seven thousand seven hundred and six sermons and lectures, from his ordination in September 1780, to his death in 1827; averaging, by more than four hundred, three discourses on every Sabbath during that long period, though he had again and again, for considerable intervals, been disabled for all public labours: so fully did he exemplify his favourite aphorism, 'Work on earth, rest in heaven." pp. 190,

"For many years he was a close student of the word of God, and of the most approved works on theology and general literature; seldom venturing to the pulpit till after the most mature preparation, having both written his discourses and committed them carefully to memory. In process of time, however, he found it both unnecessary and impracticable to persevere in this rigid method of pulpit preparation. It was unnecessary; for his stores of information were rapidly accumulating, and his habits of communication were every day acquiring new facilities. It was impracticable; for the great cause of missions had roused his benevolent mind, and he felt he must study less, and act more. From that time forward he never wrote out his sermons fully." pp. 187, 188.

We copy the following illustrations of his manner of preaching, as cursorily taken down by some of his hearers.

"Of the ancient Prophets, as Examples of Confidence in God.-Could I place the prophet Isaiah at the base of one of the loftiest of the eastern mountains; and, whilst he was gazing on its varied scenery, were an earthquake to rock it upon its deep foundations, until, like the Numidian lion shaking the dew-drops from his mane in the morning, it threw off from its hoary and heaving sides the forests, and flocks, and hamlets, and vineyards; and, were a whirlwind to rush in, at that moment, scattering the broken and fallen masses in mid air: still, the voice of the prophet, if it could be heard amidst the convulsions of nature, would exclaim, Though the everlasting mountains bow, and the perpetual hills be scattered, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation." p. 549.

"Of the Character of Christ.-In his life there was united the mild majesty of piety, wisdom, and beneficence. His heart was the seat of every virtue. His life was goodness--not in books, not in words, but goodness visible; the perfection of moral and religious excellence, looking through the eyes of man; working with the hands of man; listening to the enfeebled cry of misery with the ears of man; walking from the temple of God to the low habitation of the widow and the orphan with the feet of man. He was--the glory of the human race. And those scattered rays of love to God, and compassion to man, which shed peculiar lustre on his life, met in happiest assemblage around his cross, in that blaze of redeeming grace and mercy, which draws all men unto him.

Appeal for the Spread of the Gospel. Shall the lust of the flesh among them who know not God, bid this man go, and he goeth? Shall the lust of the eye bid that man come, and he cometh ?-Shall the pride of life bid another do this, and he doeth it? And shall the command of our Father in heaven make no impression on the hearts of his children?-Shall the example of the Redeemer not influence the redeemed ?-Did the Son of God descend from that throne in the heavens, to which the highest angel in vain raises his eye? Did he descend to purchase with his own blood the benefits of the Gospel? -And--can there be found a man so dead to every good principle, as to withhold his aid in spreading abroad the knowledge of these benefits?"

"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. This passage, when read to an English congregation, loses half its original import. We say we are not ashamed of the Gospel. And why should we? We speak of its Divine origin, of its antiquity, of the sublimity of its doctrines, of the superior tone of its morality, of the equity of its precepts, of the benevolence of its spirit, of its high hopes and heavenly prospects. Christianity, with us, is fashionable. The cross is emblazoned on the arms of the great, it is used on military ensigns, it surmounts the stately cathedrals, it is hung as an ornament on the bosoms of our daughters, it is honoured as the emblem of the religion of the land. It was not so with the proud Jew and the speculative Greek. The preaching of the Gospel excited the hatred of the one, the ridicule of the other, and the opposition of both. There were many things connected with it which were calculated to draw forth the hostility and the contempt of the Greek. There were, among other things, the low repute of the country whence it emanated, and of the Man who was its Founder. The Jews were despised and disliked by all the surrounding nations; and its Founder was a Jew, an obscure man, of mean parentage, the son of a carpenter, being subject

to his father and working at his trade; and when he entered on his public ministry he moved in the lower walks of life, he associated with publicans and sinners; the common people only heard him gladly, the rulers did not believe on him, and a dozen illiterate men, principally Galileans, were his chosen attendants during his life, and the first heralds of his religion to the Gentile world. And beside all this, there was the peculiarity of the man's notions. Why, he told his disciples, that if a man wanted them to go a mile with him, they were to go two; if he would take their coat, they were to give him their cloak also; and that if he smote them on the one cheek, they were to turt to him the other also. Now, was it likely that such a religion as this would be popular with the men whose fathers had fought at Marathon and Thermopyla! O, no! And yet Paul could say, I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.'

"God is Love.-What! must we cut off a right hand, and pluck out a right eye, if they cause us to offend? Yes; and we must part with any thing else, as dear or dearer, if it prove a snare to us. make no terms with depravity.

We

"God is love: all his perfections and procedures are but so many modifications of his love. What is his omnipotence, but the arm of his love? What his omniscience, but the medium through which he contemplates the objects of his love? What his wisdom, but the scheme of his love? What are the offers of the Gospel, but the invitations of his love? What the threatenings of the law, but the warnings of his love? They are the hoarse voice of his love, saying, Man! do thyself no harm! They are a fence thrown round the pit of perdition, to prevent rash men from rushing into ruin! What was the incarnation of the Saviour, but the richest illustration of his love? What were the miracles of Christ, but the condescensions of his love? What were the sighs of Christ, but the breath of his love? What were the prayers of Christ, but the pleadings of his love? What were the tears of Christ, but the dew-drops of his love? What is this earth, but the theatre for the display of his love? What is heaven, but the Alps of his mercy, from whose summits his blessings flowing down in a thousand streams descend to water and refresh his church situated at its base." pp. 550-552.

Iniquity not illegal.-Some men, in the indulgence of their iniquitous practices, pacify conscience by the consideration that the long arm of the law, grown to an enormous extent by the crimes of our country, cannot touch them: their conduct they say is not illegal. God of heaven! and shall a Christian man square his conduct by an act of parliament, with the express precepts and dread sanctions of Jehovah's law, and the spotless, peer

less example of Christ blazing in meridian splendour before his eyes!" p. 553.

"Sacred Songs.In David's songs there are no feeble parts; and he gives credit to his reader for perception in their perusal, without those links to connect the different parts, which moderns find it needful to introduce. His mind catches the prominent beauties as they rise before him; like the roebuck, bounding from rock to rock, regardless of the spaces that intervene. Many of these sacred songs contained or explained the history of their country, and recorded the deeds of their ancestors. And who would not be fired in singing the deeds of Bannockburn, of Marston Moor, or Waterloo!" p. 563. "Praising God.-When death comes, and we must retire from the fair face of nature and of day, then must we praise him. Then, looking back, we see, as it were, a lovely rainbow; one end resting on the earliest recollection of our existence, the other on the moment we take the survey. And all along it sparkles with mercy and goodness, loving-kindness, faithfulness, and love. Then turn

ing our eye to the future, all is hope. We see the hills of holiness: yonder, the inhabitants, the redeemed of the Lord, walking in white. Hark! they sing a new song; and soon shall ye be permit ted to join in their song, if this book be your support, this holy work your delight now." p. 564.

"Ingratitude.-It is not always convenient to know a man whom we have been intimate with in better circumstances, and from whom we may have received many favours. O no! sympathy in such cases is an expensive virtue!" p. 569.

"Modest Benevolence.-An angel would bend from heaven for half-an-hour to hear a man, under the pressure of modesty more incumbent than the shades of the evening, reading the Bible at the bedside of that poor widowed thing." p. 569.

"The Bruised Reed.-The Good Shepherd mends, not breaks, his reeds when they are bruised. I have seen a highland shepherd on a sunny brae piping as if he could never grow old; his flock listening, and the rocks ringing around him: but when the reed of his pipe became hoarse, he had not patience to mend it, but broke it, and threw it away in anger, and made another. Not so our Shepherd; he examines, and tries, and mends, and tunes the bruised spirit, until it sing sweetly of mercy and judgment, as in the days of old."" p. 570. "The returning Prodigal.-It was the morning of the day on which he wrote his confession. Reclining at the foot of the hill, and catching a glance at his squalid countenance in the streamlet below, and looking at his tattered robe, he said, God of Abraham! to what a plight have I brought myself! I will arise and go to my father. The old man walking out from the mansion one morning, on the CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 349.

way his undutiful son went when he left his home many a long year ago, descried in the farthest distance a figure moving onward, and, looking intently along the way, he recognised him, while he was yet a great way off-for paternal affection is sharp-sighted,—and he said, It is my son! my son! and he ran and fell on his neck and embraced him. And when the son began his confession, the father said, 'It is enough, it is enough;' intent only on making preparation expressive of the joy of his heart on his return home." p. 571.

"Intercourse with God.-The chief desire of a good man is to have intercourse with his God. It is on this account prinpally, that he anticipates a future world, where all will suit the dignity and purity of his renewed nature. Whom have I in heaven but thee?' What! none in heaven but God? See, there is Abraham; he looks just as he did on the morning of the day that he prepared to offer Isaac on Mount Moriah. And there is Daniel; don't you see the lions in the back-ground there? And there is David; and he has his harp with him, tuned to sweeter strains than ever it breathed on earth. And there, too, is the throne of Gabriel! and that might very well fix the eyes of a good man for a thousand years. Yet David says, Whom have I in heaven but thee?'

"Love to the Brethren.-If we love Christ, we will love those in whom we can discern the slightest traces of his image. We should not only love those who are eminently pious, but those in whom we see even the smallest marks of personal religion, we should take by the hand, and lead them on. What merit is there in admiring a rose-bud wet with the dew of the morning? Who would thank a man for loving St. John? Christ loves the weakest and meanest of his people; and shall we be more fastidious than our Master?

"The Love of Christ.-Scarcely for a righteous man would one die; yet, peradventure, for a good man, for a Howard, a Hanway, or a Thornton, some would dare to die; but this is problematical after all. But while we were yet sinners, neither good nor just, Christ died for us. He came to give his life a ransom for many. And as to what he submitted to for our sakes, read his life. He submitted to hunger and thirst, and cold and weariness; he endured the hardships and privations of poverty, the contempt of the proud, and the insults of the rude and vulgar. Say not that his conscious innocence would prevent his feeling so much as we might have done. No; the heart which is purest is the fullest of sensibility. And, besides, he endured the wrath of God, which was our due. He descended from the height of his throne of glory, and Gabriel's eye has not yet reached its altitude, to raise us from our ruined state. H

His giving himself as an atoning sacrifice for human transgression is such an astonishing act that it cannot be classed with any of his other works.

"Christian Fellowship.-In communion with God the soul is divinely quickened to a life of faith; it strengthens the hope of the heavenly inheritance. Nobody that sees that poor old man just come from the isle of Patmos, with the mark of the irons on his withered arms, would expect that he had any great prospects. Yet he could say, 'Have fellowship with us.' What,' a man would say, looking at the mark upon his wrist, 'have fellowship with you! where's the boon?' Hear him: Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.' It did not then, indeed, appear what he should be; and the world will not give us credit for our pretensions." pp. 572--574.

The man who could speak thus had no vulgar mind; yet Dr. Waugh knew how to accommo date his appeals to the lowliest of his hearers, most of whom were persons in humble life. One of his never-failing weapons was early national and local reminiscences, and how skilfully he could wield it the following passage may illustrate.

"His congregation, though originally almost exclusively from the north, was composed of a population of considerable diversity, Scottish Highlanders, Lowlanders, Borderers, and a few natives of the north of England; but so well was he acquainted with his hearers, that he knew from what part of the country every family or individual came; and, as his knowledge of Scotland, its general history, local traditions, remarkable scenery, and distinguished characters, was very extensive, he was enabled to avail himself of the feelings and predilections of his people, and of Scotchmen in general, in a manner peculiarly his own. The Highlanders he would arouse with the stern and striking imagery of the torrents, lakes, craggy cliffs, and lonely heaths of their mountain land, and that not in the vague terms of general allusion, but by calling up the hills and streams and glens by name before them,-Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis, Glengarry, the Spey, and the Tay. To the hearts of the Lowlanders he would appeal with the softer pastoral recollections of Teviotdale or Lammermuir, of

Cheviot or Pentland hills, of Nithsdale

or Stitchel Brae. To the English borderers he would recal the field of Flodden, the Till, Otterburn, the feudal days of Percy and Douglas, &c. Often, in this manner, has every member of his congregation had the scenes of his youth and his early associations, as connected with

his religious feelings and moral duties, brought vividly to his recollection in illustration of the subject on which his pastor was preaching or lecturing. And thus he could make of importance the little hill or brae, the silent rock or bosky burn, which, unnoticed by all the world beside, gave character and life to the tender reminiscences of many a poor man and woman, whose days of joyous childhood had been spent among such scenes. They felt it of importance that their brae or their burn should be known to their minister, and wondered that he should be able to describe them with a fidelity so correct, and to enter into their feelings with all the enthusiasm of a companion of their youth, and even to draw forth beauties in those scenes, by his picturesque sketches, which had scarcely ever before attracted their notice. To persons long absent from their native land, but who cherished, tachment to it, it may be imagined how even in old age, sentiments of ardent attouchingly affecting this mode of illustration often proved." pp. 185, 186.

All this, it will perhaps be said, was in " very ill taste;" but we may ask, with Mr. Irving, “Who is this said Taste, and where does she dwell, and what are her attributes?" If Dr. Waugh's sturdy Caledonians were not displeased at their pastor's taste, it is not for us to interfere. We are not sure, however, that alleged good taste is not carried much too far in our Church-of-England ministrations, so as sadly to interfere with popular impression. Sermons are often smoothed down and polished, and every unclassical word and image weeded out, till nothing terse, striking, or vernacular is left to arrest the attention or affect the mind. Where the exact line is to be drawn between courtly tameness and energetic vulgarism, we pretend not to say; but the habits of clerical education and association are more likely to lead our clergy to the former extreme than the latter. The late Mr. Cecil was a remarkable proof that a man of really good taste might dare to be striking, without being vulgar. We shall be heartily rejoiced when Johnson's style and Murray's grammar are so far forgotten, that Englishmen may afford to speak English. Sydney Smith aimed at it,