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Because His presence peace imparts,
And changes dark to light!1

And well for all who lose

Self-willing in His Will,

Who wait for Him their path to choose
And at His feet lie still!

The dawn is in the sky,
Another day begun,

And to GOD's throne goes up the cry,
"FATHER, Thy Will be done!"

Oh well for those whose hands
Answer the words they pray,
Ready to work what He commands,
While it is called to-day.

And well for those who yearn

His bidding to fulfil,

Nor only in their sorrows learn
To love the FATHER'S will!

"Blessed the hearts that bend,
For they shall never break ;"2
And blessed too the hearts that lend
Their strength for JESU's sake.

Oh joy and strength, come forth!
For if ye be not given,

How can His will be done on earth

As it is done in Heaven?

E. H. W.

READING TO THE SICK.S

"I LIKE to visit the houses where there are young married people and children, for I know what to say to them," said a district visitor the other day, "but I do not feel as if I could amuse the old people or the invalids; and if I offer to read a story to them, I can never find one that seems to entertain them."

1S. Francis de Sales.

2 Psalm cxxxix. 10, 11.

3 "Parochial Addresses and Lessons. A Series of Reading for such as are tried by Sickness, Infirmity, and Age." By Richard Johnstone, M.A., Assistant Curate of Moreton Say. (G. Bell and Sons.) Price 3s.

This is a difficulty which must beset many a zealous young lady visitor, particularly if she has scarcely known what it is to be ill herself, and has never had any experience of serious protracted illness, or of poverty-stricken old age. A working man is laid up with a bad attack of rheumatism, which is likely to keep him in the house for several weeks, he has no relation or neighbour who has time to step in and amuse him, except perhaps on Sundays, or in the evening, when he had better be left as quiet, as the circumstances of his small and possibly crowded cottage will permit. He cannot read well enough to amuse himself, yet here is a leisure time such as he has never had before, and such as may be rendered invaluable to him for ever, if he will employ it for reflection on his own past life, and on his future, not only in this, but in another world. He perhaps feels this internally, but he cannot express it in a manner satisfactory to himself; and when the district visitor comes in and reads a story to him, it may pass away the time, but it still leaves him unsatisfied and discontented. He would like to be told why he has been specially marked out for sickness, when he is a poor man who has worked hard for his daily bread, and his visitor to whom good health seems comparatively unimportant, not being obliged to work for a livelihood, is perfectly well. The visitor is at a loss to answer, yet knows that this illness might be a lasting blessing to the sick man, if he could be brought to look upon it in a right light, and she cannot explain that view in her own words. In a case like this, some short chapter on the subject is a great assistance, when each chapter is separate in itself, and is just long enough to give food for thought, and not long enough to weary a restless invalid.

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"Parochial Addresses and Lessons," a little work lately published, is divided in this manner, and is in all respects particularly suitable for reading to the sick and aged. They were written," says the Author in the Preface, "for my own use in parochial visiting. I cannot lay claim to any great originality for them, as the ideas of some are at least founded on the writings of other clergymen, but the form in which they appear is my own. Such as they are, I offer them to those who are engaged in parochial work, in the hope that they may be of some small service in comforting those who are in trouble, and in bringing thoughts to their minds which may make their bodily and mental trials profitable to their souls."

In a hospital for permanent invalids we generally find that the

patients are thankful for any short instruction of this character. They have often led active working lives up to the time that they were disabled, and are glad to be led to think that their days are now not all wasted, but if no longer to be made useful in this world, that they may still be turned to good account in the next. For these this little book will afford much comfort; and the chapters especially headed "Adversity less dangerous than Prosperity," is applicable to us all, for nothing is more difficult to realise than that "whom the LORD loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”

Reviews and Notices.

The Church Printing Company (London) are publishing a series of cheap little tales (twopence each) by Miss Ellen Lipscomb, which are entitled Golden Opportunities. The two first deal with the subjects of Confirmation and First Communion; they contain much good and sensible advice for young persons at those periods, but the doctrinal teaching is scarcely up to the mark. Confirmation is spoken of as an occasion when "persons had solemnly pledged themselves to keep the vows of their baptism, and had received the imposition of pastoral hands as a sign and means of heavenly grace and benediction." The gift of the HOLY GHOST is indeed elsewhere distinctly mentioned, but only apparently as one part of the rite in which the other portion is the "confirmation vow." In the same way the instructions on Holy Communion, while in some passages recognising the Divine Mystery of the Real Presence, elsewhere speak of its having been instituted by our LORD as an "act of remembrance." We do not doubt that the authoress herself holds the true doctrine on both these solemn subjects, but there is a want of definiteness in her expressions with regard to them which will render her liable to be misunderstood. In her chapter on "Fasting Communion," which, we think, will scarcely commend itself to readers of the "Churchman's Companion," she ignores altogether the privilege of assisting at the celebration in spiritual communion, which is happily open to all members of the Church.

Notes, Questions, and Answers, on the Church Catechism and Confirmation, by Dr. Bowes, (Simpkin and Marshall,) on reaching "a revised and enlarged edition," have undergone great improvement. In fact, they may now be thoroughly recommended to all teachers—the only point to which we at all demur being the author's explanation of the term "the Faithful." If the Doctor consults his Latin dictionary he will find that fidelis does not mean a person possessing faith, but one who is generally true and loyal.

Sermons preached in a College Chapel, (Macmillan,) by the Rev. J. R. Illingworth, will be very diversely regarded. Some will think them clothed

in a strained philosophical garb, while others will welcome them as the outcome of a thoroughly orthodox theology adapted to the latest fashion of the nineteenth century. They certainly show considerable power; which we

expect after some pruning will ripen to a fine maturity.

Dictionary of the English Church, (Gardner, Darton and Co.,) is well designed, and when it errs, it is not, we believe, owing to any conscious shrinking from the truth,—but there are many errors to be corrected. We give one example. "Easter, the name of a goddess which the Saxons worshipped in the month of April, and so called because she was the goddess of the East. In our Church it is the Feast of the Passover, in commemoration of the sufferings of our SAVIOUR." It would be difficult to put together any greater series of blunders. The Dictionary does not profess to touch upon doctrine— which, under the circumstances, perhaps is fortunate. The chief value of it seems to be on legal points.

Scala Calestis, (Masters,) Part II. A Manual for Holy Communion, intended chiefly for schoolboys, is the work of a real theologian, and beautifully printed. For those who have undergone a careful, moral and mental preparation, it will be found very acceptable. To the ordinary schoolboy we fear it will be found a somewhat steep stair to mount by.

We are glad to find that the Rev. J. Frank Shaw has received encouragement to proceed with his laborious Bible Class Notes. The Third Part just published (G. J. Palmer) completes the ninth chapter of S. Matthew, and is as full and reliable as its predecessors. We would suggest that the number of the chapter should be given at the top of each page.

From the same author we have received a Sermon entitled The Holy Dead. The tone of it of course is quite catholic,-but we should scarcely care to affirm, against a large measure of authority, that no saints can be at this time in heaven.

Mr. Carter has published, "by request," an excellent Sermon entitled The Hope of Reunion of Catholic Christendom, (Masters,) in which he regards it as providential that the managers of the Vatican Council were hindered from "that formal promulgation of the Decrees, which by universal custom has been regarded as essential to their binding character."

Conversations on the Psalms (London, W. Colmer) are made up by each member of a large family being put in charge of a separate Commentary (as Horne, Kay, Hengstenberg, Poole, &c.) and reading out therefrom the interpretation of each difficult verse as it occurs. The idea is not a bad one ; but as twenty-one Psalms only are included in the first volume, the whole will form rather a bulky work.

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Correspondence.

[The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of the Correspondents.]

To the Editor of the Churchman's Companion.

Answers.

THE REVISERS OF THE A. V. OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IN REFERENCE TO GREEK TENSES.

SIR,-I have always looked to a more correct translation of the Past Tenses of the Greek Verbs as likely to be one of the best results of the Revised Version. In the old Authorised Version it was impossible to gather when Regeneration and Justification took place -whether, that is, it was a thing past or future, and so the Catholic doctrine on these momentous points, so far as direct scriptural statements are concerned, was thoroughly obscured. Now, however, we have unmistakeable statements, which will leave Dissenters and Puritans who have no belief in Baptism altogether without excuse. For both these events are spoken of as things that are past in the life of the Christian, and can of course only have taken place in Baptism. Thus in S. Peter's First Epistle (i. 23) we now have the Greek rightly translated, "having been begotten again," and in 1 Cor. vi. 11, "Ye were washed, ye were sanctified, ye were justified."

And here I would take the opportunity of copying a note which is prefixed to the first of the Epistles in the Cambridge School Edition of the Bible, which states (though not so clearly as one might hope) the distinction between the Past Tenses of the Greek Verb. "The Aorist denotes a single and completed past act [on this principle "being justified," in Romans v. 1, and elsewhere ought to be rather "having been justified."] So it differs from the imperfect which denotes past continuity, and from the Perfect which denotes continuity between past and present."

A better way of stating the distinction would be to say, that the Aorist and the Perfect both express past acts,-the latter implying the continuance of the thing done, whereas the former leaves the present condition altogether undefined. The Imperfect represents the act as still going on. Thus in place of "added to the Church" (Acts ii.) it should be "continued to add to the Church daily."

It is matter of thankfulness also to note that Dr. Gifford in commenting on Romans v. 1, in the "Speaker's Commentary" admits that S. Paul there speaks of Justification as a thing "already received" by the Christian.Yours, &c., S. T. M.

"THE MASTER IS COME, AND CALLETH FOR THEE."

SIR,-There is I think much comfort for us, still struggling amid the shadows of this twilight world, in the glimpses of Paradise which we sometimes obtain at the deathbeds of those who fall asleep in JESUS. One such instance has just come to my personal knowledge which is too striking to be left unrecorded. At three o'clock on Sunday, the tenth of July, our LORD called to Himself one who had loved and served Him with all his heart, during the whole sixty-four years of existence which had been allotted to him here. He was a working man, a carpenter, who never neglected his duty to his employers or to his family in any way, but from first to last his life was truly hid with CHRIST in GOD. A Christian in the deepest of the term-a consistent Churchman, a constant communicant, he made no display of his religion, but it influenced every moment of his pure

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