It is better, we know, to live in a large house than a small one; better to have convenient furniture than inconvenient; better to have land than no land, But "all is not gold that glitters." It is greatly to be questioned whether those who have these comforts are as content as many who are without them. Dives has wealth, Lazarus has none; but what if Dives with his wealth has endless demands upon it and harassing fears about it? If Lazarus is happy with his crust, he need not envy Dives. There you are, John Hodge, resting your horses at plough and looking at yon large white mansion on the hill-side. You think you should be perfectly satisfied and blessed if you changed places with Squire Allacre, don't you? Oh, foolish John! He does not sleep as soundly as you. He sips ancient wine, and carves well-fed game, but your hard work gives you a relish for your humble dinner, eaten under the hedge, which very likely he would give not a little to obtain. Wealth is a blessing, but wealth is not omnipotent. Poverty is an evil but a mitigated evil.

"In palaces are hearts that ask,
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a dreary task,
And all good things denied;

And hearts in poorest huts admire

How love has in their aid

(Love that nought ere seems to tire)
Such rich provisions made."

Commercial prosperity and depression afford a further instance of the counterbalancing forces which Providence has given to regulate human affairs. Unquestionably it is well that trade and agriculture should flourish. It is well that a nation's harbours should be studded with the ships of every clime, its markets filled with eager buyers and sellers, its exchanges thronged with merchants and merchant-princes, its mills going, its fields fringed with ripening grain, its population increasing. These are things for which to be truly thankful to Him who is the giver of every good gift. Notwithstanding, as adversity is sometimes beneficial to individuals, so is it to a nation. Stagnant trade has its compensation. Ingenuity is taxed. When one source of subsistence fails, others are anxiously sought. Thus, discoveries are made; improvements are effected. "Necessity is the mother of invention," and many a useful invention has been necessitated by failing resources. Moreover, men's powers of endurance, hope, and self-restraint are put to the test. Past times showed, too often, that when thus tried, these virtues did not exist in any powerful degree among the operatives of our land. It is not so now. Recent experience in Lancashire and Cheshire has proved that a noble, long-suffering, and brave people inhabit those

Because of human blood, and violence
To land, city, and all inhabitants.

V.

Woe to him gaining evil gain to his house;
To set his nest on high,

To be delivered from the power of evil!
Thou devisest disgrace for thy house,
In destroying many peoples,

And injurest thy soul:

For the stone from the wall cries out,

And the beam from the wood-work answers it.

Woe to him building a city by blood,

And founding a burgh by iniquity!

Is it not-see!-of Jehovah of hosts

That the peoples labour for the very fire,

And the tribes for very vanity weary themselves?

For the land would be filled, by knowing the glory of Jehovah, As the waters cover the sea.

Woe to him giving his neighbour drink,

Pouring out thy poison and even making drunk,

In order to gaze upon his nakedness!

Thou shalt be satiated with shame rather than glory;

Drink thou also, and be seen uncircumcised,

There shall be passed to thee the cup of Jehovah's right hand,

And infamy shall be on thy glory.

For the violence (done to) Lebanon shall cover thee,

As the destruction of the cattle terrified them,

Because of human blood, and violence

To land, city, and all inhabitants.

VI.

What benefit is a carved image

That its former carves it?

A cast image and teacher of lies,

That the former of his thing formed trusts upon that,

In making dumb nothingnesses?

Woe to him, saying to the wood, "Awake!"

"Arise!" to dumb stone;-That teach? Behold! that? encased in gold and silver And no breath at all within it!

But Jehovah is in His holy temple,

Silence before Him, all the earth.

VII.

A prayer by Habakkuk the prophet, being a psalm.

Jehovah, I heard Thy message, and I feared.

Jehovah, revive Thy work amid the years,

Amid the years make known, in wrath remember mercy.

God came from Teman,

1.

And the Holy One from Mount Paran.

Symphony,

Covered the heavens His majesty,
And His glory filled the earth;
And there was splendour as the light,
Rays He had from His hand,

Yet there was the hiding of His grandeur.

Before Him went the pestilence,

And burning fever issued after Him.

He stood—and shook the earth,

He looked-and made to tremble the nations; And were scattered as dust the eternal mountains, Sank down the everlasting hills :

Everlasting are His ways.

In distress I saw the tents of Cushan,
Trembled the curtains of the land of Midian.

With rivers was Jehovah angry?

Or against the rivers was Thy wrath?
Or against the sea was Thine indignation?
When Thou didst ride upon Thy horses-
Chariots of deliverance.

2.

Completely was Thy bow made bare.

Satisfied were the spears with triumph.
Symphony.

In rivers broke forth the land;

They saw Thee, they trembled, the mountains;

Torrent of waters overflowed;

The deep uttered his voice,

Lifted up his hands on high.

The sun-the moon stood back in her habitation:
With light Thine arrows went,

With splendour the lightning Thy spear.

In wrath Thou didst march through the land,

In anger Thou didst thresh the nations;

Thou didst go out for the deliverance of Thy people,
For the deliverance of Thine anointed.

3.

Thou didst strike the head from the house of the wicked,

Making bare the foundation even to the rock.

Symphony.

Thou didst pierce with his own spears the head of his officers;

They stormed up to scatter me,

Their rejoicings were as to devour the poor in ambush,

Thou didst tread on the Sea with thy horses,

On the foam of many waters.

I heard and trembled my breast;
At the voice-quivered my lips;

There went decay through my bones,
And under me I trembled,

Who should repose in the day of distress,
In an attack by the nation that invades us.
For the fig tree may not blossom,

And nothing be the produce of the vine,
The labour of the olive may deceive,

And the fields produce no food;
May fail from the fold the flock,
And no herd be in the stalls,
Yet I in Jehovah will exult,

I will rejoice in the God of my deliverance.
Jehovah, my Lord, is my strength,

And he sets my feet like hind's,

And upon my heights makes me to walk,

To the Conductor on my stringed instruments. Brent.

J. A. D.

CHURCH QUESTIONS.-No. II.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO FRIENDS.

THE Saturday evening that followed the last reported interview between Arnold Hope and myself found us again together in his rooms at the Brewery. When we were comfortably settled with our cigars by the fire, he at once began, after a few vigorous puffs :

"My dear fellow, I want to make a confession."

"Nothing very bad, I hope?"

"You shall judge. The fact is that when I was at church last Sunday, saying the Apostles' Creed, your paradox came into my head and it all at once occurred to me to ask whether I was quite sure I knew what I meant by believing in the Holy Catholic Church."

"I don't wonder. So I suppose when you came home you took down 'Pearson' and tried to find out."

"No, I didn't. I thought it was best to 'interrogate my own consciousness,' as old Schaffwissen used to tell us to do at Dublin."

The remembrance of the kind-hearted, dreamy-eyed old German, now, alas! in "the Silent Land," provoked a smile of mingled amusement and tenderness: but I rejoined, in the same style:

"And did you 'evolve the idea' of the Catholic Church therefrom?"

"Well, not exactly; but I think I see my way a little more

clearly now. Succession."

You know I never could believe in Apostolical

"No, I wish you could, almost: it would be easier to argue out this matter with you then."

I dare say! But I can rest pretty fairly in this, that the Church of England is a branch of the great family of God. Do not interrupt me: you shall have your fling directly. We have the Three Creeds, we acknowledge the Four general Councils, we possess also a regular Episcopate, on the model of that which we find in primitive times. In fact, we take up the earliest of ecclesiastical histories, both before and after Constantine, down to the time when the Eastern and the Western churches profanely separated, and marred the unity of Christendom; and through all that long period we find ourselves represented—in doctrine, form, and church order before the days of Constantine, and in national position and establishment also, afterwards. Now you dissenters have no history, have you? You are consciously dissevered from antiquity at every point. Christendom disowns you."

My friend was becoming warm. At this point I thought it expedient to stop him.

'Well, what after all do you believe, when you say 'I believe in the Holy Catholic Church?""

"Why, I believe that there is such a church on earth, and that the Anglican church belongs to it."

"And the Roman church?"

"Yes-though with many corruptions."

"Then you do not believe her to be the Scarlet Woman of the Revelation?"

'Nonsense, no. 'Speak gently of thy Sister's fall,' you know." "Well, let us leave the Pope alone to-night. I believe I might puzzle you too, Arnold, by asking you about the branches,' the Greek church, the Lutheran, and the rest-are they 'catholic,' or

not."

"Nay, a truce to all that! We might go on for ever if we were to consider all Christendom, and try to define "What nevertheless you believe."

"Just so; but is there not a difference, Frere, between the grasp of faith and the compass of a definition? There is a Holy Catholic church; I have told you what I think its marks to be; and I further think the English church belongs to it. It is not itself the Catholic church of course, but it has the stamp of catholicity. If you want a logical definition, 'catholic' is its genus, and 'Anglican' its differentia.

"Well, considering you disown Apostolic Succession, I think you are on somewhat slippery ground. But I don't wonder at it,