successively of Exeter and Norwich, in one of his 'Anthems for the Cathedral of Exeter,' points first the hopeless longing, and then the efficacy of revelation to turn despair into faith and hope and love.

Lord, what am I? a worm, dust, vapour, nothing!
What is my life? a dream, a daily dying!
What is my flesh? my soul's uneasy clothing!
What is my time? a minute ever flying :
My time, my flesh, my life, and I;
What are we, Lord, but vanity?

Where am I, Lord? down in a vale of death:
What is my trade? Sin, my dear God offending;
My sport sin too, my stay a puff of breath:
What end of sin? Hell's horror never ending:
My way, my trade, sport, stay, and place,
Help me to make up my doleful case.

Lord, what art Thou? pure life, power, beauty, bliss:
Where dwell'st Thou? up above in perfect light:
What is Thy time? Eternity it is:

What state? attendance of each glorious sprite :
Thyself, Thy place, Thy days, Thy state,
Pass all the thoughts of powers create.

How shall I reach Thee, Lord? Oh, soar above,
Ambitious soul: but which way should I fly?
Thou, Lord, art Way and End: what wings have I?
Aspiring thoughts of faith, of hope, of love;
Oh, let these wings, that way alone,
Present me to Thy blissful throne!

St. Philip laboured many years in Upper Asia, and so successfully that he effected an almost national conversion of the Scythians; taking leave of whom, he at length visited Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a rich and prosperous city, but a stronghold of idolatry, where, amongst many objects of superstitious veneration, there was a huge dragon or serpent, to which extraordinary honours were paid. After St. Philip had caused the death or the demission of this monster, he took occasion to admonish the people on the evils attending so degraded a superstition; and his teaching was followed with so much success that the magistrates, moved with envy of his influence, caused him to be thrown into prison and severely scourged. After this preliminary cruelty, he was led to execution, and, having been bound, he is variously said to have been hung up by the neck against a pillar; and to have been crucified, and then stoned whilst suffering the agonies of the cross. The authorities who favour crucifixion as the mode of St. Philip's death, however, are comparatively late ones so that Hildebrand calls Isidore of Seville (570-636) the first author of an assertion to the effect that Philip was crucified.' The holy Apostle died in the act of exhorting the assembled brethren to hold fast the doctrine of

DESCRIPTION OF ST. JAMES.

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the Lord Jesus, and to confirm the people in the same; and in prayer that the Lord would preserve His Church according to His promise. St. Philip migrated-to use one of those sweet flowers of speech with which the ancient Church wreathed the front of Christian death-in the eighty-seventh year of his age, and was buried at Hierapolis, by his sister Mariamne and St. Bartholomew his fellow-labourer; the latter of whom had endured a like scourging with St. Philip, and had already undergone the preliminary stages of a like execution, when the completion of his murder was stayed by an earthquake in which the people of Hierapolis seemed to hear the threats of Divine vengeance.

St. James the Less, surnamed 'the Just,' is called in Scripture the brother of our Lord; but upon grounds which the known practice of the Jews in reckoning relationship has left debatable. But the ancient Fathers, especially of the Greek Church, make St. James and them that were styled brethren of our Lord, children of Joseph by a former wife; and then, as he was reputed and called our Saviour's father, so they might well be accounted and called His brethren.'*

We have no particulars of St. James furnished to us during the time that he attended upon our Lord; until, after His Resurrection, a special manifestation of Himself was vouchsafed to him by his risen Master. St. Paul mentions this manifestation as one of the proofs of Christ's Resurrection :-'After that he was seen of James' (1 Cor. xv. 7); which simple assertion is considerably expanded in the Evangelium Secundum Hebræos, the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarenes, which was much used by Origen, and of which St. Jerome made a Greek and a Latin translation. James, it is said, had made a vow, after partaking of the bread distributed by Christ at the Last Supper, 'that he would eat no more until he had seen Jesus risen from the dead.' Jesus, coming to him, had a table set and bread placed upon it, which bread He blessed and gave to James, with the words, 'Eat thy bread now, my brother, since the Son of Man has risen from the dead.'+

After the Ascension of our Lord, St. James was elected Bishop of Jerusalem, the 'Mother of all other Churches,' over which hẹ presided for thirty years, with such a character for sanctity and integrity that the Christians would press round him in order to touch the hem of his garment. Eusebius and St. Jerome follow Hegesippus and Epiphanius in describing St. James as a Nazarene, who drank no wine or strong drink, who ate no flesh, who neither shaved his beard, nor anointed himself with oil, nor used a bath. He was so abstemious that his body was pale with fasting; and so

* Nelson's Festivals and Fasts of the English Church.
+ St. Jerome: De Viris Illustribus.

constant in prayer that his knees became as hard and brawny as
the knees of camels.* George Herbert thus sings of ' Prayer':
Prayer, the Church's banquet, Angel's age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth ;
Engine against the Almighty, sinner's tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six days' world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise ;

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
The land of spices, something understood.

But even the common reverence of both Jews and Christians could not suffice to ward off the attacks of malice from the estimable Apostle. The enemies of Christianity, with guileful and flattering words, caused him to be conveyed to a pinnacle of the Temple, in order that from thence, in the sight and hearing of the people then crowding Jerusalem upon the occasion of the Paschal Feast, he might speak in contravention of the claims of Jesus to be regarded as the Messiah. Tell us,' they said, 'O Justus! whom we have every reason to believe, seeing that the people are thus generally led away with the doctrine of Jesus who was crucified, tell us what is this institution of the crucified Jesus!' To which the Apostle with a loud voice answered :- Why do ye inquire concerning Jesus, the Son of Man? No! He is now sitting in Heaven, at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and will come again in the clouds of Heaven' At this, the populace responded with loud cries of 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' The Scribes and Pharisees, enraged at a result so contrary to their calculations, exclaimed that James himself was seduced; and cast him headlong from the Temple. Falling bruised and mangled, but not slain, the Apostle presently struggled to his knees, and in that attitude prayed fervently for the forgiveness of his enemies, who all the while kept up a shower of stones upon his battered form. A Rechabite, who stood by, and who is identified by Epiphanius as Simeon, the Apostle's kinsman and successor in his Episcopate, entreated the Jews to spare him. The just man,' he said, 'prays for you; why, therefore, do ye slay him?" But they never the more restrained their cruelty, continuing to stone the Apostle until a fuller with his club mercifully despatched him by beating out his brains. Accord

* Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, lib. ii., c. 23; St. Jerome: De Viris Illustribus.

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299

ing to Epiphanius, the martyrdom of St. James took place when he was in the ninety-sixth year of his age.*

The General Epistle of St. James is eminently practical, being devoted to an enforcement of all Christian virtues-of constancy, patience, purity, charity, and others. There is no real virtue which is not based upon that peculiar excellence of character which conferred upon St. James the title of 'the Just;' and we would conclude our notice of this Apostle with a poetical tribute to the immortal savour of that virtue of virtues. James Shirley, the author of the lines we are about to quote, was known as 'the last of a great race' of dramatists (1594-1666). He was a sometime clergyman in Hertfordshire, who, going over to the Church of Rome, became successively a schoolmaster at St. Alban's, and a dramatic author in London. The following short poem from The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for Achilles' Armour,' published in 1659, carries its own recommendation; whilst the fact that it was a great favourite with Charles II., may serve to vindicate the character of that somewhat frivolous monarch as not altogether unsusceptible of grave and serious reflection :

* Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, lib. ii., c. 23; Epiphanius: Adversus Octoginta Hæreses; Hæres. 78.

St. Barnabas the Apostle,

JUNE 11.

Hail! Princes of the host of heaven,
To whom by Christ, your chief, 'tis given
On twelve bright thrones to sit on high,
And judge the world with equity.
'Tis yours to cheer with sacred light
Those who lie sunk in sin's dark night;
To guide them in the upward path,
And rescue them from endless wrath.
With no vain arts, no earthly sword,
Ye quell the rebels of the Lord:
The cross, the cross which men despise,
'Tis that achieves your victories.
Through you the wondrous works of God
Are spread through every land abroad ;
Thus every clime records your fame,
And distant ages praise your name.

And now to God, the Three in One,
Be highest praise and glory done,
Who calleth us from sin's dark night,
To walk in His eternal light.

Translation, by the Rev. J. Chandler.

HE ancestors of St. Barnabas, who were of the tribe of Levi, had emigrated to the Island of Cyprus, where, in common with other Jewish families, it is probable they had sought refuge from the acts of violence perpetrated in their native country of Judæa by the Syrians, Romans, or other Gentiles. The law which prohibited members of the tribe of Levi from holding landed property at home, was not considered binding upon them abroad; for we know that St. Barnabas was the proprietor of an estate which he magnanimously