"Cruel!" he remarked.

"But as I was going to say, where is the ordinary man to find time for half he wants to read? It is really heartbreaking to stand in a library like this, for instance, and to remember how much must remain to the end of the chapter taken as read."

"Well," said Mr. Waldegrave, "I have a theory about the use of Sunday that I should like to put forward. Ought we not to make a very much larger use than we do, of the Day of Rest' for purposes of intellectual enlightenment?"

"That is not the traditional idea about Sunday," observed Mrs. Vivian, while I felt glad Aunt Hester was not present.

"I do not mean anything that need grieve the most orthodox," said Mr. Waldegrave, who was, we knew, a man of devout religious character, "nor do I advocate anything out of harmony with the spirit of Sunday. But, just remember how large a proportion of our life Sundays constitute-six whole years, from eighteen to sixty! Is it not a pity to use this golden time of freedom without a true sense of its value? There are many hours for every one in the day not spent in public worship or teaching. Why not employ one or two of these in consecutive reading so arranged as to be of real value? People might even meet together in small companies to study what interests them; say, for instance, Dante's " Divine Comedy," or a good history of the Reformation, or the work and structure of monasteries in the Middle Ages, or the lives of Savonarola, of St. Bernard, of St. Francis, or the history of one and another section of Christians, with all the inspiring record of the past, and the work of saints and heroes.”

"Or," remarked Mr. Beauchamp, "the religious poems of the two great poets of the century, Tennyson and Browning, who have been (each in his way) apologists for Christianity."

"I am looking at the question from the religious point of view," continued Mr. Waldegrave, "and I believe that even good people of the best intentions waste a good deal of time on Sunday in sleep, or letter-writing, while if they only woke up to the fact of what a free seventh day means to them, they would hasten to garner up the moments, reading even the Bible more, and with greater intelligence than they do. If they do not wish to employ the time as I at first suggested, they might take one incident in the life of Christ, collate the different accounts of it in the Evangelists, and get from the best authorities on Palestine a local colouring that would make the event stand out vividly before their imagination. Or they might

read one Epistle through, gaining a clear idea of when and why it was written. There is a good deal of sacred vagueness about the way the Bible is treated."

I shall never forget," remarked Mrs. Arnold, "the astonishment of our cook -a very good woman-when she found we were going to the East one year and should actually see Jerusalem and Nazareth.

"Law, ma'am ! I never thought those were real places!' she ejaculated, and she seemed as though she could scarcely recover from her surprise."

"Pardon me!" murmured the Philosopher, "but are the remarks of a cook-however worthy and excellent a person she may be quite the subject for our deliberation?"

66

They are only an illustration of a certain mode of looking at the New Testament story," said Mrs. Arnold, apologetically. The rest of us had received her anecdote with a smile.

We discussed the question of Sunday reading a little longer, particularly with reference to Mr. Waldegrave's first suggestion.

"Sunday seems to me," observed Mrs. Beauchamp, "a day in which one should try to forget what is material and turn to the 'other side' of life, and I would view all possible Sunday occupations with reference to this, asking whether we can be carried away by them into the sphere of what is unseen and eternal."

"I think that is most true and most valuable,” said Mr. Waldegrave seriously. "This is an age when what is material thrusts itself ever and ever

more imperiously upon our notice. 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!' is, alas, no outworn aspiration. In the exaggerated esteem of what is tangible, we are tempted to forget the truth Carlyle expresses, 'All that we do springs out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force.' The materialistic tendency in our day is the ruin of true art." Here Mr. Vavasour was seen to nod assent. "But above all it is the ruin of the higher nature of man; and good books transport one into a realm where the falseness of the purely material way of viewing things becomes apparent, not perhaps by actual argument but by the evidence of the very existence of such books.

"For what are they to the outward sense? Merely wood, or leather, paper, printer's ink. And yet, a soul is here. For books are not absolutely dead things'-so said Milton-but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are. Many a man lives, a burden to the earth, but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life.'"

LILY WATSON.

Coke's brutal "thouing" of Raleigh put into the mouth of Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, and abundant other illustrations; and I am persuaded from my own imperfect reading of Butler, that the works vigilantly read would give many touches of himself of priceless interest and value.

Another singular thing is, that differentiating all the lives of Butler from others, not one of them gives a specimen of his handwriting, or even of his autograph. I have reconsulted in vain, all the biographies and editions named, and others, and nowhere have I come upon an example. The more precious, therefore, is the photograph of a small page of his holograph, Ms. in the Bodleian, as an illustration in our series of the handwriting of famous British Divines. As with the pages of Richard Hooker, I am indebted to Horace Hart, Esq., Controller of the University Press, Oxford, for the facsimile.

Although Bartlett in a supplementary pamphlet to his Memoirs ("An Index to the Analogy of Bishop Butler," 1842), has availed himself of Bentham's labour of love, and incorporated the whole, and adapted it to "the original editions, and to the latest Oxford edition "--it seems expedient to elucidate our faithful fac-simile, by reproducing Bishop Butler's brief corrections. Singularly enough, even the all-observing Bishop Steere cannot have known of this Bodleian MS., or it must inevitably have been included in his "Fragments." 1

On the last page of this precious Ms. is the following note in pencil

"These corrections are in the handwriting of the incomparable author, and were communicated by him to Dr. Bentham, by whom the Index was drawn out. Th.[omas] B.[entham]." Our holograph is a kind of little supplementary index fastened in at the end of the Ms.

As a testimony to the unspent authority of Bishop Butler, as a Thinker and Theologian, it may be stated that in a letter a year since to the present writer, Mr. Gladstone informed him that he was engaged in preparing a new edition of the great prelate's writings. This has since appeared. Let it also be weighed and inwardly digested that the late Dean Church thus wrote "It is a great wish of mine to be properly acquainted with Butler, to lay the foundation of my own mind in his works; to have him ever facing me and im uing me with his spirit" ("Life and Letters," p. 17).

The student-readers will find it rewarding to turn up the places in the "Analogy," and ponder the corrections.

ALEXANDER B. GROSART, D.D., LL.D.

T°

speculate upon the character and history of the members of the Roman church to whom St. Paul sent greeting, is at the least permissible. One would like to know what had been the especial" succour" rendered to the apostle, by Phoebe the deaconess; or the especial labour "bestowed upon him by Mary. What care, maternal in its tenderness, had won for the mother of Rufus the honourable and immortal distinction which she here receives "his mother and mine"? Where, and when, and to ward off what dangers did Priscilla and Aquila--the woman more daringly it would seem than the man-imperil their lives (v. 4)? Interesting are these glances into unrecorded incidents of that marvellous life. Of not less interest is the reference of the seventh verse in which he speaks of some members of that church who were bound to him by ties of kinship, who had shared with him the discomforts of imprisonment, who as the missionaries of the faith had gained for themselves a high renown, and who, as he pathetically puts it, were in Christ before him. Whatever the other verses may suggest as to the history of the man, this verse reveals the wondrous tenderness of that mighty heart. And as he dwelt on their earlier fellowship with Jesus there came to him a sinless envy of their priority. In respect of Christian privilege there was a "before" and an 66 after," and they were before him and he was in Christ only afterwards. As measured by time there was a larger and a smaller measure of Christian experience; and Andronicus and Junias had the larger and he the smaller measure, at least the shorter space; "they were in Christ before me." And the thought cast a shadow of regret upon the heart.

There are times when St. Paul dwells upon the sinfulness, the criminality of his bygone days. He remembers the days when he was foremost in the ranks of those who persecuted to the death his fellow-men, and that hour when he consented to the death of the martyr Stephen and kept the raiment of them that slew him (Acts xxii. 20). He did not forget that time when he had forced the tongues of Christ's saints, made weak by persecutions and fear, to blaspheme that holy name (Acts xxvi. 10, 11). He learnt afterwards to take the guilt of those blasphemies upon his own head. He did not forget that it was against none other than the Incarnate Word that he had lifted up his hand; for the heavenly voice had propounded this question, "Why persecutest thou Me?" So he wrote bitter things against himself. "I am not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God" (1 Cor. xv. 9). "I"-the man who had compelled those awful contumelies to be spoken-"I was a persecutor,

a blasphemer, a doer of outrage." And then he brands his character with one final and allembracing impeachment: "Of sinners I am chief" (1 Tim. i. 13, 15). Thus he dwelt upon a sinful past, of ill deeds done and caused to be done; and its crimes and enormity branded him in his own eyes "the chief of sinners."

But there was another aspect in which his past life presented itself to him. It had failed of its opportunities; it had largely missed its aim. It had discovered, late though not too late, the right, the heaven-appointed path. . . And he remembers that others had lighted upon that way of life while he was still a wanderer. Andronicus and Junias his kinsmen had been in Christ while

he was out of Christ. They were secure within the fold, while he

"... was out on the hills away, Away on the mountains wild and bare, Away from the tender Shepherd's care."

They were safe within the harbour while he was out of Christ, on the dark, storm-tossed waves of a blind passion against the Nazarene. His kinsmen were in Christ, in Him they lived and moved and had their being. He was the very atmosphere of their life; they drank in as the very breath of their life the peace and joy, the strength and love which were His. Yet Saul was then breathing the thick fætid air of an effete and corrupt Judaism. And though twenty years had passed by still he looked upon those days with an intense sorrow, he dwelt upon those unembraced opportunities; he looked with a sinless envy upon others' pre-eminence in this privilege. "They were in Christ before me."

A few considerations will permit a truer appreciation of the keenness of this grief. The lapse of time had not been a very long one. If we suppose that Andronicus and Junias were convinced of Christ's Messiahship upon the Day of Pentecost, and on the other hand put St. Paul's conversion to one of the latest periods suggested by the historians, some five or six years will be the longest period by which they could have preceded him; and the probabilities are it was shorter. Moreover for those years the apostle stood in the position of a man just released from the tutelage of Gamaliel and from his commanding influence; who had just been launched upon a course for which he had in a sense been trained as the champion of the religion of his fathers. It was not easy to cast himself free from those influences, much less to stop and turn from a course upon which blood, education, circumstances had impelled him. Moreover those misspent years had not been the wasted years of a dissolute youth, they had

been spent in "all good conscience before God" (Acts xxiii. 1). Yet though but a few in number, and spent in the devoutness of a strict and sincere Pharisee, yet as irretrievably lost, he looks upon those years with a deep regret: "They were in Christ before me."

If in this sense Andronicus and Junias had started before him, yet he had far outstripped them in the race. These men had acquired some fame, they were of note among the apostles; but he had gained a wider renown. They were of note in a limited circle, while men far and wide had heard of Paul. But for this reference in their kinsman's letter they had been buried in profound oblivion, while all lands and centuries have known the fame of the man whom they preceded in the faith of our Lord Jesus. In respect of authorization he was not one whit behind the chief apostles. He was in the very front rank of Christ's militant host. The great Gentile world had been given him for his sphere. Therein he had toiled with an unexampled diligence: "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren (2 Cor. xi. 26). Yet though in this sense he had surpassed them in fame, in the greatness of his commission, and in the enthusiasm with whieh he had laboured at the great enterprise, yet he could still wish that he had been with them when they had started upon the glorious race; but, alas! "they were in Christ before me.

So, too, in knowledge of Christ and His purpose the apostle had advanced far beyond those who preceded him. Christ had supernaturally enlightened him. In this very epistle to the Romans, in which he tells us the open secret of his deep regret, he shows the fulness and splendour of the revelation which had been made to him. He traces the purpose of God through Paganism in Judaism till at last there came a dispensation of grace and life; with no condemnation and no separation (Rom. viii. 1, 35). Then he lifts up in some measure the veil of the future, and shows, as none beside him was ever permitted to show, the purpose and method of God in the rejection of Israel and the calling of the Gentiles. What human hand ever penned such words; what human eye ever so scanned the memoranda of the divine purpose? Yet though in this epistle he stands upon this mount of vision, this Pisgah of universal history, there stirs within his heart one regret that nothing can lull to a lasting slumber, a regret concerning those lost years when "they were in Christ . . . before

ship with his Lord. With the living Christ

he had the most intimate relations. He had been so he tells us crucified with, he had risen too, with Christ (Gal. ii. 20; Col. iii. 1). He could say also: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." In one word St. Paul felt Christ's life throbbing in him. Yet it was at the period of his life, when this high and intense Christian experience was his, with no shadow of a doubt as to its veracity, that he breaks out into this plaintive regret. It was as he stood on this high mount of vision, with this far-reaching prospect spreading out before him, with this life palpitating within him, that there rose within his heart one deep regret; there was upon that fair scene one dark, sad blot, it was those lost years when "they were in Christ before me." It was in this spirit that Augustine wrote his passionate self-reproach, "Too late did I love Thee, Beauty so ancient and so new, Too late have I loved Thee." It was the spirit of John Wesley when he wrote:

"Ah, why did I so late The know,

Thee, lovelier than the sons of men?
Ah, why did I no sooner go

To Thee, the only ease in pain?
Ashamed, I sigh and inly mourn,

That I so late to Thee did turn."

There is here more than a glimpse into the character of St. Paul. It indeed shows the man, and some may think his weakness in harbouring and expressing a regret for lost years that could never be recovered. But how earnest and solemn is the message he conveys as to the value of an early choice of the love and service of the Lord Jesus. Nothing, of all the honour and knowledge he attained to could recoup the loss of the years that had floated past when he was out of Christ. Not the greatness of his commission, nor the clearness of his vision of the purpose of God, nor the intimacy of his fellowship with Christ could soothe that sorrow. He looked upon these his kinsmen, to us but mere names, and felt they had something he had not and would have given much to possess, priority in fellowship with Jesus. And the grandest figure in the Christian Church did not scorn to set the seal of his experience to the worth of an early love to Jesus when he uttered this sad regret. To some this regret must still be known. Some have friends, some brothers, some, it may be, have even children, of whom it may be said, "they were in Christ before me." Few are they to whom the lateness of their choice of the love and life which are in Christ has not brought some regret. Wise are they who listening to His call make that regret small as it can be, and know the blessing of life from youth's dewy morn, at mid-day scorched with cares, right into the fast falling eventide spent in the fold of the Good Shepherd. Happy is he who needs to say of few of his own age, "they were in Christ before me.”

J. T. L. MAGGS, B.D.