All the same he did eye it with a considerable degree of suspicion, as was indeed natural, the times not being so safe or simple that unaccounted for figures could be allowed to prowl as they pleased through one's private deer-park.

Suddenly he recognized it. It was he and no other that rascally old poacher and progenitor of poachers, Thady O'Roon, the original and utterly contemptible cause of the quarrel between himself and poor Eustace Kennedy!

A flood of angry recollections poured across his mind at the reinembrance. But for that miserable old creature who knows but what they might never have quarrelled? Nay, who knows but that his friend might at that moment be alive? "Poaching again too!" he exclaimed aloud. "And poor Eustace that so believed in their gratitude!"

Why he should have felt the offence of poaching to be an especial insult to Eustace's memory, seeing that when alive he had never shown any adequate sense of its enormity, he could not have explained. It was not strictly logical perhaps, but then, are our emotions ever strictly logical? Anyhow it gave a fresh turn to the current of his thoughts, which so far was a benefit. He started and ran actively down the grass, which here lay at a considerable slope, calling as he did so in commanding tones to the poacher to stop. Instead of doing anything of the sort, after a sudden violent start of consternation, the old fellow merely ran all the faster in the direction in which he was going, which would take him in a few minutes out of the deer-park into that small triangular-shaped piece of wood of which mention has already several times been made.

Lord Ballybrophy followed hotly. If he had paused to consider the matter, perhaps the lateness of the hour, perhaps a sense of his own dignity, perhaps other considerations might have hindered him; as it was, he did not pause to consider. The most elementary of all instincts, the instinct of the hunter, was aroused, and to run the old rascal down, take his bag from him, and, if its contents proved what he expected, pack him off that very night to T jail, became an imperative necessity.

The wood being a small one, by the time he had got into it old Thady was al

ready clambering out over the fence at the further end, which led, it may be remembered, into the Mount Kennedy churchyard. Lord Ballybrophy followed, tearing his hands badly as he did so upon one of his own elaborately contrived defences, and nearly losing his hat and wig, which had caught in an over-hanging bough. Once out and in the clearer space he flattered himself he should have no difficulty in running the culprit to earth.

To his surprise he found himself mistaken. When he got into the churchyard the moon was filling the whole of it, but not a sign or trace of old Thady or his bag, high or low, was to be seen. With an activity that astonished himself, and which was perhaps partly due to the state of excitement he had been in all the evening, Lord Ballybrophy followed up the search with all the zest of a schoolboy. Sword in hand he explored the bushes, the briars, every corner of the enclosed space. His feet got entangled in the grass, which grew long and rank, as its wont is in churchyards; the few upright stones threw a weird and goblin-like shadow upon the ground; the moonlight was broken and baffling, but still he persevered. He knew that the old rascal` must be lying somewhere close at hand, and with that fact before his mind was resolved not to leave the spot till he had secured him.

All at once he caught sight of him curled like a scared rabbit behind one of the upright stones! With a whoop of satisfaction, hardly to have been expected from such dignified lips, Lord Ballybrophy pounced upon him, clutched him by the neck, and dragged him into the open moonlight.

As

"Why you old! You-you-you-" He was too much out of breath at the moment to think of any sufficiently scathing terms of abuse, indeed he was not at the best of times an eloquent nobleman. for the culprit, he appeared to be struck idiotic from sheer dismay. A scrubby old red wig which covered his head had fallen awry in the scuffle, and under it his bald poll glistened in the moonlight. He wore an old-fashioned livery coat, which hung in flaps about his thighs; his breeches were torn; his knees knocked one against the other; his wrinkled old monkey face was of a dull yellow hue; his eyes seemed to be half-sunken in his

head with apprehension. In short it is impossible to imagine a more ridiculous and at the same time suspicious looking figure.

Meanwhile the bag, which was the most important element in the matter, was reposing quietly behind the tombstone where it had been left by its bearer. Lord Ballybrophy promptly picked it up, and, still retaining his grasp upon old Thady, turned to leave the churchyard. His first impulse was to march both culprits up to the"great house," but on second thought it seemed better to burden himself only with the live one, leaving the other where it was, since it could be sent for at

any moment.

The flat-topped slab of another tombstone caught his eye at this juncture, and suggested itself as a suitable place upon which to institute a sort of preliminary examination. If the contents of the bag proved, as he felt certain they would prove, to be a hare or a rabbit, worse still a pheasant, in that case he would simply pack old Thady off that very night without further formalities to G- jail, there

to await his turn at the next assizes.

It was not without some sense of derogation that he decided to institute this preliminary examination with his own hands. Still having achieved the whole affair single-handed so far, he felt a natural pride in bringing it single-handed to a conclusion. Accordingly he picked up the bag and carried it to the tombstone, retaining his hold upon old Thady, who indeed offered no resistance, but allowed himself to be dragged like a piece of inert matter in the grip of his capturer. Evidently something very hard and solid was at the bottom of the bag; harder and more solid than Lord Ballybrophy could account for under the circumstances. An indescribable reluctance overtook him as he was about to plunge his hand into it; instead therefore of doing so, he simply lifted the weighted end, and tilted it a little forward so as to allow the contents to roll over on to the smooth flat surface of the tombstone.

Over they rolled sure enough; further; further still; over and over-certainly something very round and very hard was in that bag! Something too-very-very Why? What? What? What?Lord Ballybrophy's eyes began to start out of their sockets; his hair to rise up NEW SERIES.-VOL, LIV., No. 2,

stiff and bristling under his wig; his blood, to first coagulate and then seem to be bursting like a tide of red-hot lava through his veins. The next moment a succession of piercing shrieks startled the card-players at the other end of the park. Pell-mell, out they rushed; the officers first, the chaplain next, the ladies last, the latter gathering their skirts around. them. Once in the moonlight they stared helplessly here and there, not knowing in the least where to turn, or in what direction to look for the cause of their alarm. They were guided at last to the right place by the apparition of a little old man, leaping, gesticulating, and running wildly to and fro like a clurican in front of the churchyard. There, flat upon the grass, apparently in some sort of swoon, they found Lord Ballybrophy. His hat had fallen in one direction, his wig in another, his sword was doubled up under him, and immediately above him, upon the smooth flat slab of the tombstone, and looking as white and placid in the moonlight as if it had been merely part of some monumental effigy accidentally broken from its context, lay the head of Eustace Kennedy !.

"

How had it got there? and what under all the circumstances of the case was now to be done with it? were two questions, which the first attentions to the sick man. having been paid-not a little exercised the minds of those who were the witnesses. of the foregoing rather singular scene.. As regards the first it was easily answered,. old Thady O'Roon making no secret of having himself stolen it that very afternoon from off the spikes of T———— jail, Twhere the majesty of the law had impaled it. He thought" maybe the poor mhaster might slape aisier t'home," was. the only explanation he seemed capable of giving when called upon to account for the startling piece of larceny of which he had. been guilty. As to the second question. —well, in the end the poor head was allowed to rest peacefully enough not far from where it then lay, with the remainder of the clay thereto appertaining. The truth was, once the first blush and enthusiasm of their zeal was a little abated, the authorities, civil as well as military, were not eager to allow too dazzling a blaze of publicity to fall upon all their recent proceedings. So successful indeed were they in this administrative modesty, that to this day the foregoing transaction is rarely

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alluded to, and to the best of my friend's belief is known as a whole to but few, and those few chiefly the descendants of the actual partakers in it.

Lord Ballybrophy, the reader will be glad to hear, recovered in due time from his attack, and lived to a good old age, respected by all who knew him. The Kennedy family soon afterward left Mount

Kennedy for good; the property was let upon a long grazing lease; the house shut up, and by degrees fell into that condition of neglect and decay in which we now see it. With regard to old Thady O'Roon, about whom I specially inquired, my friends could give me no further information.-Murray's Magazine.

I.

THE eternal rule of hard work applies to preaching. If there be one principle which the preacher above other men needs to remember it is that the sweat of the brow is as needful for him who labors to feed others as for him who labors to feed himself. From nothing comes nothing. We cannot get from the earth unless we give to the earth. There is a shame, too, which hangs round the idleness of the preacher; for he is not only as one whose indolence indicates a slovenly contempt for his hearers, he is also as one who offers to God what costs him nothing. Dr. Chalmers took as much pains with the preparation of his simple sermons for village folk as with his sermons for university and educated congregations. He who lives as in his great Taskmaster's eye will reverence his work and those for whom he works. He will not be content with what comes easily. He could not be content with what is merely ingenious. Forever he must be asking himself, "Is it true ?"" "Is it true to me?" He will work not only till his subject is clear to his mind, as crystal truth is clear, but he will work till his soul is possessed of the truth. He will muse till the fire kindles.

But this hard and earnest work must not be supposed to be work within a limited time; as, for instance, between one Sunday and another. The hard work which is requisite goes far beyond the range of the week or the framework of the single sermon. The work is the work of constant study and of the accumulation of material far beyond the bare requirements

of the sermon. I am tempted to quote the following from Dr. Fitch's excellent work on teaching, for what he says of the teacher applies with tenfold force to the preacher. "No one can teach the whole or even the half of what he knows. There is a large percentage of waste and loss in the very act of transmission, and you can never convey into another mind nearly all of what you know or feel on any subject. Before you can impart a given piece of knowledge, you yourself must not only have appropriated it, you must have gone beyond it and all round it; must have seen it in its true relations to other facts and truths; must know out of what it originated, and to what others it is intended to lead.'

The

The truth of this is constantly forced upon us, alike by failure and success. My own experience-if I may venture in this one point to speak of it-my own experience is that in the production of a sermon the unseen work with material and study must vastly exceed the seen work. block out of which the statue is carved is vast compared with the statue, and the actual lines of the statue do not represent one tithe of the labor the signs and tokens of which may be seen on the rejected material. Speaking of the preacher, Cecil remarked: He is a merchant embarking in extensive concerns. A little ready money in the pocket will not answer the demands that will be made upon him. Some of us seem to think that it will, but they are grossly deceived. There must be a well-furnished account at the bankers."

It is only by diligent study and noble husbandry of time that this balance at the

bankers can be made to accumulate. This means that he who has to preach must be of studious habits, and that in regard to his sermon he must spare no time and grudge no pains. He must treat his dis course as the artist will treat his picture. He must study for it and he must make studies of it; he must consider detail and composition; he must ruthlessly sacrifice the over-splendid detail which would disturb the harmony of the composition. He must be careful in the use of color, and while seeking to give freshness he must avoid vulgarity or loudness of tone. That is vulgar which so intrudes itself as to weaken the sense of general purpose. If "this one thing I do" is the word of the Apostle, it may serve as a motto for the preacher whose wisdom will be to teach one thing at a time, and whose desire will be to make that one thing plain. The duty of making a thing plain is the first duty of the public speaker. Everything else ornament, elocution, passion, persuasion-must be considered subordinate to this. The man has a message to deliver he must take care that he delivers it so that it may be understood. He has a truth which burns for utterance in his breast he must seek to make people see and feel this truth. How can they feel unless they understand what the truth is The noise and clamor of wordy nothings may produce hysterical results; but these can never come within the preacher's aim. He reverences truth too highly to seek to produce unintelligent emotions. He seeks to commend himself, rather, to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

This should be done in the most natural way possible. The sermon may be likened to a syllogism. The truth to be taught is the major premise. The correlative human experience is the minor premise. From these two the conviction of personal duty and responsibility should follow. The sermon should be the attempt to bring the divine truth or thought along side man's experience and life, so that some help and hope, some aspiration or regret, may fall like the invigorating touch of divine strength upon the faltering minds of human weakness. It is the blending of these two things which every sermon needs.

The sermon which is merely a setting forth of some theological proposition in

It must not

relation to established Christian doctrines may be excellent, but ineffective. It is a treatise rather than a sermon. The sermon must enter into life. only thrill with Heaven, it must throb with earth. It must, like its Divine Master, reach humanity by becoming human. "What is beyond all humanity ever fails to move it; it is the reason why all the religions of the earth are things of the lip, which scarcely influence the life; it is what remains human, yet is human only in the highest sense and by the deepest woe, that can sway your hearts as the winds the reeds."

And as he must thus be human so must his humanity be as the human nature of his own times. The preacher must not let his sermon be the reverberation of the thunder of yesterday. He may be acquainted with yesterday's story of storm. This is right; for he should study the lore of the past and make the treasures of things old his own. But he should speak his message in the language of his own day. The phrases of yesterday, like the thunder of yesterday, carry the memory of power rather than the reality. The man who thinks to influence the men of the nineteenth century by repeating the phrases of the sixteenth or the eleventh centuries will hardly stir the hearts of his contemporaries.

Yet let not the preacher be too modern either. The "magazine"-fed preacher will not go deep enough to reach the heart of humanity. The man who watches the waves will not know the true set of the tide. The currents lie below the surface. We need to go deeper than the surface if we are to be wise and understanding men, knowing how to act and to speak to the times. The acquaintance which the preacher should have with human nature should be wide and deep. Let him speak of the things which are before yesterday and yet of to-day, and let him speak of them in words which the men of to-day will understand. To this end let him read what is written to-day and also what was written in the days of old. Robert Hall said that it was well for the man whose work was preaching "to make himself intimately acquainted with an older writer, Barrow, Tillotson, Hooker, Milton, Chillingworth, Pearson, etc., of whom, in comparison with later writers" (I still quote Robert Hall), "I should be disposed

ter.

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to say, with few exceptions, 'No one, having tasted old wine, straightway desireth new; for he saith the old is betI do not commit myself to Robert Hall's list, still less would I confine myself to it; but the spirit of the counsel is good and worthy of attention-for he cannot well and fitly understand his own times, nor even the writers of his own times, who knows nothing of those ages which went before his own, and also cannot number among his acquaintances those great men of the past without whom the present never had been what it is.

The preacher, however, has a further aim. It is his duty to keep divine thoughts before men.

Human he must be, and the more truly human the better. If he is the best divine who well divines he will be the best preacher who shows that the intricacies and curiosities of human character, the ebb and flow of human hope, the strange antitheses between men's lofty aspirations and their grovelling desires, the pathetic falls and the more pathetic heroisms, the plaintive music of human hearts when deep calleth unto deep, the sins, sorrows, and the sadness of humanity are known to him. Whatever he speaks of divine things he must speak in the language of humanity. Nay, more, he must speak the language of the humanity of his own day. But he must not be the mere echo of the thoughts of men-a voice answering back to the voice of their weakness or their despair. He must be more than the mirror to human nature. Of him we may say as Schiller said of the poet : "He is the son of his time, but pity for him if he is its pupil or its favorite. Let some beneficent deity snatch him when a suckling from the breast of his mother and nurse him with the milk of a better time." The preacher must be nursed upon the breast of Heaven. He must draw his inspiration from the world which is the world not of shadows but of realities. He must be the voice, even if it be in an irresponsive wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord. He must be the herald of that which never dies in a world wherein all things seem to die. He must restore the poetry of hope to humankind.

The subject-range of the sermon is very great. Judged by the vast variety of topics which have been treated of in the pulpit we might conclude that any defini

tion of the scope and object of preaching was impossible. The latest development of political agitation, the newest social development, the most recent discovery, the most sensational public scandal, the most striking scientific theory, the last novel, the last crime, the last fad, the last failure, are among pulpit topics. How can any definition of the aim of the preaching be reached when the range of subjects is so great and so diversified? I desire to exclude no subject which can be profitably treated in the pulpit. No doubt the most unpromising theme may be made fruitful of good, as surely as the dullest preacher may teach us patience. But if a preacher has no aim beyond passing an hour in amusing and interesting his people, he becomes the lecturer or the promoter of entertainments, and becoming these he ceases to be the preacher. It is, perhaps, not needless to recall to our minds that the end of preaching and the end of worship is edification of some sort. There is too much of the "variety of attraction" spirit in the notices of Sunday services and sermons. We cannot pass along the street without seeing placards announcing the sensational topic of next Sunday's sermon or the distinguished artists who are to form the principal attraction in buildings which were once thought to be houses of prayer. I recognize the kindness and generosity of those who thus lend their talents and gifts to the promotion of some good object. Far be it from me to suggest that any gift may not be consecrated to the service of God and to the highest good of mankind. But for all that, the modern development of sensationalism in church appears to me to have a large admixture of the flavor of advertisement and suggests the desperation which clutches at a cheap and shallow success of (in a bad sense) a popular service instead of the calm earnestness which seeks to benefit the people and the Church of God. It is needful to keep in mind the divine calling of the preacher. Make the range of his preaching as wide as you will, yet let the light of what is divine shine over it. Let him travel to the remotest end of the earth in his subject, but let him not forget that as on every land the same sun shines, so over every subject a divine light should be shed.

Here we may, perhaps, reach what may pass for a definition. The scope of the