have puzzled a less imaginative people. They laughed at each other as, like the inhabitants of China, they hurried along with painted paper, oiled silk, and chintz lanterns in their hands. But there were tears and bitterness beneath this momentary mirth, for while this buffoonery was enacting, sentences of dismissal from employments, of dishonour, and of perpetual banishment, inflicted without actual proof of guilt, were daily occurring; the Cardinal yielding to the wishes and suggestions of the bigots who professed a boundless devotion to the papal government, evinced only by the relentless persecution of those of their townsmen who differed from them in polities, or against whom they had any personal pique, which instigated them to vengeance,

With a general and much more favourable picture of domestic life in Italy than is entertained of it by the majority in England, we must close our extracts from the Idler's pleasant volume :

"Notwithstanding the faultiness of the feeing system, a system so calcuFated to corrupt the probity of servants, nowhere have I ever found more honest ones than in Italy. Trinkets and ornaments of value, are continually left exposed in apartments open to a large establishment; and I never experienced, or heard of a single instance of theft in a servant, during my residence abroad. The temper, too, of Italian servants contrary to our English preconceived notions of the reverse, are remarkably good, and their manners towards their employers not only profoundly respectful, but peculiarly obliging; as they evince an anxious desire to anticipate the wishes of those they serve, Their gratitude for good treatment, or trivial favours conferred on them, is always lively, and not only expressed by words, but is shown in their actions, Altogether, I consider Italian servants to be more zealous in the discharge of their duties, and more disposed to attach themselves to their employers, than those of any other country. The want of attachment to the families they serve is considered to be such a reproach to Italian servants, that those sometimes affect an undue degree of it, who feel it only slightly. An amusing instance of this once occurred in our establishment. An additional servant being engaged at Pisa, on leaving that place some seven or eight months after for Florence, poor Ranieri (which was the name of the Pisan) expressed such sorrow at being left behind, and shed tears so plenteously in testimony of his grief, that we were induced to take him with us. After two or three months sojourn at Florence, when the time approached for our proceeding to Rome for the winter, Ranieri one day, his voice inaudible from his sobs and sighs, informed the maître-d'hổtel that he must leave the service, and return to Pisa, as his wife was in a dying state. Ranieri was so good and attentive a servant, that every one in the establishment expressed their sympathy in his affliction, and I sent for him, and told him that he might immediately depart, as we could not think of detaining him a single hour from his poor wife, whose danger he represented as being so imminent. His tears and sobs redoubled when I spoke to him, and he exclaimed, Ah, Signora Contessa! think of my sorrow at being compelled to leave a family in which I have experienced nothing but kindness. It is too much-my heart will break!' 'But it cannot be

6

helped, Ranieri, your poor wife's state demands your immediate presence, and though they lose you, we cannot think of detaining you from her.' At this moment Mr. Walter Savage Landor entered to pay me a visit, and the kindness of heart for which he is so peculiarly distinguished, having led him to betray a sympathy in the apparent grief of Ranieri, I repeated to him its cause, and he addressed a few words of comfort to the mourner. 'Here, Signor Landor, is the letter which acquaints me with the dreadful state of my poor wife, read it, and judge of my regret, torn as my beart is by contending feelings, between my duty as a husband, and a servant.' Mr. Landor took the letter, his eyes, as well as mine, moistened by compassion for poor Ranieri. Before, however, he had perused many lines, I observed, to my great surprise, smiles playing round his lips, notwithstanding every effort to subdue them. The contents of the epistle were nearly as follows. 'You say you cannot leave your kind masters, without a good excuse for so doing. I suspect that you prefer remaining with them than fulfilling your duties at home. If you only want an excuse, why not say that your wife is dying? They cannot then blame you for coming to me. You say the weekly bill, of your laundress amounts to four pauls. Who, in the name of all the saints, ever heard of such a piece of extravagance? It is not to be borne, and therefore I desire you to return forthwith, to one who can wash your linen better, I am persuaded than any laundress at Florence, and for less than one quarter of that sum. Ever since your departure, I have sat with my hands crossed, sad, not only on account of your absence, but from want of occupation; and all this while you have been paying four pauls for that which I could well do for one. It vexes me to think of it. I send you a letter at the same time as this, to show Il Maestro di Casa, or the English lord and lady, if you think fit, in order to furnish you with a satisfactory motive for leaving their service. Come as soon as you can. Four pauls, indeed! It is shocking to think of.' Poor Ranieri! who could neither read nor write, had, through mistake, shown the wrong letter, but neither the kind-hearted reader of his letter nor I let him know his mistake: and he set out for Pisa shedding many tears, caused in truth by being compelled to abandon a good place and indulgent masters, but which he now affected to be partly occasioned by the alleged danger of his wife."

ART. XII.-The Christian Ministry as a Vocation in reference to the wants of the Present Times. pp. 52. London: 1840.

A MINISTER'S thoughts and concern are officially and necessarily for others. He has his congregation before his mind in his solitary study. He judges of the fitness of a consolation or reproof by the condition and feelings of some of his flock; he determines even what to think upon, or what to write, by his knowledge of the moral state of others. In the pulpit, he thinks, he feels, he speaks, for others; he tries to help the devotion of others in his prayers. He recollects what he has said in public with reference to its probable effect on others, and goes amongst his flock to repeat his instructions and exhortations. If a minister's heart were impressible like

wax, and each character he comes in contact with, could stamp it, it would present a strange appearance. Every week he has to be imprinted afresh. New cases of interest continually occur to make a deeper impression than the former. He must go through the houses of his people, if from no better motive, to forestall the half affectionate and half murmuring complaint at his long absence.

It is evident, that no man can give himself up to such cares and influences without losing all originality and freshness of character and feeling, unless, by a determined and systematic effort, he makes the cultivation of his own mind a prominent object of his life. He cannot for a long time profit others without it. But this is not the motive which we would at present urge. He owes it to himself; he must not neglect himself in caring for others; he is of as much importance as any other individual, considered as an intelligent being; his own character and influence cannot be formed or sustained, without watchfulness against the effect of almost incessant and desultory effort.

He, however, who should withdraw from the world and give him. self to solitary study, would soon be unfit for the Christian ministry, and lose perhaps the best of his opportunities for moral improvement. A minister must live and move amongst his people, if he would be successful even as a preacher. Subjects suggested by the experience of a parishioner, and coming crystallized and sparkling with accretions gained by passing through the well-stored mind of the preacher, will be likely to affect many minds.

All discourses, however, are not, they cannot be, drawn from incidents in a parish. There are themes which are not for the will of man. But even these depend, for their effect upon a congregation, on that power of presenting truth which is learned only by knowing the channels in which the thoughts of men are apt to flow, and on that ability to make a subject practical which is gained by acquaintance with the wants and errors of the human mind.

To this we may add the necessity of constant improvement, from the advancement of the community in general knowledge. Popular lectures make men familiar not only with the various subjects of literature and science, but with the best forms of thought and expression. They bring their instructed minds to the ministrations of the sanctuary; and, while the preacher has the advantage over all who address them, in his opportunities of reaching their minds and hearts, he must not, in his reliance on this superiority, fail to make his "profiting appear to all." He should seek for the best gifts in thinking and writing and speaking, that his instructions may not be held in disadvantageous comparison with those of literary teachers. If, instead of suggesting new trains of thought, or presenting sacred truth in varied and interesting lights, he occupies his discourses chiefly with exhortatinns, or moralizes effemi

nately, or abounds excessively in that tropical luxuriance to which an imaginative mind is prone, he will excite the disrespect, if not the contempt, of his hearers. On the principle of self-defence, as a means of continuing in his place, to say nothing of his usefulness, it is essential that the minister take heed to these things. But we now recur to our original motive for self-cultivation, from which we have thus digressed to magnify its importance.

As the camomile gives out its fragrance and multiplies itself by being trodden underfoot, so the minister, who sacredly attends to the improvement of his own mind, is helped in his intellectual efforts by those incessant and urgent demands upon him, which oppress and overcome one who does not study. The studious minister is a student everywhere; the secretive powers of his mind are always at work; he is getting intellectual and moral nourishment from men and things, from cursory reading, from passing events and scenes. When called to public intellectual effort, if his health and spirits are in a proper tone, he will have an alacrity of thought and feeling from the influence of active duties upon his cultivated mind. In his private ministerial labours, the consciousness of doing his duty to himself as an intellectual being will give him the same alacrity, and a sustaining energy in his business, and amongst men. He verifies Cicero's eulogium upon letters; "Delectant domi, non impediunt foris ;-nobiscum peregrinantur." There is an electricity about the mind of such a man, which accumulates thoughts and illustrations wherever he may be. His mind is fertilized, and the seeds of things, which drop into it from books or observation, yield, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred fold. The habit of original study gives a man an invigoration, a muscularity of mind, which impresses others with a sense of his strength. He makes a path of his own through every subject.

So long as the studies which a clergyman pursues are not unprofitable (and it is hard to say of almost anything, as a subject of investigation, that it is useless), and provided he does not become absorbed in it, as eccentric minds are apt to be in their odd selections, we had almost said it is no matter what a man chooses by which to exercise the investigating powers of his mind. A knowledge of the things which lie immediately within the scope of his profession, and those concentric studies which belong to his calling, every one who would write sermons is obliged in some manner to regard. But there is something to be done for the mind, beyond its ordinary occupation with mere professional studies. These will soon fatigue and disgust, if not interchanged with studies which have no immediate relation to the profession. It is of great use to keep up a course of reading, or the study of some language, or the investigation of some science, which has not, perceptibly, even a remote connexion with one's calling. It gives a vigour to the intel

lectual powers upon returning to the specific duties of the profession. It imparts a self-respect amongst inen; it opens unexpected sources of illustration.

There will be one effect from a determined adherence to the principle we are considering, which many preachers, we cannot doubt, would find favourable to their increased usefulness. It would lead them to write fewer but more valuable sermons. A conscientious minister is apt to employ his time in intellectual efforts for the pulpit, which on account of their number are necessarily inferior, except that occasionally, in a moment of inspiration, he will produce a discourse which he will dare to rank among his happy efforts. When he looks over his manuscripts, his heart sometimes sinks at the sight of what he cannot regard otherwise than as useless matter;-though, when he wrote and preached these discourses, they had to his mind the interest of novelty and of a present excitement. Few discourses will have the same interest to the writer's mind at all times; they should not, therefore, be hastily condemned; but we believe that the younger clergy, to say the least, generally feel, that they have a collection of manuscripts, prepared amidst the multiplicity of parochial cares, which are unfit to be repeated, or to be read by another.

We believe that this evil can be in a measure remedied, though juvenile efforts will generally appear in an unfavourable light to the mature judgment of the writer. The evil, we believe, can be remedied in part by a solemn determination to make the preparation for the pulpit the first and great labour of the ministerial life, by devoting much time to the selection and arrangement of each subject, and, by right habits of self-improvement, bringing a well-stored mind to its discussion. If a minister sustains himself and makes visible improvement in his pulpit, he is established in the confidence and respect of his people; but, if he fails here, however laborious and affectionate and faithful he may be elsewhere, the people will soon tire of his services. Now, if, instead of preparing two sermons a week, each hastily written, the time and strength should be devoted to one, the influence of the pulpit would be greater, the people would be more permanently edified, the preparation of discourses would become easier and more pleasant, and, what is desirable, a great number of them would bear to be repeated. Some plan in connexion with this, with respect to the other service on the Sabbath, such as preaching extempore, or a system of exchanges, will enable the young preacher to advance in his ministerial labour with pleasure and profit.

These remarks have an important bearing upon a topic of peculiar interest to parishes and the clergy at the present day. We refer to the frequent dismission of ministers. We have no doubt, that one cause of this evil is the want of studious habits in many of the