be sold just yet, for no one would buy her except one customer, and he would pay a small sum for her, and take the risk of her recovery, provided her brother was sold with her at a moderate price too.

'They are the most valuable slaves I have got," grumbled the man, worth double the sum that is offered for them."

" and

"The girl is not worth a silver penny to thee now, but may be a great expense before thou can'st sell her in the regular way. But it was not in this way I meant to talk with thee on this matter. Hast thou no thought, no thankfulness, for the mercy that hath been shewn to thee."

"I tell thee, holy father, I will give a goodly sum to thy monastery if thou wilt lift this curse from me," said the man, somewhat impatiently.

"And I tell thee that neither God nor Holy Church can accept thy money except it be given with deeds of mercy and charity. God loveth mercy more than money, and I ask thee in His name to shew mercy to this boy and girl, or"—

"Nay, nay, hold; curse me not again, holy father, interrupted the man in an agony of fright; "thou shalt have the boy and girl to sell at thy own price, only give me thy blessing, and let me depart without further mischance."

The old monk smiled at the man's ignorant, credulous fears, but it was the only way by which he could hope to benefit Githa and her brother; nay, it was the only way in which the church could often protect the helpless and defenceless from the lawless violence of such men; and who could cast blame upon them for securing this advantage in an age when men acknowledged little law but their own will, and no power but brute force, except what the church exercised over them occasionally ?

So Father Dunstan took care, before his patient departed, to have all the necessary forms required for the transfer of Leofric and his sister to their new master duly completed, and the boy handed over to the care of the brotherhood. Then, with sundry cautions regarding his health, and the potions to be taken during the next few days, he bestowed the customary blessing of the church, and the man departed, grumbling inwardly at the loss of two such valuable slaves, and determined to make up their price in his subsequent sale of the rest.

Father Dunstan hastened to the convent to tell the nuns of his success, and that they would not have to give up Githa yet; and even when she did leave the convent it would not be for some far-away Saracen slave-market, but only to become bower-maiden to some lady in Wessex.

"But she cannot travel even so far as that," said the sister in some dismay. "She needeth not to travel yet; her brother will doubtless journey thither in a few days, but she is to abide here in thy care until some trusty messenger or pilgrim can be found who will bear her to the household of her new master; for he is young and something of a Viking, I take it, and careth not to be burdened with maiden folk."

"Then wherefore hath he bought her?" asked the nun, who had taken a great liking to Githa, and still hoped she might become one of their sisterhood.

"She is to be bower-maiden to his sister," answered Father Dunstan; and then, noticing the sister's disappointment, he said, "Nay, nay, grieve not, my daughter; God hath work to be done in the world as well as in the convent, and sometimes I question whether the world would not be better if fewer departed from it to shut themselves up in peace away from its storms and turmoils."

This was a speech the nun could not at all understand; but Father Dunstan often said queer things, such as no one else thought of; but she did not forget the saying, although she was soon absorbed in her various duties of tending the sick and overlooking the management of the household.

"He can never be rich towards God who despises a pennyworth of true piety. Holiness is just living aright in the least things as well as the greatest; for graces can only be gathered one by one."-Dr. T. L. Cuyler.

Correspondence.

THE TRAINING OF THE MODERN PASTOR.

To the Editors of "The General Baptist Magazine”—

DEAR SIRS,-I am glad to respond to your kind request to say two or three words concerning the proposal contained in Mr. Lacey's pertinent letter on the training of the modern pastor.

Not a line need be written as to the vast importance of this theme, or the immeasurable difficulties of the task. As we have not yet learnt how "to train a child in the way he should go," but with infinite blunderings are stumbling along our perilous path, often to the unspeakable detriment of the child, it can hardly be astonishing that we do not yet know how to educate the men who are to devote their whole energies to the absorbing vocation of training the inward, spiritual, and active life of communities of men and women. If, therefore, Mr. Lacey, or any one amongst us, has a helpful word to say, I may safely declare, no one will so readily open eye and ear, as our President, Treasurer, Secretaries, and College Committee. Our appetite for sound information and wellreasoned guidance is insatiable.

Mr. Lacey's suggestion I heartily accept. Indeed, the policy of giving our men some "Mission Work" to do whilst they are in College, I urged several years ago. The fatal objection was the distance of the College from Nottingham. Now we are in the town, the work is close to hand, and the solution of the problem is unaffected by the element of distance.

But the object aimed at needs to be stated with a little more fulness and definiteness. It is a fact, I am told, that the juniors and second-year-men have little or no financially remunerative preaching. The seniors are always engaged, and some of the third-year-men occasionally are called out to work. But half the students get little or no preaching for about two years.

Now our men have not only to learn the theory of preaching from professorial lectures, acquire material for preaching by reading and reflection, but to MASTER THE ART OF PREACHING AND OF REALLY "SAVING MEN"-the noblest and divinest of all work given to mortals-and that can only be well acquired by doing the work itself under the actual conditions, as near as may be, which confront a man when he accepts a pastorate. Reading a sermon in class-a very necessary process, and of which I wish we could have three times as much as is customary-differs as much from preaching to living men, as preparing a sketch of the water-works of a town differs from building and perfecting the whole of the arrangements by which that town is supplied with water. The builder's apprentice must not only know the theories of architecture, and be capable of sketching plans, but he must himself actually build under the direction of his master. The "workman" who is to have little reason to be ashamed in his first year's work as a pastor, should surely have acquired considerable facility in handling his tools during his collegiate course.

This apprenticeship to doing, and learning by doing the very work for which our men go to College, will prevent men lapsing into a negative and Christless theology, or regarding the eternally living Christ Himself simply as a necessary element in a theological system. I shall never forget the conflicts I had during my College life, as I read the works of Theodore Parker, Orville Dewey, and others of the same school; nor can I cease to be grateful for the help that came to me through strenuous endeavours to "save" men, made Sunday after Sunday, not only in preaching, but in face-to-face conversation with young men after preaching, and in a Bible class which I conducted in the week. The chaotic and disturbing realm of dogma receded as the realities of struggle with sin and sorrow, defeat in the fight of faith, aspiration for purity, bore themselves in upon my heart, and the mere effort to give appropriate aid made palpably manifest the indispensable medicinal energies of the Redeeming Christ. A man may shut himself in his study, or argue with his fellow students, till he

debates his soul into the blinding wilderness of chronic doubt. Give him the work of "saving a soul," guiding a perplexed spirit, and every stroke of work he does will reinforce his faith in Christ and His conquering gospel. I speak that which I know, and testify what I have seen.

All experience says it is necessary that men who preach the gospel should never lose the suasive force of that genuine fervour which comes from actual contact with their fellows. A glowing spiritual life is the undecaying source of the minister's power. I have heard of men going to College fired with contagious enthusiasms and passionate zeal, and coming out after a four years' training,

"Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,
Dead perfection, no more."

Books petrify. Humanity softens. Contact with "dead languages" freezes the soul. Fellowship with the spirits of men yearning to be just kindles affection and inflames desire. Our men should not be suffered to "lose touch" of humanity. If they do, though their rhetoric be perfect and their logic invincible, they will not have "letters of commendation written in their hearts, known and read of all men; ministered by them, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh."

Moreover, if a man lives only in books and deals exclusively with them, he is in danger of becoming a mere memorizer, and not a vigorous, free, independent, and courageous thinker; sermons will be "bookish" rather than human; echoes of "essays" and "reviews," instead of messages from God, warm with the throbbing life of a brother man; "skeletons" or "schemes" fit for a critic's eye, but lacking that perennial freshness which comes from free and forcible thinking upon the spiritual facts of every day life. It is a danger of College life that it fetters individuality and squeezes all men through the same mould. Some real work every week directly upon the souls of men would minimize that peril.

I can only hint at two other obvious advantages from such work. The perception of the spiritual significance of all facts is the highest function of the preacher, and that College holds kingly rank which educates men to its fullest exercise. But will not a large sphere of fact be left unused if the mind is incessantly and unbrokenly engaged in purely intellectual drill?

Work, in preaching, in Bible classes, in conversation with the "perplexed," would form an elocutionary auxiliary of immense value. The business of the student is to acquire the power of compelling men to listen, and to listen to him as really interested in his message. He is to preach. If he cannot do that he has wasted his pains, and we ours. Better for him if he had never been born into our College. Forcible, practical utterance in all its modes he needs, and history declares, with authentic voice, that such a power is only acquired by early, continuous, and patient exercise of speech for practical ends and under wise masters.

But how is this work to be commenced? I would not have written at all unless a feasible method were at hand. The students cannot find the money and take "a Mission Hall." The College Committee will not be likely to devote

any funds for that purpose. But one of the churches in Nottingham might

appoint a "Mission Committee," secure a building, and begin forthwith; or if the task were too much for one church, members of two or more churches might unite.

The place being secured, then comes the work of the President. It is one of the advantages of our system of tuition that the Tutor knows his men thoroughly, studies each one, looks him through and through, and exercises all his training influence on EACH MAN. In the University that is impossible; but in our College, with its very limited number of men, the President can deal with each man separately and privately, detect his defects and excesses, and so aid in securing that equilibrium of manhood which makes the "able minister of the New Testament." There are men who require the advice Emerson so often received in his earlier years from Carlyle: "Be quiet, be quiet, be QUIET." They

THE QUESTION BOX.

65

have "a running at the mouth," which necessitates the healing influence of the "eternal silences," and the President will take care to enforce comparative abstinence from talk and devotion to the desk from all such. Others are naturally bookish, fond of seclusion, averse to men, and ill-acquainted with that marvellous Bible, the heart of man: these are the men who must be urged to the front, and disciplined by immediate service.

Of such men, one, say, a second year's man, or a third year's, if he can be spared, should act as leader at and director of the "mission" station, in concert with the Committee, himself preaching once a month, and if possible on his freest week night conducting some spiritual work; and arranging with the rest of the students for the other services. In this way the work would be a refreshing and rest-giving change (for rest is in change of work, and not in cessation) and an advantage of peerless value to the student, to the church of which he is subsequently pastor, and to the denomination at large.

Ever yours,

JOHN CLIFFORD.

The Question Box.

No. I. Compartment; for the young people.

Answers to questions of last month:-(1) The two Epistles to the Ephesians are, first, the one commonly known by this name; secondly the letter to the Church at Ephesus in Rev. ii. 1—7.

(2) The Epistles to the Hebrews are, first, the one commonly so called; secondly, the Epistle to James, which was addressed to the twelve tribes scattered abroad; and thirdly, the first Epistle of Peter, addressed to the strangers scattered, &c. But it is not quite certain that this last expression refers to Jews or Hebrews exclusively.

(3) The mother of Joab and Abishai was Zeruiah, who, as appears from 1 Chron. ii. 13-17, was sister or (as some think) half-sister to David. Hence Joab and Abishai were David's nephews.

New questions:-(4) What was the name of Zebedee's wife?

(5) Among the twelve apostles were three pairs of brothers; who were they? (6) Give the name of a man mentioned in the Bible who killed a lion in a pit in a time of snow.

No. II. Compartment; for the general reader.

Answers to questions of last month:-(1) There is no uncertainty expressed or implied. Christ's argument is briefly as follows: He says to the Pharisees, “Ye search the Scriptures,"-which was true; in their way they were great students of the Scriptures,-"for in them ye think," or are of opinion, that "ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me, and" (yet) "ye will not come to me that ye may have life." Christ charges inconsistency upon these Pharisees. It was a saying of Rabbi Hillel, one of their sages, "He who attains knowledge of the law gains life in the world to come." But though they sought in the Scriptures for life they would not come to Him to whom the Scriptures pointed.

(2) To "tempt" in Scriptures means sometimes to try, or prove, with a view to a person's improvement. In this sense God does "tempt," or try men. At other times it means to allure to sin with a view to the commission of that sin. In this sense God never tempts any man.

A new question:-(3) A friend asks us, "How do you reconcile the seeming contradiction between the fourth and fifth verses of the twenty-sixth chapter of Proverbs ?"

Notices of New Books.