kissed the wounds of Christian confessors, and the dirty garments of holy hermits; yet was guilty of more than one murder during his life, and by his will ordered an almost wholesale massacre of the members of his family-circle. Looking too exclusively, perhaps, at the dark side of his character, Niebuhr strongly says of him: "Many judge of Constantine by too severe a standard, because they regard him as a Christian; but I cannot look upon him in that light. The religion which he had in his head must have been a strange jumble indeed. He was a superstitious man, and mixed up his Christian religion with all kinds of absurd superstitions and opinions. When certain oriental writers call him equal to the apostles,' they do not know what they are saying; and to speak of him as a saint is a profanation of the word." But we must not, in common justice to Constantine, overlook the praiseworthy features of his character and conduct.

6

"In the year after his conversion was issued the edict of Toleration. Then followed, in rapid succession, the decree for the Observance of Sunday in the towns of the Empire; the Use of Prayers for the Army; the Abolition of the Punishment of Crucifixion; the Encouragement of the Emancipation of Slaves; the Discouragement of Infanticide; the Prohibition of Private Divinations; the Prohibition of Licentious and Cruel Rites; the Prohibition of Gladiatorial Games. Every one of these steps was a gain to the Roman empire and to mankind, such as not even the Antonines had ventured to attempt, and of those benefits none has been altogether lost. Undoubtedly, if Constantine is to be judged by the place which he occupies amongst the benefactors of humanity, he would rank, not amongst the secondary characters of history, but amongst the very first."

But it is to the end of the emperor's life that we wish now particularly to refer, by mentioning a fact connected with it of especial interest to our readers; and probably we cannot do better than quote the graphic language of Dean Stanley.

"Incredible as it may seem to our notions, he who had five-and-twenty years ago been convinced of the truth of the Christian faith; he who had opened the first general council of the Church; he who had called himself a Bishop of Bishops; he who had joined in the deepest discussions of theology; he who had preached to rapt audiences; he who had established Christianity as the religion of the empire; he who had heen considered by Christian bishops an inspired oracle and apostle of Christian wisdom, was himself not yet received into the Christian Church. He was not yet baptized; he had not even been received as a catechumen. He, like many of his countrymen, united, after his conversion, a sincere belief in Christianity with a lingering attachment to Paganism. He, like some even of the noblest characters in the Christian Church, regarded baptism much as the Pagans regarded the lustrations and purifications of their own religion, as a complete obliteration and expiation of all former sins; and therefore, partly from a superstitious dread, partly from the prudential desire, not peculiar to that or any age, of 'making the best of both worlds,' he would naturally defer the ceremony to the moment when it would include the largest amount of the past, and leave the smallest amount of the future. If, even a century later, such men as Ambrose and Augustine, born in Christian families, and with a general belief in the main truths of Christianity, were still unbaptized; the one in his thirty-fourth year, the other in his thirty-second year, we may be sure that the practice was sufficiently common in the far more unsettled age of Constantine, to awake no

scruple in him, and to provoke no censure from his ecclesiastical advisers. In the Church at Helenopolis, in a kneeling posture of devotion, unusual in the East at that time, he was admitted to be a catechumen by the imposition of hands. He then moved to a place in the suburb of Nicomedia, and then, calling the bishops around him, amongst whom the celebrated Arian Eusebius was chief, announced that once he had hoped to receive the purification of baptism, after our Saviour's example, in the streams of Jordan; but God's will seemed to be that it should be here, and he therefore requested to receive the rite without delay. And so,' says his biographer, Alone of Roman Emperors from the beginning of time, was Constantine consecrated to be a witness of Christ in the second birth of baptism.' The Imperial purple was at last removed; he was clothed instead in robes of dazzling whiteness, his couch was covered with white also; in the white robes of baptism, on a white deathbed, he lay, in expectation of his end. His own delight

at the accomplishment of the ceremony was excessive; and when the officers of his army entered the chamber of death, with bitter lamentations, to make their last farewell, he bade them rejoice in his speedy departure heavenwards. He gave his will into the custody of the Arian chaplain Eustocius, who had consoled the last hours of his sister Constantia, with orders that it should be given to his son Constantius. At noon on the Feast of Pentecost, the 22nd of May, in the sixty-fourth year of his age and the thirty-first of his reign, he expired. It is said that the Bishop of Nicomedia, to whom the Emperor's will had been confided by Eudocius, alarmed at its contents, immediately placed it for security in the dead man's hand, wrapped in the vestments of death. There it lay till Constantius arrived, and read his father's dying bequest. It was believed, to express the emperor's conviction, that he had been poisoned by his brothers and their children, and to call on Constantius to avenge his death. That bequest was obeyed_by the massacre of six out of the surviving princes of the imperial family. Two alone escaped. With such a mingling of light and darkness did Constantine close his career."

Thus died this strange man ;-" the first Christian emperor, the first Defender of the Faith, the first imperial patron of the Papal See, and of the whole Eastern church, the first founder of the holy places, pagan and Christian, orthodox and heretical, liberal and fanatical, not to be imitated or admired, but much to be remembered, and deeply to be studied."

Contemporary Preachers.

A

I.

THE REV. ALEXANDER MACLAREN, B.A.

HOST of "candid critics" continually assure us that the pulpit hos lost its power and is rapidly becoming an obsolete institution. The great preachers of former generations-Chrysostom, Savonarola, Massillon, Taylor, Howe, and Baxter-have, we are told, no worthy successors among ourselves; and though there are a few men who have attained exceptional popularity, they are said to have no influence over "the thought and culture of the age." Intellectual

and educated men are drifting further and further away from our churches, if not from Christianity itself, and the separation threatens to become absolute and complete.

So our critics assure us, and we cannot deny that their words contain, at any rate, a semblance of truth. It is unquestionably the fashion in many influential quarters to depreciate the pulpit and its occupants, to sneer at all" ecclesiastically-minded persons," to ridicule their beliefs as a kind of amiable weakness, and to relegate religion itself to the sphere of the emotions. The most prominent devotees of physical science, the chief apostle of literature, and his cultured "readers" occupy a position of pronounced antagonism to evangelical Christianity, and reject the very idea of a supernatural revelation; nor can we doubt that they command a very large following. The causes of this condition of things are not difficult to discover, but we cannot now stop to enquire into them. We can, however, as little allow that the opponents of dogmatic Christianity possess a monopoly of intellect, learning, and refinement. Not a few of the noblest minds of our age have accepted "the truth as it is in Jesus" with a simple and unreserved faith, and, great as have been their intellectual achievements, they have deemed it their highest glory to " bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.' The historian of every past age has been able-the historian of every future age will be able to chronicle the fact that

"Piety has found

Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer
Has flown from lips wet with Castalian dews.'

For the most part it will be found that this indiscriminate depreciation of the pulpit results from a rejection of the truths which it is the especial mission of the pulpit to proclaim; and, where this is the case, no amount of power will be recognised as of substantial worth. And if we are bound to admit the force of this "hue and cry" on the one hand, we cannot, on the other hand, ignore the fact that in all he cities and large towns of Great Britain, to say nothing of Europe and America, there are men who week after week attract large congregations, who exercise a wise and helpful influence on social and religious life, and who, apart from all questions of sects and faiths, are felt to be a power in the community in which they live. The aggregate number of worshippers in our churches and chapels is greater to-day than at any former period. Booksellers assure us that volumes of sermons are in continual demand; and it will certainly be allowed that, notwithstanding the opposition of science and the growth of scepticism, the moral life of the nation is healthier than it was a hundred years ago. The Christian Church has no room for self-gratulation, but it has as little ground for despair. The ministry is not what it might be few will contend that it is all that it ought to be-but it is not the failure some would seem to imagine. It has more than sufficient life and power to hold

its own against all opposition, and to claim recognition as the highest and most important agency for the regeneration and progress of the world. The pulpit has been truly described as the Thermopyla of Christendom.

There are men still living who have listened to the voices of Chalmers and Hall; the names of Macleod and Guthrie are familiar as "household words;" and, while we have among us such preachers as Spurgeon, Liddon, Vaughan, Caird, and Maclaren, it will be hard to persuade us that the former times were better than the present.

Among the great preachers of our day a foremost place is by universal consent assigned to the Rev. Alexander Maclaren, of Manchester; and, if we present to our readers a few pages relating to him and his work, it will not be with the view of gratifying an idle and impertinent curiosity, eager to know everything that can be known about "our great men." We have not had the privilege, as we have no sympathy with the spirit of the interviewer, and we should utterly defeat our purpose by attempting to invade the sanctities of private life. We intend to write of Mr. Maclaren only in his public capacity, for with anything beyond this neither we nor our readers have the slightest concern. Our article can boast of no exceptional knowledge or special information. The extent of our claim to write is this-that we have availed ourselves of several opportunities of hearing Mr. Maclaren, principally in the metropolis; that we have studied somewhat carefully his published sermons, and have heard frequent references to him and his work by those who are intimately acquainted with both.

It is, of course, no secret to any of our readers that Mr. Maclaren, like many other of our leading men, both in mercantile and professional life, comes from "the other side of the Tweed." He was, we believe, born in Glasgow, his father being one of the pastors of the John-street Baptist Church in that city, and a man whose fine Christian character, sound judgment and rare powers of exposition are still gratefully remembered. Few who were present at Mr. Maclaren's installation as chairman of the Baptist Union in 1875, will have forgotten Mr. Stovel's touching allusion to his "revered father" and his 'great and noble mother -an allusion which we here recall as it may furnish us with an explanation of some of the strongest features of Mr. Maclaren's ministry. We learn from a writer in the Freeman that he entered the College at Stepney in 1842, and, after taking the degree of B.A. at the London University, accepted an invitation to the pastorate at Portland Chapel, Southampton, in 1846. At that time, the church had been greatly weakened by internal divisions, and the congregations were small. The difficulties which the young pastor had to face would have unnerved a weaker man, but they had an opposite effect on him, and in the course of time they disappeared. The empty pews gradually filled, and long before Mr. Maclaren left Southampton in 1858, the chapel was crowded. He had gathered

around him not only a large and influential, but a sympathetic congregation, and his removal was, as might be expected, a source of deep and universal regret. The best testimony to the value of his work may be gathered from the farewell address presented to him by his congregation in which it is said :

"Some of us can remember the time, when yourself young and inexperienced, and we a mere handful of people, the relation of pastor and flock was set up among us. Nor do we forget the discouraging circumstances under which that relation began. We remember, too, how slowly the clouds cleared away; how painfully the upward path was climbed; how in the face of many temptations to despair, you manfully stood to your post, and resolved to hope, and we feel that it would be difficult, if not impossible, duly to estimate the Christian labour carried on so patiently and so perseveringly."

In 1858, Mr. Maclaren succeeded the Rev. Francis Tucker in the pastorate of Union Chapel, Oxford-road, Manchester. His work there was begun under very different conditions, and has throughout been in the best and truest sense successful. In Manchester, as in Southampton, the congregations increased, but with much greater rapidity, and the spacious chapel soon became too small to accommodate the numbers that thronged it. A new and more commodious one was built some eight or nine years ago, and this also is said to be too small. It is a building well-adapted for the great ends of our public worship-compact and comfortable, displaying in the interior a chaste and tasteful beauty, and with acoustic properties of the first order. We have heard it not unfittingly described as the Nonconformist cathedral of Lancashire. The congregation averages, we believe, about 1,400, and contains men of various classes and creeds. There are rich and prosperous merchants, men distinguished in professional life, and others working their way towards success. Young men from the offices and warehouses of the city are seen in great numbers; nor is there wanting what we should like to see in all our churches, a fair proportion of working men. Every service attracts a number of strangers, among whom are clergymen of the Established Church, Nonconformist ministers, literary men and students. Men listen gladly to Mr. Maclaren, whose ear could have been gained by no other evangelical preacher, especially if he chanced to be a Nonconformist. Some, no doubt, go for the mere intellectual pleasure they receive, but we cannot imagine them under such a ministry remaining content with nothing further. Bold and incisive thought, keen logic, brilliant imagination, calm intensity, are invariably a source of gratification to a cultured mind, but in Mr. Maclaren's ministry they are, while never lacking, invariably subordinated to higher and holier ends, and it is impossible that his hearers should remain indifferent in respect to them.

While many of his congregation are doubtless attracted simply by their delight in his preaching, he is at the same time surrounded by a band of earnest Christian workers. There are in connection with his church two preaching-stations (at one of which a new chapel has been