erected, and which has now its own minister) and several schools, with scholars amounting to well-nigh 2,000. No one has worked Mission. Last year his congregation raised for its funds about £400, and is, we believe, supporting two evangelists in Italy. Help is also given to the Home and Irish Missions, and to other denominational agencies, as well as to the Manchester City Mission, the hospital, and various local institutions, in the support of which the congregation at Union Chapel takes a foremost part.

Mr. Maclaren's labours are not restricted to his own congregation. He gets no small share of the work in the Lancashire and Cheshire Association of Baptist Churches. No one has been so frequently elected as he to preach, to write the circular letter, or to take a prominent position at the annual meetings, and no one has served more efficiently on committees. A recognition service would be considered sadly incomplete if he were not present, and the joy at the opening or re-opening of a chapel would be sensibly diminished if he could not preach one of the sermons. When the Baptist Union met at Manchester a committee of reference, or an arbitration committee, was formed. We have heard it said that Mr. Maclaren has for years done the work of such a committee for the Baptist Churches of the district, that his counsel is continually sought in reference to difficulties and disputes, and that it is always wisely and generously given. The ministers of our churches have no truer friend than he, and if we may test a man's real worth by the esteem in which he is held by his brethren and co-workers, there are none who stand higher than Mr. Maclaren.

We have said that his labours exceed the limits of his congregation, and we may add also of his denomination. His voice is frequently heard in Congregational, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan chapels; he has given addresses to the students of many of our own and other colleges and preached mission sermons for most of the societies. He is, moreover, at present conducting a weekly teachers' preparation class in connection with the Manchester Sunday School Union-a class which, we are told, is attended not only by Sunday-school teachers, but by ministers of various denominations, who are glad to have this opportunity of listening to the instructions of one whose thoughts and words are in every way so helpful.

Mr. Maclaren has published three series of sermons, which have passed through several editions. From these we may easily learn his characteristics as a preacher. a preacher. He, no doubt, owes much to his effective delivery, to the clear and distinct manner in which he enunciates every word. He speaks as a man thoroughly in earnest, and throws his whole soul into his work. Need we say that by earnestness we do not mean noise? Mr. Maclaren has, we should think, an utter abhorrence of all "shams" and "unrealities," especially in the pulpit, and would treat with deserved contempt the spurious excitement and artificial thunders which have become so

fashionable in some quarters. His is the earnestness of a sincere faith, of a deep and overmastering conviction, and of an intense love for his work. And that is what his hearers instinctively feel, and which makes them forget him in his message.

Mr. Maclaren is a man of keen penetrating intellect; his powers of thought are clear and incisive, enabling him to pierce to the heart of things. He has somewhat of the intuition of a seer, and though he has not, to our knowledge, written poetry, he has felt the influence of "the vision and faculty divine." The root element of his character is fidelity-intellectual, moral, and spiritual fidelity. No reader of his sermons can fail to be struck with his intimate knowledge of Scripture, with the new and deeper meaning which he discerns in the old and familiar words, so that in his hands a commonplace and threadbare truth assumes a marvellous freshness. But this is no newly-acquired power, and no mere gift of genius. The foundation of it lies in the lessons learned in childhood, and in the habits of thorough and conscientious work formed in college. We lately came across an address delivered to the students of Rawdon College more than twelve years ago, in which Mr. Maclaren has unconsciously depicted his own character. Referring to what many regard as the monotonous drudgery of college labour, and to the grand purpose at which it aims, he says:

In such a view of its purpose, the more protracted, severe, and even uncongenial the work the better. You have, in all these general studies, a precious gymnastic for your minds, without which no man ever comes to his meridian of calm power. You may acquire, by your honest dealing with your work here, habits of hard, systematic study; of patient, slow progress: of conscientiously mastering each step before you take the next; of seeing with your own eyes; of fearless, reverent investigation, which will be a blessing to you all your life. Do not, I beseech you, fling away these advantages from a raw haste to get at the fruits before you have sown the seed. Do not think anything which you can master by effort and cannot without, of small importance. Never mind what use it is to be of. Do you make it your own. That is the best use of it. Whether there be any other treasure hid in the field or no, the exercise of digging it all over is the best treasure for you now, and a harvest will follow your spade-husbandry some day, never fear!

And again:

You can be what many churches wish, a popular preacher-if that be the height of your ambition-with little Greek and less Hebrew; but you can neither be what the churches need nor a faithful steward if you neglect the prime responsibility of your stewardship here, and pass from these walls without having bent yourself to learn so as to use and love the tongues in which the Spirit of God has spoken to man.

Have we not, in these pithy and suggestive words, a picture of their author's student life, both in college and out of it? He could not have spoken thus unless he had been what he urged his hearers to be. Honest, patient, and persevering toil; a cheerful acquiescence in the drudgery of college work, and a continuance in the paths thus entered; a resolute retention of the results of the old toil; and, as a

matter of course, a plentiful harvest. We fear this address is now out of print. If so, its republication would be a boon to all candidates for the ministry.

No

Mr. MacLaren has been not only a diligent student, but a vigorous and independent thinker. He has "seen with his own eyes.' ex cathedrâ utterances would satisfy him. No creed could, apart from "fearless and reverent investigation," have secured his unfeigned assent and consent. He could never, indeed, have joined in the indiscriminate eulogies of doubt to which we have of late become accustomed, or have felt an attraction in every new-fangled theory advanced in the name of science, or of the higher criticism. But it is equally evident that he has looked at every great article of the Christian faith honestly and for himself. He is no mere echo of the teachings of others; and, though he has now a strongly-marked and definite creed, it is emphatically his own, to which, by prolonged and conscientious thought, he has worked his way. He has been greatly aided by his fine imagination. This, in fact, is one of the most conspicuous elements of his power. It irradiates his subtle logic, and embellishes his severest statements of truth. It arrests the attention of men who are unmoved by abstract reasoning and bare dogmatic assertions, and opens up to him an unfailing store of illustrations. Mr. MacLaren's power in this respect is unsurpassed, and we know of only two English preachers who, in relation to it, can be at all compared with himMr. Martineau and Dr. Caird. He seems naturally to express himself in metaphor. He is quick to discern the analogies existing between the material and the spiritual universe, and in the phenomena of the one he sees instructive resemblances of the other. Almost at random we have come upon the following instances in the second series of his sermons.

All men live by hope, even when it is fixed upon the changing and uncertain things of this world. But the hopes of men who have not their hearts fixed upon God try to grapple themselves upon the cloudrack that rolls along the flanks of the mountains, and our hopes pierce within that veil, and lay hold of the Rock of Ages that towers above the flying vapours. Let us, then, be strong, for our future is not a dim peradventure, nor a vague dream, nor a fancy of our own, nor a wish turning itself into a vision, but it is made and certified by Him who is the God of all the past and all the present.

All our course, if we have Him with us in the vessel, will be like sailing down some fair-widening stream amongst rocky mountains and vine clad slopes, with the blue sky above, every now and then seeming to be land-locked; and yet, as each rocky headland is rounded, the shining river stretches itself into another reach, and, laving the base of another verdant hill, slides broader and deeper to this great sea to which we come.

The sunshine must fall on us, not as it does on some lonely hill-side, lighting up the grey stones with a passing gleam that changes nothing and fades away, leaving the solitude to its sadness; but as it does on some cloud cradled near its setting, which it drenches and saturates with fire till its cold heart burns, and all its wreaths of vapour are brightness palpable, glorified by the light which lives amidst its mists. So must we have the glory sink into us before

it can be reflected from us. In deep inward beholding we must have Christ in our hearts, that He may shine forth in our lives.

This insight into nature is equalled by Mr. Maclaren's insight into Scripture. His mastery of the Hebrew and Greek languages has been turned to good account. He submits every word to a minute investigation, and traces its relations to other words. His sermons display considerable exegetical skill, and are the outcome of an endeavour to ascertain the true meaning of the text. He has too much reverence for Scripture to treat it as a peg on which to hang up thoughts of his own. His Scotch Baptist training, to which he referred at Plymouth, has probably had some influence on him here; and we wish that those who speak so lightly of exposition would study his sermons to see what fruit it yields: for his preaching is decidedly of the expository order, and none of his greater sermons could have been written by a stranger to exegetical and expository research. The view that he gives of one verse is the result of his careful attention to the whole of the paragraph and chapter and book in which it occurs. His treatment of the narratives of Scripture has often been noticed. It is indeed wonderful. Witness the sermons on "Love and Forgiveness,"-" Ahab and Elijah,"—"Love's Triumph over Sin," "The Power of Feeble Faith,"-and the two great missionary sermons on "The Secret of Power" and "The Pattern of Service." Most of these discourses are, in their own line, unequalled; at least, we know not where to look for any that can claim an equal rank with them. This devout reverence for Scripture, and a corresponding faith in its adaptability to the complex needs of our nature, explain Mr. Maclaren's method of meeting the demands of modern scepticism. That he is thoroughly conversant with all its phases, that he has pondered thoughtfully the position of such men as Huxley, Spencer, and Tyndall, we are well assured. But he would not, in the pulpit, argue with them; on the contrary, he insists on the direct and simple proclamation of the gospel as it has been committed to our trust. How pointedly he can deal with rationalistic assumptions may be seen from his sermon on Christ's Resurrection (III., 347); but he declines to be drawn aside from his work as a witness-bearer and herald of Christ. His words on this point are worthy of insertion. They occur in his inaugural address to the Baptist Union in 1875:— Then we should take all these voices as a call to the more earnest uncontroversial proclamation of our great message. Perhaps I am speaking from personal temperament, and generalizing merely from my own incapacity and disinclination, when I venture to express a grave doubt as to whether controversial preaching ever does much good. For one thing, a very large proportion of hearers are very slightly affected by movements of opinion interesting to more highly-cultivated minds. For another thing, the pulpit is not the place, nor-if I may venture to say it without offence, seeing that I include myself among the number-are many preachers the men to deal thoroughly with the problems of modern thought, and superficial treatment only aggravates the evil. "I have heard the Bampton Lectures for thirty years," said a sagacious University official, "and, thank God! I am a Christian still." I am afraid a good deal of controversial preaching does more harm to the truth it tries to

defend than to the errors it assails. For another thing, the constant reference to errors gives them importance, and imposes on the imaginations of the hearers, whilst also it creates sympathy with the subjects of these incessant attacks. Again, there is absolutely no connection between being forced by stress of argument to accept the true doctrine of the Cross of Christ, and being led as a sinful man to put my trust in Him as my Saviour. Rather, the whole point of view and attitude of mind must be altered before the eager disputant becomes the earnest evangelist, and the convinced listener passes into the penitent disciple. You may shiver to pieces all intellectual defences, but the garrison still gathers unsubdued into the central citadel of the heart. You cannot take it by batteries of argument. Another power alone will make the flag flutter down. Faith is an act of the will as well as of the understanding. Therefore, not logic, but the exhibition of Christ in His love and power evokes it. Ah! brethren, we are often so busy in proving the gospel, that we forget to preach it; so anxious to get at men's hearts through their understandings, that all our time and strength are spent in hewing the passage and none left to impel the gospel through it. I think Christ's Cross may be trusted to stand firm without our stays, and I believe that, if we would seldomer try to prop it with argument, and oftener point to it with the herald's cry, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," we should oftener see men drawn unto it.

We have more than once referred to Mr. Maclaren's intense earnestness. Every hearer and reader of his sermons is struck with it, and it works on us with the power of a spell. He speaks as one who has come forth from the secret place of the Most High, who has spent many a lonely hour in quiet contemplation and fervent prayer with the Master, and who tells of the things he has seen and felt. There are here no empty platitudes, no unmeaning conventionalities, but every word is uttered with a definite aim and charged with spiritual power. He is intent on one thing, and cares for no side issues. The truth of God must be brought home to the hearts and consciences of men; and if any of his hearers can regard it as a matter of no moment to him, we assuredly do not envy him. The individualizing power of Mr. Maclaren's preaching is remarkable. He seems to be dealing with every man apart-to place him by himself and alone.

How lofty is his ideal of the Christian life! It is not in his esteem an orthodox creed, or a formal profession, or a respectable morality. These things, valuable in their own place, are but a small part of that on which he rightly insists. He will not suffer men to regard the Gospel as the charter of their freedom unless they also obey it as the law of their life. A Christian man should be a Christlike man. It is related of Louis XIV., that after listening to one of the most eloquent sermons of Massillon, he remarked to him, "Other preachers excite my admiration for their talents. You have made me dissatisfied with myself." Could there be a greater compliment? How many of us have felt the same in listening to Mr. Maclarendissatisfied with ourselves, ashamed of our ignorance, our weakness, our apathy, our selfishness, our sin, and longing to rise to a nobler, stronger life? Nor are there any who feel this more keenly than the ministers who, whenever they can, are eager to hear him. Not