The vestries and class rooms will also serve, as at present, as committee rooms for the management of the smaller organizations of the church, and also as class rooms for technical instruction.

Social meetings of the congregation, while very often abused, are frequently of use in promoting intercourse between the members, and, with that intercourse, a more genial feeling and a more cordial appreciation. Domestic conveniences for this and other purposes must not be omitted.

If it is an essential part of the church's work to provide for the mental and spiritual development of the people, it is no less a duty to see that none of the members suffer from abso lute physical want. In addition to occasional relief in money, the church would do well to provide almshouses for such of its members as are incapacitated by infirmity or advanced age. Certain stringent rules would have to be introduced to prevent partiality on the part of the managers, hypocrisy on the part of the recipients, and other like evils. But with care and with definite regulations these evils may be avoided.

Besides thus relieving its own members, the church would continue to exercise its present charitable function of relieving the deserving poor unconnected with the church. Bread, meat, and coal tickets, and a soup kitchen are some of the obvious means of effecting this relief. The co-operation pointed out in the Minute published by the President of the Poor Law Board indicates a way of avoiding the schemes of professional paupers.

Village churches would find a very useful and comparatively inexpensive sphere of usefulness in the maintenance of cottage hospitals, care being taken to prevent their becoming occasions for impertinently intruding religious views. Town churches would better effect the same object by subscribing to the established infirmaries and hospitals, and so securing the right of recommending patients.

Accommodation for an active chapel keeper and his wife, and a house for the ministerial supervisor of all these charities, complete the surroundings. of the Ideal Chapel. We have now to consider the questions of size, cost, and style.

G

The question of the size of a chapel enters more closely into that of efficiency than is at first apparent. If the sole object of building a chapel was the production of a large preaching place, there need not be any limit within that imposed by the want of power in being heard. But we have endeavoured to show that preaching is only a part of the work of the church. To do that work fully and well needs a hearty co-operation between minister and people, and a cordial sympathy with each other. There is no need for gossiping, but there is need that each member should feel that the services of every other member is at his command according to their special ability, or to the necessities of the case. If the chapel is very large, the congregation do not come to know each other, neither can the minister be friend as well as preacher to his congregation. should feel inclined to suggest 800 adults as the average limit to the accommodation of the ideal chapel; very frequently it need not rise above 500 or 600. Two smaller churches, if not too small, will yield a greater harvest of individual effort than one large one. There need be no bickering and jealousy, as is too often the case; probably there would be none if more active work was done, and if there was more intercommunion between the churches.

We

The question of cost is one of great difficulty in its practical application, though not very difficult with reference to main principles. Prices vary greatly between one part of the country and another. Materials which may be very wisely used in one place should be avoided in another. Two rules, if conscientiously adhered to, will help to settle this question; they can, however, only be applied in connection with what will be advanced with reference to design. These are, (1.) All materials should be the best of their kind; the kind of material should only be considered. (2.) All expensive and purely decorative ornament should be avoided unless required by the exigencies of design. Some have said, Will you be less lavish and generous in building to the honour of God, than you are in building your own places of business or of pleasure, or even your own homes ?" We may well reply,

"Are we not altogether too lavish? Do we not seek a catching and meretricious show at the expense of more substantial work?" But if it be desirable to make "secular" buildings "showy," are they not made thus showy to inspire confidence (too often undeserved!) in the owners or in the business for which the place is intended? But it would be grotesquely impious to imagine that "the High and Holy One who inhabits eternity" can gain anything by such advertisements. It is rather the subscribers, the committee, and the architect, who reap the harvest of surprise and admiration.

But the architect, as well as the church, should seek by his work to raise and purify his fellows. Let him therefore exclude all ideas about a "noble front" and a "handsome elevation"-phrases which only mean the glorification of those producing it. Without disparaging the beauties of any style of architecture, and whilst admitting the harmony pervading each in its best examples, we say that the question to be asked is not, "Shall the chapel be classic ?" nor, "Shall it be gothic?" These concern the pedantry of Dryasdusts. To all interested in chapel building we would suggest that, keeping in view the object of the building and the accommodation to be provided, there are five cardinal virtues in art. (1.) Simplicity; for it should never be forgotten that enrichment is by no means necessary for securing beauty. Chastity is always beautiful; display may be so; gaudiness never is. (2.) Good proportion of parts, and of

the details of each part. (3.) Judicious contrasting of parts. (4.) Grouping and the gradual transition from one part to another. (5.) Centralization, or the predominance of one part so as to afford rest for the eye after its excursion over the various parts. This is the exemplification in man's work of the moral excellence of the inward man, of one who, well informed, well balanced, has one quality which neither dwarfs nor overshadows all others, but lends to all a grace, and gives to all a centre of intellectual gravitation. All questions of design, of spires, turrets, and porticoes, may be determined by these five requisites.

It is but a trite thing to say that difficulties occur and recur in attempting to realize the outward expression of our highest desires. There are also practical difficulties of site, and not less practical difficulties of finance. But if we are desirous of helping our fellow men, let us be content to give up costly shams and pretences in our chapels; let us keep our highest aim steadily in view; let us avoid the narrowness that refuses the simple, however beautiful, because it is found in connection with forms of worship with which we have but little in common; let us be content to be guided by such help as we believe to be honest, well informed, and inspired with a lofty purpose; and let us be always willing to learn, rejecting the bad, however old, but always ready to welcome anything, however strange and new, which gives us a token that it will do us good. J. WALLIS CHAPMAN.

THE Rev. Thomas Cockerton was born at Soham, Cambs., July 26, 1839. In his youth he went to London, where he obtained a situation. While there he attended the ministry of Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, by whose preaching he was led to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. He afterwards joined the church then worshipping at New Park Street, and eventually entered the Pastor's College when that institution was in its infancy, and after the usual curriculum he took charge of the church at Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex, where his ministry was very fruitful and much blessed of God. He ministered there for three or four years, when he ac

cepted the pastorate of the church at Castle Donington, where for some two years or more he laboured arduously and successfully for the Master. He next went to Daventry with the object of raising a Baptist cause in that town. He was prosecuting this work with many signs of success when the Lord called him from his active labours to endure great bodily suffering, which finally ended in death. During the last two years of his life slight indications of consumption had been observed but it was not till the close of the year 1867 that the symptoms became at all alarming. On the last Sabbath evening of that year, under

and victory in life and death, than "Jesus and the resurrection."

Nor are we without satisfactory teaching on so momentous a matter. The fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians is a complete manual of the resurrection. It stands amongst the rebukes and personal pleadings of this letter like a gigantic Alp rearing its sovereign head high above the surrounding table-land, or as St. Paul's stands clothed with majesty and beauty amongst the busy scenes and wearing toil of city life. Creed and hymn, history and prophecy, argument and description, rebuke and persuasion, sarcasm and sympathy, meet within the compass of these fifty-eight verses, and contribute to the harmony and power of the whole. There is not another portion of Scripture like it in either of the Testaments. The nearest resemblance to it in character and style is the eleventh of Romans, but the subject in the latter case is not so comprehensive, nor is the treatment so varied and masterly. Plain, unadorned fact breaks forth into the blossom of universal principles of life. Bold, daring, and philosophic reasoning mounts up to lyrical rapture. A rigorous and unbending logic that sweeps everything before it ministers soothing balm for mourning and broken hearts. In his holy eagerness to demonstrate the resurrection of Christ, and to establish the certainty that we shall rise again, the apostle presses into his service all kinds of facts and all forms of speech, so that our faith may be firm and pure for service, and our hearts full of hope and joy when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

The exposition of a subject so grave and important, set out in a fragment of Scripture of such unique merit, requires qualifications of no ordinary kind, and we cannot refrain from saying, though this is high praise, that we could scarcely have better help than what is supplied in the volume before us. Not that the readers of this work will in every case accept the author's conclusions, but they will feel themselves enabled to form a clearer and more satisfactory judgment of the points discussed by following the lead of so faithful, reverent, and diligent a student of Holy Scripture. If patience and modesty, thoroughness of research and fulness of information, conscientious fidelity to, and faithful analysis of, the Greek text, manly candour and freedom from the faintest whisper of dogmatism, acute perception and intense love of truth, if these qualities invite trust, then Mr. Cox's book deserves confidence in a very high degree.

Twelve Essays on the fifteenth chapter of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, and an Appendix, make up this volume. The latter contains a carefully executed

translation of the original, as edited by Lachmann. The Essays lead off with an exposition of the Apostle's Creed, and then discuss, in five chapters, the historical and moral proofs of the resurrection; and the remaining six are devoted to the examination of the mode of that event.

But our readers will be anxious to know the author's opinions on some of the most debateable portions of this chapter, e.g., the " baptism for the dead," all made alive in Christ," the surrender of the kingdom of the Mediator to the Father, and the "spiritual body." We have only space for the consideration of two of these subjects, and we select one on which we agree with Mr. Cox, and another on which we differ with him. To understand the words of Paul concerning the "baptism for the dead, let us imagine ourselves in Corinth when this letter arrived, and shortly before a baptism takes place. Say, there are seven persons, called disciples, candidates for the ordinance of baptism. A week before the time for its administration two of the seven die. What now is to be done? They have passed away without baptism. Now baptism is most important as a sign of incorporation with the church of Christ. Every one who believes in Jesus should be baptized, and then united with His church. These two, our brethren now departed, were prepared for baptism, and intended it. But death has suddenly overtaken them, and they cannot carry out their intention. Let two others already members of the church be baptized in their names, and so executing the known intentions and desires of the deceased give them a right to be enrolled members of the visible church. Thus the baptism of seven takes place; five for themselves, and in their own names, two for those who have already joined the church above. Now it is not improbable that the immature Christians at Corinth fell into such a flattering mistake, and it is certain that an error of the kind existed so early as the second century. But then a difficulty arises. Why did not Paul condemn this superstition? Surely he would not have spared it if it existed. But has he spared it? Most convincingly has Mr. Cox met this objection, and shown that St. Paul separates himself from those who observed this custom, and tacitly reprehends it. The Greek question, fairly rendered, is not, What will you do who are baptized for the dead;" but," What can those say for them. selves who are in the habit of being baptized for the dead." "Mark," says our expositor, "the tone of his argument before and after the twenty-ninth verse, and you will see how completely he identifies himself with his friends at Corinth. If the dead rise not, our preaching is vain, &c. . . . Contrast this with the tone of verse twenty

nine-'Else, what shall they do who are baptized for the dead? If dead men are not raised, why, then, are they baptized for the dead?' Is not that in a very different tone to the preceding and following verses? St. Paul no longer speaks of we and you, but of they and them, as though he were speaking of strangers, of men with whom neither he nor his friends were in perfect sympathy. . . . Our conclusion of the whole matter, then, although we must hold it only as ours, and not as the final authoritative conclusion, must be: That the custom of baptizing the living for the dead did obtain in some sections of the early church: and that the apostle used this custom for a logical purpose, although he disapproved of it, and quietly intimated his disapproval."

Now it remains for us to state briefly some of the grounds on which we dissent from the theory of human nature applied in interpreting the words, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." That theory is briefly expressed in the words of Robertson, "There are in all of us two natures, that of the animal, and that of the Spirit, an Adam and a Christ." Mr. Cox says, more at length, "If in us, and in all men, there are two natures, two laws, two men at strife,-the one leading to evil, the other protesting against evil and inciting to good, we derive the former from Adam, the latter from Christ. This is the benefit all men derive from the redemption of Christ, even before they believe in Him, even though they never believe in Him, that they have the Christ' in them, just as the harm they inherit from Adam is that they have the Adam' in them.

But for the grace of Christ they would never have had that better self' of which they are conscious-this better self is the gift, the free gift of the grace of Christ; and by so much as He is greater than Adam, by so much is the free gift of Christ of a more sovereign potency than the offence of Adam."

Now let us ask, (1) What do we gain by this theory? A key to the interpretation of a passage of Scripture? Yes. If, then, it can be shown that the statement in question ought to be unlocked with another key, we may, unless other reasons prevail, cast the first aside. To us it seems that such is the case. The resurrection of the dead, i.e., not of the dead spiritual nature, but of the body, is the subject of this chapter. This discourse has no meaning if this is not its drift. Hymenæus and Philetus were saying that the resurrection was already past, and overthrowing the faith of some by substituting the spiritual for the physical resurrection. We must not follow them. The death that came by Adam is, in part, bodily death, and so far as this present passage is concerned we do not see

how anything else is necessarily included. Hence the life that shall come by Christ is the resurrection of the body. The first extends to all. The second shall have equal range. The work of Christ in this respect is "co-extensive and co-efficient with the work of Adam." If the resurrection is a spiritual one, i.e., a raising to life of what is dead in living men, we admit this interpretation is unsatisfactory; but there does not appear one jot or tittle of evidence in favour of such a construction being put upon the words. The theory then, sound or unsound, is perfectly gratuitous.

(2.) But we are reminded that being accepted "it enables us to read St. Paul's parallel (in Romans v. 12-19) between Adam and Christ in its plainest and most obvious sense." If this be so it will be an advantage; and though the theory may be shut out from the Corinthians, it may find acceptance in the Romans. Is it so? This parallel is a large subject, and would warrant a discussion several pages long, but we can only give a few lines to it. Paul puts in contrast Adam and Christ. But in what respects? (a) Not in the fullest sense, because he has stated limitations. The parallel, therefore, is not complete, and ought not to be carried out in every possible direction: for (b) the degree of evil in the one case and of good in the other is expressly excluded by the assertion that the effects of the second Adam's obedience far exceed those of the first Adam's disobedience. (c) The real antithesis seems to be the disobedience and the obedience, the condemnation and the justification, the death and the free gift; i.e., the deeds of each of these two leaders and the issues proceeding from them. The consequences of Adam's offence are universal. All that are human suffer through him. They are subjected to many evils without their assent. They inherit through a long succession from him a bias towards sin, in many cases of awful strength. They are doomed to physical death. But does the condemnation in the full sense extend to every individual? Few will say that it does. Infants surely are excluded from that, though not from death, nor from many other evils traceable to disobedience other than their own. Some voluntary act is necessary to bring any one under condemnation. Why then should not some similar act be requisite to bring us into the blessing of justification unto life? We do receive much good from Christ without our concurrence. It meets us at birth. It comes with the children of godly parents into the world; and we can believe that there is blessing amongst us to-day which descended in response to the faith and hope of Adam in the promise of a Redeemer. But is this "justification unto life?" Is this indeed "Christ in us"