pression gone, the essential nature of him-grave, tender, majestic-taking the place of it, as his own disturbed life appears now, when it is calmed down into a memory." All that was mortal of the great Reformer was taken back in great state to Wittenberg, the bells in the churches tolling, as the mournful procession went by, and laid in the Church, whose walls had so often resounded with his eloquence. A funeral oration was pronounced over him by Melancthon. This was on the 20th of February. Two days afterwards his body was committed to the dust, and as they laid him in the grave, amid the tears of wife, of children, and of friends, Melancthon gave expression to the feelings of all his followers, when he cried-" My father, my father! The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof! " In his will this characteristic expression occurs"Finally, seeing I do not use legal forms, I desire all men to take these words as mine. I am known openly in heaven, on earth, and in hell also; and I may be believed and trusted better than any notary. To me, a poor unworthy miserable sinner, God, the Father of mercy, has intrusted the Gospel of his dear Son, and has made me therein true and faithful. Through my means many in this world have received the Gospel and hold me as a true teacher-despite of popes, emperors, kings, princes, priests, and all the Devil's wrath!" When Charles the Fifth entered Wittenberg, after having besieged it, and stood by Luther's tomb, some one asked him if he would not have the grave opened, and the ashes of the arch-heretic scattered to the winds "I war not with the dead!" was his reply. "Let this place be respected." 'Twas not a statesman's life the prayer was for; To God: "Oh! spare me him, my darling child! MARION. The Court of the Gentiles. THOSE THE MAGI. THOSE of the Magi who are mentioned in the Gospel of St. Matthew, are always associated in my own mind with that fine saying of Dante's "Follow thou thy star, and thou shalt not fail of a glorious haven!" Taking the story of these men as it stands in the Gospels, they followed their star. They followed it calmly, persistently, through disappointment and apparent failure, and they did "not fail of a glorious haven." Theirs was the honour of being the first of the Gentiles who beheld the Saviour of the world; and as this is the month in which Christendom celebrates the birth of its Divine Founder, it is very fitting that they should now find a place in our Court. Who were they, and from what country did they come? are questions which cannot be answered with minute exactness, or even with much certainty. As with many other persons of sacred story, around these also tradition has woven an immense cloud of fiction or legend. With tradition, indeed, they have been. special favourites. In the Western Church we have one set of stories about them, and in the Eastern Church we have another. According to the later Western traditions the number of the Magi who visited Bethlehem was three, though in the earlier traditions their number seems to have varied. In the representations of the Nativity of our Lord, which sometimes occur in the Catacombs of Rome, the number of them varies from two to four, which would seem to show that during the first three centuries of the Christian era, that is, during the period in which the Roman catacombs were excavated and adorned, the number was held to be uncertain; or, else, that the earliest Christian artists did not feel themselves bound to represent any particular number. In the Gospel of St. Matthew, I need hardly say, their number is not mentioned. By the time of Leo the Great, however, it had become fixed. He lays it down distinctly that there were three. Other writers give the reason for this. One says there were three of them, because they were a symbol of the mysterious Trinity; and another, because that number corresponded to the gifts they brought. By and by they are not merely designated by the general name Magi, each is called by his own particular name, and at the same time the exact gifts they bore are enumerated. Their names, so the legend says, were Gaspar or Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. The gift which Gaspar bore was frankincense: that borne by Malchior was gold; while that which was borne by Balthazar was myrrh. To each of these gifts tradition has also attached a symbolical meaning. The gold was offered as to a king; the myrrh prefigured the bitterness of the Passion, the embalment for the Burial; and with the frankincense they adored the divinity of the Son of God. According to the same authority Melchior was old, and white, with a flowing beard; Gaspar, young, ruddy, and beardless; and Balthazar swarthy and bearded. I should state also that the names given above were not the only names by which they were known. They had many others, such as-Malgalath, Pangalath, Saracen. Tradition, in fact, seems to have taken great liberties with them. Soon after the conversion of the Roman Empire their bodies, were said to have been discovered somewhere in the East, were brought to Constantinople and placed in the great Church which had there been consecrated to the Divine Wisdom. Subsequently they were translated to Milan; and when Milan fell into the hands of Frederick Barbarossa they were carried across the Alps and placed in that great monument of Teutonic art-the Cathedral of Cologne, which now for seven centuries has had the glory of possessing the relics of the first Gentile worshippers of Christ. As every visitor to Cologne is aware, its tomb of the Three Kings is one of its chief glories, and the gold and jewels with which it is adorned bear witness to the reverence and faith with which the old tradition was once regarded. In the Eastern Church the legends were of a different character. According to one, the Magi set out from their own country with an army of eight thousand men. Seven thousand of them they left on the banks of the Euphrates, and with the remainder marched on till they arrived at Jerusalem. They undertook this journey, we are told, not merely because they had seen. a star nor merely because of the expectations, which they shared with the Israelites-but, also, because Zoroaster, the founder of their faith, had predicted that in the latter days there would arise a Redeemer, whose coming would be heralded by the appearance of a remarkable star. According to another tradition of this Church, the Magi came from the far East, on the borders of the ocean. A writing, which bore the name of Seth, had taught them to expect the appearance of the star; and this expectation had been handed down from one generation to another. Twelve of the holiest among them were always appointed to be continually on the watch. Night by night they bathed themselves in pure water, and prayed, and looked up to the heavens, from their post of observation on a rock, known as the Mount of Victory. At last the star appeared. It assumed the strange form of a young child bearing a cross, and as they gazed in astonishment, a voice came pealing down from the skies and commanding them to proceed to Judea. For two years they travelled, and such was the Providence which attended them that during all that time the meat and drink they started with never failed. Their gifts were those which Abraham had given to their forefathers, the sons of Keturah, which the Queen of Sheba had in her turn presented to Solomon, and which had again found their way back to the children of the East. After their return home the Apostle Saint Thomas, it is said, found them in Parthia, and being baptised by him they became preachers of the faith. But, leaving tradition, let us ask who were these Magi, and whence did they come? Those who are acquainted with the works of M. Martha, Dr. Dollinger, or Mr. Lecky, or who have read with care any good Church or even Roman history, are aware that these questions are not easily answered. At the advent of our Lord, Magi were as numerous in the Roman Empire as leaves in Vallombrosa. Tacitus and Juvenal speak of them with a considerable amount of contempt, and not a few imperial edicts were issued against them. As a rule they were classed along with the mathematici and others who were little, if any, better than charltans. Some of them, indeed, were a good deal worse, and among these, if all we read be true, were a number of Jews. Nor can much be gathered as to the place from whence they came from the words "from the East." One would require to travel a very long way in an easterly direction from Palestine before reaching a country where wise men were likely to be met with; and, besides, "from the East" was used by Jewish and Biblical writers in a somewhat loose way, and might signify from the north-east, or north, or even from the south. One writer, if I remember rightly, has gone so far as to say that this phrase has been inserted to distinguish the Magi in question from those who were in the West, and who belonged to the class already referred to. After all, I imagine, we are compelled to fall back upon and to accept the old traditional explanation, that the Magi of whom the Evangelist speaks, and who were the first of the Gentiles to behold Christ, were Persians, or, at least, wise men who dwelt either in Persia itself, or in its neighbourhood, and who were believers in the Zoroastrian religion as it was then understood. This is certainly the simplest explanation and the one which has commended itself to the mind of Christendom. Of Zoroaster I may have something to say hereafter. Here I may remark that if the ex planation just given be correct, the Magi were the disciples of a very noble and pure spirit, and the spiritual ancestors of some of our own fellow-subjects, namely, the Parsees, or Fire-worshippers of India. Strangely enough their religion, Pagan though it was, taught them to look for a Saviour. At the same time their worship of the Light led them to the study of the stars, which, as among the Chaldeans, probably partook more of the nature of astrology than of astronomy. The Magi, those at least who are now before us, were not writers. They have left but a single sentence behind them-but, it is one which is full of significance, and one which shows, perhaps more than any other, what the Gentile as well as the Jewish world was then most anxiously looking for and desiring-"Where is He that is born, King of the Jews? For, we have seen His star in the East, and have come to worship Him?" The sermons that have been preached on these words are innumerable. One of the finest I remember to have read is the memorable one by F. W. Robertson, but it may be questioned whether the meaning of this text, uttered by our Gentiles, has ever been thoroughly exhausted. What a picture it recalls of the condition, political, intellectual and spiritual of the old world! What unrest it indicates! How it speaks of the everlasting search for truth, and the deathless desire of the human heart for a Being whom it may trust, and in whose rule and government it may find shelter and rest! But if not writers or authors, the Magi who came to Jerusalem, and then passed on to Bethlehem, were certainly doers. For, to repeat Dante's phrase, they "followed their star." They followed it too, as I have said, through disappointment and apparent failure, and in doing so, they did all that men are capable of doing, and so touched the heights of spiritual glory. Heroism is not measured by the seeming greatness of its deeds, nor even by the brilliancy of their effect-but, by the strain and effort their performance requires. These old Magi followed what little light they had, and when it failed them, they still followed in the direction in which it pointed; and thus, while illustrating the truth of the saying we have borrowed from Dante, they are examples of that calm and noble heroism- -so seldom recognised, and yet so frequent to which Matthew Arnold points in the lines "We cannot kindle when we will But tasks, in hours of insight willed, IF F ever there was a man that endeavoured to realise his conception of Christianity-to exemplify in his daily conduct the principles he urged from the pulpit -that man was George Herbert. Unlike Vaughan, who was in some sense a disciple of his, Herbert is singularly fortunate in his biographer. For candour, directness of purpose, concise adequacy of detail, and picturesque simplicity, there is no biography in the language that surpasses Izaak Walton's sketch of George Herbert. Walton's Lives have all a charm of beautiful and rich quaintness and resource "There are no colours in the fairest sky So fair as these " but there are certain qualities in the Life of Herbert that give it a unique and prominent place in the group. Walton believes in Herbert, admires him, and loves him, and the picture he produces is thus bold, and full, and memorable. George Herbert was born at Montgomery Castle in 1593, and he died Rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire, in 1633. His youth and early manhood were fostered and directed by a pious and resolute mother, to whom, as is so often the case with eminent men, Edward and George Herbert owed much in the development of their scholarly and literary tastes. It was this excellent lady's person and character that inspired Donne when he wrote his "Autumnal Beauty," these lines of which have often been taken for Wordsworth's : "No spring or summer beauty has such grace Both at Westminster and at Cambridge George Herbert proved himself a scholar of unusual quickness and power. While still considerably under thirty he was appointed Public Orator of his University, and in this position became a favourite of King James and a close friend of Bacon and Bishop Andrewes. Other leading nobles were attracted to him, and, had matters gone on in the ordinary way, Herbert might have become Secretary of State or attained to some other position of public distinction. The usual arrangement at the time was for the Public Orator to advance to a prominent place as a statesman, and Herbert had both family distinction and personal excellence to enforce his claims. may Recent biographers, however, have been inclined to dwell too exclusively on his political ambition. Mr. Simcox, for example, seems to overlook the causes that led Bacon and Bishop Andrewes to desire and retain the friendship of Herbert. Bacon submitted his books to the Orator's judgment before publishing them, and he dedicated to him his translation of the Psalms, on the ground of his being "the best judge of divine poetry." Then Bishop Andrewes had a short controversy with him on Predestination, and was so struck with the weighty and mature wisdom of a letter in Greek, which Herbert sent as his closing contribution to the subject, that he wore it ever afterwards in his bosom. It is quite possible, of course, that Herbert meanwhile have had a strong desire to be a conspicuous figure at Court, or to be otherwise distinguished in public life, but surely there is nothing in such an ambition essentially incompatible with piety, or calling for such satirical smartness as characterises the criticism of Mr. G. A. Simcox. At any rate, a public career was not within the possibilities for Herbert; the king's death and the deaths of the young scholar's most influential friends intervened; his own health was very uncertain; and ultimately he took orders. In 1626 he was made prebend of Layton Ecclesia, in Huntingdon, and from this time to 1630, when he was appointed Rector of Bemerton, he had a searching and fruitful mental and spiritual experience. During his short incumbency he displayed extraordinary energy and consistency, and his enthusiasm and religious fervour were such as to make a deep and lasting impression. Few things are finer and more touching than Walton's simple and earnest record as to the union of classes at worship under Herbert, culminating, as it does, in this flash of idyllic sweetness :-" And some of the meaner sort in his parish did so love and reverence Mr. Herbert, that they would let their plough rest when Mr. Herbert's Saints-bell rung to prayers, that they might also offer their devotions to God with him; and would then return back to their plough." A man of such an ardent temperament, so scholarly, and with so fine literary sympathies, was not likely to content himself with simply performing his parish duties, however important and exacting in themselves. On the other hand, Herbert is keenly subjective and becomes a source of critical interest to himself. He has sometimes been condemned as delighting in his prim self-sufficiency, but it is more accurate to place him in such a group of interesting self-exponents as Milton Cowper, and Coleridge. He draws up rules for the clerical life in his "Country Parson," therein setting forth his own ideal, and really depicting himself. He puts his spiritual experience into certain systematic poems, gathered under the name of "The Temple;" and he writes, besides, various sonnets and miscel laneous lyrics, without degenerating into the petty quibbles and follies of the later euphuism. When we consider his undoubted skill as a musician, it appears somewhat odd, and probably to be explained only in reference to the poetical mannerisms of his time, that so little of Herbert's poetry is remarkable for its purely musical quality. He seems never to rejoice in the mere rhythm of his movement and the ring of his cadences, but rather to be intent on accomplishing the purpose with which he starts. He lingers over his thought and his sentiment more than his melodies and his harmonies. At the same time, there are frequent instances of choice combinations and happy settings, such as betoken the possession of a pure and lofty lyrical gift. It is present, for instance, in this description of the true priest : "Holiness on the head, Light and perfections on the breast, Harmonious bells below, raising the dead To lead them unto life and rest : Thus are true Aarons drest." In the sonnets and the miscellaneous pieces there are strenuous and resonant passages, and even graceful onomatopoeic effects. In spite of the manifest euphuism of the following lines, from a sonnet on "Prayer," it is impossible not to admire their energy, their expressiveness, and the lingering roll of their move ment : "Engine against the Almighty, sinner's tower, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing-spear, The six days' world transposing in an hour, A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear." There is Elizabethan fluency and liquid ease in the description of true honesty, which is not "So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind Can blow away, or glittering look it blind;" and the opening stanza of "Man's Medley," while further illustrating the poet's lyric sweetness, presents in its contrasted sentiments and its culminating thought an anticipation of Mrs. Browning's much-quoted "What is the best thing in the world?" This is Herbert's vivacious and telling way of setting forth his notion of true happiness : "Hark how the birds do sing, All creatures have their joy and man hath his. Rather hereafter than in present is." In regard to the sentiment of this, and similar poems of Herbert's, it is perfectly possible to insinuate, with Mr. Simcox, that this is the disappointed Secretary of State, taking refuge where neither patron nor rival can affect him, and spitefully looking back at the world and its interests as an unmitigated mass of sour grapes. It is not impossible to interpret in this fashion, but it is neither generous nor legitimate. Herbert's friends believed him sincere, and Farrer, to whom he sent "The Temple" for his opinion, declared "that there was in it the picture of a divine soul in every page; and that the whole book was such a harmony of holy passions as would enrich the world with pleasure and piety." This is undoubtedly the more accurate estimate of Herbert's attitude and his worth, and it is in keeping with the judgment of Izaak Walton. The narrative of the poet's last hours alone might convince any unprejudiced reader of his thorough integrity and his spiritual fervour. On his last Sunday he called for his lute, and accompanied himself as he sang from his fine poem entitled "Sunday." Walton quotes the second of the following stanzas as having been sung on the occasion: "Sundays the pillars are On which heav'n's palace arched lies; Which parts their ranks and orders. On Sundays Heaven's gate stands ope; More plentiful than hope. "This day my Saviour rose, And did enclose this light for his; That, as each beast his manger knows, Man might not of his fodder miss. Christ hath took in this piece of ground, And made a garden there for those Who want herbs for their wound. "Thou art a day of mirth : Charles I. held Herbert's "Temple" in his hand when on the scaffold; Crashaw paid the work a handsome compliment in forwarding a copy to a lady; and it will remain a valued possession for all thoughtful souls. It is charged with poetic insight and spiritual fervour, and it is rich in its resources for consolation and joy. ADDRESS ON THE OCCASION OF THE Reception of Old Scottish Regimental Colours, WE And E have gathered to-day for a noble purpose-to receive with all honour into this National Church these flags which have been borne by our soldiers through many a hard fight and in many a distant land. "In the name of the Lord,' said the inspired Psalmist long ago, "we will set up our banners." In the spirit in which he spoke these banners were first unfurled. In that great name they were blessed by God's ministers ere they were committed to those who were to carry them as a testimony that as a nation, we believe in God, and desire that He should guide our destinies alike in war and in peace. now, after the lapse of years, they are brought back to rest in God's house as a testimony to the same truth, that we acknowledge Him as the supreme source of all our national success and greatness. The God of our fathers is our God. "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the victory, and the majesty; both riches and honour come of Thee, and Thou reignest over all; and in Thine hand is power and might; and in Thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all." It is in this reverent and pious spirit that we place these emblems in Scotland's great historic Church. The associations that gather round these faded banners are of the tenderest and most touching kind. They are such as cause the heart to swell and the tear to come to the eye. Few, I feel sure, in this vast assemblage have not felt in some degree their power. There are soldiers here whom they carry back to old days, and to comrades with whom they stood "shoulder to shoulder" in many a perilous hour. The "old flag" has for the British soldier a meaning so deep and powerful that it is impossible to put it into words. It is but a piece of silk, often faded and tattered, and rent with shot; but it is a symbol, and symbols are the most sacred things on earth. It means for the soldier his Queen and country, and all the loyalty, honour, freedom, truth, and heroism they demand of him. Therefore it is that men will follow their colours down into the dreadful pit, and would be willing to die twice over for them rather than let them be taken by an enemy; and in the hour of defeat, like the hero of Isandula, will fall pierced through with wounds, but with these precious symbols still untarnished wrapped around their breast. And though to the peaceful citizen these emblems can never mean all they stand for to those who have served, even to him they may speak of things it is good for him to remember. They may well tell him of the history of his country, and the wonderful way by which God has led her, and of the brave men He has raised up to fight for her, and without whom we should have no country at all. Nor can we help specially remembering that these are the colours of our Scottish regiments. Scotland is a poor country compared with the great neighbour with whom it is happily united; but it possesses a distinct national life of its own, which all true Scotsman would not willingly let die, but would rather seek to cherish to the last; for individuality is as precious to a people as it is to a man. We are proud of the few distinct national possessions that are still left to us. We cling to them more fondly, perhaps because they are few. We are proud of our Scottish regiments. We feel they, of the whole army, specially belonging to ourselves; and they, too, as they have swept on to battle with the cry, |