THE FISHER-FOLK.1 By the REV. JOHN WELLWOOD, of Drainie. 'They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters : THE Psalmist must have been thinking of sailors and The loneliness of a fisherman's life in the great waters, the silence and the sounds of the midnight watches, the revelation of dawn amid the fleeing shadows of the east, the glory of broad noon, the solemn descent of the majestic sun-a bare ball of fire, or gleaming through clouds of gold in a pale green sky-the peace of twilight, the silver pathway of the moon along the dark plains, the stars that are more to the seaman's eyes-nearer and friendlierthan to ours that see them seldomer; above all, the clouds in storm and the sea in its fury, when awful death seems imminent in every wave: all this is part of the familiar experience of seafaring men, and it is surely not the least of the compensations of their lot that they have the privilege of seeing the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. Well for those who can realise the poet's apostrophe "Thou glorious mirror where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests!" You have heard of ancient Greece, a nation which was at the height of its power and glory several centuries before Christ-a nation that produced some of the greatest men that ever lived, warriors, statesmen, philosophers, poets-a nation that held in the pre-Christian world a position in many respects resembling that which Great Britain holds in the world of to-day, and in no respect more than this, that it was a nation whose people went down to the sea in ships and did business in great waters-a seafaring nation. Well, one of the most renowned poets of ancient Greece, Sophocles, wrote a hymn in praise of "Many things," he says, are wondrous and strange to see, but nothing is more strange or more man. From an Address on behalf of the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society. The objects of this Society are: 1. To render necessary assistance, and board, lodge, clothe, and forward home all shipwrecked fishermen, mariners, &c., or other poor persons, of all nations, cast destitute upon the coasts. 2. To relieve fishermen, mariners, &c. (members of the Society), for loss of their boats or clothes (by shipwreck, storm, or other accidents of the sea), and otherwise in their need and extremity; and also to relieve their widows and orphans, &c. 3. To administer relief to others, and those dependent on them, of the seafaring classes, for whose benefit the Society was instituted and designed (although not members of the Society), according to the circumstances of the case. 4. To grant gold and silver medals, and other honorary or pecuniary rewards, for heroic or praiseworthy exertions to save life from shipwreck, &c., on the high seas or coasts of the colonies. wondrous than man ;" and it is a remarkable fact that the first illustration he gives is drawn from the daring and skill of the sailor. Of all the instances of man's audacity and genius in battling with the more terrible powers of nature, his cleaving a path through stormy seas appeared to the poet the most marvellous. "Across the sea," he goes on to say, "when it is hoary with the blasts of the wintry southwind, man wends his way, faring right on amid the surges that roar around." No doubt, in those ancient times, going down to the sea in ships was a more formidable enterprise than it is now, for the largest vessels had then nothing but oars and sails to propel them. Still, it would be as true for a modern poet as it was for the ancient that man, as a dauntless and mighty being, is splendidly illustrated by his victories over the subtle and changeful sea. It would be bold, if not presumptuous, on my part to speak much about the sea itself before so many fishermen and mariners, but no thoughtful person who, walking along the beach, sees at his feet the breaking waves, and listens to their dolorous monotone, or scans the rolling waste or the smooth, shining floor of ocean, can be unfamiliar with the mystery, the glory and the terror, the inexhaustible romance that for ever marks man's ways upon the sea from his ways on his native earth. His dwelling-place is not upon the wandering waves-not there can he build himself a home; but as long as he is on the sea he is in an alien place, his heart ever returns to green fields from the green sea; and those wild flowers of the foam, how different from the daisies that spangle the sward where his children laugh and play, what different stories they suggest, and gleam upon what different graves! In respect to physical security, compare the life of those that go down to the sea in ships with the life of shopkeepers, artizans, or tillers of the soil. Anywhere, indeed-at home, afield, by the way-side -man is subject to accidents; nowhere is he beyond the chances of violent death. A roof may fall on his head, he may step suddenly into a ditch and break his neck, he may be run over by a wheel, he may perish in a railway collision. But such mishaps are, for the most part, owing not to nature but to man, not to unavoidable necessity but to ignorance or negligence or folly or crime. The builder scamps the roof, the railway official forgets to put up the signals, or the driver is drunk. "Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless millions mourn." What disasters of the land are to be compared with the casualties of the sea? What incalculable and unmanageable powers overwhelm the dwellers in the village or in the city as winds and waves the wanderers of the deep? For these we must go to earthquake and volcano. Not many months ago the world was startled by the news of an appalling catastrophe in Italy. A beautiful town, on a lovely evening when the people were thronging the hotel, the theatre, the esplanade, was cloven and shattered by an earthquake, and in the space of half a minute was changed into a fearful chaos of crumbled buildings, obliterated landmarks, dead and maimed, and horrorstricken men and women in thousands. Such a calamity as that happens but once or twice in a century. But on the treacherous ocean" the same sudden and irresistible doom overtakes man, and is a common thing. Neither fishermen nor sailors, indeed, are exempt from blame in every case of accident or death at sea. Their boats may be bad, their knowledge may be insufficient, they may be careless, they may be rash. But let their boats be without a flaw, let their seamanship be perfect, let them be neither rash nor careless: are they safe? On a sudden the air darkens, and the wind moves over the sea with a long cry, and the waves rise like a mighty host shaking themselves from slumber, and "The white squall rides on the surging wave, In your warm beds pity the weary fishermen wet with the spray, tossing on the dark waters; and, as you listen to the gales that shriek past your dwelling, which they cannot destroy, but in which secure you take fresh comfort, knowing that not you can their fury harm, think of those in peril on the sea, the sails rattling to the whistling gusts, the dismal clamour of waves about the sides of the rocking craft, the faroff morning, the darkness and the toil, and all around and under them the great waters. It is for their aged parents, it is for their wives and children the strong men are away there. Oh, in the loud midnight, what heart-wearing vigils must the women have at home! Every blast that shakes the windows and howls around the house is to the fisherman's wife like the knell of her son's or husband's doom. The brighter her fire burns, the more merrily the voices of her children ring, the more lovely and full of peace the children look as they lie asleep in their little beds; all the more fearfully her fancy roams over the inhospitable sea, and catches the swaying sail where her good-man-his swarthy face just visible in the dim lamplight-agonises among ropes and canvas to evade the battering storm. "For men must work and women must weep, There's little to earn and many to keep, And the harbour-bar is moaning. In what fishing community are there not those whose husbands, fathers, sons have dropt into "the vast and wandering grave," never to be laid in the kirkyard among kindred? How many, standing at the harbour-bar from which sailed the boat that never sailed back, feel in all its weight the meaning of the strain: Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O sea, But the tender grace of a day that is dead I beseech you, by the memory of our sea-roving ancestors, those noble wild masters of the wave with their blue eyes and yellow hair, who, coming from Scandinavia, swept these coasts of ours in innumerable ships and landed and took possession; whose sons, settling down here, have transmitted to you the heritage of the seas, and their blood is in the dwellers on our eastern coasts to this day; by the fame of this island of ours, Britannia, the queen of the sea; by the splendid manhood of our fishermen and sailors with their enterprise, their bravery, and their strength; by their weird nights upon the sea; by their hard hands, their weather-beaten faces, their hearts well-acquainted with peril and used to confront death in the horrid hollows of the sea; by the voices of the storm and by tales of shipwreck; by the wrecked, sea-worn, and destitute mariner to whom these shores on which he is cast may be foreign shores, whose home may be in a far-off land; by the cries of the drowning crew; by the forlorn widow-perhaps the mother of a race of fishermen who, years and years ago, lost their lives in the great waters and left behind them only her and the tragic memory of their fates; by the children who, standing on the beach, saw their father sail away upon a shining sea and waited, waited, counting the days, but never saw him more; oh, by the orphans who, left to wander about the sea's edge and to look on those same waters that heard their father's last cry, shall grow up to make a new race of sea-farers and fishermen, and brave the same dangers as their sires; lastly, by our common humanity, and in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, I beseech you to support this noble cause. ROUND THE FIRESIDE. ART AND RELIGION. It was only the other day a friend took me apart, from the noise of a busy street, to show me Sir Noel Paton's picture, entitled "Lux in Tenebris." The picture was simple but touching in the extreme. Two figures, life size, occupied the centre of the canvas. The shepherd's crook, the crown of thorns, the pierced hands and feet, the nimbus-circled head, the brooch bearing the letters Alpha and Omega, the earnest face, and the gentle mein, all told us that one of the figures was the Saviour. The other figure was a rendering of the soul in the shape of a woman. She bad a death-pallor on her face, and a death-earnestness in her eyes, which were turned with strange expectancy and trust on the countenance of Jesus. With both her hands she grasped one of the hands of Christ. A white diaphanous robe covered her from the bust to the ankles. The robe was evidently the symbol of the robe of righteousness; and it was made, by the delicate but daring fancy of the painter, to grow out of the figure. Strange, all that was covered by the robe had the rotundity and bloom of immortal youth, while the parts uncovered were sicklied over with the pale cast of death. The accessories of the picture were of interest. On one side, in the mire, lay a battered crown, on the other a broken helm. The two persons were travelling through a valley swept by a sarsar wind of death. The wind nipped everything it touched, and certain leaves that hung from an old gravestone were crisp and sere. You knew if you put out your hand and plucked them they would crumble into dust. The blast blew round the woman, twisting her robe about her limbs, and tossing with rude hand her hair high in the air. This breeze had no effect on Christ. The golden hair that lay on His shoulders was unmoved, and His robes hung about Him as if not a breath was stirring. They were in a dismal place; all round them was dark, and their path lay over gravestones-gravestones which had lain there long, and been washed by many a winter rain. As the two continued their journey, they were evidently talking together. The woman was not sure where her companion was leading her, and she was advancing but reluctantly; the other was going forward with assurance and trust. It was only a picture, but as I stood I could hear in imagination the two wayfarers talking together. "It is growing dark," she said. "Yes," replied He, "but the morning will soon break. See! even now there is the Day Star rising in the East." "Oh!" interrupted the woman, "I am afraid we will lose our way." "Fear not," answered Jesus, "I know this road well. I have often passed this way heretofore." "But it is curious," she whispered, faintingly and low, "that I am so disturbed whilst you are so calm." 66 "How much I sympathise with you," said her companion, consolingly, for I remember the first time I went this way I had been attacked, I was bleeding, I was in terrible anguish, and there were waves of God's wrath breaking, and a darkness that could be felt." Then I heard the white-robed one inquire eagerly, "And had you no friend?" "No," said Jesus, "I had no friend, no companion; I trod the wine-press alone; but having come off more than conqueror, neither tempest can now blow on Me nor death can harm Me more. But feel you no comfort, seeing your hand is locked in mine?" "I feel," she said, "it is your arm that sustains me; but sometimes I faint; and when I look on the marks on your feet and hands sometimes I am afraid." "These scars mean your salvation," returned Jesus. Then she said, as if in a great pain, "But must I die even with my hand in thine? To this the Saviour meekly answered, "Whosoever believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.' * I found the picture suggestive, and many thoughts came to my mind. I had no wish to act the part of the eaves-dropper; but as I stood I could not but remark two gentlemen near me in low and earnest conversation. What I could gather from their talk was, that a poor masons' labourer from the East-End of Glasgow had by chance seen the picture, and that a wondrous change on his life had been the result. I was not startled by what I heard; the information accorded with certain views that were swaying my mind at the time, and that such a composition could touch and convert a soul seemed to me just as natural, just as much to be expected, as that the words of a preacher should accomplish a similar erd. The soul can only be touched through the gateways of the sense. Now, the sense which the preacher uses is the sense of hearing. The preacher casts his words on the viewless air, and these words, through the ear, carry the divine message to the soul. But whilst the preacher uses the ear as the gateway of his approach to the heart, he would surely be a bold man who would say that the spiritual affections could only be carried captive through this particular sense. It is evident that touch may be a medium of spiritual communication. When a man is ordained it is by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery. A kindly man, a man who is of a slow tongue, and who of the art of painting knows nothing, may still convey, through the shake of his hand to his weary brother, something of the fulness, something of the loving solicitude that floods his spirit. I have known hand-shakes do me more good than many sermons it has been my fortune to listen to. But if this is apparent with regard to touch, it is still more apparent with regard to sight. Even in the preacher, the operation of this sense is evident. The coldness of the read discourse is proverbial, and how? simply for the reason that on the printed page it is shorn of all those demonstrations that appeal to the eye. The spontaneous gesture, the eager look, the flush of passion, are things you cannot write down in a book. Now, if these, all things of sight, may be instruments in grace, surely we are bound to conclude that the good man, by means of the eye alone, may convey lessons of joy and deliverance to the sinful soul. The great Enemy of Man has settled this question. Satan knows the power of the senses; he knows how they can stir the soul to the appeals of Art. If you doubt how the senses can be made instruments for man's spiritual elevation, you cannot doubt at all how the Adversary has made them instruments to work his spiritual degradation and overthrow. There is not a sense, that is to say, there is not a gateway of the spirit, at which Satan does not lie in wait. If there is the loving hand-clasp, he knows there is also the seductive caress; if there is the song that prompts to spiritual praise, he knows there is also the song that prompts to godless revelry; and if you are of those who doubt how a good picture may convert the soul, Satan is one who knows well how a bad picture can pervert it. The painter has a divine mission as well as the preacher. "Lux in Tenebris" tells me his genius may be consecrated, and although no Presbytery has "laid hands on him," 1 will not be kept on that account from recognising that Sir Noel Paton has a licence to preach the Gospel of our ever-blessed Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. P. ANTON. If love were paid with a golden fee, MARCH. MARCH, cold and parching, comes with wind worth gold, For March contends aye with the new and old, Like souls that cast their sin heaven's robes to win. How silently, how sweetly, with what ease, THE WORLD. JAMES BRUCE. MANY persons who are religiously minded are disposed to think and speak of the world as an unmixed evil, and altogether under the dominion of the wicked one. It is true that there is much evil in the world, and that when man fell be brought a curse upon it. It is true also that Satan is called "the god of this world; " for he exercises his sway over it, making it the principal scene of his evil machinations. But it is God's world, and was very beautiful at first, and very good when it came out of His hands, although it has been tainted by man's sins. Much of its original beauty and goodness still survive; and it will probably be one day restored to its pristine state. It would be wrong then to conceal the evil that is in the world; and perhaps equally wrong to divest it of all good. When St. James speaks of "the friendship of the world" being at "enmity with God," he meant that, since its inhabitants have rebelled against Him, there is much in it which runs counter to His will and to the laws of His kingdom. And when another Apostle bids us "not to love the world, nor the things that are in the world," he would have us cautious not to be led aside by its charms, but rather to set our affections on things above, and not on things on the earth. He would have us bear in mind that there is much positive evil here, and much also which, though innocent and harmless in itself, when followed to excess swamps and engrosses the mind, and draws it away from God; for truly there is much in the world which, though not exactly evil, may become so to us-much that may steal away the heart and shut out from it the love of God. There is a danger lest the heart, which was made large enough for God, should be allowed to waste itself upon the world. He meant that we are not to love what is sinful in the world; we are not to be tied down to its bad customs, or to follow its evil practices, or to be led away by its follies. Our worldly callings, for instance, and our daily occupations, are in themselves harmless, and they even form a part of our duty; but if we allow them to take up too much of our attention-if we set our hearts upon them, and allow them that place in our affections which ought to be given to God-if they are permitted to come first in our daily thoughts and desires, and to stand uppermost and foremost in our minds-then we are making the world our idol, and our hearts become like the inn at Bethlehem, in which there was no room for Christ. Our friends and relatives, too, have a strong claim upon us; and surely God would not debar us from their affection, as though He were jealous of our love being given to them, and as though we should love Him the more for loving them the less. This certainly was not St. John's or St. James's forbidden world. And as regards the pleasures and amusements of the world, God never meant His people to hang down their heads, and go mourning on their way Zionward. He loves to see us cheerful and happy; and there is doubtless an innocent mirth which it is quite lawful for us to indulge in. But we should remember that there are some amusements in the world which are actually sinful, or lead to sin and forgetfulness of God; and there are others, too, which become sinful when they are followed with undue eagerness. And we should remember, also, how soon-how fatally soon-we pass imperceptibly from things lawful to those which are doubtful; and then a step further, to those that are positively sinful. How soon does the heart, in which there was once a spark of the love of Christ, become chilled and warped by its contact with the world! How soon does the reading of light and frivolous books take the place of that precious Word which is Truth itself! And how soon is communion with God exchanged for intercourse with the world! We must therefore be upon our guard, and be very careful to live as our Lord lived, and as His followers should live also. We should live as strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, remembering that this is only our dwellingplace for a time, but that heaven is our home. I have now two cautions to offer you. One is, do not attempt what certainly cannot be accomplished; to make room in your hearts for the love of the world and also the love of God. They cannot exist together. Many are continually trying it; but what is the consequence? If we could look into their hearts, we should find the religious life flagging, its beauty and its force paling away, and its warmth chilled as it passes through the cold atmosphere of the world, having lost all its power. My other caution is, not to deem it necessary to go out of the world for safety. There is no need to bide ourselves in some nook and corner to escape its dangers. We are to do as much good as we can whilst we are here; to put our talents to the very best account, and to show plainly that, although in the world, we are not of the world; but that we have our eyes and our hearts fixed on a better country, even a heavenly. And now for a word of encouragement. I have asked you to give up the world, so far as making it your portion. This perhaps will need no small effort, and no trifling sacrifice; but then more than an equivalent is offered you. And surely, since the heart is capable of loving God Himself, it is sad, very sad, to see it wasting itself on a cold, narrow, and unsatisfying world. But when I tell you not to love the world, I also tell you of something better which you may love. I do not wish to drive the world out of your heart, and then leave it empty. It must love something. It has been well said, you cannot give a pent-up stream its choice of drying up or flowing on. It must, after a while, rush on either in a right or a wrong channel. Direct it rightly, and it will flow joyously through the meadows, fructifying them in its onward course. But attempt to block up its passage, and it will soon force its way, a thing of madness and of ruin. Stop it you cannot; it inust flow on in one direction or arother. So is it with the heart. Let it not take its own course, unfettered and free; for then we shall have the riot of worldliness. But let us ask God to bring us under the gentle bondage of His grace. Let us ask Him to drive out the world, and fill the empty void with His own presence. This will satisfy all our craving. To love God-to have our hearts filled with His love-this is our highest happiness. Then shall we have no need to go here and there with our broken cisterns; but there will be within us 66 well of water springing up unto everlasting life." ASHTON OXENDEN, late Bishop of Montreal. BUDDHISM IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY. AT the last large meeting held recently by the Victoria (Philosophical) Institute of London, a paper was read by the Rev. R. C. Collins, M.A., on Buddhism in relation to Christianity. Referring to the parallels between the persons and characters of Buddha and Jesus Christ, he said:-Take, as a prominent instance, the birth stories. I need not here give details, which are to be found in any modern work on Buddhism. The supposed miraculous conception; the bringing down of Buddha from the Tusita heaven; the Dèvas acknowledging his supremacy; the presentation in the Temple, when the images of Indra and other gods threw themselves at his feet; the temptation by Mara-which legends are embellished by the modern writer I have already quoted, under such phrases as "Conceived by the Holy Ghost," Born of the Virgin Maya," "Song of the heavenly host," "Presentation in the Temple and temptation in the wilderness"-none of these are found in the early Pâli texts. The simple story of ancient Buddhism is that an ascetic, whose family name was Gautama, preached a new doctrine of human suffering, and a new way of deliverance from it. There is no thought in the early Buddhism, of which we read in the Pâli texts, of deliverance at the hands of a god; but the man Gautama Buddha stands alone in his striving after the true emancipation from sorrow and ignorance. The accounts of his descending from heaven, and being conceived in the world of men, when a preternatural light shone over the worlds, the blind received sight, the dumb sang, the lame danced, the sick were cured, together with all such embellishments, are certainly added by later hands; and if here we recognise some rather remarkable likenesses in thought or expression to things familiar to us in our Bibles we need not be astonished, when we reflect how great must have been the influence, as I have before hinted, of the Christian story in India in the early centuries of the Christian era, and, perhaps, long subsequently. This is a point which has been much overlooked; but it is abundantly evident from, among other proofs, the story of the god Krishna, which is a manifest parody of the history of Christ. The Bhagavat Gita, a theosophical poem put into the mouth of Krishna, is something unique among the productions of the Fast, containing many gems of what we should call Christian truth wrested from their proper setting, to adorn this creation of the Brahman poet, and indicating as plainly their origin as do the stories of his life in the Maha-Bharata; so that it has not unreasonably been concluded that the story of Krishna was inserted in the Maha Bharata to furnish a divine sanction to the Bhagavat-Gita. If, then, as there is the strongest reason to believe, the Christian story, somewhere between the first and tenth centuries of the Christian era, forced itself into the great Hindu epic, and was at the foundation of the most remarkable poem that ever saw the light in India, can we be surprised if we find similarly PROTESTANT MISSIONS.' borrowed and imitated wonders in the later Buddhist stories also? Several Home and Colonial applications to join the Institute as subscribers were received, and its object being to investigate all philosophical and scientific questions, especially any said to militate against the truth of the Bible,-a discussion ensued in which Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, Professor Leitner, from Lahore, Mr. Coles, an earnest student of the question during 25 years' residence in Ceylon, Professor Rhys Davids, and others took part, all agreeing in and confirming the statements of Mr. Collins' paper. Dr. Leitner brought a large number of photographs of early Indian and Tartar sculptures, showing the first introduction of the Christian story into those monuments, and he pointed out the value of such additional confirmation of Mr. Collins' statements. CREDO HYMN. Suggested by Sermon preached, and Devotional Exercises conducted by the Reverend Fergus Ferguson, Queen's Park United Presbyterian Church, Glasgow: “God— All-in-All," 1 Cor. xv. 28. ALMIGHTY Creator: Father of man! Thy children were destined, ere life began, In Thee, Prayer-Inspirer! soul-life began, REVIEWS. Some time ago, Professor Thomas Smith introduced to this country a remarkable work on "The Mutual Relations between Missions and Culture," which was accepted with much gratification. We are again indebted to him for an English version of Dr. Warneck's "History of Protestant Missions," which is the most important contribution to recent Church History that has been placed before the public. Outlines are given of the work engaged in by the various Christianising Missions in different parts of the world, and the causes of their success or temporary failure are noted in a highly instructive form. The value of the survey" of the mission field could not be exceeded for all who are interested-and who are not?-in the extension of missionary enterprise. "Outline of the History of Protestant Missions, from the Reformation to the Present Time," by Dr. Gustav Warneck. Translated by Thomas Smith, D.D., Professor of Evangelical Theology, Edinburgh. James Gemmell, Edinburgh. ALEXANDER SMITH. THE BOOK OF GENESIS.2 We are glad to have an opportunity of welcoming the new edition of the late Dr. Candlish's able discourses on "The Book of Genesis" in the neat and compact volume before us. There is not much of the higher criticism to be found in the volume; but the narrative of the first age of the world's history is simple, vigorous, and graphic; and while the scholar will be interested, the student will not fail to be instructed. THE GOSPEL HISTORY FOR THE YOUNG. This work supplies a much-felt want. Such lives of Christ as those by Farrar and Geikie are, no doubt, admirable in their way, even to the extent of being indispensable to the student of chronology; but they are 2"The Book of Genesis," by the late Robt. S. Candlish, D.D. Edinburgh: A. & C. Black. 3 "The Gospel History for the Young." By Wm. F. Skene, D.C.L., LL.D. Vol. I. David Douglas, Edinburgh. |