But, then, how cold in frost, how hot in sunshine, such houses would be! No such thing. Of course, we should have such dwellings built with double walls. The distance between the walls might vary from a few inches to as many yards. Confined air, it is well known, is one of the best of non-conductors of heat, so that, with proper facilities for ventilation and shading, glass houses could be easily made cooler in hot weather, and warmer in cold weather, in fact, more equable in temperature throughout the year than our present houses. Privacy, of course, might be secured by countless devices, as colouring the inside wall with some easily altered wash, or hanging drapery, &c. Fires in such houses would have nothing to take hold of, as the very floors might be of thick, rough glass resting on iron beams, and the hangings and awnings made non-combustible. For dwellers in towns the spaces between the walls might, in rainy places, be used to take exercise in wet weather; in the rainy districts of the west, and, in drier localities, they would serve for green-houses or conservatories. The dusty traveller might be tantalised by the sight of glorious bunches of grapes peering through the glass sides of the streets. Small boys might flatten their noses against the panes, and gaze wistfully with watering mouths at downy peaches, bursting figs, wax-like nectarines, and bloomy plums. The country lass might sigh for the camellias, ipomoeas, roses, &c., to set off her glossy hair. In short, both for passers-by and for indwellers, our towns would be no longer the smoke-begrimed, higgledypiggledy, tumble-down affairs they too often are, but objects of endless interest and cheerfulness. It is not, of course, necessary that even the outside walls should be of transparent glass to gratify the passers-by. Those who preferred to be unseen while discharging their floricultural tasks, could secure themselves by rough glass, permeable, in a subdued way, by the sun's rays, but not by the eyes of outsiders.

So, having started with preaching the advantages of entire openness, we have wound up, with the usual inconsistency of human frailty, by recommending our readers to make their glass houses impenetrable to their fellow-creatures!

VOL. I.-NO. VII.

2 I

THE FINANCE OF THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

[COMMUNICATED BY MAJOR SCOTT OF Gala.]

THE Consecration of the church at Lerwick we may look on as a symptom of the revival of the Church. The debasing effects of the penal Until lately, the policy

laws still paralyse the action of the Church. of our Church has been, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." It was her true policy then, but we have gone beyond this now; and her clear duty is to assume a missionary character. Of this Lerwick is a cheering example. The work of a single family in the main, it is a proof of what can be done by perseverance, prudence, and energy. The absence of a missionary spirit is an indubitable proof of spiritual deadness; the true spirit of the gospel is aggressive. It was because it was aggressive that it conquered in the times of the apostles. The true secret of the life of the Church of England is her missionary enterprise. It is the well-known policy to hold a missionary meeting in a dead parish to revive it and impart to it life. We trust, then, Lerwick will be looked upon as the commencement of a great work. The evangelising the Islands and Highlands (the old head-quarters of the Church movement) is clearly incumbent upon the Church. Associated with all the historic memories of the Church, they should be the field of the Church's labour. Kirkwall presents a fair prospect of success, and in many other places a nucleus could be found for Church enterprise. It is often said, indeed, that the cultivation of the soil at home is the first duty of Churchmen. In such towns as Glasgow and Aberdeen, the Church should move forward first, but it will be found that there is a mesmeric power in missionary labour which exercises a genial influence over all around it; that if missionary work does not prosper in Shetland, it will equally fail in Glasgow. There must be something wrong with the body politic when there is the absence of movement. Church, in fact, cannot stand still. We have referred lately to the dead state of Glasgow; that she has made no advance; that whilst the diocese has nearly trebled, the Church has gone back in the city. We consider, then, that now is the time for the Church to make a forward step. Now that financial development is commencing under the skilful auspices of Mr Flemyng, Glasgow should make a strenuous exertion to make a forward step. The thousands of poor members who are without the means of grace, is a scandal to Christendom. We feel assured that Glasgow will act with her usual energy. The movement which has begun in Hamilton and Helensburgh will permeate the whole West. Now, if any portion of the country should practically understand the new scheme of finance, Glasgow should. It was there that Chalmers laid the foundation-stone of that system of finance which has worked such wonders in the Free Church. The division of the Church into sections, the collection of smalls, the contribution of numbers, are the great principles upon which the system is based. We feel assured that St Mary's, Glasgow, will carry this system to its full development.

The

Already, without any such organisation, it has raised large sums for the Church, under the indefatigable exertions of Mr Oldham. Now that the organisation is formed, we fully calculate upon its outrivalling the liberality of Edinburgh. Such congregations as Hamilton, Ayr, Dumfries, when fairly organised, will be astonished themselves at what they can do.

Nothing is more important than the formation of ladies' committees. It is this machinery that really has worked the Free Church system. Indeed, it is a system that every member of the Church can give a hand to. No one so humble that cannot give something; and it combines the two principles which have been found to jar against each other -congregational and general Church support-inasmuch as all sums raised are divided equally between the congregation and the Church at large. We trust that Lerwick will prove a useful example to the Church. With small means at home, a single family have accomplished what cannot be done nearer home, where the Church is numerous and strong. The ancient diocese of Orkney, after a burial of more than a century, has risen from her ruins. The link which has been broken with the Church of the past has been renewed. by perseverance, the Church will go forward.

By prudence, by energy, The ancient cathedral of

Saint Magnus tells us eloquently what was done in days gone by. It tells us of the power of faith, of love, and of heroic endurance. Small as is the work which our Church yet has done, the spirit has yet revived. Her patience, her sufferings, her self-sacrifice are the hope of a true Church. She depended upon human strength, and became subservient to a political policy. She did the work of the statesman and the courtier, therefore she fell. She now reappears upon the stage to do the work of God and if she will be but true to herself-if she will but speak the truth with boldness and with tenderness-if her members will but act as one- -there can be but one issue, under the providence of God, to the struggle. Her mission is a lofty one. Free from State control, numbering within her pale the wealth of the land, associated with the purest traditions of any Church in Christendom, it is only by her own apathy, and torpor, and divisions that she can fail.

:

Let Glasgow, then, without faltering, or hesitation, or doubt, take her right position in the movement. Let us show to Christendom that it is not only the Free Church or the United Presbyterian who represent the religious energy of the west; but, under any circumstances, let the faithful few remain steady at their posts. Glasgow must move sooner or later; the present listless inaction cannot last for ever; and when she does move, we feel assured she will perform her part in a manner worthy of her past history and her ancient memories.

FIVE SERMONS

ON THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.

By the Very Rev. E. B. RAMSAY, M.A. and LL.D., Dean of the Diocese of Edinburgh.

SERMON III.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger."-LUKE, xv. 14-17.

WE are now to consider that the determination of the younger brother has been finally taken and his purpose fully executed. He has left his father's house. He has entered upon a career of ungodliness and vice. He has spent his substance in riotous living, and the triumph of evil has been accomplished. In this case an entire separation of his habits and thoughts from religious and moral duties was effected. But then, as this is an example of total abandonment even of all appearance of principle, we can conceive it possible that some persons may evade the force of the lesson by pleading that such an event does not describe their case, that such has never been their course of conduct; that although deviating far and frequently from the right path, they have never attained this height of folly; they have never thus wasted their substance, never been reduced to this state of degradation on account of their vices and misconduct. After describing the circumstances of the younger son leaving his father's house for the distant land of vice and irreligion, we may possibly be met with this remonstrance on the part of our hearers. Do not attempt to evade the instruction of the parable on any such plea as this. Remember that all religious lessons take for examples extreme cases, and thus lay down a principle which includes all that lies within the extremes. If the principle be once established, there remains only the question of our participation; and in a bad principle, participation in the lowest degree is pregnant with sin and danger. In the lesson before us, "wasting our substance," does not imply that we have spent our whole worldly means in profligacy and riot. Wasting our substance is employing our time, talents, and wealth in any manner different from that which God himself approves, and therefore incurs the guilt of ungodliness. Many persons may for a time keep up a semblance of allegiance. They may for a time mingle duty with worldly-mindedness-may never forsake the Lord's House, or desecrate the Lord's Day, or altogether take their journey into the far country; but has no separation been made between God and your own hearts? Is the household of God the household of your affec

tions? Have you not often in affection and duty wandered from God, though you have not by open sin proclaimed to the world your departure? Is the treasure dearest to your soul in heaven? For when we know where the treasure is, we need ask no longer where the heart is? The danger is in any permitted deviation from duty, any deliberate departure from the Divine presence and the Divine service, and for this obvious reason, no one can say where it will be arrested. Like the torrent flood or the devouring fire, when once set in action, the progress of evil is certain and rapid. All departure from God, where it is a voluntary act, naturally leads to final estrangement. Although apparently in a very trivial instance, a small and secret sin deliberately indulged, a vicious habit not resisted, although at first thought of little moment, will lead the victim of a deluded conscience on to a depravity of principle-to a profligacy and dishonesty of conduct at which he would have recoiled in the first stage of demoralisation. In the case before us, the evil had been done whenever the demand was made, "Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth unto me." The evil purpose

The conse

was expressed, the younger son did not foresee all that was to come, but from that time evil was in the ascendant. He left his home. He threw off restraint. He joined evil companions. He wasted his substance in riot; his time and talents in idleness and folly. He soon came to poverty and degradation. And the principle on which, here and always, the ungodliness of a careless life increases so fast and so surely is easily explained. The heart of man is deceitful. He is by nature indisposed to good. The tares of evil are sown thick within his soul, and are too ready to spring up and choke what good seed there may be growing up. Now this evil tendency in human nature is only to be resisted, and only to be subdued, by the grace of God, which is given in answer to earnest and constant prayer, and which is rendered effective only by our own watchfulness, and care, and diligence, and self-denial. But where there is no prayer, and no watchfulness, and no diligence, and no self-denial, all the needful correctives to evil, and all the needful supports of good are removed and withdrawn. quences are inevitable, wickedness prevails and predominates. The suggestions of Satan, the force of temptation, the sophistries of unbelief, the persuasions of the wicked have no counteracting influence. An enemy is opposed to the soldier of Christ, which requires him to be clothed with the whole armour of God, and to be watchful and courageous, and ever at his post. What then must be the consequence when that armour is thrown away? when Christian discipline is at an end, and when, instead of watchfulness and endurance, all is indolence and indulgence? There can be no standing still in our religious condition. The enemies of man's soul, if not subdued and kept down, must gain ascendancy and power, for they are always active and never relax their endeavours. If holy men tell you that to them the Christian life is constant warfare- -if they need all the aid that is promised by Christ to His church and people-if St Paul even declared "that he kept under his body to bring it into subjection, lest by any means, when, having