emple was rent in twain, and the Son of Man
died upon the cross. The preacher of the class we have referred to
almost seems to think otherwise: he ignores the present, and lives only
in the past. He is worse than a lawyer with his precedents. His dialect
is obsolete, and a stumbling-block to active, earnest, intelligent living
men, whether rich or poor. He is like a man with corks, who is afraid to
cut them off, and strike out boldly for himself. He cannot ask you for a
penny for a new church without showing how liberally the Jews supported
the public worship of their day. He is great in Deuteronomy and
Leviticus. He seems as if he could have no faith in Christianity unless
he could lock it up with Old Testament texts. "I fear," writes Erasmus,
in his "Age of Religious Revolution," "two things--that the study of
Hebrew will promote Judaism, and that the study of philology will revive
Paganism." Really we sometimes are inclined to believe that the first
fear has been realised. Many a preacher reminds us of Bishop Corbett's
"Distracted Puritan," when he says--

"In the blessed tongue of Canaan
I placed my chiefest pleasure,
'Till I prick'd my foot with a Hebrew root,
And it bled beyond all measure."

We can well imagine many a preacher thus speaking, and feel disposed to
wish that such might prick their feet with Hebrew roots till they wholly
discontinue their references to extinct forms of worship, and apply the
truth that Christ came to preach to man's present position--to the hopes
and fears--to the struggles and duties--to the passions and vanities of
to-day. There is progress everywhere. Why should preaching be the
exception? If, as is admitted, the eloquence of the bar or senate has
declined, may we not naturally conclude that in that of the pulpit there
has been a falling off as well, especially when we remember how much the
press has supplemented the latter? Verily, the clergy, whether in or out
of the Establishment, must exert themselves. The nation demands that the
enormous wealth and patronage possessed by the latter be devoted to
something more than refined enjoyment or epicurean ease. It is not
churches we want, but parsons. An orator can preach anywhere, as well
from an old tub as from a pulpit, costly and consecrated, and curiously
wrought.

AN OMNIBUS YARD.

In one of the remotest of the Fejee Islands some Wesleyan missionaries,
in the year 1851, landed a