AGED CLERGYMEN.-Of all the clergymen of the Church of Scotland, there are only 44 whose ordination dates from last century. One was ordained in 1786, three in 1789, two in 1790, four in 1792, three in 1793, three in 1794, three in 1795, five in 1796, five in 1797, two in 1798, five in 1799, and eight in 1800. Though none of them may be without an assistant, yet not more than twenty-five of them are provided with assistants and successors.

Ladhope.-On the 28th ult., the Rev. James Smith, late of Edgerston Chapel, was inducted to the pastoral superintendence of the quoad sacra parish of Ladhope, in the Presbytery of Selkirk. Mr. Murray of Melrose preached and presided.

Died at Perth, on the 28th March, the Rev. John Findlay, D.D., minister of St. Paul's, having been nearly 40 years settled

there.

curt., the Rev. William Thorburn, minister of that Parish, in the 80th year of his age, and 54th of his ministry.

On Thursday, (9th April,) the Rev. James Weir was ordained assistant and successor to the Rev. Dr. Rose of Drainie, by the Presbytery of Elgin. The services of the day were conducted by the Rev. Mr. Mackie of Elgin. At the conclusion of the solemn services, Mr. Weir was cordially welcomed by all classes in the Parish.

At Aberdeen, on the 6th inst., in the 44th year of his age, the Rev. James Souter, minister of the Parish of Borthwick.

At Cromarty Manse, on the 14th inst., the Rev. Adam Hall, minister of that Parish, aged 39.

At Kilbarchan Manse, Renfrewshire, on the 17th inst., the Rev. Robert Douglas, minister of Kilbarchan.

At Alyth, on the 19th inst., the Rev. Wil

A HANDBOOK OF DEVOTION. By ROBERT LEE, D.D., Old Greyfriars. Edinburgh: Myles Macphail.

"ENTER INTO THY CLOSET:" OR, SECRET PRAYER, AND ITS ACCOMPANYING EXERCISES. By the Rev. JAMES M'GILL, Hightae, Lochmaben. Glasgow: David Bryce.

PERSONAL DECLENSION AND REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE SOUL. By the Rev. OCTAVIUS WINSLOW, Author of "The Glory of the Redeemer in his Person and Work," &c. London: John F. Shaw, Southampton Row.

The publication, within the last few years, of many works having for their object either to recommend the duty of prayer, or to furnish forms for the use of families or individuals, we are disposed to think a favourable sign of the times. These works are of varying excellence; but, with scarcely an exception, in accordance with purity and orthodoxy. The large sale which such manuals have met with, seems, we would fondly hope, to argue the more prevalent practice of a Christian duty so important-so spontaneously arising from a sense of the importance of divine

things so intimately connected with all that is most elevating in the believer's hope, and all that is most essential to his spiritual progress. Argue as men may against written prayer, such works ever will be necessary for the great bulk of the community: their value to the young enquirer, and to the inexperienced Christian, is to be viewed as inestimable. Closely as they may be adhered to, unquestionably all will admit that it is better to use a form than not to pray at all; and there are very many who, at the outset, are so sensitively in dread of hesitation and awkwardness in devotions conducted before an assembled family and household, that but for the existence of these formularies, they would shrink in terror from a practice so edifying and wholesome; and instead of regularly summoning together, at morning and evening, those who dwell beneath their roof, for the purpose of worshipping the Father of all, would permit every day of their lives to pass by without in this manner acknowledging His guidance and entreating His protection.

Adverting, for a moment, to the public devotions of the sanctuary, who that has listened to the Church of England service, becomingly performed, whether in villagechurch or in time-honoured cathedral, can

forget the thrilling power with which some passages in that worship fell upon his heart? or can fail to have been struck with the apparent interest and engrossment of the congregation, as they gave devout utterance to the responses the voices of rich and poor, of childhood, manhood, and old age, all mingled together in adoration to the Lord of Hosts? Such service our Reformers deprecated. They were aware that, after all, there is hazard that constant repetition may diminish the effect of the most solemn words; that numbers may, in reality, mumble them over as if they were no more than so many superstitious forms; that while a Hooker might say upon his death-bed, "Give me the prayers of my mother, the Church: there are none like her's;" the same sublime offices might be carelessly and irreverently hurried by, the semblance of religious decorum and observance kept up, while the spirit of devotion was altogether or almost wholly absent, and the homage formal.

Yet who can deny that our own method the simple way that our people so dearly love-requires to be used with the greatest prudence, caution, and discrimination; and that experience almost forces upon us the admission, that some authorised formularies, to be used or not at discretion, might, on certain occasions, and in some parts of public worship, have been not disadvantageously employed? There is no impropriety, if not in using the language, at least in approximating, as closely as possible, to the spirit of some of those forms of devotion which have been handed down from early times, and deserve to be regarded as a most precious property of the Christian Church; words that, offered up in faith of the great Sacrifice, have had prevailing power with God many centuries ago; which have been often on the lips of saints, and martyrs, and confessors; in which has been expressed the longing of so many a broken and contrite heart; which the lips of childhood have been taught to lisp, and faint and feeble age, about to leave the world, has employed until prayer below was succeeded by exulting praise above. John Knox judged wisely, with a true knowledge of men, and intuition into the wants of the human spirit, when he drew up his Liturgy: and our admiration of his greatness and heroism is enhanced; we seem to get an insight into the softness of nature that lurked beneath outward austerity and sternness; we can judge of the source to which he looked for comfort in so many a stormy season; of the confidence he reposed in the Rock of Ages; when we imagine him stealing an hour from manifold other labours to provide

for his countrymen, in public and private, what he meant for a legacy of value.

Probably the best manual of prayer, whether for the use of families or of individuals, would be one not composed by any single individual, nor consisting of the written petitions suggested to any one mind, however accomplished or devout; but framed upon and compiled from a number of the best writers of such devotional volumes, harmonised and moulded by an individual thoroughly qualified for his difficult and delicate task. Whatever is peculiar to an individual mode of expression, is, so far, unadapted for general use; whatever deviates from a Scriptural simplicity of expression, whether assuming too artificial a shape, and, didactic more than devout, partaking of the nature of preaching rather than of prayer; as well as whatever is obsolete and strange in language, arising from too close conformity to old fashioned models, should be avoided. The spirit of ancient models may be retained without copying their occasional uncouthness and awkwardness; and very little alteration is needed to make the best of these models as nearly accommodated as possible for use in the present day.

In so far as Dr. Lee has succeeded in effecting this, his volume deserves high commendation. His use of the Book of Common Prayer, and especially his adaptations of passages from the Book of Psalms, and the devotional parts of the Old Testament, have imparted to his collection a richness and elevation for which we have often sought elsewhere in vain. The turn of expression might occasionally have been more modernized; but where there is so much excellence, we are not in a mood to find fault.

The introduction, extending to nearly sixty pages, is of great value and comprises, within narrow limits, many important remarks on the subject of prayer; though the richness of the field gone over has compelled a brevity which the excellence of the composition, and the accuracy of the thoughts, have made us frequently regret. We think that we can here perceive traces of the author having felt the inadequacy of his limits for the comprehension of all that he was desirous and ready to say; and the suggestiveness gained for this introduction to those who have thought considerably upon the whole subject, while eminently valuable, may not be without corresponding disadvantages in the case of the general or the unlearned reader. There are many passages which we might desire to quote, but can only afford the following, as illustrations of the manner in which Dr. Lee has treated his theme :

"Prayer is the outgoing towards God of those graces which came from him; it is their return to their Father's house and the bosom of God, where they had their birth of old, before the worlds; and if they are hindered from revisiting, ever and anon, their native regions, and breathing its genial air, they die; for they can live only by the breath of heaven. On prayer, as their ladder, those angels that descended from him, are ever elimbing to God and bathing in his light, and shaking from their wings those spots of darkness which gathered upon them during their sojourn in this murky region, and so they come again, radiant anew, with unsullied light, to chase our darkness."

And the following remarks upon the Lord's Prayer, shew how well Dr. Lee can write upon a subject that has employed many

pens:

"To instruct us how to pray-both what desires we should cherish, and how we should express them in the presence of God-our blessed Lord graciously delivered to his disciples, sensible of their own ignorance in both respects, that prayer which has been generally regarded both as a model to guide us when we employ other expressions, and as itself a form to be reverently used by us in our approaches to God.

"The former of these uses of the Lord's Prayer, even they will not deny in words, who in practice acknowledge it least; and we may well feel amazed that any should be found to question the latter, who remember that our Lord not only commanded, thus,' (όντως) pray ye,' but when (literally, whenever, ora) ye pray, say, Our Father, &c. And, indeed, there can be little doubt, that even the expression in Matthew equally inculcates the using of the words prescribed by our Lord; as any one may satisfy himself who will compare the passage, Matt. ii. 9, with Numb. vi. 23, as given in the Septuagint.

They who have endeavoured, from the omission of the name of Christ, to prove that this is not a prayer proper for Christians, should have remembered that the same omission would vitiate all the Psalms, which the Christian Church, in all ages, has considered proper vehicles of worship."

"That what Christ taught his disciples, was designed to be ever used in His Church, we may conclude from the structure and contents of the prayer itself. Whether derived or not, wholly or in part, from Jewish Litur gies familiar to the disciples-this, at least, is certain, that there is nothing in it which would confine it to any one age or country; nothing local, special, or particular; but, on the contrary, all its petitions, and every clause in it, are based upon the permanent and universal wants of man, and in those relations in which man stands to God as a sinner, who

yet, through the blood-shedding of Jesus, is brought near, and has free access to the divine majesty, and liberty to address Him in that language which should ever thrill all our hearts, filling us, as often as we use it, with amazement no less than gratitude, 'Our Father which art in heaven.'

"And as there is nothing in this divine prayer but what befits all men, so all that befits all men is contained in it. For this prayer is as remarkable for the vastness of its meaning as for the fewness of its words." And, if we will consider it, we shall find that there is not a breathing of holy love and zeal towards God; of charity and kindness towards men; or any aspiration after holiness which we can cherish, but is comprehended within the compass of this amazing form.”

"Men, the most unlike in other respects, are united in their profound admiration of that amazing composition, in which, within the compass of a few short and simple sentences, which an infant may lisp, and a child may understand and remember, the whole subincluded; and the deepest thoughts of the stance of Christian doctrine and duty are wisest Christian, and the loftiest aspirations of the holiest, are made articulate and find an adequate expression. These are the true characters, the unquestionable marks of a divine workmanship."

Mr. M'Gill's little volume upon Secret Prayer, is highly creditable to the author, and to the Christian community of which he is a minister. It is characterized by lucidness of arrangement, and accuracy of expres sion. Its plainness and practical tendency, and its fulness of counsel and detail, may make it the useful companion and monitor of many.

and the annexed advertisement of his other Mr. Winslow seems, from his title-page, works, great and small, to be rather a voluminous writer. He would, judging from the work before us, be greatly the better of compression; nor do we look, in a volume that assumes the aspect of a treatise, for the multiplied ejaculations and hortatory tone of a collection of sermons that may be preached to a dissenting congregation in the south. He is plagued with a too rapid and easy flow of words, bearing an over-liberal proportion to the thoughts he has to express. His aim is evidently excellent; his own congregation may highly appreciate his worth; but we are afraid that he must take his place with the mass of mediocre writers on religious subjects; and, if he has nothing better than this volume to give the world, we fear that he would shew wisdom in not stepping out of his own limits, and in restricting his attention to the cultivation of his own spot in the vineyard.

HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF DUNFERMLINE. By the Rev. PETER CHALMERS. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons. 8vo, pp. 592.

There is not a town in Scotland better deserving of a historian than Dunfermline, and in Mr. Chalmers it has met with one, zealous, laborious, and in every way qualified for the task which he undertook. The work, as now published, is perhaps as complete a historical and statistical account as we have of any town in the kingdom. The importance of Dunfermline in the present day, as a stirring manufacturing place, and the number of coal, lime, and other works with which it is surrounded, would have alone entitled it to a lengthened and particular statistical account.

Its great historical celebrity, and the number of eminent men which it has produced, and the figure which it makes in the history of the Scottish Church, also give to Dunfermline an importance and an interest in the eye of the antiquary, and the man of letters. Here we have the graves of several Scottish monarchs, including the best and

His

To all the subjects which can fairly be brought under the title of this work, Mr. Chalmers does the greatest justice. The painstaking and labour which he has expended on the statistical department of this volume, are evident in every page. townsmen owe him a debt of gratitude for engaging and completing a labour for which he could look for no adequate pecuniary renumeration, or even indemnification. The volume, we should mention, is handsomely got up in every respect; and is illustrated by several beautiful engravings, including a view of the hoary ruins of the abbey, and of the interior of the magnificent old church.