it on the top of all its (the wood's) glories. So is sickness, and so is the grace of God. When sickness hath made the difficulty (.e. has offered the resistance), then God's grace hath made a triumph, and by doubling its power hath created new proportions of a reward (i.e. has made the ultimate happiness greater than it would have been without the trial and the suffering), and then shows its biggest glory when it has the greatest difficulty to master, the greatest weakness to support, the most busy temptations to contest (contend) with. For so God loves that his strength should be seen in our weakness and our danger. Happy is that state of life in which our services to God are the dearest and the most expensive.

6. THE PRAYER OF A GOOD MAN.

(FROM SECOND SERIES OF "SERMONS PREACHED AT GOLDEN GROVE," PUBLISHED IN 1653.)

PRAYER is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness 1 of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our tempest; prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts, it is the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness; and he that prays to God with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the out-quarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in. Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, and therefore is contrary to that attention which presents our prayers in a right line to God. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes (hoping) to get to heaven and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings; till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here below; so is the prayer of a good man.

(1) Erenness, quiet composure. Taylor, in another passage, speaks of "the evenness of a wise Christian."

JOHN MILTON.'

1. EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. (FROM "OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND," PUBLISHED IN 1641.)

WHEN I recal to mind at last, after so many dark ages, wherein the huge overshadowing train of error had almost swept all the stars out of the firmament of the Church, how the bright and blissful reformation, by divine power, "strook" through the black and settled night of "ignoraunce" and antichristian tyranny, 66 me thinks "" a "soveraigne" and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom of him that reads or hears, and the sweet odour of the returning Gospel imbathe his soul with the fragrancy of heaven. Then was the sacred Bible brought out of the dusty corners where "prophane" falsehood and neglect had thrown it, the schools opened, divine and

(1) "The polemical writings of Milton contain several bursts of his splendid imagination and grandeur of soul. ... An absence of idiomatic grace, and an use of harsh inversions violating the rules of the language, distinguish, in general, the [prose] writings of Milton, and require, in order to compensate them, such high beauties as will sometimes occur."-Hailam's Literature of Europe, iii. 151.

Hallam also says, that Milton's "intermixture of familiar with learned phraseology is unpleasing, his structure (construction) is affectedly elaborate, and he seldom reaches any harmony."

If by harmony (here incorrectly used) is meant the musical flow of language, accomplishing by artful rhythmical pulses, a result in which both ear and mind are appealed to and satisfied, or those grand cadences which mark the close of a highly-wrought passage, and exhibit the spirit of the writer descending from its elevation with appropriate swoop to earth, then it is the opinion of some that Milton not seldom "reaches harmony." The very first extract illustrates this"Methinks a sovereign," &c. And many such will be found. At the same time, it must be allowed that Milton's prose style often appears to disadvantage when compared with Hobbes's and Cowley's. It is sometimes stiff and stilted, moving with difficulty and oppressive to the reader; but, on the other hand, how often suggestive and pregnant, forcible and brilliant, and when by its motion onward it has gained an impetus, with what a stately march it sweeps along!

As Milton attached considerable importance to spelling, and adopted what was in some respects a system of his own more words than usual will be marked with inverted commas in the extracts from his writings, so as to show the exact form adopted in the original copies, published under his direction.

(2) Soveraigne, i.e. overpowering and overinastering, as when we talk of a "sovereign" remedy. This word is frequently used by Milton in his subsequent works, particularly in "Paradise Lost," and spelt "sovran."

human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues,' the princes and cities (i.e. of Germany) trooping apace to the new-erected banner of salvation; the martyrs, with the unresistible might of weakness, shaking the powers of darkness, and scorning the fiery rage of the old red dragon.

2. APOSTROPHE, OR PRAYER TO CHRIST.

(FROM "ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE REMONSTRANTS' DEFENCE," PUBLISHED IN 1641.)

COME, therefore, O thou that hast the seven stars in thy right hand, appoint thy chosen priests according to their orders and courses of old, to minister before thee, and duly to dress and pour out the consecrated "oyle" into thy holy and ever-burning lamps. Thou hast sent out the spirit of prayer upon thy servants over all the land to this effect, and stirred up their vows, as the sound of many waters about thy throne. Every one can say, that now certainly thou hast visited this land, and hast not forgotten the utmost corners of the earth, in a time when men had thought that thou wast gone up from us to the farthest end of the heavens, and hadst left to do marvellously among the sons of these last ages! O perfect and accomplish thy glorious acts! for men may leave their works "unfinisht," but thou art a God, thy nature is perfection. Shouldst thou bring us thus far onward from Egypt to destroy us in this wilderness, though wee deserve [it], yet thy great name would suffer in the rejoicing of thine enemies, and the deluded hope of all thy servants. When thou hast settled peace in the church, and righteous judgment in the kingdom, then shall all thy saints address their voices of joy and triumph to thee, standing on the "shoare" of that Red Sea into which our enemies had almost driven us. And he that now for haste snatches up a plain ungarnished present as a thank-offering to thee, which could not be deferred in regard of thy so many late deliverances wrought for

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us, one

(1) Tongues. In reference to the renewal of the study of classical literature. Milton does not assert that the "tongues" are learning but that they contain it. (2) Unresistible might of weakness-a fine and pregnant expression, striking from the antithesis.

(3) Left to do marvellously, ceased to work marvels. The more usual phrase of the time was left, with the gerund, as Gen. xli. 49, "until he left numbering;" also Hall ("Chronicles ")," the adversaries left striking."

(4) And he that now, &c. A foreshadowing, apparently, of the " Paradise Lost," or something of like design.

upon another, may then perhaps take up a harp, and sing thee an elaborate song to generations. In that day it shall no more "bee" said, as in scorn, this or that was never held so till this present age, when men have better learnt that the times and seasons pass along under thy feet, to go and come at thy bidding; and as thou didst dignify our fathers' days with many revelations above all the foregoing ages since thou tookst the flesh; so thou canst vouchsafe to us (though unworthy) as large a portion of thy Spirit as thou pleasest. For who shall prejudice thy all-governing will? seeing the power of thy grace is not passed away with the primitive times, as fond (foolish) and faithless men imagine, but thy kingdom is now at hand, and thou [art] standing at the door. Come forth out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth! put on the visible robes of thy imperial majesty; take up that unlimited scepter which thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed thee; for now the voice of thy bride (ie. the Church) calls thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed.1

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3. THE INSPIRED POET.

(FROM "THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT," PUBLISHED IN 1641.) THESE abilities (the ability to treat lofty subjects as a poet), wheresoever they be found, are the inspired "guift" of God rarely bestowed, but yet to some-though most abuse [them]-in every nation; and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to "inbreed " and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility (civilisation); to allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in right tune; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage1 (angelic

(1) The cadence here is very noteworthy. See remarks in note 1, p. 163. (2) Inbreed, to generate or vitalise.

inbred as an adjective.

This verb is obsolete; but we still use

(3) Civility, the condition and duties of a civis, or citizen. This word has now given way to civilisation, and is contented with a secondary function. Jeremy Taylor speaks of "civility and fair customs;" and Milton ("Hist. of Eng."), speaking of the adoption by the Britons of Roman fashions and modes of life generally, adds, "which the foolisher sort called civility, but was, indeed, a secret art to prepare them for bondage." See also note 2, p. 90.

(4) Equipage, fr. (say some) old Fr. esquiper, mod. Fr. équiper, which fr. old Fr. eschif, or eskip, a ship, and therefore to equip means to furnish the necessary gear and supplies to a ship, and hence to furnish or equip in general. Others say it comes fr.

attendants) of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with high providence in his church; to sing victorious agonies' of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and pious nations, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and God's true worship. Lastly, whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable (lovely) or grave (serious), whatsoever hath (excites) passion? (suffering) or admiration (wonder) in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily "suttleties" and refluxes of man's thoughts from within; all these things [it is the office of the poet] with a solid and "treatable "3 (well-managed, delicate) smoothness to point out and describe; teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue through all the instances of example, with such delight— to those especially of soft and delicious (luxurious) temper (habits), who will not so much as look upon truth herself, unless they see her elegantly dressed-that whereas the paths of honesty (honour) and good life (virtue) appear now rugged and difficult, though they be indeed easy and pleasant, they would then appear to all men both easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult indeed.

Lat. ephippiare, to furnish a horse with his trappings, and hence the same general meaning. As a part of the equipment of a throne is the band of attendants and officers around it, hence the probable meaning of the word in the text. In "Paradise Lost" (vii. p. 202), we have the hosts of cherubim and seraphim round Christ's chariot described as "celestial equipage."

(1) Victorious agonies, a pregnant expression, like "the unresistible might of weakness."

(2) Passion, fr. Lat. patior, to suffer. A man suffering from love, hatred, anger, or fear, is looked on as subdued by them, and no longer under his own control; and by a natural transfer from himself to the cause, these agitations are called passions. Being fearful is as much being "in a passion" as being angry; but usage confines the expression to the latter. Shakspere's Cassius ("Julius Cæsar") says, "Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion," i.e. the feeling by which you have been influenced. It is singular that patience, the absence of emotion, and passion, the energetic exhibition of it, should both come from the same root. Passion, in the sense of suffering, is now nearly obsolete, though we still talk of "Passion week."

(3) Treatable, same as tractable, fr. Lat. tractare, to handle or manage, through the Fr. traicter, or traiter, from the same root.