hope is done daily for one another. Nearer approaches, and constant adherence to God, with the improvement of our interest in each other's heart, must compensate (and I hope will abundantly) the unkindness and instability of a surly treacherous world; that we see still retains its wayward temper, and grows more peevish as it grows older, and more ingenious in inventing ways to torment whom it disaffects. It was, it seems, not enough to kill by one single death, but when that was almost done, to give leave and time to respire, to live again, at least in hope, that it might have the renewed pleasure of putting us to a further pain and torture in dying once more. Spite is natural to her. All her kindness is an artificial disguise; a device to promote and serve the design of the former with the more efficacious and piercing malignity. But patience will elude the design, and blunt its sharpest edge. It is perfectly defeated when nothing is expected from it but mischief; for then the worst it can threaten finds us provided, and the best it can promise, incredulous, and not apt to be imposed upon. This will make it at last despair, and grow hopeless, when it finds that the more it goes about to mock and vex us, the more it teaches and instructs us; and that as it is wickeder, we are wiser. If we cannot, God will, outwit it, and carry us safely through to a better world, upon which we may terminate hopes that will never make us ashamed." The extract deserves to be read again.

While, for the most part, silenced as to preaching, and greatly straightened as to his temporalities, Mr Howe's pen was not idle. Probably he was obliged to employ it as a means of procuring subsistence for his family. In 1668, came out his " Blessedness of the Righteous." Unlike some other pieces of extraordinary merit, its worth was recognized as soon as it appeared. Perhaps to this publication may be ascribed a proposal he now received to enter the family of Lord Massarene of Antrim Castle, on the banks of Lough Neagh, in Ireland, as domestic chaplain. Apart from his university education, superadded to his naturally urbane and noble spirit, his residence in the court of Cromwell had prepared him for free association with the highest classes of society. The proposal was recommended to him as one that removed him from the vexatious annoyances he was exposed to in England, surrounded him with all that could minister to his comfort by intercourse or convenience, gave him quietness and leisure to prosecute study, with unrestricted liberty in preaching Christ. These considerations, sustained if not led

by one more cogent still-poverty-moved him to accept the invitation.

He left for Ireland early in 1671. At Holyhead, the port whence he was to "take ship " for that country, he was detained by contrary winds. Delays are sometimes providential. The Sabbath having come, and the day being fine, Mr Howe and his companions went towards the shore to find a convenient place for social worship. On their way they met the clergyman of the parish and his clerk, riding towards the town. Being told who they were, one of Mr Howe's friends asked the clerk whether his master preached that day? "No," replied he, "my master does not use to preach; he only reads prayers." On inquiring further, whether the rector would give leave for a minister who was there to use his pulpit? "Very willingly," was the reply. Howe preached that morning; and again in the afternoon to a great concourse, gathered by the report of the morning's sermon. The wind continued contrary the remainder of the week, and "a prodigious multitude" knowing that the great preacher was still in town, crowded to church on Sunday, expecting that of course he would address them. When the clergyman came as usual to read his prayers, and saw the numbers flocking to hear, he was confounded. He sent his clerk to Mr Howe, with a request that he would come and officiate, declaring " that if he would not come he knew not what to do, for that the country had come in from several miles round in the hope of hearing him." Howe was that morning ill and in bed. But the thought of usefulness to souls nerved his frame for action. He rose, went, and preached, risking all consequences. He afterwards said that he had never preached with greater freedom, or addressed a more attentive audience, and that "if ever his ministry was useful, he thought it must be then." The wind shortly changed, and the vessel, with Howe and others on board, sailed for Dublin. The fruits of his unexpected labours in the gospel at Holyhead are known on high, and will be declared at "the great day." Mr Howe was soon followed to Ireland by his family.

The Lord Massarene, with whom Mr Howe had now gone to reside (previously Sir John Skeffington, Baronet), had acquired his viscountcy by his marriage to the daughter of Sir John Clotworthy, who had been raised to the peerage for his services in the Restoration. The former viscount had proved himself a steady friend to the Presbyterians and other nonconformists of Ireland. They were somewhat differently circumstanced from

their brethren in England. Episcopacy was re-established there by proclamation of the Lords Justices, without consulting the Parliament, a considerable time before the English Act of Uniformity took effect. The Presbyterian ministers of Ulster are said to have been treated with great severity by some of the new prelates. Dr Roger Boyle, who had succeeded the celebrated Jeremy Taylor, in the see of Down and Connor, distinguished himself in this way. Sir Arthur Forbes, a zealous loyalist and Commander of the Forces in Ireland, undertook the cause of the oppressed. Early in 1670, he obtained from Dr Margetson, Archbishop of Armagh, and Dr Michael Boyle, Archbishop of Dublin, a joint letter to the Bishop of Down and Connor, requiring him to refrain from further proceedings against the nonconforming ministers, until the case should be considered at a visitation to be held the following August. The visitation proved favourable to their cause, the Lord Lieutenant having advised moderate measures, and his grace of Dublin, who was also Lord Chancellor, being inclined to leniency. Indeed, the "Irish Church," particularly in the north of the country, was, on the whole, more Puritanic, and therefore more sound in doctrine and more liberal in spirit, than her sister in England. Usher's theology and his moderation in ecclesiastical matters, has seldom entirely ceased to influence the body. The Dublin University owed not a little, including Usher's library, to the "Parliament men." At the "Restoration," the ministers who conformed, were not required to repudiate their previous "orders," but only to submit to Episcopal ordination, for the purpose of supplying a deficiency according to the rules of the "Established" communion. The influence of the Antrim Castle family was engaged for the nonconformists, and was powerful in that neighbourhood. These circumstances, combined with Howe's talents, learning, respectability, and position as Lord Massarene's chaplain, will account for what might otherwise appear scarcely credible-from its contrast to what was possible in England—that while in Antrim, Mr Howe was "treated with all imaginable respect," that he had "the particular friendship of the bishop of that diocese, who (together with his metropolitan) without demanding any conformity, gave him free liberty to preach in the parish church in that town every Lord's-day in the afternoon;" and that "the Archbishop, in a pretty full meeting of the clergy, told them frankly, that he would have Mr Howe have every pulpit (where he had any concern) open to him, in which he at any time was free to preach." It is

thought there are now not a few godly Episcopal ministers in Ireland who wish themselves rid of the trammels which prevent their holding ministerial intercourse with their "dissenting brethren." While at Antrim, Mr Howe frequently associated with the Presbyterian ministers of that neighbourhood. In 1674 or 5, in conjunction with one of them, he presided over a seminary for theological students.

Enlightened piety then reigned in Antrim Castle. Howe's magnificent discourse, "The Redeemer's Dominion over the Invisible World"-which has been described as "one of the richest and maturest fruits of his genius"-was prepared on the death of John, eldest son of Sir John and Lady Houghton, in 1698. In the dedication of it to the bereaved parents, addressing her ladyship, who was a daughter of Lord Massarene, he says-" And, Madam, who could have a more pleasant retrospect of former days than you, recounting your Antrim delights, the delight you took in your excellent relations, your garden delights, your closet delights, your Lord's-day delights! But how much greater a thing is it to serve God in your present station; as the mother of a numerous and hopeful offspring; as the mistress of a large family; where you bear your part, with your likeminded consort, in supporting the interest of God and religion, and have opportunity of scattering blessings around you." This touching allusion to her ladyship's" Antrim delights," places Howe before us in the bosom of the family, where social and rural pleasures abounded, purified and exalted by communion with God, and his "peace which passeth all understanding."

He remained at Antrim about five years. In the early part of this term he published his " Vanity of Man as Mortal." "It has been the judgment of many," says Calamy, "that this discourse is as noble a piece of true theological oratory as can be easily met with." Professor Rogers pronounces it the most eloquent

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of all his productions ;" nor is it less distinguished for the originality and power of its reasoning. It was composed on the death of Mr Anthony Upton, a relation of Mr Howe, whose corpse was brought home when the family connexions were contemplating a · general gathering to bid him welcome on his return after an absence of between twenty and thirty years in Spain. The circumstance which suggested the "text" of the discourse (Psalm lxxxix. 47, 48,) is curious, and will cause a smile. It belongs to a "genus" under the "class" which includes the dream of Pilate's wife. One of the friends " having been some time before sur

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prised with an unusual sadness, joined with an expectation of ill tidings, upon no known cause, had so urged an inculcation of those words, as not to be able to forbear the revolving them much of the former part of that day, in the latter part whereof the first notice was brought to that place of this so near a relation's decease. Certain months after," continues Howe in his dedication, some of you with whom I was then conversant in London, importuned me to have somewhat from me in writing upon that subject. Whereto at length I agreed, with a cautionary request that it might not come into many hands, but might remain (as the occasion was) among yourselves. Nor will I deny it to have been some inducement to me to apply my thoughts to that theme, that it had been so suggested as was said. For such presages and abodings, as that above mentioned, may reasonably be thought to owe themselves to some more steady and universal principles than casualty, or the party's own imagination; by whose more noble recommendation (that such a gloomy premonition might carry with it not what should only afflict, but also instruct and teach) this subject did seem offered to our meditation. Accordingly, therefore, after my return to the place of my abode, I hastily drew up the substance of the following discourse," &c. It was hardly to be expected, that even John Howe should altogether escape what many will call an infirmity" of his age. The then "orthodox" faith respecting "presages and abodings," and other matters of that class, will find it drawn out, in full quantum sufficit for any lover of the mystical and the marvellous, in Flavel's Treatise on the Soul of Man. The subject is not uninteresting as a branch of the phenomena of our nature. And the world and the church would have had reason to rejoice in the "faith" they sometimes profess to pity, if that "faith" had always produced "fruits" equal to Howe's " Vanity of Man as Mortal."

In 1674 came out his "Delighting in God," which was the substance of some sermons he had preached twenty years before to the people of Torrington, with some additions and enlargements. He dedicated it to his old friends, the inhabitants of that town, by a masculine, but, at the same time, most tender and affectionate epistle to them from Antrim. The "dedication"

is worth transcribing; but we must pass on.

Towards the end of 1675, Howe received an invitation to the pastorate in the congregation of Dissenters worshipping in Silver Street, London. His mind was painfully exercised in ascertaining the path of duty with regard to this "call," partly from