bold figures, formed the strength and charm of his sermons, as of those of every popular preacher from the Great Teacher downwards. For instance, preaching one day in the vicinity of the Shannon, speaking of eternity, he said, "If you were to count a thousand years for every drop of water that ever flowed in the Shannon from Drumshambo to the sea, it would be but a point when compared with that eternity through which he (the sinner) will have to endure the wrath of God.” One day at Cork he thrilled the congregation by the matter and the manner in which he related an anecdote. "I know a woman," said he, "in the County Clare. She one day took a phial off her sideboard, and, mistaking it for another, she poured out a glass of its contents and swallowed it. She felt herself indisposed immediately. She rang the bell violently, and when the servant approached, she cried out, 'What was in that bottle?' Laudanum, ma'am,' was the reply. 'Laudanum!' she said; 'I am a dead woman! I have swallowed a glass of it.' She ran to the office to her husband, and cried out, 'S -, my love, I'm a dead woman, I have swallowed a dose of poison; send for Doctor Elliot immediately.' The doctor was sent for; he administered a strong emetic, and the poison was dislodged. But she had not an easy moment while the poison remained. And yet," he added, with a gravity of manner and an earnestness of soul that moved all, "you will eat, and drink, and sleep, you will laugh, sing, and dance, take your pleasure, and transact your business, and the poison of sin is all the while in your souls." Or, turn to the address which he delivered after a brother minister had finished his sermon. "There is a moment," said he, "in every man's life, in which, if he turn to God by repentance and faith, he must begin; that moment becomes the turning-point for eternity. He must begin some year of his life-so -some month in that year-some week in that month-some day in that week-some hour in that day—some minute in that hoursome moment in that minute. Behold," said he, with a fervour that sparkled in his eyes, and blazed again in his utterances, "now, now, now is the accepted time; and, behold, now is the day of salvation!"

But he was unequalled in the work of what has been aptly termed, "wayside service." The pulpit is the place where the minister should strive above all things to be a power, but that is not the only place. In the family circle, in the workshop, and by the wayside, how many opportunities occur for him to drop seeds, in quiet and colloquial counsels, which may yield ample and luxuriant fruit! Gideon Ouseley not only availed himself of such opportunities, but he created them. It mattered not who he met-priest or peasant, lord or lady, country squire or domestic servant-he had for them a fitting word, and, generally, a felicitous simile. Passing one fine summer's day a number of men cutting peat, he asked, "What are you doing, boys?” "We are cutting turf." "Sure you don't require them this fine

weather?" "No, sir, we don't want them now; but we'll want them out here in the cold days and long nights of winter." "And, ye fools," said he, "won't it be time enough to cut them when ye want them? Let winter provide for itself." "Oh, musha, sir," said they, “It would be too late then." With this confession, elicited by his inventiveness and their ingenuousness, we can readily imagine the unction with which he would enforce the duty to "work while it is day," seeing "the night cometh, when no man can work."

Nor were these darts shot off by the way dartless, for they often produced wounds which led the wounded to the Great Physician. One day, when riding on horseback, he fell into conversation with a peasant who said he knew him. "When did you see me?" "Don't you remember," he replied, "the day, sir, when you were at the berrin' (burial), when the priest was saying mass?" "I do very well; what about that day?" "Oh, gentleman, you told us then how to get that peace, and I went-blessed be his Holy name !-to Jesus Christ, my Saviour, and got it in my heart, and have had it here (striking his breast) ever since." A similar case of a young woman, in Wicklow, is recorded. He spoke a few earnest words to her, while his horse was drinking, and as she stood at her father's door. Two years afterwards, when preaching in the neighbourhood, a young man invited him to his house. On entering, his wife said, "Mr. Ouseley, I believe you don't know me." He replied, "No, my dear, I do not." "I am the person you addressed upon that occasion (describing it); up to that period I had known nothing of the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, but the observations you made resulted in my conversion. I am now a married woman; the young man who invited you is my husband, and is a class-leader. The Lord is with us, and is blessing us; and we now rejoice to see under our roof my father in the Gospel."

But he was particularly fond of breaking a lance with a priest, and he often had this gratification. His "Old Christianity" originated in a series of replies which he made to a Father Thayer, of Limerick, who "challenged the whole Protestant literati to answer his arguments." He so completely demolished the arguments of Father Glin, on Extreme Unction, that he is reported to have said, "If it were not for the bit of bread, I would never celebrate mass as long as I live." Upon two priests trying to scatter a large congregation in a marketplace at Westport, where he was preaching alternately in Irish and English, he cried out, "My good people, don't mind those men; they are like persons who utter base coin, and when an honest man comes into the market with his scales and weights to prove that the money is bad, they don't like it." In one place where he preached, Father Jordan used a stick-the old stick that he was-to drive away the assembly. "Don't be surprised, my good people, at what this man is

doing; he is sworn on the Holy Evangelists to prevent you from hearing me." The priest denied it, but said he did his duty in preventing his people from hearing heretics. "Oh," said Mr. Ouseley, "you need not tell me; I know your oath as well as you do yourself.” Then taking the "Council of Trent" out of his pocket, read part of it in Latin, and translated it into English and Irish, to the no small annoyance of the priest. The people remained, the preacher preached, the Divine spirit operated, and the day ended, as, says the narrator, one of the most memorable days of my life."

Sometimes Ouseley resorted to means to secure congregations which when well done answer a good purpose, but which when illexecuted have in them no trifle of presumption and even buffoonery. In one place he went out as a common crier, and, after ringing a bell, he said, "This is to give you notice that Gideon Ouseley, the Irish missionary, will preach this evening;" and lest there should be any doubt as to the reality and identity of the man, he added, "and I'm the man myself." At Drogheda he pursued a similar course, but varied his application. "An' he's the buy (boy)," he concluded, "that'll open your eyes."

There can be no doubt, however, that his preaching was at all times powerful, and at times slightly, and in the good sense, sensational. "The effects," says Mr. Reilly, "produced by his preaching were surprising; sometimes, during his sermon, the congregation would, as by a sudden impulse, simultaneously rise from their seats, fall prostrate on their knees, and, with strong cries and tears, pray to the Lord Jesus Christ to have mercy on them." Writing himself from Sligo, Mr. Ouseley says: "As to the work of God here, I do not know rightly how to describe it; but this I say, the whole country seems moved." So it was. Whenever the "black caps," as they were called (for he and his colleagues wore black velvet caps when they preached), came, it might be said, "They that have turned the world upside down have come hither also."

It would not be difficult to extract from his "Life" anecdotes illustrative of the perils and privations through which he passed. Once, at Carlow, while preaching out-of-doors, he was surrounded by countrymen, with their reaping-hooks, and escaped with his life by the interposition of a friend. Another time, in a fracas, he lost his hat, and had to ride seven miles bareheaded, galloping away so fast from his persecutors that he and his companion in distress were taken for horse-racers. In Connaught, at the instigation of priests, he received a blow which knocked out two of his teeth. At Ennis a stone was aimed at his head, but as he lifted his umbrella, it split his thumb, and he quietly said, "Thank you; you have drawn my blood at last.” Like Paul, he was "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils by my own countrymen;" but like Paul, also, he could say, "Thanks

be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place."

But, if I mistake not, a great deal of this man's power-perhaps the greatest amount of it-resulted from prayer. His mind was inventive, his knowledge various, his tongue fluent, and his address natural; but the power which made his preaching into a two-edged sword, was "power from on high," and that power he had in response to prayer. Like his Master, he would spend whole nights in prayer. "Oh, how often," says Mr. Noble, "have I known this blessed man, when all the family with whom he lodged had retired to rest, how often have I known him to spend hours together wrestling with God in ardent, mighty prayer, for the conversion of lost souls! And he would plead with God in great earnestness: 'If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.'" It was this power that sustained him in journeys of thousands of miles up and down Ireland, and enabled him to preach seventeen times a week, and in his seventysecond year to preach "as much as in his youthful days." It was this power, in fine, that made him, like John the Baptist, into a "burning and shining light."

Right nobly was this good man seconded in all his exertions by one whom he calls "my most patient wife." For six months at a time she would be left single and solitary at home, to find her husband's visits, like those of angels, "few and far between." So that one scarcely knows whether to admire more, this excellent woman under her privations, or the man pursuing his toilsome course.

But the best life on earth must end, and a good life is always terminated by a happy, and not unfrequently by a characteristic death. It was so in the case of Gideon Ouseley. He had lived a stirring and a saintly life; what so fitting and natural as that he should experience a tranquil and a triumphant death! So it was. Returning to Dublin, on his last tour, he was attacked, when nearing his own house, by a band of ruffians, who, after inflicting injuries upon him, ran off with his carpet-bag, and but for the snapping of the chain would have pocketed his watch. He took the affair very good-naturedly. "Thank God," he exclaimed, "they and the devil together could not take my soul. This being safe, all is well and cause of thanksgiving." But all was not well; for he had received treatment which, if it did not produce, hastened his death. Nine days after he took his bed, and never again left it till, on the 14th of May, 1839, God took him to the realms and the recompense of the just. But during the three or four weeks of his confinement he was himself, both in reverent piety and genial good-humour. A visitor asked if he might pray with him. "Oh yes, dear," was his reply. The suppliant was earnestly entreating that God's honoured and aged servant might have a peaceful end and a glorious exit to heaven, when he was suddenly interrupted.

Pray

"Stop, dear,” cried Mr. Ouseley; "pray that I may recover. that I may live to see an end to that fell apostacy." But if "the ruling passion" of hostility to Popery, "was strong in death," the "faith which works by love," and the "love which casts out fear," were not less strong. "I have no fear of death," he said; "the spirit of God sustains-God's spirit is my support." He underwent a painful surgical operation, which only gave him momentary relief, and then he passed away to the deathless life and the nightless world. "He died," said the "Minutes" of 1839, "as he lived, an eminent witness of the salvation of the Gospel." He was the most distinguished, efficient, and successful Irish missionary ever employed by our religious community. He laboured with a devotion and earnestness worthy of the first and purest ages of the Christian Church; and to an extent never perhaps surpassed, seldom equalled." Many ministers at home and several missionaries abroad are his sons in the Gospel and the seeds of his ministry. It is even said that "some clergymen of eminence and distinction in the Established (now Dis-established) Church received their first religious impressions under his ministry;" and it is certain in many places they gave him a hearty welcome as a guest, and bade him God-speed in his work. His name in all parts of Ireland is a "household word;" and Papists and Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Independents, not less than Methodists, hold him in honour, and speak of him with tenderness and love. Oh, that the spirit that actuated him animated all who, like him, " name of Christ!" How soon would strife in the Churches give place to peace, and sterility be exchanged for prosperity! How soon, too, would Ireland, so long rent by faction and prostrated by superstition, become a land as famous for genuine piety as in many parts it is distinguished for its physical beauty! CLERICUS.

name the

"LOVE AS BRETHREN."

SIN has broken the harmony of love, brought into existence and operation a principle of disunion; not only estranged man from his Maker, breaking the tie of holiness which joined them, sowing the seeds of discord upon earth, and generated resentment and selfishness between man and man, separating us from our God, and destroying friendship among ourselves. It is the purpose of the Gospel to remedy this derangement. Christianity is pre-eminently the offspring and the nurse of love. Its object is to break down the middle wall of partition which sin had erected not only between us and God, but between us and our fellow-man. To attain this end it puts into operation a variety of means to lead us to put away every unkindly feeling, and to manifest a warm and expansive and universal benevolence. We are called upon to put away all wrath and anger, and to

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