the direct contrary, that man is born to rest. Take heed, therefore, of giving thyself to immoderate sleep, which is the committing of so many sins in one.

4. But, besides the sin of it, it is also very hurtful in other respects; it is the sure bane of thy outward estate, wherein the sluggish person shall never thrive, according to that observation of the wise man, "Drowsiness shall cover a man with rags" (Prov. xxiii. 21), that is, the slothful man shall want convenient clothing; nay, indeed it can scarce be said that the sluggard lives. Sleep you know is a kind of death, and he that gives himself up to it, what doth he but die before his time? Therefore, if untimely death be to be looked upon as a curse, it must needs be a strange folly to choose that from our own sloth which we dread so much from God's hand.

104

MATTHEW HENRY: THE COMMENTATOR.

On the spot where the mansions of Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Buccleuch, and others of our aristocracy, now stand, there grew a goodly orchard in the reign of Charles I. On the one side it skirted Whitehall Palace, on the other it was bounded by the Thames; and there were an iron postern and a stair, by which the august occupants were wont to reach their barge of state when they promenaded on the river, or went to visit their most reverend neighbour at Lambeth, or their own splendid mansion at Greenwich. John Henry, the Welsh gardener, derived a considerable portion of his income from the gratuities of distinguished visitors who went and came by the gate of which he was official guardian; an ingenious arrangement which once obtained in great houses, and in virtue of which every post was expected to keep its own keeper. But at last the emoluments of office ceased. The voice of harpers and musicians fell silent in the banquet-hall, and the young princes no longer romped through the bird-cage walks, and the avenues of box and privet. Ship-money had ripened into civil war; and one winter day, as he looked from his lodge in the leafless orchard, the loyal Church-of-England-man was appalled by the sight of that scaffold on which his royal master was doomed to die.

But it was in 1631, and in the days of undisturbed prerogative, that John Henry's son was born. The Countess of Salisbury, the Earl of Carlisle, and Philip, Earl of Pembroke, stood sponsors to the babe. The little Philip grew up, as befitted such a birth-place and such godsires, a graceful and fair-spoken child. The Princes Charles and James were about his own age, and he used often to share their sports. They presented

him with books and pictures, and told him what great preferment he should have at court as soon as he was old enough; and, although his destiny was altered by a higher Hand, these early influences were not without their use. A gainly suavity marked the demeanour of PHILIP HENRY all his days, and the memories of his boyhood mingled with the convictions of his manhood, and, without changing his creed, softened his spirit. When a Presbyterian and a Puritan he still remembered Whitehall; how he used to run and open the water-gate to Archbishop Laud, and how his father took him to visit the Primate in the Tower, and how the captive prelate gave him some pieces of new money. He recollected the crowd which assembled before the palace that dismal 30th of January, when a king of England lost his head. He treasured up the keepsakes which the royal children had given him; and even after Charles had broken out into the shameless profligate, and James's Popery was no longer concealed, he did not cease to pray for the princes whose playfellow he had been in the old times of Whitehall Gardens.

His mother was a pious woman, who took great pains with her children, and instructed them carefully in "Perkins' Six Principles," and similar lesson-books, for as yet there was no Shorter Catechism. When dying, she said, "My head is in heaven, and my heart is in heaven; it is but one step more, and I shall be there too." For her only son she sought, first of all, the kingdom of heaven. She taught him, to her best ability, the elements of saving knowledge; and when he went to be a scholar at Westminster School, she begged old Dr Busby that he would allow her son to attend her favourite Puritan preachers. Of these the chief was Stephen Marshall-a man mighty in the gospel; and his clear and powerful expositions lit up in the mind of the young scholar the hope full of immortality. From that period religion became with this schoolboy his main business and his pleasure. The Westminster

Assembly was sitting, and in London were concentrated the nation's best divines. Every morning there was a lecture in the Abbey from six to eight; and once a-month the House of Commons held a fast in St Margaret's Church, where, from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon, the most fervent ministers kept up the solemn exercise. To all these services, as well as Mr Case's Thursday lecture, young Henry resorted, and in notes, voluminous and neat, he preserved the massy theology, the careful casuistry, and the ingenious expositions to which he was then allowed to listen-a memorial of London's great spiritual festival, and a magazine from which he drew rich supplies for his future ministry.

From Westminster School Philip Henry removed to Christ Church, Oxford. The Parliamentary forces were rough visitors, but they introduced some reforms at Oxford which would hardly have occurred to any Royal Commission. Mr Henry "would often mention with thankfulness to God what great helps and advantages he then had in the university, not only for learning, but for religion and piety. Serious godliness was in reputation, and besides the public opportunities they had, many of the scholars met together for prayer and Christian conference, to the great confirming of one another's hearts in the fear and love of God, and the preparing of them for the service of the Church in their generation." Nor was it the least advantage of the rising ministry there, that every Sabbath they heard two preachers, the one so renowned for his learning, and the other for his sanctified genius, as Dr John Owen, and Dr Thomas Goodwin.

At the age of twenty-six he was appointed minister of Worthenbury, in Flintshire. He applied for ordination to the presbytery of Bradford North, in Shropshire. After inquiry concerning his "experience of the work of grace in his heart," he was examined on the subjects still usual on such occasions, with some interesting additions. For instance, he was asked to resolve a

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case of conscience; he was interrogated as to the authors whom he had read; his skill in the interpretation of Scripture was tested by his being required off-hand to explain a difficult passage; and, finally, he was obliged in good earnest to defend his Latin thesis, which several of the ministers vigorously impugned. And when he had acquitted himself in all these exercises to the satisfaction of the presbytery, he was ordained minister of Worthenbury. This was a small rural parish, and even with accessions of hearers, who resorted from the neighbourhood, Mr Henry's audience was never very large. had not forty communicants at first, nor were they more than doubled at the last. But, in preparing sermons for this little country congregation, their pastor was as conscientious and painstaking as if he had in view a large and intelligent assembly. He wrote the notes of his sermons pretty full, and always very legible. But even when he put his last hand to them, he commonly left many imperfect hints, which gave room for enlargement in preaching, wherein he had great felicity. Of these sermon-notes, the first specimen we ever saw was in the study of Dr Chalmers. Amongst many things discussed in a long, and, to the writer, memorable interview, was the question of read discourses:-"You know I always read my sermons, and when I preach I usually have the feeling as if the people were attentive; and I think the reason is, because in what I read I am as sincere as other ministers are in what they recite." This led to some remarks on the practice of the Puritans; and asking if we would like to see a sermon of Matthew Henry, he rose and opened one of the quaint lockers in which he kept his treasures, and brought out a little foolscap manuscript, closely written, but neatly margined, very minute and clear, and to the last tittle sustaining that continuous trimness which bespeaks the love of order and the sense of leisure. The sermon of the father had not quite the same neatness and typographical distinctness, but still