Psalms, "Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death." His hearers said at the time that "Dr. Donne had preached his own funeral sermon.”

The sermon is published. It betrays in part a diminution of his wonted fire and animation. We seem to see the preacher struggling painfully with his malady. But yet it is remarkable. The theme and the circumstances alike invest it with a peculiar solemnity; and there are flashes of the poet-preacher still.

"This whole world," he says, "is but a universal churchyard, but one common grave: and the life and motion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking of buried bodies in their graves by an earthquake.”*

"The worm is spread under thee, and the worm covers thee. There is the mats and carpet that lie under, and there is the state and the canopy that hangs over the greatest of the sons of men."†

1

"The tree lies as it falls, it is true, but yet it is not the last stroke that fells the tree, nor the last word nor the last gasp that qualifies the man."‡

Hear now the closing words, and you will not be at a loss to conceive the profound impression which they must have left on his hearers, as the dying utterance of a dying man.

"There we leave you in that blessed dependency,

* Works,' vol. vi. p. 283. † Ib., p. 288.

Ib., p. 290.

to hang upon Him that hangs upon the Cross. There bathe in His tears, there suck at His wounds, and lie down in peace in His grave, till He vouchsafes you a resurrection and an ascension into that kingdom which He hath purchased for you with the inestimable price of His incorruptible blood. Amen."

Amen it was. He had prayed that he might die in the pulpit, or (if not this) that he might die of the pulpit; and his prayer was granted. From this sickness he never recovered; the effort hastened his dissolution; and, after lingering on a few weeks, he died on the last day of March, 1631.

This study of Donne as a preacher will be fitly closed with the last stanza from his poem entitled, 'Hymn to God, my God, in my sickness,' which sums up the broad lesson of his life and teaching.

"So in His purple wrapped, receive me, Lord;
By these His thorns give me His other crown;
And as to others' souls I preached Thy Word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:
Therefore, that He may raise, the Lord throws down."†

* Works,' vol. vi. p. 298.

† Poems,' vol. ii. p. 340.

BARROW,

THE EXHAUSTIVE PREACHER.

"But godliness is profitable unto all things."-1 Tim. iv. 8.

Hospital Sermons an old institution—A Spital Sermon in 1671— Sketch of the Preacher, Dr. Barrow-His studies-His lifeCharacter of his preaching-His combativeness-His exhaustiveness-Advantage of his methods-His objects-His account of his own times-His sturdy Morality-Its foundation in his Theology-Moral and Intellectual truth the natural food of the soul-His sermons chiefly devoted to practical duties—Character of his doctrinal Sermons-Deficiency of his theology-His bold appeal to reason-Its strength and its weakness-Comparison with our own times-Value of his example.

ONE of my duties on this occasion * is to invite contributions to the Fund collected throughout London this day for the Hospitals of the Metropolis, and my other duty suggests an interesting historical parallel. The idea of a special appeal once a year for all the Hospitals is, in substance at all events, some centuries old. In some fields near Bethnal Green there existed in old times a Priory and Hospital,

* Hospital Sunday, June 17, 1877.

dedicated to the honour of our Lord and the Virgin Mary, and commonly called St. Mary Spital. In the churchyard of the Priory, now Spital Square, was in old times a pulpit-cross, something like that which was once in St. Paul's Churchyard; and here originally were preached every year what were known as the Spital, or Hospital, Sermons. It is said to have been for a long time a custom on Good Friday, in the afternoon, for some learned man, by appointment of the Prelates, to preach a sermon at Paul's Cross, treating of Christ's passion. On the three next Easter holydays, other learned men, by a like appointment, used to preach in the afternoon at the said Spital on the Article of Christ's resurrection; and then on the Sunday after Easter, before noon, another learned man at Paul's Cross was to make rehearsal of these four sermons, either commending or reproving, as was thought convenient; and he was then to make a sermon himself, which in all were five sermons in one. At all these sermons the Lord Mayor, with his brethren the aldermen, were accustomed to be present. The pulpit was broken down in the Grand Rebellion, but the sermons were continued, with the old name of the Spital Sermons, at St. Bride's and elsewhere, and they retained some associations connected with the old Hospital. In 1740 we have Bishop Butler

* Peter Cunningham's 'Handbook of London,' 1850, p. 463; Maitland's 'London,' 1756, pp. 799, 800.

preaching one of them, and the institutions for which he preached are specified as Christ's Hospital, for children; St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's Hospitals, for the wounded, maimed, sick, and diseased; Bridewell, for the vagrant and other indigent and miserable people; Bethlehem, for distracted men and women; and the London Workhouse in Bishopsgate Street. The word Hospital was used in the width of its old signification, but to all intents and purposes this was a Hospital day.

It seems a pity, if such a suggestion may be permitted, that the new institution of Hospital Sunday has not been affiliated on this old custom. But to pass to my other subject. On Wednesday, in Easter week, in the year 1671, a very remarkable sermon was preached at the Spital, "On the Duty and Reward of Bounty to the Poor." There is a tradition that it occupied three hours and a half in delivery; but since the Court of Aldermen desired the Preacher to print his sermon, "with what farther he had prepared to deliver at that time;" and since the sermon as now printed occupies not more than ninetyfour octavo pages, it is thought there may be some exaggeration in this tradition. The Preacher is said to have begun to be weary with standing so long; but it is not recorded that there was any weariness on the part of the audience. On the contrary, as we have seen, having heard a good deal, they desired to read more; and no wonder, for the sermon