PORTRAIT OF A MINISTER.

Bishop Ken's Portrait of a Minister is much more full and complete than that of Cowper, which has been so much admired, and is, perhaps, superior even to the noble touches of George Herbert. It is as follows:

Give me the priest, a light upon a hill,
Whose rays his whole circumference can fill;
In God's own Word and sacred learning versed,
Deep in the study of the heart immersed;
Who in sick souls can the disease descry,
And wisely fit restoratives apply;
To beatific pastures leads his sheep,
Watchful from hellish wolves his fold to keep;
Who seeks not a convenience, but a cure,
Would rather souls, than his own gain insure.
Instructive in his visits and converse,
Strives everywhere salvation to disperse ;
Of a mild, humble, and obliging heart,
Who, with his all, will to the needy part;
Distrustful of himself, in God confides,
Daily himself, among his flock divides.
Of virtue uniform, and cheerful air,
Fixed meditation, and incessant prayer,
Affections mortified, well-guided zeal,
Of saving truth the relish wont to feel;
Whose province, heaven, all his endeavors shares,
Who mixes with no secular affairs,
Oft on his pastoral accounts reflects;
By holiness, not riches, gains respects;
Who is all that he would have others be,
From wilful sin, though not from frailty, free.

THE BERLIN UNIVERSITY.

The following is the conclusion of a letter recently received from Germany, (in Bibliotheca Sacra):

The salaries of the professors are far from being uniform. Of the ordinary professors, some receive 2,500 thaler (nearly $1,800), others only 400. Of the extraordinary professors none receive more than 1000; several receive no salary at all. None of the privat-docenten have a salary. They get, however, as do the professors, five thaler a term from each student who ears one of their private courses. But each professor and privatdocent is obliged to deliver every term a public course of lectures, occupying at least one or two hours weekly, for which they receive no pay. In 1861 the sum paid out for professors' salaries was 93,350, i. e., on the average less than 550 for each instructor. The receipts of the University amounted to 187,302 thaler. Of this, 179,890 were from the state funds, 7,290 from students' tuition fees and other direct receipts.

Every one who wishes to be matriculated as a student must present a certificate of graduation at some gymnasium or of regular discharge from another university. In the first case a fee of six thaler is required; in the other, three. He must have his name enrolled as a student in one of the four faculties, but is at liberty to hear lectures in any department. There is no compulsion in the matter of attending lectures. Even the courses which one voluntarily selects, he is at perfect liberty to neglect. During the first part of a term one may, without paying and without seeking special permission, hear whatever lectures he pleases. This is called hospitating. Indigent students, by presenting the requisite certificates, may be excused from paying the tuition fees for a period of six years. A professor may give any one special permission to hear his lectures gratis. Much assistance is given to poor and meritorious students by stipends providing for their board and rewarding successful competitors for literary composition.

Perhaps no one thing will better illustrate the genius of the German Universities than the provisions relating to the conferring of degrees and the acquisition of the right to hold lectures. The medical and law faculties confer only one degree, that of doctor. No medical student can become a practising physician without the degree. Accordingly we find in the first fifty years of the University, while only one hundred and twenty one became doctors of law, four thousand five hundred and eighty-eightwere made doctors of medicine. The thelogical and philosophical faculties confer two degrees, that of licentiate and that of doctor. Up to 1860, five hundred and sixty-eight had received the degree of Ph. D, sixty-two that of Lic. Th., and twenty-five that of Th. D. The method of obtaining the degree of licentiate of theology is prescribed in the laws of the Berlin University as follows:

The candidate must have pursued a regular course of three years' study. The application for examination must be made to the faculty through a

dissertation composed in Latin, accompanied by a brief sketch, also in Latin, of the applicant's life. The Dean delivers the dissertation to the several members of the faculty, who, after examining it, decide whether the applicant shall be admitted to an examination. If the decision be in the affirmative, the candidate is summoned before the assembled faculty, and examined in all the leading branches of theological science, but with special thoroughness in that branch to which he intends to devote himself. If he fail to satisfy his examiners, he can make no second application within less than a year. If he be not rejected, he receives a diploma, on which, according as he has displayed greater or less ability, is written: summa cum laude, or simply cum laude. After this examination a public disputation in Latin must follow within six weeks, the subject of which must be a dissertation composed, and at his own expense printed and distributed by him to the ministers of state, to all the professors of the University, and to certain other persons, especially to those who are to oppose him in the discussion. Of these opponents there must be at least three. After these have spoken, any member of the University may also join in the opposition. If the candidate by his defence fail to meet the expectations created by his examination, the "promotion" may be deferred. If otherwise, the Dean delivers an address, presenting a diploma to the candidate, who, after receiving it, briefly expresses his thanks, and so the promotion is completed. The licentiate must afterwards provide one hundred and fifty copies of the diploma for the register office of the University.

No one can become a doctor of theology without having acquired an acknowledged distinction in the department of theological science. Whoever seeks the degree must write a Latin dissertation on a theme approved by the faculty, and must satisfy the latter not only that his former examination was well sustained, but that he has since then, either as a preacher or a scholar, evinced special ability. The act of promotion is in this case also of a ceremonious character. The faculty can, however, confer the honorary degree of Th. D. on any one who may seem to them to deserve it, without his making any application. In this case the consent of the ministry is necessary.

Every candidate for the degree of licentiate must pay fifty thaler, and for that of doctor, one hundred thaler-half of the sum before the examination; and this is not returned in case the examination be unsatisfactory; but it is reckoned to his account should he pass a second examination.

In order to become a privat-docent, it is necessary not only to have received one of the two degrees, but to pass through a process called "habilitation." The applicant must present to the faculty a petition written in Latin, accompanied by the necessary certificates and documents concerning his life, character, and circumstances; in addition, written or printed essays in Latin or German, on subjects belonging to each of the departments to which he purposes in his lectures to devote himself. Two members of the faculty are selected to examine the essays. After fourteen days, they pronounce their judgment. The faculty then vote on the case, and if the applicant be accepted, he must deliver, in German or Latin, before the faculty, one or more trial lectures on topics approved by the latter. Four weeks are allowed for the preparation of each of these lec

tures. A debate follows between the candidate and the members of the faculty. At its close the candidate retires, and the faculty decide whether to receive him as privat-docent. If they vote in his favor, he is allowed three months in which to prepare a Latin lecture to be delivered in public. This closes the habilitation, and the faculty must then announce the result to the ministry.

KNOCKING, EVER KNOCKING.

BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

Suggested by Hunt's Picture of the "Light of the World."

Rest, dear soul, He longs to give thee;
Thou hast only dreamed of pleasure,
Dreamed of gifts and golden treasure,
Dreamed of jewels in thy keeping,
Waked to weariness of weeping-
Open to thy soul's one Lover,
And thy night of dreams is over-
The true gifts He brings have seeming
More than all thy faded dreaming!

Did she open? Doth she? Will she?
So, as wondering we behold,
Grows a picture to a sign

Pressed upon your soul and mine;
For in every breast that liveth
Is that strange, mysterious door;
The forsaken and betangled,
Ivy-gnarled and weed-bejangled,
Dusty, rusty, and forgotten—
There the pierced hand still knocketh,
And with ever-patient watching,
With the sad eyes true and tender,
With the glory-crowned hair-
Still a God is waiting there.

-

Watchman and Reflector.

CURIOUS BEQUESTS.

On Good Friday morning, after divine service at the Church of Allhallows, Lombard street, the sermon being preached by the Rev. J. Popham, the quaint gift of a penny and a packet of raisins to each of sixty of the younger scholars of Christ's Hospital was made, in accordance with the will of Peter Symonds, dated 1586. Under the testator's will, it may be recollected, it has also been the custom to distribute at Whitsuntide sixty loaves to poor persons, the distribution having, as directed, taken place over Symonds' grave, in Liverpool street, Bishopsgate. The spot is now covered by the railway terminus, and last year the distribution took place in the vestry of St. Botolph's Church, Bishopsgate. Peter Symonds' curious gift of pennies and plums is paralleled by a bequest made to the parish of St. Peter, Cornhill, for the purpose of buying fagots to burn heretics. Now-a-days heretics and their friends object to being burnt, so the gift is not applied, like Symonds', in the way originally designed by the donor, but is put to a better use. The parish books of St. Peter's record a yet more curious gift. It is, we believe, in the shape of a rent charge on certain property, to be applied to the destruction of lady-birds in the parish. The spot would appear to have been infested with these insects once upon a time-hence a premium for their annihilation being given. At All-hallows, in addition to the gifts to the blue boys, 6d. each was given to the children of Langbourn Ward Schools, who attended the service, and a shilling each and a loaf to a number of poor persons. The distribution was performed by the church warden, Mr. E. R. Rigby.London City Press.