a recent ecclesiastical appointment, on the plea that the fortunate individual was a man of blameless life, of high family, and great wealth. “Mr. A. B.,” says Mr. Christmas, “must be a clergyman, and Mr. A. B. has not the gift of utterance. Well, he will be able to read his sermons, and the rest of his brethren do the like. It is no detriment to a man’s prospects that the church is half empty when he preaches. ‘He is a very learned man—or a very well connected man—or a very good man—or an excellent parish priest: it is a pity he is not more successful in the pulpit; but then, really, preaching is the smallest part of a clergyman’s duty.’” Such is the way in which such a subject is treated within the pale of the Establishment. But the Sunday Evening Service at St. Paul’s Cathedral is an answer to all this. Let us see! On a cold winter evening, underneath its magnificent dome, are seated some three thousand well-dressed people. On the first occasion of holding evening service, the scene was rather indecorous for Sunday evening. A large number of those who had been unable to obtain admission to the service were lingering about the south door, and as the carriages of the Lord Mayor and other civic dignitaries were leaving with their occupants, the assembled crowd gave vent to their feelings by unmistakable groans of displeasure, as if they considered themselves to have been unfairly excluded. But this is over—the thing has become a fact. The audience has toned down to the level English standard of propriety. The sublime service, in spite of its length and monotony, has been listened to with a patience almost devout; and the choir, “200 trebles and altos, 150 tenors, and 150 basses,” the largest and most complete choir that was ever yet organised, has done its part to heighten the rapture and piety of the night. A clergyman now ascends the pulpit to preach. He is a popular clergyman—the crowd to-night is larger than it has ever yet been—active, learned, industrious, charitable, devout. He is the Rev. Canon Dale, rector of St. Pancras. Yet what is his theme? The Church—the Mother of us all—the divinely appointed means of man’s recovery from the power and the consequence of sin. Is not this a fatal blunder? What man wants is, not the Church, but the message it proclaims—the voice itself, not the messenger—the good tidings of great joy, not the human instruments by which they are revealed to man.