licity. Mr. Brown and his "advanced" friends
would do well to ponder that quaint and pregnant aphorism of old Bishop
Andrewes--"_Waste words addle questions_." When I first read it I
was thrown into convulsions of laughter, and even now it tickles my
risibility; but despite its irresistible quaint-ness I cannot but regard
it as one of the wisest and pithiest sentences in our literature. Dr.
Newman has splendidly amplified it in a passage of his "University
Sermons," which I gratuitously present to Mr. Brown and every reader
who can make use of it:--"Half the controversies in the world are verbal
ones; and could they be brought to a plain issue, they would be brought
to a prompt termination. Parties engaged in them would then perceive,
either that in substance they agreed together, or that their difference
was one of first principles. This is the great object to be aimed at
in the present age, though confessedly a very arduous one. We need not
dispute, we need not prove,--we need but define. At all events, let us,
if we can, do this first of all; and then see who are left for us to
dispute with, and what is left for us to prove."

Mr. Brown's sermon on "The Reign of Christ" is preached from a verse
of St. Paul's first Epistle to Timothy, wherein Jesus is styled "The
blessed and only Potentate." From this "inspired" statement he derives
infinite consolation. This, he admits, is far from being the best of
all possible worlds, for it is full of strife and cruelty, the wail of
anguish and the clamor of frenzy; but as Christ is "the blessed and only
Potentate," moral order will finally be evolved from the chaos and good
be triumphant over evil. Now the question arises: Who made the chaos and
who is responsible for the evil? Not Christ, of course: Mr. Brown
will not allow that. Is it the Devil then? Oh no! To say that would be
blasphemy against God. He admits, however, that the notion has largely
prevailed, and has even been formulated into religious creeds, "that a
malignant spirit, a spirit who loves cursing as God loves blessing, has
a large and independent share in the government of the world." But, he
adds, "in Christendom men dare not say that they believe it, with the
throne of the crucified and risen Christ revealed in the Apocalypse to
their gaze." Ordinary people will rub their eyes in sheer amazement at
this cool assertion. Is it not plain that Christians in all ages have
believed in the power and subtlety of the Dev