week and sit with them, and take tea. They he did at his first coming, in his inexperialways had tea in large breakfast cups: enced youth. There, he cannot get over other cups would not have done. I remem- these: but elsewhere he would have the ber how the two paralytic hands shook about, as they tried to drink their tea. There they were, the two old friends: they had been friends from boyhood, and they had been over the world together. You could not have looked, my friend, but with eyes somewhat wet, at the large teacups shaking about; as the old men with difficulty raised them to their lips. And there was a thing that particularly struck me. There was a large old-fashioned watch, always on a little stand on the tea-table, ticking on and on. You seemed to feel it measuring out the last minutes, running fast away. It always awed me to look at it and hear it. Only for a few weeks did I thus visit those old friends, till one died and the other soon followed him, where there are no palsied hands or aged hearts. No doubt, through all the years the old-fashioned watch had gone about in the old gentleman's pocket, life had been ebbing as really and as fast as then. And the sands were running as quickly for me, as for the aged pilgrims. But then with me it was the middle; and to them it was the end. And I always felt it very solemn and touching, to look at the two old men on the confines of life; and at the watch loudly ticking off their last hours. One seemed to feel time ebbing; as you see the setting sun go down.

Beginnings are difficult. It is very hard to begin rightly in a new work or office of any kind. And I am thinking not merely of the inertia to be overcome, in taking to work though that is a great fact. In writing a sermon or an essay, the first page is much the hardest. You know, it costs a locomotive engine a great effort to start its train once the train is off, the engine keeps it going at great speed with a tenth, or less, of the first heavy pull. But I am thinking now of the many foolish things which you are sure to say and do in your ignorance, and in the novelty of the situation. Even a lord chancellor has behaved very absurdly in his first experience of his great elevation. It would be a great blessing to many men to be taken elsewhere, and have a fresh start. As a general rule, a clergyman should not stay all his life in his first parish. His parishioners will never forget the foolish things

good of them, without the ill. He would have the experience, dearly bought: while the story of the blunders and troubles by which it was bought, would be forgotten. I dare say there are people, miserable and useless where they are; who if they could only get away to a new place, and begin again, would be all right. In that new place they would avoid the errors and follies by which they have made their present place too hot to hold them. Give them a new start: give them another chance: and taught by their experience of the scrapes and unhappiness into which they got by their hasty words, their ill-temper, their suspicion and impatience, their domineering spirit, and their determination in little things to have their own way; you would find them do excellently. Yes, there is something admirable about a Beginning! There is something cheerful to the poor fellow who has got the page on which he is writing, hopelessly blotted and befouled, when you turn over a new leaf, and give him the fresh unsullied expanse to commence anew! It is like wiping out a debt that never can be paid, and that keeps the poor struggling head under water: but wipe it out; and oh, with what new life will the relieved man go through all his duty! It is a terrible thing to drag a lengthening chain: to know that, do what you may, the old blot remains, and cannot be got rid of. I know yarious people, soured, useless, and unhappy, who (I am sure) would be set right forever, if they could but be taken away from the muddle into which they have got themselves, and allowed to begin again somewhere else. I wish I were the patron of six livings in the Church. I think I could make something good and happy of six men who are turned to poor account now. But alas, that in many things there is no second chance! You take the wrong turning; and you are compelled to go on in it, long after you have found that it is wrong. You have made your bed, and you must lie on it And it is sad to think how early in life, all life may be marred. A mere boy or girl. may get into the dismal lane which has no turning: and out of which they never can get, to start afresh in a better track. How

many of us, my readers, would be infinitely have toiled for and loved is going from you: better, and happier, if we could but begin to feel your feeble hand losing its grasp of all: again! to see the faces around grow dim through the mists of death: to feel the weary heart pausAn End is sometimes a very great bless-ing, and the last chill creeping upwards: to ing. I have no doubt, my readers, that in feel that you are drawn irresistibly to the your childhood you have often felt this when edge of the awful gulf,-and no hope bea sermon was brought to a close. Perhaps yond! May God, for Christ's sake, save in maturer years you have experienced a like every soul that shall ever read this page from emotion of relief under the like circum- that awful End! stances. I can say deliberately that never in my youth did I once wish that such a discourse should be longer than it was. Yet we all remember how we have shrunk from Ends. You may have read a fairy tale by Mr. Thackeray, with illustrations by its author. One of these is a cartoon, representing a boy eating a bun, apparently of superior quality; and at the same time expressing a sentiment common to early youth. He eats and as he eats, he speaks as follows: "Oh, what fun! Nice plum-bun! How I wish it never was done!" I remember the mental state. I have known it well. In my mind it is linked with the thought of plumpudding, and of other luxuries and dainties. It was sad to see the object lessen as it was enjoyed to see it melt away, like a summer sunset! And about Christmas-time, one had sometimes a like feeling as to the appetite and relish for plum-pudding and the like. Would it were unceasing! I mean the appetite. But you remember how it flagged. And though you stimulated it with cold water, yet the fourth supply beat you: and had to be taken away. And you remember, too, how you shrunk from the end of your holiday season: and wished that time would stand still. You may have read the awful scene in Christopher Marlowe's Faustus, where the hapless philosopher, on the verge of his appointed season, seems to cling to each moment as it passes away from him. And O my reader, if the great work of life have not been done while the day lasted, think how awful it will be to feel that the end of the day of grace is here! Think of poor Queen Elizabeth in her dying hour, offering all the wealth of her kingdom for another day of life! We cannot, in the commonplace days of ordinary health and occupation, rightly realize the tremendous fact but think of the End of this life, to the man without the good part in the Redeemer! To feel that all in the world you

It is the end of a career that gives the character to it all. We feel as if a life, however honorable and happy, were blighted by a sorry ending. The thought of Napoleon at St. Helena squabbling about the thickness of his camp soup, and the number of clean shirts to be allowed him, casts back an impression of pettiness upon the man even in his mid-career. There is a graver consideration. If a man had lived many years in usefulness and honor, but finally fell into grievous sin and shame, we should think of his life as on the whole a shameful one. But if a man end his career nobly: if his last years are honorable and happy: we should think of his life on the whole as one of happiness and honor, though its beginning were ever so lowly and sad. You remember how a great king of ancient days asked a philosopher to name some of the happiest of the race. The philosopher named several men, all of whom were dead. The king asked him why he did not think of men still living: "Look at all my splendor," he said to the philosopher : why do you not think of Ah," said the wise man; "who knows what your life and your lot may be yet? I call no man happy before he dies!" [Distinguished classical scholar, I am not telling the story for you.] And, sure enough, that monarch was reduced to captivity and misery; and died a miserable captive and so you would not say that his life was a happy or a prosperous one on the whole. But in the most important of all our concerns, my friend, the End is far more important than that. You know that though the monarch, vanquished and uncrowned, died in a dungeon, that could not blot out the years of royalty he had actually lived. He had been a king, once; however fallen now. The man who sits by his lonely fireside, silent and deserted, can yet remember the days when that quiet dwelling was noisy and gladsome with young voices: they were real

me?"

66

66

days, when his children were round him; and
it does him good yet to look back on them,
-though now the little things are in their
graves. But the fearful thing about the pro-
fessing Christian who ends in sin and shame,
is this: He dare not comfort himself under
the present wretchedness, by looking back
to better days, when he thought he was safe.
The fearful thing is that this present end of
sin has power to blot out those better days:
if a man, however fair his profession, end at
last manifestly not a Christian, this proves
that he never was a Christian at all! You
see what tremendous issues depend upon the
Christian life ending well! It is little to say
that ending ill is a sad thing at the time: it
is that ending ill flings back a baleful light
on all the days that went before! If the end
be bad, then there was something amiss all
along, however little suspected it may have
been. It is only when the end is well
over, that you can be perfectly sure you are
safe. You remember Mr. Moultrie's beau-
tiful poem, about his living children and his
dead child. The living children were good:
were all he could wish: but God only knew
how temptation might prevail against them
as years went on: but as for the dead one,
he was safe.
It may be that the Tempter's
wiles their souls from bliss may sever: But
if our own poor faith fails not, he must be
ours forever!" Yes: that little one had
passed the End: no evil nor peril could
touch him more.

66

ing which we may be glad when it is over? I thought of Mr. Kingsley, and wondered if the sum of the matter, after all, is "The sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep" and of Sophocles, and how he said "Not to be, is best of all: but when one hath come to this world, then to return with quickest step to whence he came, is next." But then I saw, gradually, that the words are neither cynical nor hopeless; they do but remind us of the great truth, that God would have our life here one of constant progress from good to better, and so the End best of all. We are to be "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before," because the best things are still before us. If things in this world go as God intended they should, then everything is a step to something else; something farther: which ought to be an advance on what went before it; which ought to be better than what went before it. And above all, the End of our life here (if it end well), so safe and so happy, is far better than its Beginning, with all the perils of the voyage yet to come.

I thought of these things the other Sunday afternoon, seeing the Beginning and the End almost side by side. At that service I did not preach: and I was sitting in a square seat in a certain church, listening to a very good sermon preached by a friend. A certain little boy, just four years old, came and sat beside me, leaning his head on me as a pillow and soon after the beginning of the sermon, the little man (very properly) fell sound asleep. And (attending to the sermon all the while) I could not but look down at the fat rosy little face, and the abundance of curly hair; the fresh, clear complexion, the cheerful, innocent expression; and think how fair and pleasing a thing is early youth:

I dare say you have sometimes found that for a day or two, a line of poetry or some short sentence of prose would keep constantly recurring to your memory. I find it so; and the line is sometimes Shakspeare's; sometimes Tennyson's; often it is from a certain Volume (the Best Volume) of which it is my duty to think a great deal. And I remember how, not long since, for about a week, the line that was always recurring was one by Solomon, king and philosopher (and something more): it was "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning." And at first I thought that the words sounded sad: and more heathen-like than Christian. Has it come to this, that God's Word tells us concerning the life God gave us, that the best thing that can happen to us is soonest to get rid of that sad gift; and that each thing that comes our way, is something concern- sad contrast? And I thought, there and

how beautiful and hopeful is our life's Beginning. And after service was over, on my way home, I went to see a revered friend, who, at the end of a long Christian life, was dying. There was the worn, ghastly face, with its sharp features; the weary, worn-out frame; the weakened, wandering mind, so changed from what it used to be. And standing by that good believer's bed, and thinking of the little child, I said to myself, There is the Beginning of life: here is the End: what shall we say in the view of that

then, that "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning! Yes: better is the end of a dangerous voyage than its outset. You have seen a ship sailing away upon a long, perilous voyage over the ocean: the day was fair and sunshiny, and the ship looked gay and trim, with her white sails and her freshly painted sides. And you have seen a ship coming safe into port at the end of her thousands of miles over the deep, under a gloomy, stormy sky, and with hull and masts battered by winds and waves. And you have thought, I dare say, that better far was this ending, safe and sure, than even that sunshiny beginning, with all the risks before it. And here, in the worn figure on the weary bed, here is the safe end of the voyage of life! Oh, what perils are yet before the merry little child! Who can say if

that little one is to end in glory? But to
the dying Christian all these perils are over.
He is safe, safe! And then, remember, this
is not yet the end you see. It is NOT the end,
that weary figure, lying on that bed of pain.
It is only the last step before the end. A
very little : and how glorious and happy that
sufferer will be! You would not wish to keep
him here, when you think of all the bless-
edness into which the next step from this
pain will bear him. Nay: but you may take
up, in a sublimer significance than that of
deliverance from mere earthly ill, the beau-
tiful words of the greatest poet:
"Vex not his soul: oh, let him pass! He hates
him,

That would, upon the rack of this rough
world,
Stretch him out longer!"

A. K. H. B.

A TESTIMONIAL FUND has been commenced "in acknowledgment of Mr. Isaac Taylor's eminent services to literature. During a long life of meditative retirement he has devoted himself to the service of his generation; and few have spoken so eloquently, and in so catholic a spirit in defence of the truth." Mr. Taylor has at no time received from his works any adequate remuneration; he is now in his sev

THE Hon. Mrs. Norton's "Lives of the Sheridans "is announced as in preparation by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. Concerning this work, Mrs. Norton in a letter in Macmillan's Magazine, on "Books of Gossip," in January last year, remarked: "A true history of the Sheridans, I, Sheridan's granddaughter, hope to supply. Not taken, like these poorly concocted sketches, from sources whose veracity the authors have never examined, but from sifted evi-enty-fifth year, and has sustained some serious dence and real matter. Not from repeated extracts copied out of one bookseller's preface into another; nor including such foolish forgeries as the Epistle from Miss Linley to a Female friend; but from family papers and royal and other letters in the actual possession of the living representative of the Sheridans-the present Member for Dorchester,-a portion of which papers were in the hands of Tom Moore, for extract and guidance, while working (so unwill ingly, as it now appears) at the Life he undertook to execute."-Critic.

losses; and moved by these considerations, some of his friends and admirers propose to raise a sum or money for investment, for the benefit of himself and his family, so that Mr. Taylor's last years may be secured from all pecuniary anxiety.

"WELDON'S REGISTER " remarks: "It is

stated by the Literary Budget that Mr. Coventry Patmore has been paid by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. £2,000 for his Victories of Love,' contributed to Macmillan's Magazine. This must be at the rate of about a guinea per line-a price never before paid to any one but to Mr. TennyGREAT LETTER-WRITERS. - Judging from son, and to him only for two very short pieces, the number of envelopes supplied to the Gov-one in the magazine just mentioned and the ernment offices, the number of letters actually written on the public service must considerably exceed 12,000,000 a year!

other in the Cornhill." It is truly amusing to see Weldon seriously debating such an absurd canard. £200 is more like the figure than £2,000; and even £200 is extravagant pay for verses which convinced everybody that even Tupper could be outdone.-Critic.

DR. CHARLES MACKAY has gone to America, to report on the war and politics, in letters to the London Review.

CHAPTER VII.

might appear at any time, and then all would be almost too happy.

For the present, however, there was to be nothing but disappointment and most serious trouble. Of all disagreeable things, the Reverend Mother appeared in the course of the day-sure that an asylum would be granted her at the Manor-house till she was appointed to another convent. The Squire could not turn her away from his gate at such a time, and his Dame was only too glad to receive her. Everything in the establishment was arranged with a view to the

THE Squire had had a pillion fastened on his horse when he started for the convent, as a precaution if he should find matters in desperate disorder there. The disorder was so desperate that his daughter sprang to his arms the moment his strong voice was heard in the din. In three minutes more they were on their way to the Manor-house. They met so many people that Anna longed to cover her face entirely with her hood; but then-if she should meet Henry Fletcher! Her heart was beating so that she could not speak,—not only from the agitations of seclusion of the Reverend Mother and her the last few hours, but because Henry had not appeared. The one point she had been sure of, whenever she imagined the scene which he had assured her must happen some day, was that he would be waiting outside to receive her, and that his would be the first friendly face she would see. She was more than disappointed: she was humbled and terrified. If she had lost her own respect by her rebellion against her vows, she might well have lost his. Absence had enabled him to see her and her conduct in their true light: he despised her now, and she would never see him more. By the time

she reached home she was as miserable as if her release were not the event she had

been longing and praying for above everything.

There was something exhilarating, however, in seeing the old place again, after years of assurance that she never would. Bet was so delighted, too, and hung about her so fondly! Dame Atherstone was rather formidable; so grave and cold that Anna fearfully asked herself whether it was possible that her mother could know the underplot of the strange story now passing before their eyes. The Dame received her daughter with a sort of deference which seemed to show that their natural relation was dissolved the motherly love completely gone, while the woman of the world displayed her deference to the spouse of the Church. There would soon be an end of this-that was one comfort; and Anna and Bet presently escaped, to visit every room in the house, and greet all the servants. It was very pleasant to see the old faces and haunts again; and Anna began to think that Henry might be absent through some accident. He

young nun. Anna found herself shut up in
a remote apartment with her Superior, as if
she had no relations in the house. She was
kept to her service-book, and her convent ob-
servances, and the tasks she had become so
weary of; and when allowed to walk in the
shrubbery, she found she was never to be
left alone with Bet-nor even with Eleanor,
when Eleanor came. If this went on, every-
Her lover and she
thing would be lost.
would be kept apart; she would be thrust
back into her misery; and she must go mad
or die with misery. She must take her part,
and declare that she would be no longer a

nun.

She found it quite as difficult to go through as she could have anticipated. It was some days before she found opportunity to declare her change of views: but the opportunity was one which she could not let pass. Her two mothers were talking of whether the decision would be in favor of a convent in Warwickshire or one in Essex; and the Abbess expatiated on the reputation and comforts of the Essex house, congratulating Anna on the prospect of a speedy opening for their admission. While she was unfolding a letter, and reading and explaining, Anna was making up her mind to speak the word which she could not but suppose was expected from her. She rose, and stood in her usual reverent attitude as she uttered her avowal of rebellion. She said she considered her bonds broken by the dissolution of the sisterhood of Our Lady, and it was not her desire to form a new one. She wished to follow the example of those nuns who had returned to the world on the breaking up of their retreats. By the way in which this was received, she felt assured