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I have felt, for words are a poor vehicle for feelings, but I may perhaps give some idea.

And the first of which I would speak is the munificence of the Creator. "The earth is full of Thy riches." Abundance is characteristic of nature. She gives with no niggard hand, but "good measure, pressed down, running over. Thirty, sixty, an hundred fold is her rate of increase. The painter produces a picture, but it abides alone. Earth throws up a flower lovelier, more perfect than any picture painted by human hands; but as it fades, seeds drop from its withered head, within which are hidden flowers equally lovely to delight the eye in coming seasons. I once saw a field of wheat ready for the sickle, which had sprung from grains dropped into the soil from the harvest of the previous year, with scarcely any aid from the farmer. The purple heather and yellow gorse with which the moors are covered as with a lovely carpet; the ferns which render graceful many a quiet nook; the flowers which jewel the grass-all these have grown in their abundance from seed wafted by the wind or dropped by the birds. The streams which run down the combes between the hills flow on day after day, fed by the rain-filled clouds which distil their waters high among the hills. The eye must be dull indeed which does not discern the munificence of nature. And surely that is but the visible sign of the munificence inherent in the Divine nature, impelling to a like munificence in every realm. It cannot be that God is munificent in one direction and stingy in another one. There cannot be such a schism in the Divine nature. It is true there are men who are liberal in one direction and the very opposite in another-liberal in large matters and stingy in small ones-lavishing money on pictures or articles of vertu and stinting their household in necessary things. But that is a human infirmity and can have no part in the Divine nature. What God is in one direction, by the very unity of His nature, He must be in every one! If munificence be the law of one realm, it must be of all realms. If it be the rule in the lowest, it must be in the highest region. It is impossible that God should be munificent where man's bodily nature is concerned, and the reverse where his spiritual nature is concerned. The parent who nurtures the body of his child and starves his mind is a fool. And God's care for the lowest is proof positive, as it seems to me, of His care for the highest. The munificence in the lower realm which we

can see is the assurance that a like spirit prevails in the higher realm, which is spiritual, and therefore unseen. As John Greenleaf Whittier well says

"I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight."

This is finely expressed by Robert Browning in his Saul :

"What, my soul,-see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small,

Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appal?

In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?

Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt His own love can compete with it? Here, the

parts shift?

Here, the creature surpass the Creator,-the end, what began?

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Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height

This perfection-succeed with life's dayspring, death's minute of night?"

And this is the clear witness of Scripture, which declares that "He will withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly." "If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things" (or as St. Luke says, "the Holy Spirit") "to them that ask Him." St. Paul is so impressed with this munificence of God that he bursts into the grand ascription, "Now, unto Him who is able to do exceeding abun dantly above all that ye ask or think, be glory in the Church throughout all ages, world without end." And this is the conviction into which we need, above all others, to grow. This is the only true conception of the Most High. Before it all the narrow doctrines which have concealed His glory fly away like mist before the sun. In the light of this great conviction the idea that God cares only for a little section of the race-that there is an elect few who are the exclusive objects of His regard-must be felt to be the mere shadow of human selfishness and exclusiveness, and not the Divine feeling at all. And when this conviction possesses us we shall feel that "we are straitened, not in God, but in ourselves;" that if we have not it is because we ask not, or, what is the same thing, because we will not suffer the Divine munificence to prevail in relation to us.

But there is more than munificence to be discerned in nature, there are also grace and beauty. Munificence points to the largeness and freeness of the gifts. It has to do with quantity rather than quality. Many a man gives largely, but not gracefully; a lump of gold

or a bag of sovereigns is a munificent but not a graceful gift. A bouquet of flowers is a graceful but not a munificent gift. But the Divine gifts are both munificent and graceful. Even the munificence is marked by gracefulness. A field of corn is the token of the Divine munificence; but how graceful it is as it sways and sighs in the autumn sunlight! Even where the munificence is the more apparent, the gracefulness is scarcely less so. The things that are absolutely essential to human existence are given in lovely forms. The rain is a necessity to man; but how lovely are the forms and colours of the clouds by which it is distilled upon the earth! The wind is a necessity; but how lovely its effects on tree and grass! The corn is the very staff of life, and yet what a charm it adds to the landscape as it ripens to the harvest! Whilst, if we pass beyond the realm of things necessary to life, how marvellous a scene of beauty is opened to our eyes! There are a myriad of things which come to us on a mission of pure beauty, whose final end is loveliness-the jewellery of the house of life. Mosses, lichens, ferns, flowers in all their endless variety and surpassing beauty, are like so many ornaments in nature's house. And more than this may be noted even where man has destroyed the beauty of nature, she has set herself to remedy the evil. Many a fair scene well-nigh ruined by man has been restored by the gentle hand of nature. Man has dug into the earth for the precious metals and thrown the débris on the mountain-side, but ere long nature has carpeted the ugly patch with heather or moss or flowers. Man makes his ugly highway for the steam-engine; but soon nature paints its sides with lovely colours. Nature cannot endure ugliness. And all this seems to me to furnish a plea for the pursuit of beauty for its own sake. God delights in it; therefore we may rightly do the same.

A true religion, therefore, does not, cannot exclude beauty from life. It rejoices in and gives it a place among the manifold objects of life. Our Puritan ancestors were conscientious, but mistaken, when, like so many Vandals, they went through the land whitewashing the frescoes of our cathedrals and breaking down their lovely masonry. This excuse may, indeed, be made for them (and it is a real one), that these things were then associated with a form of faith that seemed to them little better than idolatry. Their course of action had in it (as all human action has) elements both good and evil. The evil lay in this, that

they fancied beauty was of necessity evil. Had they thought more deeply they would have realised that all real beauty has in it a Divine element. Think not, then, that a true religion must exclude the pursuit of the beautiful. Nay, it rather incites thereto by the consciousness that the Divine work is full of beauty, so that we are compelled to exclaim, "He hath made everything beautiful in its season."

Nor is it unworthy of our notice that much of the beauty of nature is due to the great upheavals of the past. The mighty hills, the secluded valleys, the boulders of stone over which the waters from the hills dash, throwing up their lovely foam, and making cool music in the summer air: all these are due to great upheavals in the ages long ago, of which geology tells. Earth's loveliest scenes, indeed, are the outcome of the sore travail of a distant past; where such travail has been wanting, there is only the dulness of the level country. The lands to which men now flock for rest and change were once the battleground of the mightiest forces by which earth has been thrown into the lovely forms of snowy mountain and fertile valley. Thus beauty is the child of conflict; and so is it in human life. The beauty of character, of which I have spoken, is in the great majority of cases the result of many a mighty conflict. "Nothing good is lightly won." There is no royal road to either learning or holiness. That patience you so much admire is the fruit of many a hard encounter with temper; that gentleness of speech which has such a charm for you is the issue of many a conflict with the unruly member, the tongue; that unselfishness which moves your admiration is the result of victory over the selfishness so inherent in our nature. These are not born in a moment. There has been sore travail before they came into being. But they are worth the travail and the toil.

"By the thorn-road, and none other
Is the mount of vision won;
Tread it without shrinking, brother!
Jesus trod it,-press thou on!"

Many a one has toiled for wealth, and found it a burden rather than a blessing. Many a one has toiled for fame, and when it has been reached, it has burst like a bubble into thin air. But the man who has toiled for likeness to Christ, the Perfect Man, has found "durable richness and righteousness," and has become not only a blessing to himself, but, like the cool streams from the mountains, of which I have spoken, a source of refreshment to others.

• Samuel Johnson, of Boston.

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BY ALEX. H. JAPP, LL.D.

THERE
THERE is a very peculiar process applied

to the lovely tree to which we are indebted for the blessed life-saving febrifuge, quinine. When the bark for healing is cut from the tree, the bare exposed part of the trunk is carefully covered with moss, kept cool and moist, and far quicker than nature unassisted would have done the work, a new crop of bark, full of the precious medicine, is ready to be harvested, when the same process is repeated, and so on and on. May we not find here a parable of the true Christian worker in self-denials, sorrows, sufferings? Faith "mosses" the wound and gently covers it; but not so much but that under it are ceaselessly growing and forming the elements of new power and energy and healing. Indeed it would hardly be too much to say that the real force of any Christian's life may be measured by this power of transforming all personal grief, want, or trial, into new forces for God's service, diffusing blessing and health.

From all with whom we have conversed on the subject-Indian officers, civilians, gentlemen of the Indian press, some of whom at all events do not profess any strong religious sentiment-there came but one report: "She was a good Christian woman, if there ever was one, and she literally laid down her life for India." At that time we had not read the following sentences, which boldly reflect the same impression, from the Calcutta Liberal, the organ of the Brahmo Somaj, which, it will be recollected, owed its origin to the celebrated Keshub Chunder Sen, and would take a purely independent view of the matter:

"It is with sincere regret that we deplore the death of Mrs. Tucker, the amiable wife of Commissioner Tucker of the Salvation Army. . . . A lady to whom nature had given all the gifts of grace and enlightenment, philanthropic in the cause of depraved humanity, and self-sacrificing in her efforts. Mrs. Tucker is the first lady who has given her blood for India. She might, if she had wished, have reaped all the honours which her social graces so eminently entitled her to. But she preferred to cast in her lot with Mr. Tucker's in his career of self-abnegation, to court disgrace and abandon herself to the humble lot of a Bhikkuni. So zealous was she in the cause, so incessantly did she work, that she sometimes forgot to eat, and a life so earnestly spent has at last found the rest which it so richly deserved.”

What the "humble lot of a Bhikkuni” means will become apparent as we proceed, let us begin at the beginning.

The record of many workers, and especially of women workers, in the wide Christian field, would furnish illustration of what we mean, and one we select for our present study the more readily, because it is not impossible that some of our readers might be inclined to approach it with some feeling of prejudice. Few who honestly read the record of Mrs. Tucker's work among the natives of India would, we think, fail to be moved to Mrs. Tucker, whose maiden name was reverence and admiration. The note of devo- Louisa Mary Bode, was the daughter of the tion is not only struck in every phase and late Gustavus Adolphus Bode, Esq., for many act of her life, but that of self-devotion also. years of Morrey, in the county of Stafford, Indeed, to such a point was this carried that where she was born. Mr. Bode was of some might say her noble and beneficent good Hanoverian family, but reverses had career was needlessly shortened by her in- brought him to England, where, though not difference to ordinary comforts. So pure rich, he was enabled to live in quiet indeand inspiring is the spirit informing all, that pendence in a country village. His wife we are certain our readers will thank us for was an Englishwoman. Both were true here trying to gather up the facts of the Christians, and their children were early life, as we have collected them from friends, dedicated to God. In a refined home, with relatives, and those who knew her in India, its gentle atmosphere of Christian grace and and from papers published in the journals of forbearance, our subject grew up, observant, the Salvation Army. Some may sympathise, quick-witted, and with a lively interest in all and some may not, with the methods of the about her. The people and the places assoSalvation Army she and her husband finally ciated with her early days remained firmly joined; but only one sentiment, we are con- in her mind and were often spoken of. There vinced, can be aroused by the simple story of was nothing remarkable in her school life; her ceaseless labours of love and hope; and it was an ordinary one, and was completed that she and her husband joined the move-under a tutor. As in many other instances, ment is significant of the unfortunate gap which its work may, we hope, do much to

fill up.

when we are able to follow up parentage and ancestry, we find that she owed some distinctive traits to both sides of the house.

"In fearlessness, courage, and frank outspokenness," says her sister, who has been so kind as to furnish many facts and the verification of others, "she resembled my father; in earnestness and fluency of speech my mother."

As in many similar cases, we hardly have any definite period of conversion in the case of Mrs. Tucker; though, of course, there were times when a sense of deepened impression was manifest, and also times of sweet and abundant refreshing. But we think of the words of a wise man and great preacher: "When a child is urged by its mother's teaching and its mother's affection to love goodness, purity, spiritual excellence, and takes to it with all its little heart, there, too, is conversion." What was noticeable in Miss Bode's early girlhood, as in her later life, was a remarkable cheerfulness allied with very keen sympathy for others and desire to aid them. She was only happy when she could be of real service to some one, and the more they needed help the deeper her happiness. Her sister says, in one of her letters to me :

She

"I believe my sister loved and feared the Lord from her childhood. About the age of fifteen she became a Sunday-school teacher, and was very constant in visiting the sick and poor in the village. Her courage and her power over others, even when so young, may be judged from this incident. On one occasion, she saw a crowd gathered round two women who were fighting, while those who looked on seemed to be delighted with the sight. eagerly pressed her way through the crowd, and, laying a hand on the arm of each of the unhappy women, begged them in earnest tones to cease. They did so. She then told them to go to their cottages, when she followed them. She talked with them, and made them both acknowledge that they were wrong, and then knelt down and prayed with them. Of course, no one in the rough crowd raised a word of protest; they were as if taken completely by surprise by such an action on the part of a young girl. "On another occasion, having heard a sad account of a man in the parish, she resolved, with God's help, to visit him, although she felt it a great cross to do So. On approaching the cottage, she saw him standing in the doorway. As she drew near, he assumed an independent, don't-care look, and placed a hand on either side of the door, as much as to say, 'You don't come in here.' After a few bright and pleasant remarks, she smilingly said, 'I'm never afraid of a big man.' Presently one hand fell at his side, then the other, and finally she was asked in. Through her influence his outward life became totally changed, although (to her knowledge) there was no change of heart.

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This calm self-possession and complete confidence in her own power of persuasion and ability to conciliate and to interest others stood her in good stead years after in the railway carriages, in the streets, and in the bazaars of India.

While yet young she visited some relatives in Australia, and there experienced a deepening of her spiritual impressions. The death of her father during her absence much affected her, and doubtless had its own share in this result. "She returned to England in 1870," writes her sister, "and, at the end of this year, her mother died. She then, with her sisters, went to live in Sandown, Isle of Wight; and in the parish of the Rev. G. S. Karney entered more fully into Christian work, became a district visitor, and gathered together a number of boys on winter evenings, whom she instructed in secular knowledge as well as in truths of Scripture, and over whom she obtained a great influence. She gave them also many simple amusements, in some of which she herself would join. One of these boys is now a minister of the Gospel."

Here, too, assisted by her sisters, she began a work among the soldiers, holding Gospel meetings. Many of the men she induced to sign the temperance pledge, and, better still, to become Soldiers of the Cross; thus hitting out much the same line as Mrs. Daniell and Miss Weston have done so much to extend. It was whilst engaged in this work that she met her future husband, Mr. Fred. St. G. de L. Tucker, Assistant Commissioner in the Indian Civil Service. He thus indicates the impression produced on him by her :

"Having gone to the same Minister he strongly advised me to become 'Lieutenant' to Miss Bode and assist her in the work which she was so successfully carrying on among the poor. What struck me even more than her constant activity, was her plain straight-forward truthful way of dealing with people. She seemed utterly incapable of anything like subterfuge or deceit. I had myself been so brought up and accustomed never to contradict anybody, and always speaking smoothly to their faces, whatever might afterwards be said behind their backs, that this was to me an entire novelty, and nothing attracted me more to her than the courage with which she would speak to people who were wrong in their souls. She was always equally ready to be spoken to in the same way herself, about anything that might appear to be wrong in her, and never hesitated for a moment to confess it. In fact, the most prominent and beautiful features of her character were her fearlessness, truthfulness, and sincerity. At times her courage in rebuking sin was such that she just reminded me of the old-time prophets. Not a few would get offended at her plain-speaking, but she had the joy of seeing numbers who were rescued ful warnings." from sin and backsliding through her bold and faith

After some time Mr. Tucker and Miss Bode became engaged, and twelve months afterwards she went out to Amritsar to be married, Mr. Tucker having been back there

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