How to Read the Metaphors of Jesus. By the Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." By the Rev. Dr. Butler 444 Lesson from the Life and Work of an old Hebrew Crafts- Little Child, The. By the Rev. Dr. Butler, Harrow Living Sacrifice, The. By Alexander J. Ross, D.D. Manna and Corn. By the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, LL.D. 125 Miracles. By the Rev. Dr. Butler, Harrow Palestine, What we have Found in. By John Macgregor, Pardon the Portal to Peace. By the Rev. Canon Bell, D.D. 341 Spiritual Life; its Helps and Hindrances. By the Lord 804 War in a Christian Spirit. By the Rev. Dr. Butler, Harrow 101 Fresh Assyrian Finds (Triumphal Bronze Arches of Shal- maneser the Great). By Basil H. Cooper, B.A. Fry, Mrs. By Mrs. Francis G. Faithfull 304 Garrison, William Lloyd. By the Rev. William Dorling 590 Salzburgers, The. By the Rev. F. Case : 166 473 818 Wilberforce, William. By the Rev. Edwin Johnson, M.A. 386 Zulus, Their History and Religion. By H. A. Page 561 Gnat, Life History of a. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A. 465 Heat, the Wonders of. By Professor Johnson Right Hand and its Cunning, The. By Miss Chessar Seasons, Their Appointed.A Chapter on Migrations. Spiders, About. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A. Spiders, "More About. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A. DONE INTO MODERN ENGLISH BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHRONICLES OF THE SCHÖNBERG-COTTA FAMILY." A I.—PERCIVAL'S STORY. WITCH! Joan, the Maid, a witch! No more a witch than St. Catharine and all the blessed saints who talked with her as with a fellow-citizen of the Golden City, whither men sent her long ago. Deluded! No more deluded than all the goodly fellowship of the martyrs who were counted mad by the deluded earth-seekers of their own day. I have seen her flashing, like Michael the Archangel, in her white array, before Orleans. I have seen her shed tears when she was wounded, like any other tender girl, yet through all the pain lead the army on. Some of us have seen her weep over the English wounded, and sustain the dying in her arms. Afterwards, betrayed and delivered to her enemies, I have seen her shrink from suffering, and yet vanquish torture, succouring and saving others even in the flames. And I am as sure she was sent of God as that I breathe. Sent to rescue torn and bleeding France, sent to turn our England back from pillage and rapine, from the false quest she was on, to her true work and warfare among the nations. VIII. N.S. I am as certain as that the sun is in the heavens that she was given to these poor bewildered, barren days of ours, to be to us as an image of the Christ; King, Deliverer, Sufferer, Saviour of men; Saviour, not of England or of France, but of all men; to lift up before us once more the likeness of what He was and is, who gave not His substance only, but Himself for us; the likeness of what each of us in high or humble place is called to be. Is it strange that I call this warriormaiden a likeness of Christ, of Him who would neither strive nor cry, who said, "Agenstonde not an evil man, but if ony man smyte thee on the ryte cheek, turn to him the tother; to hym that will strive with thee in doom, and take away thi coote, leve thou to hym also thi mantle?' Yet, I say it with full purpose, from the depths of my soul. The longer I live, the more I learn that there is but one likeness of the Christ in human hearts; the love to God and man which leads us to lay down life for the brethren, for the world. Jeanne, the Maid, laid down her life for her land in living, and laid it down in dying. And it is this, in mother, maid, monk, I father, priest or king, which is like the King, within or without, but by blows and wounds, -her King and ours. Not enjoyment of His blessed sacraments, not raptures of prayer; these may be little more than the body's delight in its dainties, in a fresh air on the cheek, or a sweet smell in the gardens; but love, the life which lives in others, and if death comes in such service, takes it as naturally and unhesitatingly as any other step of the Way of the Cross; this is the true imitation of Christ, this is the Christ Himself living in men. It is good to go over again the story of the Maid, the glorious, sorrowful, sacred story, as it was interwoven with my own, and as I searched it out from friend and foe. I go back to the old days, the childhood by the Western sea, the sea whose shore no man knows, nor even if it has a shore. The salt of its spray seems on my old withered cheeks as I speak, the sound of its waves is in my ears, waves that begin no one knows where, and break on the white shingles and the pitiless rocks like an echo of eternity. It was no friendly lapping water to be played with, that sea by the old seat of Arthur the King, along the thundering shores of Tintagel. Death was in it, and peril, and power to destroy lurked in every one of those breakers which dashed like war-horses against the rocks, or leaped like reined-in chargers over on the great sands. We knew it even when we bathed in them as boys, my brother Owen and I. They seethed up through bottomless holes to the top of the wild cliffs, they sent their spray miles inland; and the winds that lashed and enraged them levelled the tops of the mighty oaks as even as a meadow of cropped grass. As a battle-field sea and land seemed to me then; as a battle-field life has been to me. And I had liever it were so, though I may be twisted and gnarled, and cropped like those aged wrestling oaks, than grow up smooth and even in some inland valley of the world. For the fighting has to be done by some one, and I had liever it should be by me for all I can, than for me by any. The stirring of the blood in the battles is better than any joys of sloth. And in all the battles of the Christ some evil ones are slain, and some oppressed ones of the devil are rescued and set free. Not by blowing trumpets, in these days, and marching round walls ever so many times do the strongholds of the enemy fall, and shedding of life-blood. Wherefore it is good, I deem, to begin the training early, for none can win the field for another, alas! nor can any lose the battle for us but ourselves. Alas, yes alas ! for all do not win; and it is hard to stand by and see the day lost by those we would give life to make conquerors, and to know why they lose, and to tell them how to win, and yet be able to succour them no whit, save in some poor feminine after-work of binding up wounds; and often not even that. Yes, harder than anything in the world. Does the Lord Christ know how hard ? Ah, indeed! does He not? He who said in words which weep through the ages, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I, and thou wouldst not!" Yet, in that old stronghold of ours, of the Trevelyans by the Western seas, rugged outside as the rocks it seemed part of, there was for a while a warm nest tapestried as with down from a mother-bird's wing. It is good to think that the rudest stronghold that bristles defiance from its heights, and the poorest cabin that crouches defenceless below, have all been that to some little human creatures in their day—a fortress, and a nest. The tiniest wren's wings seem a mighty shield to her nestlings: the fiercest lioness's roar is as a tender cooing to her whelps. And in our old castle by the sea we had lion-hearted courage to defend us, and wings as soft as any dove's to nestle under, we three I Percival the eldest, Owen the second, and our little sister Elaine. Our mother was French, and our father won her on this wise. In the early days of this century no English coast was safe. The French landed at Falmouth, and at Haverford-West in Wales, summoned to his aid by the Welsh Prince, Owen Glendower. The Flemings and Easterlings were ever cruising round our shores, and pouncing on some undefended village or town. And we were not behindhand in reprisals, we to whom the sea was no accident, but the very element and safeguard of our existence. Sometimes we had letters of marque from the king. Sometimes we had none, and did as well without. Close to our castle was a little harbour, approached by a winding creek, between precipitous rocks. Once reached, this creek was secure from all winds, but woe we h the hapless foreigner who thought to pene |