would regret him. It is hard upon both these men. No doubt the taking of these portraits was a marked event in their lives, and they thought they were handing down their names with honour to those who would come after them. But a little indolence, a little procrastination, the common taking it for granted that children know what relates to their surroundings, has blotted them out from the family records, and with them has gone the story of their actions, the influence of their good example, and the warning of their mistakes and errors.

to us.

We all like to think that we shall be remembered. I sometimes wonder why. If our lives in the unknown world, to which some of us are drawing so near, are to be absolutely separated from this present world-if we are to know nothing of what goes on in it—the fact that we are remembered or forgotten can be of very little moment And we are apt to speak as if it were so, but natural instinct is on the other side. The gifts of the dying, their words and injunctions, tell against the idea that there is this absolute separation. There are, indeed, great difficulties in the way of understanding how such knowledge can be maintained without disturbing the peace of the just by the knowledge of earth's sorrow; but there are equally great difficulties in the way of understanding how the complicated affections, pleasures, sorrows, interests of our present existence can be maintained without producing a chaos of conflicting feelings.

It is only experience which enables us to comprehend that the course of human life is in any way compatible with happiness. The mere fact that a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife; that a daughter gives up her happy childhood's home and enters upon an untried sphere with a husband whom perhaps she has only known for a year, and yet that family affections are kept up, would, if we had only been told that such a state of things was to be, and had never known that it could be-prove sufficient to perplex us with the solution of an insoluble problem. Difficulties with regard to the next world always seem to me intangible, for they are founded upon a false analogy, derived from the supposition that the conditions of the next world must necessarily resemble those of this world. But surely the true analogy is derived from the certainty we have that a loving Providence is working alike in each. The next world may be very unlike this in many respects-probably it will be; but the Divine Wisdom which has arranged it for our good will know how to fit us to our new condition of being. And, as Bishop Butler says, 'when we go out of this world, we may pass into new scenes, and a new state of life and action, just as naturally as we came into the present.'

The desire for fame also, which in some minds is so strong an incentive to action, points in the same direction. Fame can be of little value, if the individuals who render themselves famous are not conscious of it. It may be useful to those who come after them-their children and relatives-but to themselves it must be nothing.

But once think of life as continuous and conscious, and the Past is no longer past. Those who have crossed the threshold of death are, under that idea, still with us, only they are silent. They leave it to us to hand on their histories. That is why I should like all young people to know everything that can be truthfully and reverently told of their ancestors and relations. What could be said in love and truth to the dead, if present in the flesh, may fairly be told with equal love and equal truth when they may possibly be present in the spirit. There can be no need for deception.

In the next world we shall all view ourselves impartially, and seeing our shortcomings, as assuredly we never yet have seen them in the light of God's Holiness, we shall have but one desire that they may be turned to good by becoming a warning to those who are struggling with temptations like to our own.

But the conditions of this next world, and the questions connected with Death and Immortality, the Past and the Future, are tremendous. The thoughts which they suggest cannot be touched upon in a cursory way. For the present they must be left. Only again I would say, we are not wise if, through indolence or thoughtlessness, we suffer the Past to be past.

"SUCH AS DO STAND."

"That it may please Thee to strengthen such as do stand." -Book of Common Prayer.

BY LUCY PHILLIMORE, AUTHOR OF SIR C. WREN,' ETC.

A LONG-ESTABLISHED magazine betrays in its correspondence and its shorter articles the general drift of its readers' opinions, and the changes in their fashions of life and thought.

Perhaps one of the most marked of these changes comes under the head of Dress.' It is not for a moment intended to burden our readers with a disquisition on the fashions, or on the moralities of this subject, only it may be observed that whereas, whether in essay, letter, or story, the subject of dress was treated as a frivolous one, beneath the notice of a superior woman or a sensible girl, it has now risen to the dignity of Art and a Science. It asserts itself on the Stage, in Painting, and in Novels. To be a heroine at all is now hardly possible without a large stock of expensive dresses, with mantles and bonnets to match! Whether it is cause or effect it is hard to determine; but the business of dressmaking in all its branches is vastly increased, and employs an enormous number of young women. Look at one of the great West-end establishments, and see at the dinner-hour or at closing time what a multitude pours out from the private door: bodice-hands,' 'skirt-hands,' 'sleevehands,' tailoresses,' 'fitters,' 'embroideresses,' 'milliners,' 'improvers," 'apprentices,' the girls, or rather children, who do the errands, pick up pins, and scrape whalebone, to say nothing of the young women who serve behind the counter or in the show-room. Where do they all live? is an irresistible question, and what becomes of them?

The large shops do house and look after a great many of their workpeople; but it is impossible for them to take in all whom they employ, especially the extra hands, who must shift for themselves. Nor is it an unmixed advantage to those who sleep at the houses of business. The mixed company, the full room with its unscreened beds, its absence of any quiet corner for prayer or thought, is very trying. It is life in the perpetual glare of publicity and continual talk. Not seldom also will some be found who do their utmost to laugh down good habits, to sneer at holiness, and use every effort to relax the hold, possibly slight enough, which a girl may have upon religion.

But when this comparatively small number are, even with these grave drawbacks, in a manner provided for, what happens to all the rest?

What happens to the servants out of place, or to the country girl who has come up to London, firmly believing as many still do believe that London streets are paved with gold'? Too often they are brought to great straits, robbed on one pretext or another, reduced to pawn garment after garment, and at last to take a place where they are 'not particular.' How is such an one to work her way up again, liable as she is to be turned off on short notice to recommence the same dreary round? Certain agencies are at work, however, to befriend domestic servants, even though their best efforts cannot keep pace with the number with whom they have to deal. But it is calculated that there are at work in London 16,000 young women not domestic servants, and of these some live at their own homes, some are lodged at their places of business, but the large remainder find lodgings for themselves. Enough, more than enough has been lately made public as to lodging-houses, which are actual abodes of wickedness, and the subject is too horrible to be touched upon here. Yet in passing it must be said that few things are more difficult, even for the born and bred Londoner, than to ascertain that the lodging which her slender purse permits, is a respectable one, where the street-door is locked at night, and where she can safely bestow herself. For the girl fresh from the country, be she a young servant, or one who has, to her pride and delight, obtained work in a London shop, the risk is tenfold. Many of the saddest stories which from time to time appear in the newspapers, many which never come to light in this world, are to be traced to this one pitfall for unguided feet. No blame at first, but no friend, no warning, and so shipwreck; and yet all might have been so easily averted!

But to pass from this dark and terrible part of the picture. Suppose our young work woman to have a respectable lodging to which, after a long day's work, she returns; yet what a dreary spot it is. She cannot call it going home to return to that one little dingy close room, cold in winter and hot in summer, which is her alternative with her place of work. Or, perhaps, if times are hard and wages low, there is the other resource of a bed in a larger room shared with strange women. What a place for a long winter's evening, or the hot breathless nights of summer, what a place for rest on a holiday or a Sunday! If illness comes-and long hours, spent in hot rooms by day, cold walks back at night are very apt to sow dangerous seeds-a corner in a lodging-house is far more forlorn than any hospital. To lie fretting over lost time, possible loss of place, and well-nigh empty purse, and hardly to venture on such a luxury as a doctor, is a severe trial to any young woman; doubly so when experience has shown her that once get your head under water in London, and it will need helping hands, and those strong ones, to raise it again.

If this is escaped, still the loneliness of a London lodging with no friend, no sympathy, no amusement! What is to prevent this PART 79.

VOL. 14.

5

becoming oppressive to a degree dangerous to mind and body? One thing alone, a lively faith, a strong conviction of God as an everpresent friend. That indeed can supply the lack of all else; but it is a great grace, and how can we look to find it in all these halftaught, overworked girls, to whom it would be little wonder if Sunday appeared to exist merely as a day of physical rest, and for the display on their own persons of something like the finery with which during the six previous days they have been adorning other people?

Must this always be so? And is the difficulty so great, the problem so vast, that there is no solution attainable? Is it one of the inevitable evils of modern society? Not altogether; for we can point to one effort, and in many respects a very successful effort, to remedy the evil. For many years a Confraternity of young women, known as the All Saints' Confraternity, has existed attached to the Church of All Saints, Margaret Street, which provides for the members a meeting-place and a tea on Sundays, opportunities of church-going, religious instruction, and friends to help them on in a life of holiness. The work was begun and is still continued by the Clergy and Sisters of All Saints, and some ladies as Associates working under them.

As the Confraternity prospered a recreation-room was opened every evening, with singing and music classes, and classes for French, games and books, and supplied the lack of rest and amusement, and good companionship, which had pressed so hardly on the young women before. By degrees it grew evident that the necessity of all was a house where cheap respectable lodging could be obtained, and enough wholesome and inviting food both to stimulate and supply appetites, which confinement in close rooms rendered sickly and capricious. After much anxious thought a house-rescued from very different uses-was taken at 34, Mortimer Street, and called St. Gabriel's Home, and all, except the ground-floor, of the next house was added the next year. By this lodging is provided for twenty-one young women besides Sisters and servants. There is also accommodation for the meetings of the Young Women's Confraternity, and a room for the week-day classes and the Sunday's Bible Class; and on the much-loved 'Sunday out,' tea and a quiet place to sit between service hours. The Home is for young women of good character, members of the Church of England, and is almost the only one of its kind which exists for their special use. To keep this house going, with its twenty-one inmates, and all these additional guests, is of course hard and responsible work, but is cheerfully undertaken by the Sisters from All Saints who manage it. To have everything nice, in good order, clean and comfortable, and yet to spend not one unnecessary penny, to keep a mind sufficiently at leisure to listen and advise, to give the spiritual life its due preeminence, all this is amply enough to tax all the powers of mind