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wisest of mortals and most inflexible of managements! Well might the conscious Libertine shrink before the gaze of Feminine Innocence his avoidance of my hymn of praise being thus explained. Well might Mr. Pecker weightily say (0 not mine to take pride in a compliment so ill-deserved!) "Your name, sister, should have been Ithuriel, and not the Ephesian Goddess!?".

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I should, ere this, have rendered justice to one of the Peckers' pieces of exalted charity. That Mrs. Pecker could venture abroad -Bridget's want unsupplied-was, of course, not to be thought of-too sensitive a Christian,, she nevertheless;-to expose any any British attendant to the corruptions of continental superstition, where ignorance of the language rears but a gossamer barrier against much conspiring to render the eye delirious, and to intoxicate the ear! A Brave Courier was discussed; but the race, Mr. Pecker .. declares, on settled conviction, to be universally abandoned: the democratic instincts of their recent Italian Pictorial apologist (not to be more personal) being, unhappily, too public. And male attentiveness perpetually in our vicinity is what no right thinking female can subscribe to. While thus dubitating, an opportunity. for a good action presented itself. We hope to reap a stock of French from it. A Swiss governess, my dear,-by providential... coincidence, the very same to whom our dear Lady Highborough's dismissal adverted, she being by ill-health incapacitated from the fatigues of children-was seeking for an opportunity of transit to her native glaciers, and embraced, with tears of gratitude, the menial capacity proffered by our party. Salary, we agreed, was not to be mooted-for who would wound a Pastor's daughter (Mr. Pecker fears not untinctured with Socinianism, but do not divulge). by the bare advertence to pecuniary recompence? She warmly. undertook the entire charge of our travelling arrangements-waits upon us both as maid-since due regard to classes dictates this as appropriate and gives Mr. Pecker daily instruction in French. But this, I am persuaded, he will never bow his honest British clear-sightedness, ever to master! Who would wish it? Meanwhile, his patience, like that of a little child, is admirable.. i His own theories of promunciation, which he is resolved to carry into action, are too deeply ingenious to be intermeddled with by this transient pen. Adieu! my paper is replete, like the heart

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THE Age of Practice is now at hand. The true credentials are deeds. The genuine test is performance.

The Doctrine of Works has been too much neglected in this Protestant age of sectarian opinions. Faith without works," rightly said the Apostle James, is dead.”~- Mere expression of belief is not true faith. Simple assent to a verbal creed is of no avail. True faith is a practical confidence operating in good works.

The union of Church and State-not the mere formal worthless thing of politicians, but a truer, a diviner idea-is the societary actualization of the sacredness of good works. We should sanctify and hallow art, science, and industry. Our fields and our houses should become to us as portions of the common temple of God. Each effort should be as a prayer: each rest as a thanksgiving. Every function of work should be holy: each department of labour honorable, each portion of industry attractive. The priesthood of industry should commence. The hierarchy of labour should be installed. Every one should be a worker: every one a priest. This would be the true union of Church and State. This is the required combined reform in temporals and spirituals.

The true practice of good works does not consist in mere almsgiving. Justice above charity, O pharisaic and ever good-intentioned but unenlightened alms-givers! Put that spade into the hands of yon beggar, take one in thine own, go there both together upon that field and dig! This is better than putting money into a pocket full of holes. This is better than sending Charity with halfpence to the gin-palace. This is better than alms-giving. It is grander than charity, for it is love and justice. It is as fraternity, above patronage. It is as community, above slavery. It is the land and the tool: it is the spade and the acre which every Christian, every human being, ought to have with which to work. By the lazy rich and by the idle poor, and by those unemployed, the Divine command is not obeyed: "By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread."

Woe unto those by whom this divine and benevolent command is obeyed not. By the contracted chest, by the weak and undeveloped frame, by the flaccid muscle, by the hellish pang of ennui, are those who will not work punished. By increased pauper rates, by dread of incendiary torch and smoking homestead, by fear of

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red riot and flaming rebellion are those damned who will not let others work. No sin under God's heaven escapes without a punishment. Those who trangress God's laws in human nature or in human society, are condemned by their trangression.

Mightily let us invoke the Age of Practice: its credentials, deeds; its test, performance. Nothing is too good to be done. Nothing is too loving for the heart. Nothing is too thoughtful for the mind. Nothing is too powerful for the hand. There cannot be too much piety, too much patriotism, too much philanthropy. One cannot be too much a saint or a hero. "Be ye perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Never too high the kebla in the mosques of the true Islam. The higher the endeavour, the more likely the effort. Shoot at a rush candle and thou shalt hit the table. Wing thy shaft at the Pole Star, and thou shalt pierce the Lion or the Great Bear. That which is most wanting should be the most tried after. All things are possible to faith. The thought of annihilation approximates Atheism. "Perhaps" should be banished the dictionary. The more we try, the more shall we gain. Trial itself is a gain. If we reach not at first the thing attempted, we shall yet acquire more strength for another endeavour.

Let the future æra be the Age of Practice: we have had enough of mere doctrine. If we cannot, however, ourselves become practical, let us at any rate write in favour of practice. Let our poets sing its laud. Let our orators speak its praises. So sung and so spoken, assuredly it will then be done.

GOODWYN BARMBY.

LOVE HER STILL.

LOVE her still!

She hath fallen very low,

Thou, who knew'st her long ago,
Little, little canst thou see
Of her girlhood's purity;
But, though sin hath left its trace
On her once sweet happy face,
And that innocent maiden brow
Droopeth in dark shadow now-
Though life's glory all hath fled,
And life's shame is hers instead,

Love her still!

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Gather round her, weep and pray-
Clasp her, lead her from the way
She doth journey-tenderly,
From the wrong and misery,
To the better paths where peace
Waiteth her, with sweet release
From life's heart-ache ;-so once more
In her breast the hope of yore
May be lit-that blessed hope,
That with earthly loss doth cope,
Earthly sin, and earthly shame,
Till all earth is but a name,
And the rescued soul is given
With its treasure unto heaven.
Oh! bethink ye of the bliss
That will fill your hearts for this,
Loving Friends, what time ye see
Shadow after shadow flee

From her pale, sad face-what time,
Soaring in a thought sublime,
Ye shall know the while ye pray,
To His Angels, God doth say,

July 24th, 1846.

LOVE HER STILL.

T. WESTWOOD.

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"The judgments of GoD are for ever unchangeable: neither is Hs wearied by the long process of Time, and won to give His blessing in one age to that which He hath cursed in another."-WALTER RALEIGH.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

THE MAD PARLIAMENT.

His

THE year 1258 opened with evil promise for the king. profligate court had again reduced him to poverty, and he looked round upon a suffering and discontented people. Weather of unexampled severity had destroyed the harvest of 1257; wheat rose to the unprecedented price of nine and ten shillings the quarter; scarcity became famine, in which even the flesh of horses and the bark of trees were resorted to as food; and the people, ripe for revolt, saw less of the unavoidable visitation of Heaven than of the assailable incapacity of their rulers, in the misery which surrounded them. The barons acted at once, as though they had but waited for this time.

The first memorable incident of the year arose on a question of purveyance. The king's brother, Richard, was now in Germany, completing his acceptance of the Roman crown; and from that country, hearing of the scarcity in England, he sent forty vessels laden with corn. These the royal officers seized on their arrival, in assertion of the king's prerogative; but the citizens of London (now an important body, among whom the rank of baron' was of no infrequent occurrence) resisted the claim with such effect as a breach of their charters, and received such unexpected support, that the king was obliged to submit to the arbitrament of law, and, surrendering his ill-gotten prize, to enter the market on the same footing as his subjects, saving only a nominal advantage conceded to the crown of an almost imperceptible diminution in the market price. Such was the hope of royalty in relation to any unjust or unpopular claim, when the king, stripped of all other resource, summoned a Great Council to meet at Westminster on the 2nd of May.

What had been the gradual growth of the constitution of

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