tidings that her son-in-law, who had gone | When they arrived at Karasou-Bazar, she with his wife to visit the Princess Anna Ga- prepared herself for death, under the loving litzin near St. Petersburg, was seriously ill, care of her daughter and her husband. She and she ardently wished to go to him. She was fond of hearing Tersteegen's hymns, received the Emperor's permission in Janu- especially the one beginningary, and was soon with her children. Amid "Jesu, der Du bist alleine, many fervent prayers, her son-in-law recovered.

Haupt und Hirte der Gemeine, Segne mich Dein armes glied." "Jesus, of Thy sheep the Head,

By whose hand Thy flock is fed,

Feed me, Thy humble lamb !" The image of the Crucified One was always before her view.

the voice of God!—God in his mercy will wipe away. I have nothing to offer to God or man but my many imperfections; but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." On the 15th of December, amidst fervent prayers, she took leave of her beloved ones. On the 24th she was unable to speak, and requested, by signs, that the sign of the cross should be made over her. At midnight she was told it was Christmas day, and, with beaming looks and audible voice, she gave glory to God. On that day she died. Her earthly tabernacle was deposited in the Armenian church at KarasouBazar, and was afterwards removed to the Greek church which the Princess Galitzin had built at Koreiss.

All those within the borders of the rigid Greek Church in whose minds a certain mysticism had been the means of cherishing religious life, were attracted to visit the celebrated lady. And since the conversion of Alexander, through the circulation of the Bible and other means, true piety and zeal A few days before her death she wrote for the kingdom of God had greatly in- to her son: "The good that I have done creased. But the weakness of Alexander's will remain; the harm that I have done — character caused him to vacillate between and how often have I not mistaken the workhis desire to spread the knowledge of re-ings of my own imagination and pride for ligion among his people, and his fear that their mental emancipation would weaken the imperial authority, and he fell a prey to the priestly party, who hated the mystical and pietistic movements in the church. The excellent minister of worship, Prince Galitzin, was dismissed, and the Bible Society suppressed. All this had occurred shortly before Madame de Krudener's arrival. It was, perhaps, natural that Alexander should not entertain the same confidence in her in St. Petersburg as he had done in Paris; and her enthusiasm for Greece was not likely to increase it, for he had just been informed by Metternich that the revolution in Greece was not to be supported. Alexander caused her to be informed in a delicate way that her residence in his capital could only be permitted so long as she refrained from any expression of opinion on the affairs of Greece and the relations of Russia with regard to her. She returned to her rural retreat, and added voluntary mortifications to the imposed restriction. She wrote scarcely any letters, but employed her time in praying, reading, singing, and caring for the poor. In the winter of 1822-3 she sat without fire or double windows. She suffered indeed in body, but the serenity of her mind increased. The news of the death of Kellner was, however, a great shock to her. She reviewed her past life, and the prospect of death presented itself to her under an aspect of terror, and as an expiation for her sins. But this temptation did not last long, and her readiness to depart returned. Her malady also became less painful, and she willingly entered into a plan for going down the Volga, towards the Crimea, with the Princess Galitzin and her peasant colony. But on the journey her illness increased, and the peculiarities of her character became less conspicuous.

Such is the history of Madame de Krudener. We have represented it as we found it, endeavouring lovingly to enter into the spirit of her remarkable life.

It only remains to add a few critical remarks. We do not, of course, concur in the judgment of the world regarding her. Not sharing the angels' joy over a sinner that repenteth, it is more ready to forgive the sin without repentance, than a penitent sinner for preaching it. But we should consider it to be in good order that the more notorious the sin, the more deeply the sinner should ponder the pardon she has received in her heart, and not appear before the world with her newly-learnt message of a Saviour from sin, until she has long and silently communed with it herself. Perhaps a quiet residence in her home, confining her labours to her immediate neighbourhood, would have been better for Madame de Krudener than wandering about the world. She might then have acquired more taste for domestic life, and not have fallen into the homeless condition in which she lived for many years, and which we are inclined to

regard as an evidence of the old leaven in tianity. Her occasional invocation of the her character. We do not think that her Virgin may be ascribed rather to a fantastic usefulness would thereby have been lessened. enthusiasm than to doctrine, and she was in The spiritual preaching of mercy, when ac- the main Protestant, or Catholic according companied by a holy life in God, and devo-to the original meaning of the word. When tion to our fellow creatures, is so shining a light, that, let it be placed where it may, even were it in Russia, it is sure to be seen from afar, and to attract souls to itself.

in Switzerland she wrote to a Roman Catholic priest:- "Love has called me, not only out of the world, but out of a lifeless Christianity, so that I belong neither to the And as we regard the perpetual wander- Catholic nor to the Greek Church, and, ing about of the widow as the effect of her thank God, have never become Protestant. early life, we think we recognise in many My great Master has taught me to be a of her actions during her religious career Christian. When the sun of my life began the fantastic and eccentric romance-writer. to dawn upon me, I did not think about beThis was shown by the exaggerated impor- ing a sinner. I loved, and wept in ecstasy tance she attached to the prophecies of Mary over this delightful love. I was unacquaintKummer, and her implicit confidence in ed both with Christian communities and the Fontaine, who was disposed to turn both forms which people are so ready to adopt. the oracle of his prophetess and the credu- I had heard but little, and learnt but little; lous enthusiasm of Madame de Krudener but I thought, 'O, if He who is worthy of to his own advantage for earthly and selfish all adoration did but love me!' Consumed ends. Madame de Krudener paid dearly by the divine flame, I did not concern myfor this, for Alexander became prejudiced against her in consequence of the disastrous result of Fontaine's enterprises, which ended with debt and arrest on the estate of Rappenhoff.

epitome of all horrors. Not love Him who has graven in my heart the wish that hell itself might learn to love Christ, the Conqueror of hell! I have learnt to know the almighty power of faith and love, not as a heroine of faith, but as a child. The honour and glory of my Redeemer are my life. It is my ardent desire to see all around me saved, that all might unite in praising divine love."

self about my own unworthiness; I knew nothing of my ruined state. I neither knew nor hated my sinfulness; I only kept at his feet like Mary Magdalene." The love of Christ was the ruling passion of her life. Her proceedings in Switzerland were al-"Not to love," she said, “is, to me, the together wanting in Christian sobriety. This was shown in her impatient looking for divine judgments, her anxious watching for every report of earthquake, storm, hail, fire, and pestilence, in order that she might proclaim approaching judgment with greater confidence; in her delight in the marvellous; in the way in which she wrested many passages of Scripture to make them suit her own fancy; in the importance she attached to forms - such as the expression, "Praise be to Jesus Christ; " to the sign of the Cross, and the bending of the knee. In the persecution which arose against her, there was doubtless much political and ecclesiastical pharisaism, but there was also a wholesome opposition to a course tending to fanaticism and disorder. What right had she to denounce the social and political state of Switzerland with which her acquaintance was by no means intimate- as one likely to call down divine judgments? And, although in the time of famine she showed her love by her abundant charity, was it wise to entice the people away from their homes and occupations to Russia and the Caucasus ?

This was her universal theme, in correspondence, in private conversation, and among the multitude.

At the time when God was causing His chastisements to be felt, this remarkable woman, by her preaching and her self-denying love, accomplished her mission with wonderful spiritual energy. Her interference in politics was a mistake; her spiritual labours were encompassed with many infirmities. But she advanced the kingdom of God; her own conversion was a striking instance of the power of grace; and her unfailing love for the people, in spite of political and religious persecution, and the testimony she bore in words and works, all tended to call back the world to the Cross.* * Vie de Madame de Krudener, par Charles Eyto the brethren, was the kernel of her Chris-nard. Tome i. et ii. Paris, 1849.

The grace of Christ, combined with love

. From The Spectator. NOTES FROM THE SCOTTISH ISLES.

III. CANNA AND ITS PEOPLE.

the gleaming of tartans, the flashing of swords, the sound of wassail, the intoning of the skald; but now, instead, we have the genuine modern article -a monarch of a speculative turn, transacting business in his shirt-sleeves. The realm flourishes too. Each cotter or shepherd pays his rent in labour, and is permitted a plot of ground to grow potatoes and graze a cow. The fishermen are supported in the same way. Both sexes toil out of doors at the crops and take part in the shearing, but the women have plenty of time to watch the cow and weave

THE Laird of Canna might fitly be styled its King; for over that lonely domain he exercises quite regal authority, and he is luckier in one respect than most monarchs-he keeps all the cash. His subjects number four score- - men, women, and children. Some till his land, some herd his sheep. For him the long-line fishers row along the stormy coasts of Rum, for him the wild boors batter out the brains of seals on the neigh-homespun on their rude looms. All on the bouring rocks of Haskeir; the flocks on the crags are his, and the two smacks in the bay; every roof and tenement for man or beast pays him rent of some sort. The solid modern building, surrounded by the civilized brick wall, is his palace-a recent erection, strangely out of keeping with the rude cabins and heather houses in the vicinity. Yet the laird of Canna is not proud. He toiled hard with his hands long before the stroke of good fortune which made him the heritor of the isle, and even now he communes freely with the lowliest subjects, and (see yonder!) is not above boarding the trader in the bay in his shirt-sleeves. A shrewd, active, broad-shouldered man is the laird, still young, and as active as a goat. Though he sits late at night among his books, he is up with the greyest dawn to look after his field. You meet him everywhere over the island, mounted royally on his sturdy little sheltie, and gazing around him with a face which says plainly, ·

"I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute."

But at times he sails far away southward in his own boats, speculating with the shrewdest, and surely keeping his own. In the midst of his happy sway he has a fine smile and a kindly heart for the stranger, as we can testify. The great can afford to be generous, though, of course, if greatness were to be measured by mere amount of income, the laird, though a "warm" man, would have to be ranked among the lowly. He has in abundance what all the Stuarts tried in vain to feel—the perfect sense of solitary sway.

Think of it,-dreamer, power-hunter, piner after the Napoleonic! A fertile island, a simple people, ships and flocks all your own, and all set solitary and inviolate in the great sea! for how much less have throats been cut, hearths desolated, even nations ruined? There is no show, no bunkum, no flash jewellery of power, but veritable power itself. In old days, there would have been

isle, excepting only the laird himself, belong to the old Romish faith, even the laird's own wife and children being Catholics. There is no bickering, civil or religious. The supreme head of the state is universally popular, and praised for his thoughtfulness and generosity- a single example of which is as good as a hundred. It is the custom of many Highland proprietors, notably those of Islay, to levy a rent on those who burn the seaweed and tangles on their shore, charging the poor makers about a pound on every ton of kelp so produced. Not so the Laird of Canna. "He charges nothing," said our informant, a wild old Irish wanderer, whom we found kelp-burning close to our anchorage; "the faird is too dacent a man to take rint for the rocks!"

One might wander far, like those princes of Eastern fable who went that weary quest in search of kingdoms, and fare far worse than here. Though environed on every side by rocks and crags, and ringed by the watery waste, Canna is fat and fertile, full of excellent sheep pastures and patches of fine arable ground. Its lower slopes in times remote were enriched by the salt sea loam, and its highest peaks have been dunged for ages by innumerable sea-fowl. Iluge sheep of the Cheviot breed cover all the slopes, finding their way to the most inaccessible crags; long trains of milch cows wind from the hills to the outside of the laird's dairy morning and gloaming; and in the low rich under-stretches of valley are little patches of excellent corn, where the loud "creekcreek" of the corneraik sounds harsh and loud. So much for the material blessings of the island. Then as to those other blessings which touch the eye and the soul.

It is a fish-shaped island, about five miles long and a mile and a half broad, throwing out by a small isthmus on the western side a low peninsula of grassy green. In the space between the peninsula and the southeastern point of the mainland lies the harbour, and across the isthmus to the west lies another greater bay, so sown with grim lit

tle islands and sunken rocks as to be totally useless to navigators in any weather. The peninsula is somewhat low, but the crags of the main island tower to an immense height above the level of the sea.

gions darken the waters underneath, and rows on rows sit brooding over their young on the dizziest edges of the cliff itself. The noise of wings is ceaseless, there is constant coming and going, and so tame are the Canna is the child of the great waters, birds that one might almost seize them, and such children, lonely and terrible as is either on the water or in the air, with the their portion, seldom lack loveliness - often outstretched hand. Discharge a gun into their only dower. From the edge of the the air, and as the hollow echoes roar uplipping water to the peak of the highest crag, ward and inward to the very hearts of the it is clothed on with ocean gifts and signs caves, it will suddenly seem as if the treof power. Its strange under-caves and mendous crags were loosening to fall rocks are coloured with rainbow hues, drawn but the dull dangerous sound you hear is from glorious-featured weeds; overhead, its only the rush of wings. A rock further cliffs of basalt rise shadowy, ledge after northward is possessed entirely by gulls, ledge darkened by innumerable little wings; chiefly the smaller species; thousands sit and high over all grow soft greenswards, still and fearless, whitening the summit like knolls of thyme and heather, where sheep snow, but many hover with discordant bleat, and whence the herdboy crawls over to scream over the passing boat, and seem look into the raven's nest. On a still summer trying with the wild beat of their wings to day, when the long Atlantic swell is crystal scare the intruders away. Close in shore, smooth, Canna looks supremely gentle on at the mouth of a deep dark cave, cormoher image in the tide, and out of her hol- rants are to be found, great black“ searts,” low under-caves comes the low weird whis- their mates, and the young, preening their per of a voice; the sunlight glimmers on glistening plumage leisurely, or stretching peaks and sea, the beautiful shadow quivers out their snake-like necks to peer with fishy below, broken here and there by drifting eyes this way and that. They are not very weeds, and the bleating sheep on the high tame here, and should you present a gun, swards soften the stillness. But when the will soon flounder into the sea and disapwinds come in oyer the deep, the beauty pear; but at times when they have gorged changes it darkens, it flashes from soft-themselves with fish, so awkward are they ness into power. The huge waters boil at the foot of the crags, and the peaks are caught in mist; and the air, full of a great roar, gathers around Canna's troubled face. Climb the crags, and the horrid rocks to westward, jutting out here and there like sharks' teeth, spit the lurid white foam back in the glistening eyes of the sea. Slip down to the water's edge, and amid the deafening roar the spray rises far above you in a hissing shower. The whole island seems quivering through and through. The waters gather on all sides, with only one still long gleam to leeward. No place in the world could seem fuller of supernatural voices, more powerful, or more utterly alone.

It is our fortune to see the island in all its moods; for we are in no haste to depart. Days of deep calm alternate with days of the wildest storm there is constant change.

When there is little or no sea, it is delightful to pull in the punt round the precipitous shores, and come upon the lonely haunts of the ocean birds. There is one great cliff, with a huge rock rising out of the waters before it, which is the favourite breeding haunt of the puffins, and while swarms of these little creatures, with their bright parrot-like bills and plump white breasts, flit thick as locusts in the air, le

with their wings, and so muddled are their wits, that one might run right abreast with them and knock them over with an oar.

-

Everywhere below, above, on all sides, there is nothing but life- -birds innumerable, brooding over their eggs or fishing for the young. Here and there, a little fluff of down just launched out into the great world paddles about bewildered, and dives away from the boat's bow with a little troubled cry; on the outer rocks gulls and guillemots innumerable, puffins on the crags, and cormorants on the ledges of the caves. The poor reflective human being, brought into the sound of such a life, gets quite scared and dazed. The air, the rocks, the waters are all astir. The face turns for relief upward, where the blue sky meets the summit of the crags. Even yonder, on the very ledge, a black speck sits and croaks; and still further upward, dwarfed by distance to the size of a sparrowhawk, hovers a black eagle, fronting the sun.

There is something awe-inspiring, on a dead calm day, in the low hushed wash of the great swell that forever sets in from the ocean; slow, slow, it comes, with the regular beat of a pulse, rising its height without breaking against the cliff it mirrors in its polished breast, and then dying down beneath with a murmuring moan.

What

power is there! what dreadful, fatal ebbing | We cannot believe they are unhappy beand flowing! No finger can stop that un-yond the lot of other people who live by der-swell, no breath can come between that labour, and it is quite certain that, in and its course; it has rolled since Time be- worldly circumstances, they are much more gan, the same, neither more nor less, comfortable than the Highland poor are whether the weather be still or wild, and it generally. Nature, however, with her wonwill keep on when we are all dead. Bah! drous secret influences, has subdued their that is hypochondria. But look! what is lives, toned their thoughts to the spirit of that floating yonder, on the glassy water? the island where they dwell. This is more particularly the case with the women. Poor human souls, with that dark, searching look in the eyes, those feeble flutterings of the lips! They speak sad and low, as if somebody were sleeping close by. When they step forward and ask you to step into the dwelling, you think (being new to their ways) that some one has just died. All at once, and inevitably, you hear the leaden wash of the sea, and you seem to be walking on a grave.

"Is it a piece o' weed or floating hair, O' drownéd maiden's hair?

"A ghostly people!" exclaims the reader;

No; but it tells as clear a tale. Those planks formed lately the sides of a ship, and on that old mattress, with the straw washing out of the rents, some weary sailor pillowed his head not many hours ago. Where is the ship now? Where is the sailor? Oh, if a magician's wand could strike these waters, and open them up to our view, what a sight should we see! the slimy hulls of ships long sunk; the just" keep me from Canna!" That is an error. sunken fish-boat, with ghastly faces twisted The people do seem ghostly at first, their among the nets; the skeleton suspended in looks do sadden and depress; but the feelthe huge under-grass and monstrous weeds, ing soon wears away, when you find how the black shapes, the fleshless faces looming much quiet happiness, how much warmth of green in the dripping foam and watery dew! heart, may underlie the melancholy air. Yet how gently the swell comes rolling, and When they know you a little, ever so little, how pleasant look the depths, this summer they brighten, not into anything demonstraday, as if death was not, as if there tive, not into sunniness, but into a silvern could be neither storm nor wreck at sea. kind of beauty, which we can only compare Mere hypochondria, perhaps. Why the to moonlight. A veil is quietly lifted, and calm sea should invariably make us melan- you see the soul's face, and then you choly we cannot tell, but it does so, in know that these folk are melancholy, not spite of all our efforts to be gay. Walt for sorrow's sake, but just as moonlight is Whitman used to sport in the great waters melancholy, just as the wash of water is as happily as a porpoise or a seal, without melancholy, because that is the natural exany dread, with vigorous animal delight; and we too can enjoy a glorious swim in the sun, if there is just a little wind, and the sea sparkles and freshens full of life. But to swim in a dead calm is dreadful to a sensitive man. Something mesmeric grips and weakens him. If the water be deep, he feels dizzy, as if he were suspended far up in the air.

We are harping on delicate mental chords, and forgetting Canna; yet we have been musing in such a mood as Canna must inevitably awaken in all who feel the world. She is so lonely, so beautiful; and the seas around her are so full of sounds and sights that seize the soul. There is nothing mean, or squalid, or miserable about Canna; but she is melancholy and subdued, she seems, like a Scandinavian Havfru, to sit with her hand to her ear, earnestly listening to the sea.

That, too, is what first strikes one in the Canna people, their melancholy look, not grief-worn, not sorrowful, not passionate, but simply melancholy and subdued.

pression of their lives. They are capable of a still, heart-suffering tenderness, very touching to behold.

We visit many of their houses and hold many of their hands. Kindly, gentle, openhanded as melting charity, we find them all, the poorest of them as hospitable as the proudest chieftain of their race. There is a gift everywhere for the stranger, and a blessing after, for they know that after all he is bound for the same bourn.

Theirs is a quiet life, a still passage from birth to the grave; still, quiet, save for the never-silent voices of the sea. The women work very hard, both indoors and afield. Some of the men go away herring fishing in season, but the majority find employment either on the island or the circumjacent waters.

We cannot credit the men with great energy of character; they do not seem industrious. An active man could not lounge as they lounge, with that total abandonment of every nerve and muscle. They will lie in little groups for hours looking at the sea, and biting stalks of grass,