the poverty-stricken, and the aged, I find, with a secret joy which I would not exchange for a mitre, that my instructions and consolations have not been ineffectual.

"The population of my first parish was about sixteen thousand souls. The press of work was enormous, and it was work which an earnest man might multiply indefinitely, even to a destroying extent. First of all, the lighter accomplishments of life had fled—my music and my love of sketching scenery. Secondly, my correspondence with lettered and influential friends ceased, friends by whose means I might have hoped to have gained some elevation in the world. Thirdly, I was obliged to terminate my historical and general studies; I strove hard to retain them, giving up the scanty hours which after severe labor would fittingly have been devoted to relaxation. I finally sacrificed even these, confining myself strictly to the literature of my profession. I think I was mistaken in this, and of late years I have endeavored to retrace my steps. All phases of that active thought which characterizes our modern days ought to be familiar to that servant of God who desires fully to do his Master's work in his generation. For some time I let this go, for the less important of important things must at times be sacrificed. Consider, my friend, that my tired, thin hand had to write every word of the two sermons which I prepared weekly for my people. You may well believe that in such a population a large amount of active visitation was required; however, there were schools and other parish machinery to be diligently worked. I wondered at the days in which I found time hang heavy on my hands, and at those who repeat such language. Were the days thirty hours long, and our faculties could cope with such an extension, it would be little enough for the work which the hand can find to do. After serving as an obscure and hard-working curate for a number of years, the largest and poorest part of

the parish was marked off as a separate district under Sir Robert Peel's Act. The bishop himself offered me the appointment, which I at once accepted. In a worldly point of view I perhaps scarcely did well to do so. Service was at

first celebrated in a licensed school-room, and it was with infinite difficulty that a church was finally built. Since then a parsonage-house has been erected. If my narrative is not an encouraging one, multitudes of my brethren would furnish you with one still less so. Multitudes do not attain even the scanty preferment which I have obtained, for I assure you that my net income is a hundred and sixty pounds a year.

"Perhaps, with the hopes natural to a young man just about to enter a great profession, you indulge yourself in a very different picture. Some West End church rises perchance before your view, with much architectural beauty, with an eminently pleasing ritual, and thronged with cultured, intelligent and approving listeners. Perhaps you will wed a pretty, clever, and well-dowered wife; perhaps some lordly pew-holder will give you a living. We have all heard of such cases. It may probably be yours. Still more probably it may not. If such a lot would really be the best for you, I wish it for you with all my soul. But such a position is perhaps not the most useful in the Church, nor yet the most useful to a man's own self. I am clear that no man has a right to enter the ministry reckoning on such. You must consider that you are launching on a wide sea, and sailing under sealed orders. Those orders, which are to settle your destination, are at the time of sailing quite unknown to you. You must enter your profession ready to do your work wherever your work is found for you.

"Now, my dear friend, are you prepared for all this? Chiefly, in the language of our prayer-book, do you trust that you are moved by the Holy Spirit to undertake this ministry? I do not mean by this to ask you whether you think you have

any afflatus or special mission or supernatural call. This grave question is not to be settled by any mere emotionalism. If you have prepared yourself for hard work and possible sacrifice; if you feel that your education and past life may most fittingly be subordinated to this purpose; if the hand of Providence and the course of events guide you to this path; if you deliberately think that in this way your life may be most happily and beneficially spent ; if you have made this a matter of earnest prayer to God, and confided it in humble faith to him; if, in proportion as you incline to the affirmative, you find your mind calm, settled, and resolved, and so far as you decline, restless and dissatisfied; then, in my judgment, the judgment of a weak, erring man howbeit, your path to the ministry seems clear, and I pray God to guide you into it, and to bless you in it.

"I could add much more in the way of setting before you the drawbacks and discomforts which attend a curate's life. But not willingly would I disparage that blessed and sacred service in which I am engaged. Rather let me remind myself that there are some favorable points which I ought lastly to set before you. Remember that your ministerial work tends immediately and directly to your own good. The sermons you address to others you preach first of all to your own self. The warnings and consolations you address to others are, chief of all, warnings and consolations to yourself. You may pretty well choose your own times and occasions for working, and are in some measure released from the ordinary shackles that bind ordinary men. Your studies are those which in the highest degree benefit and interest the intellect and the spirit. Neither should I omit to mention the positive worldly advantages which accrue to you. You have an income assured to you, small indeed, but not smaller than is gained by the commencing barrister and physician. You have a

status in society which, if not valued by the mammon-hunters, is yet recognized and honored by the better portion of the community. If the income is narrow, it is quite possible and quite allowable that you should add to it by pupils or literature. If a Paul worked with his hands to give himself a subsistence, assuredly you may resort to similar avocations in order that you may provide things honest, and be able to give to him that needeth. But in the hands of an earnest man literature and education cease to be secular.

"Adieu, my friend, and in the best sense of the word it is indeed à Dieu. I do indeed commend you to him. May he guide and direct you! I have written you a long letter, I find. The Saturday Review says that people no longer send letters; they only send messages. I am at least an exceptional instance. But I should infinitely prefer to talk matters over with you. Can not you come down this spring? Even in this manufacturing part of the world spring looks beautiful. Stray violets and primroses are found in haggard localities where you would hardly look for them. Streams veiled by the factory smoke, and where the poisoned fishes die, grow limpid as you trace them to their source, and you get those glimpses of pastoral beauties which delighted the tourists before moneymaking drove them away. You will be delighted with my curate, for the Additional Curates' Aid Society gives me one. He is fresh from his Greek, and also full of zeal for his work. "Ever affectionately yours, C. E. L."

CHAPTER VII.

Marriage.

I Do not see why I should not include marriage among the turning-points of life, as, indeed, it is one of the most important of all. I am afraid, perhaps, that I am encroaching upon the domains of the novelists, who have appropriated this literary region very much to themselves. Perhaps young people, too, would hardly care to listen to any matter-of-fact discussion on concerns where they arrogate to themselves the right of doing pretty well as they please. But the subject naturally belongs to my programme, and I proceed to discuss it. I really think, too, that it is a matter that eminently requires discussion. It is lamentable to see how many boys and girls become engaged and marry without any serious thought; how silly people will only treat the subject with smiles and giggles, and how fathers and mothers avoid giving counsel and advice to their children on such matters.

It was the well-known remark of some celebrated man that, if marriages were simply ordered and adjusted by judicial authority, they would prove just as happy as they are now. I read the other day, in "A Clergyman's Diary of the Seventeenth Century," reprinted by an archæological society, a very sensible letter from the rector of a parish, who makes a due offer of his niece in marriage to the son of a neighboring clergyman, and doubts not but the young girl will prove obedient to his wishes. Something, perhaps, is to be said in favor of such a scheme. There are certainly some people in the world