pleasant and satisfactory to find that our opinions agreed. After a little discussion we were equally agreed in reference to the others. Mr. Smithies was so gratified with the result of his inspection, that he agreed to divide another £5 among the best of the unsuccessful ones. This unexpected gift was distributed in 5s., 2s. 6d., and 1s. prizes, the award being made according to the marks the rooms had received during the whole of the inspection, and especially in reference to their state at the time of our last visit.

I have made an analysis of the marks given, because it will enable others to gain some idea of the result which was attained.

7 began with A, i.e., clean and tidy, and continued to receive the same mark all throughout the inspection.

3 began D, i.e., dirty, and continued the same all throughout the inspection.

4 began D and ended A.

10 began D and ended either B or C.

6 began B and ended A.

7 began C and ended A.

From this tabular statement it will be seen that among the eighty-six competitors, thirty-one of them made real progress in cleanliness and tidiness of their rooms; while only three remained in the same state as that in which they began.

If the character of the people and the nature of their occupation be considered, and allowance made for sickness and other causes, I think every one will agree that this gain for the poor themselves is very great indeed. I have since visited, only recently, a number of the rooms which received prizes, and some of them continue in the same state, are a credit to their owners; but others, and I fear I must add the majority, have relapsed into their old habits. This only brings out more forcibly, what all will be prepared to allow, that these new habits cannot be fixed except by repeating again and again the experiment we have made. We cannot expect to change habits so deeply seated and so long continued in by an experiment of a few weeks; and it therefore only remains for us to repeat again this year the plan of last year, and so on again and again until we have in lieu of these dirty and desolate homes clean and tidy rooms.

THE POWER OF SYMPATHY.

The subjoined very striking illustration of the power of Christian sympathy is taken from a report of a speech delivered in Exeter Hall by the Rev. Stenton Eardley.

'I will give you another example, for I could occupy four hours in giving a rapid narrative of cases in which I have been engaged. Some time ago a gentleman of large influence and large wealth called upon me, and said, "I wish to see you respecting a relation of mine, who has run through £10,000." I said, "Send him here on Monday morning." "Oh," he said, "I do not think you will get him to speak to you-he is very reserved.” Í said, "Let me try." On the Monday morning the young man came, a young buck about eight-and-twenty. He made a bow down to the last joint of his vertebræ to me, as much as to say, "I am here, but if you think I am going to kiss your shoes you are very much mistaken." I think God has taught me a way that I have of taking to lay hold of the fellows, to touch them, and I said, "Sir, let us sit down," and I got him by the hand, and we sat down together. I put my face right up to his, so that it nearly touched, and I said, "I know exactly where you are; it is despair. You break out,

and

The Power of Sympathy.

171

The

and you are angry, and denounce others, and so on, and get into a rage when we speak to you. The real fact is you are in despair; you have fought your battle, you have fought ten thousand battles, and it has always been too strong for you; you have resolved, and you have struggled and vowed, but when the moment has come you have been carried away." I saw it was impressing him-the feeling that I understood him--sympathy, that is all, that is the only weapon we have, it is the mightiest power in the world. I saw the tears begin to gather in his face, and when I went on to describe that it was possible for him, by taking a prescription which I was going to give him soon, but which I had not given him yet, and said, "Under the influence of that prescription it is possible for you to stand and look me in the face, and smile upon all the world, and say, 'I am a free man.'" He bounded up from that sofa, clasped his hands with agony, and cried out, "My God! it is too precious to be true." What interest it gives one to help poor agonized souls like these to go healing their wounds. For an hour and a half in that room it was just this: I was endeavouring to persuade this man, in some way or another, to get the belief into him through the power of my own warm, prayerful sympathy and brotherly love towards him, that he had never conquered it, because he had never looked to the stronger than the strong man armed. Sir, it was like a hand to hand battle of man and devil in my dining-room for an hour and a half. Down we went upon our knees. I said, "Now, try to pray." "I cannot pray," he said. I said, "I will pray for you, now try and pray," and again and again I saw the strong man armed, the giant keeping his palace and his goods in peace; there was no danger of his coming forth-he was too strong. And then we got to the stronger than he coming down upon him, taking his armour from him wherein he trusted, and dividing the spoils, and I said, "You shall not perish at twenty-eight years old, you shall be redeemed yet by the power of Jesus Christ! poor fellow trembled under it all, for one gets earnest-I admit I get passionately in earnest about these poor fellows, and cannot let them go. What did I find? Again and again I saw that young man, and heard the whole story of his life. When he first came to me he would lay his trembling hands upon me, and I felt he was in my hands like a bit of plastic clay, and I believe he loved me as a brother, and he would say to me sometimes, "You are the truest friend I have got upon this earth." It is very simple, is it not? At length I took this man home to his wife. We went in a splendid carriage. We had many miles from London to drive, for the house had been broken up. He showed evident excitement before we got there. When we arrived I was introduced to a most sweet and gracious young thing of twentyfour, and four little children, and I was bringing these together again. Imagine what a scene it was! I thought I must now go to the very bottom of the hearts of both these people if I am to reconstitute these together, and bring this holy bond into all its beautiful sweetness in which it was at first; because you know hearts were torn asunder, heart from heart. I sat down between them, and I took her hand, and I said, "Let me speak to you as a father." I took his hand, and I said, "I wonder whether his neglect of you, and his scorn of you, has crushed all the love that you once had for him out of your heart;" and when I went on thus speaking, she sprang to her feet and clasped him in her arms and covered him over with kisses, as if there was not a man on earth worth looking at besides her own husband; and then I asked her, there was a little bit of craft about this, "Be good enough to let me have the children in." The eldest little chap came in, and I took the little fellow on my knee, and he looked at me with comical gravity, and I began to talk to the father through the child. "Oh," I said, "when thou growest up to be a man, will it ever shame thee, to say Father?' Will there ever be some dark place where thy young feet may stand and look and say, 'He lies here?' and the poor fellow laid his hand on his shoulder,

and

and was sobbing his heart out. He said, "Do forbear." I said, "Can you come together again?" and before me, hand to hand, and face to face, I believe that as pure a kiss did he implant upon her face, and she on his, as ever was given by man to woman and woman to man. Then down we fell at that table, and I could hardly speak, and they could not speak. After an hour and a half I left that house and saw them standing at the window whilst I got into the carriage, he with his arm about her neck, and she with her arm about his waist, and so the home was reconstituted. Did not I, as I sank back, almost overcome with emotion, lift my heart in a joy that none of you have ever felt that have not been abstainers, and bless God that I was one.'

Ivy Cottage; or, the Sorrows of a Friend.

the rich reds and browns of the ploughed meadow behind, the glowing colour of the pinks and roses in the garden. the inimitable thousand-tinted greens of trees, and fields, and hedges,-how enchanting, how perfect was the delight with which I viewed these! But rapidly as they had made their appearance, as rapidly they passed by, and, bit by bit, went behind me the village and its details of form and colour; and I lost it, as every night our horizon loses the sun, by swift motion; always, however, to find a new morning dawn, a new beauty succeed; and the railway journey, with its leaps over rivers, its passings by of villages and towns, its stoppages, its noisy drivings through cuttings and tunnels, and windings over embankments, and its hasty changing of views across the country, had brought with it many pleasures and many exhaustions.

Therefore it was that I was specially anxious to be back to the repose of my home, and therefore it was that another hour's delay at the station was a weary look-out for me. But it was my doom, and among boxes, and porters, and trucks, and pre-occupied passengers, to whom my presence or absence was of course a matter of the supremest indifference, I had to remain and glean what comfort I could. But an hour is not so very long a period after all; so, checking my impatient feelings, I placed myself upon one of the long platform benches, and watched, with as much curiosity as I could command, the usual émeute attendant upon a newly arrived train. Porters ran to their places, a bell was rung in the darkling distance of the further end of the station, and two fiery red eyes approached slowly, the visuals of the great dragon of commerce (we had heard the monster's fearful scream the moment before), and panting and snorting the creature dragged itself beneath our roof of glass, and disgorged its heaps of passengers from twenty mouths, while they all, unterrified and with unnatural and inappropriate nonchalance, stood beside its bulky length, or sought out for boxes, and parcels, and portmanteaus that its stingless tail had just deposited.

With some interest I surveyed the busy, much-engaged new-comers; men, and women, and children, all arrived from some unknown whence, and bound to some equally unknown whither; all as great strangers to me as though they had been dwellers in the moon, just

173

come down for an evening's trip to our mighty earth. That stout gentleman, with the great crimson rug and black leather case, who was buttoned up as warmly as though it were a December night instead of a June one (it may be the lunar world, like the antipodal, has opposite seasons to ours), and who walked with a slight halt on both legs, as from tight boots or cramp:-that tall thin lady, with the poke bonnet of immense height to add to her stature, and the short limp veil, and the kid gloves, that must have consumed at least a quarter of an hour's precious time in the getting on, so skin-tight were they, and with the much ornamented dressskirt, who rustled past me with eyes fixed steadily in advance:-those little boys in knickerbockers and high-heeled boots, and immense cravats, and pale faces, who walked beside papa, a gentleman with huge whiskers flowing on to his shirtcollar, and no beard; his white, wellshaved circular chin, an oasis in the hairy desert, suggesting a full-grown ring-worm; -were all moon-people, quite foreign, utterly unknown. To what part of our planet were they bound? How should I know? While I looked at them, like the hills and villages of my journey, they passed by and were lost, and fresh, ever fresh faces and people streamed by me, to be lost also. And to particularize again that lady who made her way towards me with no luggage to encumber her, unless the small travelling bag hanging from her arm could be called such, who was dressed in black, with a deep crape veil to her bonnet, that might or might not be meant for widow's mourning, who was she? From what valley or lonely mountain side in those upper regions of silver was she come?

The gaslight fell upon her face as she passed close to me. I regarded her earnestly. Surely that was no strange moon-face. It was older, thinner, paler than of old, the hair laid plain that used to be in ringlets, the eyes sunken and sad, but a something, a peculiar yet most familiar something, lay over the whole, undefinable but weil remembered, there sure enough, yet somehow like tho face, older, sadder, and greyer. Who was she? Where had I seen her before? I advanced, just as she was about to pass me, put out my hand, and exclaimed, Maria Benham, do you not know me?'

I must have startled her, and no wonder,