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intellect or a single devout life that they may exclude.

But neither in the retention nor in the abolition of these local impediments is the main interest of the ministry of the Church of Scotland in the times that are coming. Confession or no Confession, subscription or no subscription, Established Church or Free or United Presbyterian, there is other and worthier work for you to accomplish. There are, on the one hand, the moral evils which you have to combat, the rough manners, the intemperate habits of large numbers of your fellowcitizens. There are, on the other hand, the high and pure traditions of former times which you have to maintain; the appropriation of whatever pastoral activity or keen intellectual ardour may be seen in other communions. There are those words and works of greatness to which I referred in my earlier address, and the actual examples which you have or have had before you in your own generation. In these there is more than enough to and exalt youroccupy selves and others, and to show that the Church of Scotland is still able, and is still proud, to hold its head among the Churches of Christendom. It is for you to welcome with a just pride its acknowledged glories. Place before yourselves the noble thoughts which have been enkindled, not by German, not by Anglican, but by your own pastors and teachers. Remember how one has taught you, in language never surpassed, the connection of religion with common life, and the claims of the one universal religion to acceptance by the very reason of its universality; how another 2 has shown you the high value of theology, viewed in its long historical aspect, and the yet higher grandeur of religion; how 3 another has taught you that, however great is the Church militant or the Church dogmatic, there is yet a greater Church, the Church beneficent; how

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one has endeavoured to represent to you the relation of religion to culture, another 2 of religion to philosophy, and 3 another of religion to ritual; how the how the still small whispers of spiritual life, though no longer heard from the farther shore of the Tay or of the Clyde, still make themselves felt by those whose ears are attuned to their heavenly harmonies; how many an eloquent voice is yet heard from the pulpit of ancient abbey or populous city or mountain village; how inspiring is the example of the venerable teacher whom the Church of Scotland sent out to India some forty years ago, and who still bears the greatest name of living Indian missionaries; how invigorating and stimulating is the memory of the foremost Scottish minister of our age, who, though gone, yet still seems to live again amongst us in his own flesh and blood, and whose commanding voice still exhorts us, as with his dying words, to be "broad with the breadth of the charity of Almighty God, and narrow with the narrowness of His righteousness." I might enlarge the roll-I might go back to the worthies of earlier days-to Carstairs,7 whose memory was recalled of late by a descendant worthy of himself — to the great literary leaders of the Church in the last century, to Chalmers and Irving. In our own, I might speak of your most famous living countryman, who, though winding up the threads of his long and honourable life at Chelsea, has never disdained the traditions of the Scottish Church and nation, still warms at the recollection of his native Annandale, still is fired with poetic ardour when he speaks of the glories of St. Andrew's.

1 Principal Shairp.

2 Professor Knight.

3 Pastoral Counsels by the late John Robertson; Reforms in the Church of Scotland, by the late Robert Lee, D.D.

4 The late John McLeod Campbell, and the late Thomas Erskine.

5 Dr. Duff.

6 Life of Norman McLeod.

7 Life of Carstairs, by Dr. Story.

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It was once said in mournful complaint of the highest ecclesiastic in Christendom, "For the sake of gaining to-day, he has thrown away to-morrow for ever." Be our policy the reverse of this be it ours to fasten our thoughts, not on the passions and parties of the brief to-day, but on the hopes of the long to-morrow. The day, the year, may perchance belong to the destructives, the cynics, and the partisans. But the morrow, the coming century, belongs to the catholic, comprehensive, discriminating, all-embracing Christianity, which has the promise, not perhaps of this present time, but of the times which are yet to be.

"O fortes, pejoraque passi Mecum sæpe viri

Cras ingens iterabimus æquor."

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PART V.

CHAPTER XIII.

YOUNG MUSGRAVE.

LILIAS did not say much about the adventure in the wood; nothing at all indeed to Mary or any one in authority; nor did it dwell in her mind as a thing of much importance. The kind of things that strike a child's mind as wonderful are not always those which would most impress an older person. There were many things at Penninghame very curious and strange to the little girl. The big chimneys of the old house, for instance, the sun-dial in the old garden, and on a lower level the way in which Cook's cap kept on, which seemed to Lilias miraculous, no means of securing it being visible. She pondered much on these things, trying to arrive at feasible theories in respect to them, but there was no theory required about the other very natural incident. That an old woman should meet her in the woods, and kiss her, and ask to be called granny, and cry over her, there was nothing wonderful in that; and indeed if, as she already suspected, it was no old woman at all but a fairy, such as those in the story-books, who would probably appear again and set her tasks to do, much more difficult than calling her granny, and end by transforming herself into a beautiful lady-this would still remain quite comprehensible, not by any means unparalleled in the experience of one who had already mastered a great deal of literature treating of such subjects. She was interested but not surprised, for was it not always to a child or children by themselves in a wood, that fairies did speak? She told Nello about the meeting, who was not surprised any more than she was; for though he was not very fond of reading

himself, he had shared all his sister's, having had true histories of fairies read to him almost since ever he could recollect anything. He made some cynical remarks prompted by his manhood, but it was like much manly cynicism, only from the lips, no deeper. "I thought fairies were all dead," he said.

"Oh, Nello; when you know they are spirits and never die! they are hundreds and hundreds of years older than we are, but they never die; and it is always children that see them. I thought she would tell us to do something

"I would not do something," said Nello, "I would say, 'Old woman, do it yourself.""

"And do you know what would happen then," said Lilias, severely, whenever you opened your mouth, a toad or a frog would drop out of it."

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"I should not mind; how funny it would be! how the people would be surprised."

"They would be frightened-fancy! every word you said; till all round there would be things creeping and creeping and crawling all over you; slimy cold things that would make people shiver and shriek. Oh!" said Lilias, recoiling and putting up her hands, as if to put him away; "the frogs! squattling and jumping all over the floor."

At this lively realization of his problematical punishment, Nello himself grew pale, and nervously looked about him. "I would kill her," he cried, furiously; "what right would she have to do that to me?"

"Because you did not obey her, Nello."

"And why should I obey her?" cried the boy; "she is not papa, or Martuccia, or-Mary."

"But we must always do what the

fairies tell us," said Lilias; "not perhaps because they have a right-for certainly it is different with papabut because they would hurt us if we didn't; and then if you are good and pick up the sticks, or draw the water from the well, then she gives you such beautiful presents. Oh! I will do whatever she tells me."

"What kind of presents, Lily? I want a little horse to ride-there are a great many things that I want. Do fairies give you what you want, or only what they like?"

This was a puzzling question; and on the spur of the moment Lilias did not feel able to answer such a difficulty. "If you do it for the presents, not because they ask you, they will not give you anything," she said; "that would be all wrong if you did it for the presents."

"But

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Oh, Nello; you are too little, you don't understand," cried the elder sister, like many another perplexed authority; "when you are older you will know what I mean. I can tell you things, but I can't make you understand."

"What is it he cannot understand?" said Mary, coming suddenly upon their confidential talk. The two children came apart hastily, and Lilias who had two red spots of excitement on her cheeks, looked up startled, with lips apart. Nello laughed with a sense of mischief. He was fond of his sister, but to get her into trouble had a certain flavour of fun in it, not disagreeable to him.

"It is about the fairies," he cried, volubly. "She says you should do what they tell you. She says they give you beautiful presents. She says,

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"Oh, about the fairies!" said Mary calmly, with a smile, going on without any more notice. Lilias was very angry with her brother, but what was the use? And she was frightened lest she should be made to look ridiculous, a danger which is always present to the sensitive mind of a child. “I will never, never talk to you again," she

said to him under her breath; but Nello knew she would talk to him again, as soon as her mind wanted disburdening, and was not afraid.

And of how many active thoughts, and wonderful musings, and lively continued motion of two small minds and bodies, the old hall was witness in those quiet days! Mary coming and going, and the solid figure of Martuccia in the sunshine, these two older and more important persons, were as shadows in comparison with that ceaseless flow of existence. The amount of living in the whole house beside, was not half equal to that which went on in the motherly calm of the old hall, which held these two small things like specks in its tranquil embrace, where so much had come to pass. There was always something going on there. Such lively counterfeitings of the older life, such deeply-laid plans, dispersed in a moment by sudden changes of purpose, such profound gravity upset by the merest chance interruption, such perpetual busyness without thought of rest. Their days went on thus without hindrance or interruption, nothing being required of them except to be amused and healthy, and competent to occupy and please themselves. Had they been dull children, or subject to the precocious ennui which is sometimes to be seen even in a nursery, no doubt measures would have been taken to bring about a better state of affairs; but as they were always busy, always gay, they were left completely to their own devices, protected, sheltered, and ignored, enjoying the freedom of a much earlier age, a freedom from all teaching and interference, such as seldom overpasses the first five years of human life. Mary had her whole métier to learn in respect to the children, and there were many agitating circumstances which preoccupied her mind and kept her from realising the more simple necessities of the matter. It had cost her so much to establish them there, and the tacit victory over fate, unnatural

prejudice, and all the bondage of family troubles, had been so great, that the trembling satisfaction of having gained it blunted her perceptions of further necessity. It was at the risk of everything that made up life to her that she had declared herself the protectress of these children, and the effort of making up her mind, if need were, to forsake all else rather than give up this charge, had been a great one. Indeed, even now it was scarcely over, for it was still possible that the squire might assert himself, and banish those helpless creatures whom he had never noticed or acknowledged; so that it is less wonderful that Mary, having her whole mind bent upon the need of protecting and keeping them safe in the house of their fathers, should have forgotten that her protection and love, though so much, were yet nothing in comparison with the many wants of these little beings who were dependent upon her for all the training of the future, as well as all the necessities of the present. It was from a humble quarter that enlightenment first came to her. Her teacher was Miss Brown, her maid, who had early melted to the children, and who by this time was their devoted vassal, and especially the admiring slave of Nello, whom, with determined English propriety, she called Master John. Miss Brown's affection was not unalloyed by other sentiments. Her love for the children indeed was intensified by strenuous disapproval of their other guardians

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Martuccia "with her foreign ways," who was "no good," a qualification which varied between absolute uselessness and a great deal of active harm and Miss Musgrave, who was ignorant as a baby herself, and knew nothing about "children's ways." Between these two incapable persons her life became a burden to Miss Brown. "I can't get my night's rest for thinking of it," she said to Cook, who like herself had the interest of many years' service in "the family." "I would up and speak," said Cook. No. 211.-VOL. XXXVI.

"I'm

"Speak!" cried Miss Brown, always speaking; but what can a body do, when folks won't understand?" It is the lament of the superior intelligence over all the world. Lilias herself had expressed the same resigned consciousness of the impossibility of enlightening Nello; and both were quite unconscious that Dr. Johnson, not to say many another distinguished person, had said it before them. Miss Brown, however, was not resigned. People seldom are in her class, in which the missionary sentiment is stronger than elsewhere. And by and

by things came to a pitch which she could put up with no longer. She opened the subject finally when she had her mistress at an advantage— when she was standing behind Miss Musgrave "doing" her hair, and so enjoyed the opportunity of seeing all the changes of her countenance in the glass.

"I wonder," she said suddenly, introducing the subject, "if these foreigners have our ways of counting, and know what numbers means

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"Numbers?" said Mary, puzzled"and who are the foreigners? Martuccia? We do not meet with many here--"

"Oh, one is enough for me, ma'am," said Miss Brown, with a toss of her head. "I never can be bothered with her name

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"Martuccia?-it is the same name as your own, Martha-she seems a harmless, good-natured creature. How does she bother you?" said Mary with a smile.

"Good-humoured! I don't call it good-humoured, Miss Mary. I call it humouring; and the dear children they're sharp, and sees it-sharper than the likes of us-like a needle Miss Lily is, that sharp! You wants all your wits about you to keep that child straight."

"To keep her straight! Why, Martha how often have you told me you have never seen a more delightful child?"

"That was Master John, Miss Mary

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