men an intense love of Scotland without hate of any other land; while Béranger, though he inculcated a love of France, inculcated still more strongly a love of military glory, only to be achieved by warfare with other nations. Both were philosophers, but the philosophy of Burns was imbued with a deeply religious and Christian spirit, while that of Béranger was a mild Epicureanism, based upon no higher principle than that of the duty of present enjoyment expressed by the phrase Dum vivimus vivamus,' or 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'

More than three-quarters of a century have elapsed since the death of Burns, and his fame, small at that time and scarcely reaching to England, has gradually increased until it has made the circuit of the globe. Every year, on the 25th of January, the anniversary of his birth is celebrated as if he were the patron saint of Scotland. In every quarter of the earth, in the British Isles, in the United States, in Canada, in South Africa, in India, in Australia, in New Zealand, wherever half a dozen Scotsmen can be gathered together to repeat the song of Auld Lang Syne, and to assert with honest pride the truth which they have proved in their lives that a man's a man for a' that,' a festival is held in his honour, and patriotism shines with redoubled fervour at the mention of his name. It may be said of his renown, as Daniel Webster, the great American orator, said of the power of Great Britain, that it follows the sun in its course, and, keeping pace with the hours, circles the earth with one unbroken strain' of wholesome, invigorating, and patriotic song.

And while scarcely a quarter of a century has elapsed since the death and public funeral of Béranger, his fame, which then overshadowed the land, has been gradually diminishing. In our day it is almost wholly confined to France and to a small section of his countrymen. He has, in fact, been elbowed out of popular favour by Madame Thérèse and the vulgar lyrics of La Fille de Madame Angot and the Grande-Duchesse. Even his patriotic songs, if not quite forgotten, have ceased to be heard. They have had their day and served their purpose, and have become almost as obsolete as those of Clément Marot and Ponsard. The French seem to have room in their hearts but for one truly national song; that song is the Marseillaise, and nothing that Béranger ever wrote approaches it in popularity. Its poetry and music are in perfect accord; and it reigns supreme in the heart of the French people-the more's the pity! because it glorifies aggressive war, which is out of date, and takes no account. of the progress of humanity.

CHARLES MACKAY.

VOL. VII.-No. 37.

KK

THE PROPER USE OF THE CITY

CHURCHES.

It is reported that to the accomplished and intended destruction of City churches will shortly be added the demolition of Sion College, one of the most interesting buildings in the heart of London.

The City has too few ancient monuments that we should part with one of them without regret, and too few open spaces to give up even so small a one as the quadrangle of Sion College without at least a protest against the ground being covered by warehouses for buttons and tape. If, indeed, the clergy of Sion College need a larger room in which to meet, it would seem far better that they should occasionally take a public hall for their purpose away from the rest of their building.

The value of such a quiet nook, of so peaceful a library, of the time-worn building, seems far to outweigh any mere utilitarian arguments which may be brought forward on the other side. The interest that attaches to such a spot may perhaps be sentimental, but it is surely much when sentiment can cling round a space in the busy City, which certainly does not suffer from an excess of that quality. It is to be feared that if Sion College goes, so will also go its neighbour, the precious relic of old London Wall, which stands opposite its gateway; and two more links which connect London with its past will be swept away for ever beyond recovery.

No amount of money, even for a deserving charity, no extended room for the irritating volumes of modern, theological controversy, no amount of space in which parsons of different schools should exercise their lungs, can weigh for one moment in my mind against the arguments for retaining the building where and as it now is. But the reckless spirit of destruction which sweeps away every old monument because its use is not at the moment apparent, is unlikely to stay its hand at the gateway of Sion College. It, too, will probably have to disappear, as well as many of the churches, the incumbents of which havebeen ex officio fellows of the College.

Attached to almost every church in the City has been its small churchyard, and with the demolition of the church there comes, only too often, the block of buildings over not only its site, but its neighbouring consecrated enclosure, so that another of the rare, if small, open spaces is lost to the City.

Now these spaces are not only ventilating shafts through which a purer air may drop into the midst of the crowded town, but the actual trees or shrubs which are, or may be, planted in them, are a rest to the tired brain and eye, none the less real because those who benefit by them are perhaps unconscious of their subtle influence. To many who daily pass through Stationers' Hall Court, the great plane tree in the middle of that otherwise sordid enclosure brings precisely the same rest, in kind, though not, of course, in degree, that the Alps bring to the tired worker on his yearly holiday. There are many who, on their way from station or omnibus to places of business, deliberately go a few steps aside, in order to pass that and other trees which grow in the few quiet corners still left to London. In the churches themselves there are to be found old monuments, old decorations, precious relics of past years, old pictures, and, not least, old customs. The churches have curiously tended to preserve the memory of days when they were almost in the fields, when even the City of London was not unlike some of our larger country villages, in that the streets and lanes still preserve the old church paths, and mark the boundaries of parishes.

To the archæological student these are of the highest value, and they link us with the past in perfectly unexpected ways. It may not be generally known that there are shrines in the City, to which, in spite of the Protestantism of 300 years, Catholic pilgrimages are even now, though secretly, performed; and Pilgrim Street is still worn by the steps of those who are devoutly led to where once stood the shrine of St. Paul, as well as by the hundreds who hurry to Ludgate Hill Terminus.

London is again, in spite of the many exaggerations of modern architects, tending to become what once it was, a singularly beautiful town. Sir Christopher Wren knew perfectly well what he was about when, in rebuilding the City after the great fire, he designed the steeples of his various churches to harmonise with his great work at St. Paul's, the effect of which on the mind Mr. J. J. Stevenson, in his recent work on House Architecture, compares to that of a great mountain.

It is the most reckless Vandalism to destroy what of beauty is left, and it would seem little to ask, but more than has been granted, that at least those who pull down the churches might leave, for beauty's sake, the towers and spires still standing.

It is not, however, on these grounds, strong as they are, that I would rest my real argument for the preservation of City churches and City parishes. The reason for which they have been condemned has been a plausible one. The population, we are told, has left the City: there is no one to go to church. All round the City there has grown up a ring of dense population, for whom there is no church accommodation. Pull down, therefore, the useless buildings; unite

three or four parishes into one; apply the funds to the erection of churches in the suburbs; replace what is now a sham by a reality.

These arguments seem to break down on every point. The population has not left the City; on the contrary, there is no spot in the world where so many human beings are crowded for the greater part of each week as the City of London.

If the bishops and other supporters of this spoliation scheme are going in for the extreme Protestant notion that Sunday is the only day on which men have souls to be saved, or can worship God, let them by all means be consistent and abolish the Prayer Book, which speaks of daily prayer, and has singularly little recognition of Sunday.

I maintain that there is absolutely no place on earth in which a multiplicity of church services might be so well attended, or prove such a refreshment to the weary, such a healing to the worn spirit, as the City of London; that there is scarcely any place in which a wise clergyman would have so great opportunities of usefulness among the young, the active, the intellectual, the sceptical, and the curious-in fact, among just those classes at whom the parson hardly ever gets.

Of course, if a London incumbent sticks to his dreary routine of "Dearly beloved brethren,' and his no less dreary sermon, he can do nothing; but he will do much if he chooses to adapt himself to the needs of his strange, abnormal, gigantic population.

Not long ago an experiment of the kind I mean was tried at St. Ethelburga's in Bishopsgate Street on Wednesdays and Fridays, and, I think, every day during Lent and Advent. There was a short. choral service at a quarter past one, lasting from twenty minutes to half an hour. The church was crammed at every one of these services; and such also, I believe, has been the result in like cases. But there came a foolish outcry about Ritualism, to which the parson no less foolishly yielded, and the church was closed.

What I want to see is the same sort of thing done in many churches. There are congregations for them all, and not only for one, but for several services at each. Let any City incumbent honestly try the experiment of having a short service at one or more hours in the middle of every day, between twelve and two o'clock. Such service might consist of a couple of chanted psalms, a short lesson, two or three collects, and a metrical hymn.

Let the parson send round to the houses of business within the parish a short circular stating what he means to do, and his wish. to gather about him a voluntary choir. Let him, I should say, carefully eschew anything in the way of a sermon, except that perhaps occasionally, and not as of set purpose, he might speak a very few words of explanation or exhortation after the lesson. Let him also allow it to be distinctly understood that, for an hour

before and an hour after his service, he is in the vestry, or in some room off the church, to give advice or instruction or help of any kind to those who would speak to him; and so soon as he has gained the confidence of persons by his mode of conducting the service, and by the few words he may say from time to time, he would find not only tens but hundreds of young men whom he might gather round him for good works of various kinds, and for their own mutual profit.

With them, if need be, he might make a raid upon the sin and misery, the ignorance, and the apathy of the parishes for which the new churches were to be built-of which more hereafter.

Of course all these services would not be conducted on one and the same plan. The Low Churchman, the High Churchman, the Broad Churchman, would each have his own way, and would gather round him his own special congregations, and he would also have his particular good works in which he would get his congregation to take part. One man might carry on a teetotal association through and by means of his services, another night-refuge work, another the reclaiming of the fallen, and so on; and then, if need be, he might fairly shut up his church on Sundays, and take his holiday, or occupy his day in such way as he pleased.

And remember it is not alone the orthodox, or those who might be called the religiously disposed, that would value these services. There is a religious sentiment which has to be satisfied totally apart from all questions of dogma. There is a rest to the spirit that is to be gained where others are praying, even by those who do not pray.

One who well knew boy-nature spoke of the advantage of the services in Eton Chapel, when describing the assembling of the boys, in these words:

They come from field, and wharf, and street,

With dewy hair and veined throat;

One floor to tread with reverent feet

One hour of rest for bat and boat.

It was simply the rest that he valued in a quiet place, quite independently of the prayers and the aspirations which might be offered there; and this I believe to be most true to nature. I know that the services [at St. Ethelburga's were often the greatest refreshment to a wearied brain, and that one who turns with disgust from the ordinary Sunday services was often glad of the ten minutes or twenty minutes spent there.

Again, why should not the parson, when he has once gathered his congregation round him, put his church at their disposal? We often see abroad, in Southern Germany for instance, a congregation without a priest, led perhaps by the village schoolmaster, or some other acting as