clustered pillars, Gothic architecture, beautiful monuments, nor stained glass to recommend it; and yet it has lived in my memory to this day. The church, outside and inside, was more remarkable for its simplicity than for anything else. It was beautifully simple. Soon after I entered it the organ struck up that fine old tune in which the hundredth psalm is usually sung, and the congregation burst forth with the words

'O enter then his gates with praise,
Approach with joy his courts unto!

Praise, laud, and bless his name always;
For it is seemly so to do.'

A branch of ivy, which had been allowed to grow through a broken pane, ran round the sounding-board or canopy over the pulpit, and hung down in festoons around the head of the preacher: and I am not likely to forget what fell from the lips of that faithful minister of the gospel. He was speaking on the text, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life,' John xiv. 6; and his closing remarks were these: If Christ be the only way to heaven, and you are not walking therein, in what way are you walking, and to what place do you expect it will lead you? This plain question may well make the ears of the thoughtless tingle; for it has less to do with this world than with the next-less to do with time than with eternity. We are in the way to

eternal life, or to eternal perdition. With all the joys of everlasting life, and the terrors of everlasting death before you, I ask you, then, for the last time, If Jesus Christ be the only way to heaven, and you are not walking in that way, in what way are you walking, and to what place do you expect it will lead you?" I thought these were awful words, Edwin, when I heard them; and I think they are awful words now. May we ever be found walking in the way, and then we shall find the end to be eternal life."

"I should have wondered, indeed, if you had forgotten that church; the ivy round the pulpit, and the words that were spoken by the minister, were quite enough to make you remember it. I see you have done sketching pictures to-day, but I shall hope to have a few more to-morrow."

The desolate churchyard with the inscriptions on the broken stones-The churchyard with the fine monuments, sculptured marble, gold letters, and gilt palisades-The cheerful churchyard lit up with sunshine-Conclusion.

"AT last we are come to churchyard pictures, Edwin; and these you will, perhaps, expect to be a little shadowy. But I think some ought to be drawn of a different character; for, as the poet says

'Why call we that a place of gloom,
A spot for woe and weeping,
Where, peaceful in the silent tomb,
Our Christian friends are sleeping?

Oh, rather strew fresh flowerets round,
Their heavenly hopes relating,
Who, slumbering here in holy ground,
For golden crowns are waiting.'

"But churchyards are very gloomy places." "The use to which they are applied is enough to cast a gloom around them. We are apt, Edwin, to think more of the body's resting-place than of the spirit's heavenly home. I remember a very desolate churchyard, in which the dead seemed to lie utterly forgotten by the living; for the church, from what cause I cannot tell, had been allowed to fall into ruins. Time was when the people of the village met together there on the sabbath, standing in the porch, or in the broad walk, or round the stone sun-dial, ready to go into church as soon as the chimes had done playing; but, since then, many a winter's snow had fallen on the old shattered walls, and the lonely graves were left neglected and desolate. The thistle, the dock, and the nettle spread over the place, as though it were their own; and the birds by day, and the owls and bats by night, held their screeching revels there without being disturbed."

"That must, indeed, have been a lonely place."

"It was; and yet the words graven there on some of the broken and moss-grown stones affected me more deeply than those which I have read in churchyards abounding in monumental marble. There was a broken stone that bore the inscription, "He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more,' Job vii. 10. And another, on which were graven the words, 'As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness,' Psa. xvii. 15. And a third, on which the words were hardly legible, It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body,' 1 Cor. xv. 4244. And a fourth, with that animating text of Scripture, more than half defaced, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God,' Job xix. 25, 26."

"Those are all very striking texts."

"They appeared in that desolate churchyard more striking and solemn to me than when read in other places. I know a churchyard wherein there are at least twenty very fine monuments to be seen at once: in one,