some rubbish possibly, but also some rich treasures for philosophic consideration.

We will endeavour to illustrate our meaning by seeing to what ends a few reflections on one curious relic will lead us.

We find our relic in an old, old farmhouse in a wild and unfrequented agricultural district.

What of light is lingering there

Is lingering light of yesterday.

It is a rude iron bracket,-I think it has a rough joint, driven into the wall beside the fireplace, at a height just even with the faces of those sitting by the hearth. Our hostess smiles to see us notice it.

"Dinna ken what that is?" she asks. “It's ye just a 'puir man!'"

She explains that in bygone days the function of this article was to hold the tightly-bound torch of fir, or the rough home-made candle which illuminated the evening labours of the fireside group, and it got its name because it was the substitute, when he failed to appear, of the travelling tramp or bedesman, who was readily admitted to shelter and food, and was expected in return to render the service of holding the light.

What a significant picture! It is impossible to dwell on all the thoughts it suggests. First, what a recognition of common humanity was in it! Then, what an unconscious sermon the poor traveller must have been to the young folks. The very sight of him was a lesson on the blessings of home, and the value of regulated labour, and the virtues of industry, sobriety and thrift. What gulfs of dark experience they must have looked into through his eyes! And yet, how were his hardships softened and cheered. Such gifts and graces as he might have, would still have their value. Sheer misfortune, not trodden down into a mere mire of misery, would still command respect. He was still in sight of upward paths if he had strength to climb them. And, finally, how free and friendly was the help which humbled itself to accept a sort of return, and how chastening was the presence of a poverty from which one was not so far removed oneself, and which one was thankfully glad that good people could make bearable.

The greatest of Scotch poets had doubtless seen such a guest at the fireside of his own godly peasant sire, and it was such a lot which he faced as distinctly possible in his own future, when in his obscure and severely struggling youth, he called on his friend Davie Sillar to remember that

The last o't, the warst o't

Is only but to beg

and at once, even in that moment of despondency,
he could recognise that this lowest lot was not
without real alleviations:-
·-

To lie in kilns and barns at e'en,
When banes are crazed, and bluid is thin,
Is doubtless great distress!
Yet then content could make us blest;
Even then, sometimes we'd snatch a taste
Of truest happiness.

The honest heart that's free frae a'
Intended fraud or guile,
However fortune kick the ba'

Has aye some cause to smile:
And mind still, you'll find still,
A comfort this nae sma',
Nac mair then, we'll care then,
Nac farther we can fa'.

What though, like commoners of air,
We wander out we know not where
But either house or hall?

Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods,
The sweeping vales and foaming floods,

Are free alike to all.

In days when daisies deck the ground,
And blackbirds whistle clear,
With honest joy our hearts will bound
To see the coming year:

On braes where we please, then,

We'll sit and sowth a tune; Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't,

And sing't when we hae dune.

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If a life of sheer labour had really brought the poet even to this hard end, it is doubtful whether his manhood would not have been far truer and happier than it became, when he was for a while. the recipient of those treacherous hospitalities of the great, concerning which Solomon warns us so pointedly. Far better to hold a candle to cheer the homely industry of a cottage home than to take the very "light from heaven," the power of brain and warmth of heart, to illuminate the senseless revelry of selfish idlers!

We know that one Scottish woman singer, of good character, and mind cultivated beyond her period, did, in her old age, become a wandering hawker, earning her way by temporary services in shaping and sewing, nursing or brewing. Thus did Jean Adam save herself from public charity till one day before her death. She may have sung her own songs at the hearths which gave her brief shelter.

A pathetic lot! And yet how different was such " a last and warst," in which all of value in the individual came out in very strongest relief, from the dead level of artificial arrangements, where the very security of provision destroys

the hope, whose vital anxiousness

Gives the last human interest to the heart.

Contrast the Scottish picture with that drawn by the English poet Crabbe, and whose colours have only deepened since his day,

With a number you

Have placed your poor, your pitiable few.

They have no evil in the place to state,
And dare not say it is the house they hate.

Like death's dread mansion, this allows net place
For joyful meetings of a kindred race.
They talk indeed, but who can choose a friend,
Or seek companions at their journey's end?
What if no grievous fears their lives annoy,
Is it not worse no prospects to enjoy?
"Tis cheerless living in such bounded view,
With nothing dreadful but with nothing new.

Then, too, I own, it grieves me to behold
Those ever virtuous, helpless now and old,
By all for care and industry approved,
For truth respected, and for temper loved:

And who, by sickness and misfortune tried,
Gave want its worth and poverty its pride,
... losing all the praise

By worthy deeds acquired in better days,
Breathe a few months, then to their chamber led,
Expire, while strangers prattle round their bed.

We have high authority warning us not to say that the former days were better than these, yet that very warning is an implied injunction to take care that to-day is better than yesterday. We know that changes must come as new conditions of life arise, but let us remember that the new is not always the true. Let us be careful in digging up and transplanting old roots which have hitherto borne good fruits, and let us, to descend to details, study rather how some of the moral conditions of old-fashioned rural life may be cultivated even in a capital city, than rush, as we often do, to impose the rough remedies called for by that city's terrible necessities upon still existing rural life. Do not start committees to discharge functions which neighbourly kindness can still overtake. Do not establish "an Institute," where real homes are still hospitably opened. Let us study that social condition, in which there was little wealth, yet in which the deepest poverty was not terrible, but had so many blessings, that it could be truly said that "the beggar was as ready to fight for his dish as the laird for his land."

Even to-day, north of the Tweed, especially in the remoter places which have been least exposed to southern influences, a new social atmosphere strikes upon the stranger. The common people may be ruder in speech and rougher in manner than their English equals, but they have a singular dignity about them, an independence which is not self-conscious, a kindliness which is not servile. One remembers that an English monarch visiting Edinburgh remarked that he had come among a nation of gentlemen. One is struck by the frank way in which handicrafts of all kinds are stated on substantial burgher tombs, which set forth on granite that will last for generations that such a man was "a mason," or "a white-fisher." There seems to be less need for anybody's standing on his dignity, so strong is the self-respect of all classes, and yet, or one should say therefore, the transition between them is more natural and straightfoward. Nobody is surprised to hear that the father of a famous professor kept a little shop, or that a certain distinguished clergyman held the plough himself in his own young days, and, of course, nobody can afford to despise the humble ranks from which such heroes have risen.

See to what wide horizons of memory and reflection one rude relic has led us-a relic which the unthinking might have thrown aside as mere "old iron." It is sad to think how many valuable monuments of the past must have been thus destroyed by thoughtless ignorance. My own father rescued a rare book-one whose " plates "

are exhibited in museums as curios-from beneath the hoofs of the horses in a stable, where heedless heirs had thrown it to be cleared out as 66 waste paper." A friend found an old parish record. full of choice glimpses into old customs and old families, lying in fragments in the lumber-room

of a manse.

But if there is so much human interest to be found in, and wisdom to be gained from, a due consideration of the material remains of the past, how much more in the remembrance of good deeds and great lives! Well sings the American poet,

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise
To higher levels rise.
The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,

And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

It is pitiful to think how we often fail to keep green the memories of people and actions which are full of cheer and inspiration for those who may be fainting by the way which these have trodden triumphantly. Boys and girls who know how many miles it is to the moon, who can rattle off the names of all the Muses, Graces, Fates, and Furies, and who, alas! alas! are sometimes eagerly watching for the daily paper to study the latest development of a divorce suit or a murder trial, often know nothing of some great and good man who lived and died in their own street-nay, do not even know that there was such an one!

How many of the young politicians and journalists-to say nothing of the office lads and workmen who bustle about the purlieu of the Strand know or remember that it was in narrow dingy Maiden Lane, that the incorruptible Andrew Marvell received the Court emissary and convinced him that the man who was quite satisfied with a bit of mutton and willing to save some of it for to-morrow was not likely to be amenable to Royal bribes?

How many people, walking up Snow Hill, remember that it was there that John Bunyan, arrested by the hand of Death while carrying out a mission of neighbourly mercy, sighted the Land of Beulah, and was led by the Shining Ones into the City of the King? Are there many who turn aside, in the squalid City Road, to muse awhile beside his tomb in Bunhill Fields? They say that few but Americans ever make inquiry about Milton's grave in Cripplegate Churchyard.

Would it do anybody harm, or good, amid the mingled gloom and gaiety, grandeur and wretchedness, of Oxford Street, to recall that it was in a little news' shop, in one of its northward turnings, that the boy, Michael Faraday, swept and did errands, his brain already astir with mighty problems, and that there he bent his kindly steps in the days of his acknowledged greatness, to find his memory lingering along with the legend of his genius and his rise-only plain Michael Faraday was transformed into a mythical "Sir

Charles"?

May it not come like a note from "the everlasting chime" borne above the loud stunning tide of human care and struggle that flows down the "Strand," if we think of worthy, heavilyhandicapped Samuel Johnson carrying all his doubts and burdens into the church of St. Clement's Danes, and there finding help and comfort to go on fighting the battle of life? It is a movement in the right direction that has put up a little brass plate in the pew where the good man knelt and praised God.

There can be no doubt that remembrance is greatly helped by the identification of localities. Inspired wisdom recognised this, when Joshua was directed to cause stones to be placed where the Israelites had passed over Jordan "for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever."

...

! An incident or a character loses somewhat in reality when one cannot give it "a local habitation," but has to tell its tale according to the method so graphically described by a great modern story-teller. "He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived. . . . The old house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its place. At first he would draw with his stick a square upon the ground to show h them where it used to stand. But he soon became gia uncertain of the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts he thought, and these alterations were confusing."

We have given most of our illustrations from London memories, because London, in a sense, es belons gs to us all, and is rich in association which fe many of its present conditions tend to resign to oblivion. But provincial cities and even the quietest country places have memories which they should not willingly let die, and which it would not be so difficult for them to cherish and preserve. These need not be only of the great or even of the gifted. Let us hope that in the widening wisdom of "the people" they will learn to understand that true human interest dwells in human endurance and heroism and dutifulness ThF wherever found, and not in the mere crimes and and cruelties of wicked kings and dubious princesses.

the

We hope that somebody knows which particular Cottage was built by the very hands of the Ploughboy-poets, Robert and John Bethune, for the comfort of their aged parents. We were charmed to see, in the High Street of Edinburgh, a record of the hopeful pluck of a lad who, buried alive in the ruins of a fallen house, was heard, previous to his rescue, encouraging his liberators

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by cheerily exclaiming, "Heave awa', chaps; I'm no deid yet." His head, surmounted by a scroll bearing this "legend," smiles down upon the shoeless "bairns," and sore struggling folk of the locality, and perhaps helps some to ply their daily task with lighter feet, feeling that there is No hap so hard but may with time amend." The little incident only took place in 1861, so its hero has not yet had time "to found a family," or surely the "reddest" radical would not grudge them his head and saying for their "crest" and "motto."

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Let us feel that it is a sacred duty to do what we can to keep green the remembrance of all good people and all good deeds-of anything by which we feel the world might be richer and better, and which we would like to see multiplied and extended. Let the rest pass. Nay, of undoubted evil, let us rather facilitate the sure oblivion with which Nature overtakes it. There was a clever thing done in a London house which had been polluted by a great crime of the sensational kind which, alas, so often attracts a morbid curiosity. The murder had been committed in a large room. This was promptly subdivided into two or three small apartments and the windows hitherto existing were closed and new ones made. Nobody could say, "It was done here," or, It was done there." The scene of the

66

sin had vanished!

Let the memories which we strive to cherish be of the kind which we feel may have a memorial even in the City of the King. Let us not allow ourselves to dwell with prurient interest on scenes and legends, however gilded by historic names and the lustre of genius or beauty, whose actors, if finally repentant, can only recall them with bitter regret and shame. Let us remember the martyr's eternal triumph, but let the persecutor's name find a merciful forgetfulness as soon as it can. Let us, in our homely human measure, copy the example of the Divine Father, who "as far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us," who moderates our finite judgments, by declaring through his apostle Paul, that some whose works may have to perish, shall themselves be saved "yet so as through fire," and who soothes the heart of His restored children by declaring

Their sin will I REMEMBER no more.

ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.

were no journals or diaries, save a very brief record of some of his early travels, and note-books of engagements," remarks Mr. Hodder, who, however, has woven together a narrative which ought to stimulate all young men to live noble Christian lives.

It is well to remember in these days of keen competition, and in some instances of practices which will not go by so harmless a name, that, from the first, the house of Morley was controlled by those who were model men of business; that is to say, they were hard-working, thoroughly conscientious in giving customers the best value for money, and liberal towards their staff of assistants. Under such management, the house grew uutil it became the largest concern of the kind in the country; and its chiefs were what they were because they were Christian men. Hence, it happened, that no one was ever more favoured as regarded the general surroundings of youth than Samuel Morley. He had only to follow in the footsteps of his father to become what he did; while the teaching and example of his mother was never at fault. The old mansion at Hackney, where he was born, is a relic of the near suburbs when they were really rural retreats within walking distance of the city. Its old garden of three acres was a paradise of its kind; and amidst its fragrant shades often wandered as visitors many of the best known Christian men of their day.

When Mr. Morley was a young man the times are described as being in a state of transition : many things that had become obsolete in ecclesiastical practice, in the political world, in social life, were passing away to give place to something better. Costly wars, public abuses, and bad customs had prevailed until the country was beginning to find the effect to be intolerable; but now that there was a clearing of the air, Mr. Morley heartily entered into the spirit of the times, and by attending public meetings, and by doing his part in helping on any good work that came under his notice, he was unconsciously preparing himself for greater service in the future. Being a politician from the first he was, of course, interested in Parliamentary reform, which became a leading question of the day; but he was more concerned about the great extension of mission enterprise, both at home and abroad, which became the most striking evidence of a revival of Christian life. It seemed to happen quite providentially that, thus early in his career, Mr. Morley should come within the influence of two vigorous minds, each of which in some degree left its mark upon him. "If he was spiritually the son of James Parsons, of York," it is remarked, he was mentally the son of Thomas Binney, of the Weigh House." Mr. Binney was his lifelong friend, and exercised great and lasting influence over him.

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When the young man had developed into the maturer Christian of middle-age, the demands of business became increasingly pressing, the working day of ten hours being too short for doing all that called for attention. It was at such a time, however, that Mr. Morley, after his father's example, began to give more earnest attention to

philanthropic work. We find it said of him at this period that "half the Congregational ministers of London knew him personally, and wer entertained by him either at Wood Street or i his own house; and it is no exaggeration to all, that half the schemes of usefulness in which the denomination was engaged, were discussed at those interviews." Then as wealth was increasing, and he had a heart to diffuse it for the good of Christ's cause, correspondence increased to such a degree that he was warned of the danger of attempting to do too much; but being in the full vigour of his manhood, he was hardly in a moal to give heed to kindly-expressed innuendoes however well-timed.

As a man intensely interested in the general well-being, and social elevation of the industrial classes, Mr. Morley well knew that the best service that could be rendered them was to press the Gospel upon their acceptance. In the conviction that existing agencies could not overtake the needs of the ever-growing population, he was wont to say, "We must go to the people. He had great faith in the poor being reached by pious and earnest men of their own order-men of the colporteur type, who in the same person could unite the purveyor of wholesome literature, the lay evangelist, the sick visitor, and general adviser of the poor. When it is remembered what were the demands made upon his time by an extensive and rapidly-growing business, it is no small testimony to his earnestness when we find him visiting nearly every county in England for the purpose of organizing or stimulating home missionary work. On all such occasions his energy never seemed to flag. It is said that "when a conference was to be held at Worcester, he asked the minister of the chapel in which they were to meet, whether he thought that five gentlemen in the neighbourhood could be induced to give 100% cach for lay evangelical work. The minister thought it was wholly improbable. Not so did Mr. Morley; he spent the best part of the day in privately canvassing those who would be present and the result was that he laid on the table a list of subscriptions amounting to 18501. from nine persons!"

With similar characteristic energy, he entered into all schemes which had for their object the bettering of the condition of the working classes: and he was one of the first to startle some of his friends by pleading for preaching in theatres and music-halls. It will be remembered by many friends of the poor in South London with what earnestness and open-handed liberality he sup ported the far-reaching work carried on by the late Mr. G. M. Murphy at the Lambeth Baths. He was for supplementing the ordinary methods of church work by any lawful agency tha promised to arouse the common people from their lethargy as regards spiritual things. that time many good persons were shocked at the Gospel being proclaimed in places provided for mere amusement. Mr. Morley, on the contrary, manifested a spirit of bold innovation.

At

I believe in the use of any building," he said. "My notion of consecration means the work done in the building, and whether it be a theatre, a

garret, a cellar, or anywhere, if you can get the people to come there, I say, earnest Christian people should be found trying with five, fifty, or five hundred, as the case may be, to lift them up to the higher life."

Mr. Morley's extreme solicitude for the working classes led him to advise them to practise total abstinence from intoxicants before he became himself an example of what he taught; and at length he was converted to teetotalism in quite an unexpected way.

"Do you go without yourself?" called out a labouring man, interrupting him in one of his speeches. "I dare say, if the truth 's known, you take your glass or two of wine after dinner, and think no harm of it," added the questioner. "Now, sir, do you go without yourself?"

When Mr. Morley told this story, he would remark, "This rather shut me up for an instant; but when I looked at those poor fellows whom I had been asking to give up what they regardedno matter how erroneously-as their only luxury, I had my answer pretty quickly. No,' I said, but I will go without from this hour.'

Since charges of close-fisted policy would at times be preferred against him, it may be asked if his example as an employer of labour always corresponded to his precepts on the platform.

On one occasion, the secretary of a Trade Society, after investigating one unfounded charge, found that four hundred work-people at Suttonin-Ashfield received sixpence a dozen more for makin g hose than other manufacturers were in the he bit of paying. It was added, "These four hundred men make, on an average, one thousand dozen of hose a week, and during the last four years, Mr. Morley might thus, had he been so inclined, have put the sum of 52001. in his pocket; but instead of that he came over to Sutton during the distress to sympathise with us, and

not only that, he left us 100l. to be given to the poor of the place."

The care that was shown in the control of the London house corresponded in all respects with this solicitude for more humble dependants. Men of sterling moral character alone were eligible for appointments; but when admitted these found that every possible attention was paid to their Comfort and well-being. Then, beyond all, Mr. Morley endeavoured to inspire his subordinates with his own spirit; and so successful was he in this, that the staff in Wood Street became a sort of Christian brotherhood, pledged to do something for others who were out of the way of Gospel privileges. A mission was carried on in the vicinity of Golden Lane, which some years ago was the headquarters of the street-traderswork of courts, and alleys, notorious for its vice and squalor. When all was organised, and a missionary appointed, Mr. Morley himself presided at a meeting of the promoters, when, in an earnest manner, he "dwelt upon the responsibility the young men had taken upon themselves in having committed the house to such a great and important work." At the same time he urged them on to make the enterprise a success, and promised on his own part substantial help.

-a net

As he grew older, and as wealth increased, the

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judicious distribution of his money became a main business of life. The manner in which the great bulk was given away is pretty generally known; it went in a multitude of small sums to assist both clergymen of the Established Church and Nonconformist Ministers in pastoral work, and occasionally large amounts such as 5000l. to the Memorial Hall, and 6000l. for securing Exeter Hall for the Young Men's Christian Association; but, in addition to these, numbers of poor ministers and struggling private individuals frequently received assistance. These cases were too numerous, and of too delicate a nature to be told to the general public; and Mr. Morley would hardly care to let one hand know what was done by the other in such matters. Nor was he ever anxious about the prestige which his munificence naturally earned for him; and he seems to have been virtually the founder of many institutions which flourished without being associated with his name. According to Lord Shaftesbury's testimony, he was "content to be anything or nothing" so long as good could be done.

"No

one has ever transgressed against him as I have,” added the earl," and I could tell you of a hundred instances in which he did all the work, and I had all the honour." He also showed his wisdom in making his gifts, whenever practicable, act as a stimulus to the liberality of others.

During his term of parliamentary life Mr. Morley rendered good service when the great matter of elementary education was before the country; and later, he cheerfully undertook the onerous labour of the London School Board chairmanship.

That Mr. Morley was a good and profitable neighbour was pleasantly demonstrated when he removed from Stamford Hill to Leigh, near Tonbridge, in 1870. For generations to come the village will feel the benefit of what he was enabled to do in improving the drainage and water-supply, as well as in making larger provision for its spiritual and educational needs. Then, "At the beginning of each new year," as the present vicar of the parish tells us, "Mr. Morley was wont to give a substantial tea to the workmen in his employ at Leigh, and their families, to the number of some hundred and fifty, after which he presented, with friendly and appropriate words, a present, consisting of some useful articles, to each one who worked on the estate." In every possible way, as the recognised squire of the parish, he promoted the welfare of the inhabitants. On the one hand he helped the vicar and aided in building a new vicarage, and on the other hand he erected a Nonconformist chapel. While staunch in his beliefs, and unfaltering in the principles he avowed, he cared more for the sectarian aim. progress of truth than for any

He was thus a servant of God and a friend of the people a man who ever sought the grace of God in order that he might improve to the utmost the talent committed to his care. He so far made his mark upon the age that he left the world better than he found it.1

The Life of Samuel Morley. (Hodder & Stoughton.)

G. H. P.

By Edwin Hodder.