the Shadow of that God, is on my mind and heart. Who is this God? where? how? in what? O Agellius, you have stood in the way of him, ready to speak of yourself, using him as a means to an end."

"O Callista," said Agellius in an agitated voice, when he could speak, "do my ears hear aright? do you really wish to be taught who the true God is?"

"No; mistake me not," she cried passionately: "I have no such wish. I could not be of your religion. Ye gods! how have I been deceived! I thought every Christian was like Chione. I thought there could not be a cold Christian. Chione spoke as if a Christian's first thoughts were good-will to others; as if his state were of such blessedness, that his dearest heart's wish was to bring others into it. Here is a man, who, so far from feeling himself blest, thinks I can bless him; comes to me,—me, Callista, an herb of the field, a poor weed, exposed to every wind of heaven, and shriveling before the fierce sun,- to me he comes to repose his heart upon. But as for any blessedness he has to show me, why, since he does not feel any himself, no wonder he has none to give away. I thought a Christian was superior to time and place; but all is hollow. Alas, alas! I am young in life to feel the force of that saying with which sages go out of it, 'Vanity and hollowness!' Agellius, when I first heard you were a Christian, how my heart beat! I thought of her who was gone; and at first I thought I saw her in you, as if there had been some magical sympathy between you and her; and I hoped that from you I might have learned more of that strange strength which my nature needs, and which she told me she possessed. Your words, your manner, your looks, were altogether different from others who came near me. But so it was: you came, and you went, and came again; I thought it reserve, I thought it timidity, I thought it the caution of a persecuted sect: but oh my disappointment, when first I saw in you indications that you were thinking of me only as others think, and felt towards me as others may feel; that you were aiming at me, not at your God; that you had much to tell of yourself, but nothing of him! Time was I might have been led to worship you, Agellius: you have hindered it by worshiping me.»

C

MOTHER AND SON

From Loss and Gain'

HARLES leapt from the gig with a beating heart, and ran up to his mother's room. She was sitting by the fire at her work when he entered; she held out her hand coldly to him, and he sat down. Nothing was said for a little while; then, without leaving off her occupation, she said, "Well, Charles, and so you are leaving us. Where and how do you propose to employ yourself when you have entered upon your new life?"

Charles answered that he had not yet turned his mind to the consideration of anything but the great step on which everything else depended.

There was another silence; then she said, "You won't find anywhere such friends as you have had at home, Charles." Presently she continued, "You have had everything in your favor, Charles: you have been blessed with talents, advantages of education, easy circumstances; many a deserving young man has to scramble on as he can."

Charles answered that he was deeply sensible how much he owed in temporal matters to Providence, and that it was only at His bidding that he was giving them up.

"We all looked up to you, Charles; perhaps we made too much of you: well, God be with you; you have taken your line." Poor Charles said that no one could conceive what it cost him to give up what was so very dear to him, what was part of himself; there was nothing on earth which he prized like his home.

"Then why do you leave us?" she said quickly: "you must have your way; you do it, I suppose, because you like it."

"Oh really, my dear mother," cried he, "if you saw my heart! You know in Scripture how people were obliged in the Apostles' times to give up all for Christ."

"We are heathens, then," she replied; "thank you, Charles, I am obliged to you for this:" and she dashed away a tear from her eye.

Charles was almost beside himself: he did not know what to say; he stood up and leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece, supporting his head on his hand.

>>

"Well, Charles," she continued, still going on with her work, "perhaps the day will come her voice faltered; "your dear father" she put down her work.

"It is useless misery," said Charles: "why should I stay? Good-by for the present, my dearest mother. I leave you in good hands, not kinder, but better than mine; you lose me, you gain another. Farewell for the present: we will meet when you will, when you call; it will be a happy meeting."

He threw himself on his knees, and laid his cheek on her lap: she could no longer resist him; she hung over him and began to smooth down his hair as she had done when he was a child. At length scalding tears began to fall heavily upon his face and neck; he bore them for a while, then started up, kissed her cheek impetuously, and rushed out of the room. In a few seconds he had seen and had torn himself from his sisters, and was in his gig again by the side of his phlegmatic driver, dancing slowly up and down on his way to Collumpton.

THE SEPARATION OF FRIENDS

From Lyra Apostolica›

O NOT their souls who 'neath the Altar wait

DR

Until their second birth,

The gift of patience need, as separate

From their first friends of earth?

Not that earth's blessings are not all outshone
By Eden's angel flame,

But that earth knows not yet the dead has won
That crown which was his aim.

For when he left it, 'twas a twilight scene
About his silent bier,

A breathless struggle, faith and sight between,
And Hope and sacred Fear.

Fear startled at his pains and dreary end,
Hope raised her chalice high,

And the twin sisters still his shade attend,
Viewed in the mourner's eye.

So day by day for him from earth ascends,
As dew in summer even,

The speechless intercession of his friends.
Toward the azure heaven.

Ah! dearest, with a word he could dispel
All questioning, and raise

Our hearts to rapture, whispering all was well,
And turning prayer to praise.

And other secrets too he could declare,
By patterns all divine,

His earthly creed retouching here and there,
And deepening every line.

Dearest! he longs to speak, as I to know,
And yet we both refrain:

It were not good; a little doubt below,
And all will soon be plain.

L

THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD

(AT SEA, JUNE 16TH, 1833)

EAD, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home
Lead thou me on!

Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,- one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on.

I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead thou me on!

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;

And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

I

AFTER DEATH

From The Dream of Gerontius'

WENT to sleep, and now I am refreshed:
A strange refreshment; for I feel in me
An inexpressive lightness, and a sense
Of freedom, as I were at length myself,
And ne'er had been before. How still it is!

I hear no more the busy beat of time,—

No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;

Nor does one moment differ from the next.
I had a dream: yes, some one softly said,
"He's gone;" and then a sigh went round the room;
And then I surely heard a priestly voice
Cry "Subvenite"; and they knelt in prayer –
I seem to hear him still, but thin and low
And fainter and more faint the accents come,

As at an ever-widening interval.

Ah! whence is this? What is this severance?
This silence pours a solitariness

Into the very essence of my soul;

And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet,
Hath something too of sternness and of pain,
For it drives back my thoughts upon their spring
By a strange introversion, and perforce

I now begin to feed upon myself,

Because I have naught else to feed upon.

Am I alive or dead? I am not dead,
But in the body still; for I possess
A sort of confidence, which clings to me,
That each particular organ holds its place
As heretofore, combining with the rest
Into one symmetry, that wraps me round
And makes me man; and surely I could move,
Did I but will it, every part of me.

And yet I cannot to my sense bring home,

By very trial, that I have the power.
'Tis strange: I cannot stir a hand or foot,
I cannot make my fingers or my lips
By mutual pressure witness each to each,
Nor by the eyelid's instantaneous stroke
Assure myself I have a body still.
Nor do I know my very attitude,
Nor if I stand, or lie, or sit, or kneel.

So much I know, not knowing how I know,
That the vast universe, where I have dwelt,

Is quitting me, or I am quitting it.

Or I or it is rushing on the wings

Of light or lightning, on an onward course,

And we e'en now are million miles apart.

Yet is this peremptory severance

Wrought out in lengthening measurements of space,

Which grow and multiply by speed and time?