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The Friendly Beadle.

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THE FRIENDLY

BEADLE.

LTHOUGH I am now a very old woman, I can easily recall the mingled feelings of awe, respect, and terror, with which I regarded the Beadle of our Parish Church. His uniform was my great admiration; his cocked hat, the bright brass buttons, and his grand-looking staff, the dread of all the naughty boys in the Sunday School.

This would be considered

a very old-fashioned church now, with high square pews, well-curtained and softcushioned, galleries all round, and the organ and choir in the west gallery. But, old-fashioned as it may seem now in these days of restoration, to my youthful eyes it was everything that was stately and beautiful. In those days people used to come, I am afraid, rather late to church; and whilst the choir was singing the Morning Hymn, with which the morning service always began, the beadle was bustling about opening pewdoors to various fine ladies and gentlemen, ushering the clergyman from the vestry to the reading-desk, and during the intervals. of duty shaking the grand staff at some fidgety school children in the chancel.

One snowy winter afternoon my dear mother had gone to lie down with a bad headache; I, a little six-year old girl, was sitting by the parlour fire with Pilgrim's Progress; father had gone five miles off to his other church, and the curate was going to take the afternoon service. The church was close by, and when the bells began to chime I thought to myself it was time to get ready to go to the service as usual. So I trotted upstairs and went gently into mother's room.

'Mother dear, may I go to church?'

'Anything you like, darling,' said my poor mother, too ill to heed a word I said, and who thought I was making some childish request; only run away now, and don't make such a creaking with the door, or my poor head will break.'

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Pleased enough at such an unusual thing as going to church alone, I crept away, dressed myself, and ran across the road to the church, not observed even by our two maids, and I shut myself up in our large curtained pew. No one, except the ringers, was in the church; the beadle, I should think, was warming himself by the vestry fire, for he was nowhere to be seen. I sat down upon a hassock, and thought how grand it was coming to church all by myself, and how good I would be; then I took up a hymn-book and began to spell out the words: but the time began to seem very long before the service, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and would not keep open; and at last head sank down upon the soft-cushioned seat, and I fell fast asleep. . When I awoke the church was quite dark, the service over, and I was very frightened, cold, and hungry. Time went on, still no one came. I cried, but no one heard me. I dared not leave the dark pew, which was like a little home to me, and wander into the wilderness of the church. I cried a long time; then I thought, 'I am in God's house, He will take care of me:' so I said my little evening prayer. Then a few more tears would come at the thought of my bright, cosy nursery, and dear mother, and in the midst I think I must have fallen asleep, for when I next awoke it was broad daylight, and the cheerful sunlight was streaming into the church. This I thought was a good time for trying the doors, for I did not feel so afraid in broad daylight to leave the pew; so I tried the big door, but in vain; then the south door, then the

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vestry: all, alas! were fast locked. as I was returning sadly, and feeling terribly hungry, to my corner in the pew, the big door creaked on its hinges, and who should appear but the beadle, without his cocked hat or buttons or staff, and in an old every-day working coat!-he had come to see to the cleaning of the church.

'Why, little miss here!' he cried; 'they are hunting you high and low. Your father and mother are in a fine way!'

And taking my hand the old man hurried me home to my poor parents, who were in a terrible state of anxiety. With what joy I was received may well be imagined, for every one thought I was lost; no one had seen me in church, and my dear mother was too ill to catch what I said when I asked her leave to go; and had it not been for my old friend I might have been there for days, and perhaps starved to death. Never again did I look upon the dear old man with terror, nor did his cocked hat and brass buttons ever again inspire me with awe; but ever after I regarded the Parish Beadle as one of my best old friends.

M. F. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EAST.

TOMBS.

T was the custom of the Jews, when any

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one died, to wrap the body in linen grave-clothes, made sweet with spices, to tie a napkin over the face, and to bury it very soon. They used no coffin, but carried the body to the grave on a bier. The tomb was in some cavern, or a cave hewn out of the rock, and when the dead body was laid in it, the cave was shut up with a great stone at its mouth. The Pyramids of Egypt are the tombs of Kings who were buried within them, in coffins of white marble.

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Bear the rich hues of all glorious things?
Not there, not there, my child!

Is it far away in some region old,
Where rivers wander o'er sands of gold,
Where the burning rays of the ruby shine,
And the diamond lights up the secret mine,
And the pearl gleams forth from the coral
strand?

Is it there, sweet mother, that better land?
Not there, not there, my child!

Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy,
Ear hath not heard its deep song of joy;
Dreams cannot picture a world so fair,
Sorrow and death may not enter there;
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless

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