entertainment left very much in her hands, she cared for it kindly, though not without a secret wonder at the inexplicable indifference of her husband and daughter. But she did her best to make amends for it by her own friendliness, and in part succeeded.

Meanwhile, Bergan was beset by another tantalizing resemblance. Never, he thought, had he seen anything quite so lovely as his cousin Carice-with her soft, brown hair, her clear rose complexion, her large, limpid blue eyes, the lily-like droop of her exquisitely-formed head, the inexhaustible grace of her attitudes and movements -but he had certainly seen somebody a little like her. So strong, yet so puzzling, was this conviction, and so frequent the glances consequently sent in her direction, that he felt a word of explanation might not be amiss.

"Excuse me," said he, "if I seem to be looking at you almost constantly; but there is something about you curiously familiar, though it is impossible that we should have met before. I suppose I must have seen somebody that resembled you, but I cannot tell when or where."

Carice looked down, and coloured slightly. Her father came to her rellef.

"There is often no accounting for resemblances," said he. "When there is any tie of blood, however remote, we understand them, of course; but when the face of an utter stranger startles me in the street with the very smile of my sister Eleanor, or the grave look of my dead father, what am I to think?"

"One would like to know," remarked Bergan, "if there is a mental and moral likeness to match the physical one. When I fix the resemblance that eludes me so persistently in you," he added. turning to Carice, "I hope it will help me to answer the question.".

"I doubt if it does," replied Carice, quietly, yet not without a certain something in her tone that sounded almost like sarcasm. He looked at her in considerable surprise, but her eyes were turned away, and she said no

more.

Feeling as if he were walking in a mist, which everywhere eluded his grasp, while it blinded his eyes and chilled his heart, he rose to go.

"Let me see," said his aunt, kindly, as she gave him her hand," to-morrow will be Sunday, will it not? Pray let us find you in our pew at church in the morning, and come home with us to an early dinner before the evening service."

Bergan hesitated. He had no reasonable excuse, yet his uncle had not seconded the invitation. As if suddenly cognizant of the omission, Mr. Bergan now spoke.

"Come, by all means," said he, with more kindness than he had yet shown, for he could not bring himself to give a half-hearted invitation to his sister's son, “I have still a great deal to ask about your mother."

"And I," said his aunt, laughing, "have still a great deal to ask about yourself. Good night."

They stood on the piazza watching him until he was out of sight. Then Carice turned to her father. "Did he say anything about-yesterday?" she asked, gravely.

"Not a word. I should have liked him better if he had offered some explanation."

"Perhaps he did not recognize us," suggested Carice, "How could he help it?"

"I don't know-only-you were angry and I was frightened; probably our faces did not wear their natural expression. Besides, he was doubtless a little bewildered by his fall, and

"What or whom are you talking about? here broke in the amazed Mrs. Bergan.

"About my nephew, the mad cavalier who so nearly came into collision with Carice yesterday," replied her husband.

Mrs. Bergan threw up her hands. "And you let me invite him to dinner!" she exclaimed, in a tone of deep injury.

"How could I help it, my dear? Besides, he is my sister's son."

Meanwhile, Bergan found his way back to the village through the darkness, wondering what had become of the lightness of heart and cheerfulness of hope with which he had set out-he looked at his watch-only two hours before!

II.

STRENGTHENED OUT OF ZION.

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, Berganton, was a small, plain structure of brick and stone, rather prettily situated on the bank of the aforesaid creek, which flowed through the midst of the town. Its sole claim to exterior beauty must have rested on the thick vines which covered its walls, framed its windows, and climbed to the roof of its low, square tower; doing their best to atone for its many architectural deficiencies, its failure to present to the eye a certain material "beauty of holiness," in harmony with the spiritual loveliness of the unseen temple, of which it was the faint type.

Towards this church, on the morning after his visit to Oakstead, Bergan directed his steps. Meeting his uncle in the vestibule, he was soon seated in the square family pew, and had a few moments to look about him, before service.

In its small way, the church was almost as much a memorial of the House of Bergan as the old Hall itself. Sir Harry had been a fair sample of the average English Churchman of his day, with whom a certain amount of religious observance was deemed necessary and becoming, both by way of seemly garmenting for one's self, and good example for one's neighbours. If it did not reach very deep into the heart, it at least imparted a certain completeness and dignity to the outward life.

Moreover, family tradition was strongly in religion's favour. There had always been relations of a highly friendly and decorous sort between the house and the church; and to have turned his back disrespectfully upon the one would have been to show himself a degenerate scion of the other. As a natural consequence, Sir Harry did not feel that he had done his whole duty to himself, or to his posterity, until he had provided a fitting stage for the necessary family ceremonials of christening, marriage, and burial; as well as an appropriate spot for his own enjoyment of a respectable Sunday doze, under the soothing influence of an orthodox sermon, after having duly taken his share in the responses of the morning service. If this school of Churchmen had its faults, it also had its virtues. If its standard of religion was a low one, with a strong leaning toward human pride and selfish indulgence, it was better than the open irreverence and infidelity, the unblushing disregard of religious restraints and sanctions of later generations.

Under Sir Harry's auspices, therefore, the foundations of St. Paul's were laid, and its walls arose, as a kind of necessary adjunct to Bergan Hall. And his successors, with rare exceptions, had felt it a duty to add to its interior attractions, as well as to make it a continuous family record, by memorial windows of stained glass, mural tablets of bronze or marble, and thankofferings of font, communion plate, and other appliances and adornments. Some of these, no doubt, were merely selflaudatory, the fitful outgrowth of family pride; others might have sprung from a sense of what was beautiful and fitting; which was a very good thing, as far as it went though it went not much below the surface; but a few there were, doubtless, which had been consecrated to their use by heartfelt tears of sorrow, of penitence, or of gratitude. Be this as it may, they all helped (at least, in human eyes) to give the interior of St. Paul's a certain completeness, and even a degree of beauty and harmony. Still, both in its size and its decorations, the church was far inferior to the Hall. There was a vast disproportion, both in amount and quality, between the space and the furniture set apart for the service and pleasure of a single household, and that consecrated to the worship of God, and the spiritual nurture of His people. But, in the matter of preservation, as well as in answering a definite end, the advantage was greatly on the side of the church and its appointments. Wherever the Bergan hands had grown slack, or had been withdrawn, in that work, others had taken it up, for the love of Christ, and carried it forward to completion, or kept it from lapsing back into chaos.

And so, Bergan-remembering how surely the merely secular memorials of Sir Harry and his successors had been overtaken by the slow feet of decay, while these others had been saved by their connection with an institution having a deeper and broader principle of life—was. led into a natural enough, though for him a most unusual train of thought. He asked himself if Sir Harry would

not have done better, even for his own selfish end, to have given the larger share (or, at least, an equal one) of his time, care, and money, to the edifice which had the surest hold upon permanency, and was most likely to be sacredly kept for its original purpose. In our country, more than almost anywhere else, people build houses for other people to dwell in, and Time, delights to blot family names from his roll, at least on the page where they were first written. All family mansions, however fair and proud, are surely destined to fall into stranger hands, or to be given over to the Vandal occupation of decay. All families, of however lofty position, are certain to sojourn, at times, in the valley of humiliation, if they do not lose themselves in the deeper valley of extinction. Would it not have been better, then, to have foregone somewhat of the frail and faithless magnificence of Bergan Hall, and linked the dear family name and memory more closely with the indestructible institution which belongs to the ages?

And, as he thus questioned, the narrow walls, the low roof, and the insignificant adornments of the little church seemed slowly to widen and lift themselves to the grand proportions of a vast, pillared temple; and the small chancel window-doing so little, nor doing that little well, to keep alive the fair memory of "Elizabeth, wife of Sir Harry" became a great glory of pictured saints and angels, through whose diaphanous bodies the rainbowlight fell softly among a crowd of kneeling worshippers; unto whom the sculptured mural tablets, the jewel-tinted glass, the stately walls, the soaring arch, told over and over again the lovely story, and held up to view the noble example, of a race whose labour and delight it had been to build strong and beautiful the walls of Zion; and which, in so doing, had raised up to itself the most enduring, as well as the most precious of earthly monuments. How much better this than the crumbling splendours of Bergan Hall, and the fading glory of an almost extinct name!

"The Lord is in His holy temple," was here breathed through Bergan's visioned fane, in appropriately awed and solemn tones. Nevertheless, they broke the slender thread of its being. As Bergan rose to his feet, with the rest of the congregation, its majestic vista, its pictured windows, and all its rich array, vanished like the filmy imagery of a dream at the moment of awakening. But it was not without a keen sense of the contrast that he brought his mind back to the real St. Paul's, and the service going on under its lowlier roof.

Nothing remained but the harmonious voice, which had at once perfected and broken the spell. Glancing toward the chancel, Bergan saw a clergyman, with a face that would have been simply benignant but for the vivid illumination of a pair of deep-set, dark-blue eyes-a light never seen save where a great heart sends its warm glow through all the chambers of a grand intellect.

There is something marvellous in the inexhaustible adaptation of the Church service to the wants of the soul. At the same time that it is a miracle of fitness for the ends

of public worship, it has its adequate word for every secret, individual need. Though Bergan had heard it hundreds of times before, and always with a hearty admiration of its beauty and comprehensiveness, never had its rhythmic sentences fallen upon his heart with such gracious and grateful effect. Doubtless, this was owing, in great measure, to the subdued frame of mind induced by the events of the last week; but it was also due, in some degree, to the perfection with which the service was rendered. It was neither hurried nor drawled, neither grumbled nor whined, neither a rasping see-saw nor a dull monotone. It was not overlaid with the arts of elocution, nor was it robbed of all life and warmth by the formal emphasis and intonation of the merely correct reader. But in Mr. Islay's mouth it became the living voice of living hearts. The dear old words, without losing one whit of the accumulated power and the sacred associations of long years of reverent use, came as freshly and as fervently from the speaker's lips, as if they were the heartwarm coinage of the moment.

As an inevitable consequence, Bergan's responses were uttered with answering fervour. And how perfectly they met his wants! How wonderfully they expressed his sense of weakness and failure, his depression and humiliation, his new-born self-distrust, his earnest desire and determination to be stronger against future temptations. In some sentences there was a depth of meaning and of fitness that seemed to have been waiting all these years for this moment of complete interpretation. Continually was he startled by subtile references to his peculiar circumstances, by the calm precision with which his sores were probed, and the tender skill which applied to them healing balm.

Especially was he struck by the Collect for the Day, so clearly did it express thoughts and feelings too vague in his own mind to have shaped themselves into words—

"O Lord, we beseech Thee, absolve Thy people from their offences; that through Thy bountiful goodness, they may all be delivered from the bands of those sins which by their frailty they have committed."

Never before could he have so clearly understood what was meant by the "bands" of sins committed, not of deliberate intent, but through frailty. How painfully he felt the pressure of those bands! how certainly they would cramp his efforts and hinder his progress! And how singularly distinct they had become to his sight, both in their nature and their effects, by means of that old, oft-repeated, yet ever new, Collect!

With a half-unconscious attempt at divination, Bergan turned over the leaves of his Prayer-book, during the short pause before the psalm, wondering what other mystic meanings were waiting under familiar words, for his future needs. It was not without a little chill at his heart that his eye caught the opening sentences of the burial anthem.

There could be no question about that. Whatever else

might or might not be waiting for him, that was certain, some day, to be said over his dead body, and vainly to try to find entrance into his deaf ears. But when? At the end of a long life, in the midst of his days, or ere his work was scarce begun ?

His work. What was it? To walk in a vain shadow? To disquiet himself in vain? To heap up riches for an unknown gatherer? To write his name high on the temple of Fame? To become a philanthropist or a reformer? No; but to "apply his heart unto wisdom."

It was both a deep and a hard saying. Bergan felt that he could not fathom it, even while he saw how ruthlessly it struck at the roots of human pride, and lopped the boughs of personal ambition.

Meanwhile the psalm had been sung, and with a rustling of leaves and garments, the congregation had settled themselves into their seats. Through the succeeding hush, Mr. Islay quietly sent the words of his text: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest."

It was the word in season!

Bergan left the church that day, not only with a deeper sense of his own mortality, and consequent weakness, than ever before, but also with a modified view of life's work and duty. In one sense, it was a narrower view-with that narrowness which feels the need of some true, fixed centre from which to work outward, with any degree of safety and system, and, consequently, of success. began to see that he who would influence others for good, and through them the world, must first be certain of the point where his influence begins, and that toward which it tends.

He

Not that Bergan understood, or would ever be likely to understand, the full measure and real character of the change that had been wrought in him under that lowly church-roof. Up to this point, his life had been from without, inward; henceforth, it was to be from within, outward. The inner life of the soul was really begun in him-feebly, half-unconsciously, it is true-yet possessing a hidden power of assimilation and growth, that would soon bend all things to itself. Storm and sunshine, darkness and light, success and failure, would alike minister to its wants, and help it to grow fair and strong. Things most inimical to it at first sight, would but give it tougher fibre and lovelier grain; in the drought, it would but send its roots down deeper in pursuit of hidden wells; under the pruning-knife, it would but burst forth into fairer blossoms and richer fruit.

Yet it was no sudden change, for all his life had been a preparation for it. Oftenest the kingdom of God cometh without observation. The stones of the spiritual temple may be fashioned amid clamour and discord, but they are laid in their places with a silence that is full of meaning.

WE

E have not unfrequently heard it objected to collections in general, and especially to such collections as of autographs, crests, and monograms, that, in the hands of the great mass of those who engage in them, that they are meaningless, and of little or no value-that the pursuit itself involves little or no discrimination or judgment, imparts no knowledge, and tends to nothing elevating or intellectual. We dissent from this in toto. The objection is altogether founded on error. The taste for all such pursuits, and especially for the collection of autographs, tends materially to the increase of knowledge. Biographical knowledge in an especial manner, for we can hardly possess the autograph signature of any individual without being induced by it to find out something of his life and history.

The student in any department of science and art will find his historical and biographical knowledge. insensibly increased upon him, if his taste lead him, as a pastime, to collect the signatures of the learned men who have lived and who are now living to do honour to the profession to which he aspires. For instance, let the divinity student collect the signatures of the distinguished Church dignitaries and learned divines of the past and the present age. Let the medical student pursue the same plan in his own profession, making any artificial periods for the sake of classification and arrangement which his own fancy may suggest. Let the artist do the same, arranging his signatures according to the different styles of art, with dates attached to them. And we venture to affirm that all these will find that they have been, while thus amusing themselves, acquiring knowledge, both of men and things, most important, and in a degree far greater than most persons would anticipate. The same holds true, also, of those who would collect the signatures or autographs of statesmen and military and naval heroes. These signatures have an influence upon knowledge, and, in this respect, a value over and above the interest which attaches to the pursuit of acquiring them.

On very many occasions, a taste for collecting autographs has been the means of rendering good service to the cause of historical truth. But for this taste, several of our most valuable original state documents-the very bases of the history of our country-would have been entirely and irretrievably lost. It is a fact not perhaps generally known, but nevertheless positively correct, that it was the accidental presence of Sir Robert Cotton, which some years ago saved the original Magna Charta itself from being cut up into tailors' measures, to which ignoble distressing ignorance had consigned it. Mr. Upcott, Librarian of the British Institution, in a manner equally accidental, discovered and rescued from destruction, the notes and papers of the celebrated John Evelyn, and

even so recently as the years 1838 and 1839, a laudable zeal in collecting autographs became the means of revealing the wanton waste of a motley mass of most valuable and interesting historical and archæological matter, and led to the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Lords "to enquire into the destruction and sale of certain Exchequer Documents." It was this committee which elicited the appalling fact that Treasury warrants, with the royal sign manual, and other illustrious signatures from the days of the Tudors downwards-original letters of King Henry VIII., correspondence of the Leicesters and the Burghleys of Queen Elizabeth's time, lists of people "touched and cured," of state prisoners sent to the Tower, and the charges brought against them, records of the Commonwealth, memorials of the Restoration, the actual receipt of Mrs. Gwyn for her pension, and an immense variety of other matters, all serving to illustrate our national history-had been left to rot in the vaults under Somerset House; and that as much of it as was in a state to serve as waste, was sold for the sum of eighty pounds to a fishmonger in Hungerford Market. Let the reader consider for a moment what a vast amount of written documents, all of national interest, and of value, more or less, does the sum of eighty pounds represent, with waste paper at one penny halfpenny or twopence per pound? We can only judge of what was lost by the value of the little that was saved. The Government, at a heavy cost, repurchased some portion, private collectors secured a share-still, notwithstanding some part was saved, destruction did its work.

Who then knows the great good that has resulted from autograph collecting, and what, for aught we know, might result again-will not pardon the little trouble which the young amateur may give, while in pursuit of the object which he has in view. Notwithstanding Southey vented his spleen against the whole sect so stongly as to give public notice that he had entered into a "Society for the Discouragement of Autograph Collecting, which society," he goes on to say, " will not be dissolved until the Legislature in its wisdom shall have taken measures for suppressing that troublesome and increasing sect."

Dr. Phalmas professed to measure a man's modesty by the facility with which he granted the favour of his signature when the request was made to him. Notwithstanding these great authorities to the contrary, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt that society reaps a benefit from a prevalence of this taste, because of it; though masses of rubbish may be collected, that which is of real value is never likely to be lost.

With regard to the arrangement and classification of autographs, we have already given a few hints in the

course of these remarks, and perhaps what we have said may be sufficient.

The album, which appears to have been the original method, is without a doubt the best that can be adopted for preserving the signatures which we may obtain. Original specimens should be kept in one album and facsimiles in another. These two should never be mixed, for the value of any collection of the former depends of course upon their being strictly genuine. Any original signatures of deceased persons which we may obtain from letters or elsewhere, can be neatly gummed into the album; and it is a good plan to write underneath the date of the birth and death of the individuals to whom they belong. Living celebrities should be induced, if possible, to comply with the old German custom, and write their own on the page itself.

Facsimiles of signatures of historical and antiquarian interest are not without value if well done. Copies of the signatures of the kings of England form an interesting collection. The earliest royal autograph, we believe, now in existence is the small figure of a cross made by the hand of William Rufus (William II.) in the centre of the charter by which he granted the manor of Lambeth to the church of Rochester. This charter is preserved in

the British Museum, having been bequeathed to the nation some years ago, with several other interesting documents of a like kind by Lord Frederick Campbell. The next in point of date is the signature of Richard II. (Le Roy, R.E.) affixed to two documents-one of which is in the archives of the Tower of London, and the other, which relates to the surrender of Brest, is among the Cottonian Manuscripts. From the time of Richard II. the royal signatures of England continue in uninterrupted succession, and facsimiles of these are very easily obtained.

With regard to classification, the most natural plan is at once the most convenient and the most easy of adoption, both in the case of original signatures and facsimiles. Crowned heads, peers of the realm, noblemen, archbishops, bishops, and clergy, military and naval men, statesmen, physicians, lawyers, foreigners of distinction, etc., etc.; these appear to embrace the principal heads under which autographs can be arranged and classified. There are many valuable books upon this subject, which those who take an interest in it will do well to consult. Perhaps the most interesting is "The Handbook of Autographs," by F. G. Netherclift, published by John Russell Smith, Soho Square, London,

WHITTIER.

'TIS

IS twilight of the day,
And twilight of the year;
The leaves are turning sear,
The green is growing grey.
It is a little room,
So neatly dressed and still;
Which fostered roses fill
With subtlest of perfume.
A zephyr lurking by,
Betrays the curtained bed—
Did ever mortal head
On either pillow lie?

That pantomimic fire-
How clear its cozy glow!
It gestures ever so,
Behind the woven wire.

But hush! The Lady comes,

As softly as the hours;

'Tis sweeter than her flow'rs—

The melody she hums.

She deftly locks the blind,

And draws the night-shade low;
While with her gown of snow
The kitten toys behind.

Her hands are faultless fair,
Her movements all of grace;
And hers a queenly air

For such a lowly place.

She sits, and bows her head-
What do the shadows say?—
Her volume of the day
Lies

open and unread.

The beauty of her face,
Where lives a dreamy light,
No suffering shall blight,
Nor wearing years erase.

She sighs-now lifts above
The worship of a tear :
And angels waiting near,
Record a wounded love.