himself, and also to the Pope, if it must be so. For the holy father knows his power abroad, and makes terms now, with a will of his own.

From Household Words.

JANE MARKLAND.

A TALE.

For us in this country, who are even now struggling with the last remains of the difficulty to secure civil instruction independently of ecclesiastical control, the view of the opposite extremity of the struggle is useful. On the Continent, Popery is gaining ground exactly as Absolutism advances; Protestantism in like manner yields by whole states-Hungary fallen, Belgium tottering, France herself no longer neutral. It would, however, be greatly to misconstrue this spectacle if we were to derive from it no more than the impulse to engage in an anti-Popery agitation. If you seek to meet Popery doctrinally and spiritually, you can only do so by rivalling its own despotic measures - by forbidding it to preach or to think after its own fashion and dictating another; by destroying, in short, that very freedom of the atmosphere in which genuine Popery cannot survive. In thorough freedom Popery becomes absolutely harmless like a mephitic gas in a high wind. In the United States, Popery cannot maintain even the nominal statistics of its hereditary population. In no tabulated statement of the religious denominations in the American Union shall find any you numbers equivalent to the indubitable heirs in blood of the Catholic immigrants. The priests of Ireland well know that fact, and hence their dread of emigration. Their flocks might become wealthier across the Atlantic, but Peter's pence are not a staple of American produce. But how is it that this tremendous spiritual engine becomes powerless on the other side of the sea? Because in the great republic there is absolute freedom for all sects, and possession of temporal authority for none. It is that privation of temporal power which leaves the ecclesiastic without power to coerce. felt even in Italy, where Sardinia has been endeavoring to establish a gradual Protestantism by withdrawing civil authority from ecclesiastics; but, wanting Protestant support, Sardinia has yielded under the threats by which Austria backed the Pope. If civil power be left in ecclesiastical hands, it will still be an object towards which Rome would work by systematic encroachments. She has almost regained in France what she is trying to regain in England; her chances of success being exactly in proportion to the restricted state of opinion and education.

This is

Nor flexile limbs to give the motions grace.
And glowed with lovelier life at every stroke,
As from the shapeless block Apollo broke
So glows with freshening charms the homeliest
When warm affection plies the sculptor's trade.
When young Jane Markland came to teach our
school

maid,

So mild the mistress learning won the child,
The village children loved her gentle rule;
And hardest words grew easy when she smiled.
But not all smiles; the teacher knew to frown
And keep disorder by a whisper down ;
Heavy her brows when idlers mocked her
reign,

And, half by chance, her hand would touch the

cane;

So ermined judges thrill the crowd with awe
By useless mace, and sword they never draw.
Our curate-white his hair and warm his heart,
By merit fitted for a loftier part,

came

But pleased and happy 'mid the flock he tends,
Unmarked by bishops-rich in humbler friends,
Our curate ne'er grew tired of lauding Jane,
And soared at once to Ciceronian strain:
"Since first," he says, " to teach our school she
I scarce believe the village is the same;
A neatness now pervades our cottage rooms;
Our cottage walls are sweet with summer blooms;
I find a book on every table spread,
Where morn and eve the word of God is read;
Neat prints-the fruit of gathered pence

bestow

Refinement never dreamt of long ago;
The weather's self seems better than of yore;
The school-boys sweep the road before the door,
And then, in all she does she's so sincere,
T is pity she's so very plain, my dear.”

Yes; Jane was plain; in truth, I've often heard
A stranger paint her by a harsher word.
For coarse she was in feature, dull her eyes,
Her gait ungainly and enlarged her size;
Yet ne'er came child of Eve bereft of all
The charms, Eve's only dowry since the fall;
Some link remains by which the bond we trace
Between the loveliest and the plainest face.
Tells us the ugliest is a woman still;
Some one expression that, with instant thrill,
White teeth had Jane, and lips that well exprest
Each thought, fear, feeling of her gentle breast.
One night, when winds that had been loud all
day

And left the trees unmoved, while overhead
Beneath the troubled moonlight died away,
Large jagged clouds o'er all the blue were spread;
Swiftly across the sky their squadrons passed
As if for safety flying from the blast;
You seemed to hear the tempest as it swept
Though sound was none, and calm the village

slept.

friends,
Bids them go home; but speaks with honor due
To watchful Jane, and tells her what to do.
Then, muttering many curses, for display
Goes homeward, shivering timbers all the way.
His are no curses; even our priest declares
They 're but a topsy-turvey kind of prayers;
A sort of enmity that fires no lead,
But volleys on its starving foes- with bread.

Jane and the widow watched the youth's repose,
And helped him home when earliest morn arose.
His was the farm that close and sheltered lay
'Neath the tall Downs that guard our tiny bay;
A rock-strewn farm, with many a deep ravine,
Where babbling runlets run their course unseen,
Till 'tween split rocks they sparkle into day,
Or roar in jets and noiseless glide away,
Humble the home where Widow Snow abode,
But picturesque and lovely from the road;
For climbing creeper hid the mouldering wall,
And clustered roses made amends for all;
A leasehold farm, with such a term to run,
It might outlast, she said, her grandson's son.
By favorite names each little field was known,
And save in name the fields were all her own;
And scarce more pride can fill an emperor's
breast,

When countless armies march at his behest,
Than filled poor Widow Snow when she surveyed
Her twelve fat cows beneath the elm-trees' shade,
But pride- unblest with riches—is a snare;
And many a grief had Widow Snow to bear.
A farmer she; a pew at church her own;
Yet ne'er aspired to silk or satin gown,
While tradesmen's wives, even nursemaids
of place,

out

Rustled in silk and veiled themselves in lace.
But pride had heavier falls; for, as he grew,
The hopes she cherished in her son were few.
Loving to her he was; but idle, wild-
He tired of home, and revelled while she toiled;
He scorned the land that filled her heart with
pride,

But cast his net; the tireless ore he plied,
Mixed with the common crew, half-shared a boat,
And ne'er was happy saving when afloat.

Nor scorned the home that had been dull before.
When Jane walked up at evenings there was he,
Kind host, to hand her countless cups of tea,
To press the muffin while it yet was warm,
And all the rural dainties of the farm;
Nor this alone, but books he tried to read;
If dark the sense Jane helped him at his need.
A slate he bought, and toiled with many a fret,
Through sums, and weights, and measures dry
and wet.

The maid still aided when a puzzler came,
And joy at her assistance drowned the shame.
Once said his mother, "What a girl is Jane!
How good her heart! Alas, that she's so plain!"
John oped his eyes as if he scarcely heard
Or strove to attain the meaning of the word.
Plain ?" he exclaimed; "I know not what you

66

The mother archly smiled, and blushed the son.
When first they saw her at the Whitefield stile,
Said Widow Snow, "Just tell her of her smile."
But silent sat the youth the evening through,
And never hours before so swiftly flew.
When Jane rose up to take her homeward way,
'John," said the mother, "has a word to say;
He'll see you through the yard and past the stile;
He wants to tell you, Jane, about your smile."
No smile had Jane; so well her face she knew,
How many its defects, its charms how few,
She felt offence; her voice grew sharp and clear:
"I did not fancy John was so severe."
Quickly she went; abashed the young man stood,
And could n't have o'erta'en her if he would.

A week passed on; John Snow was nowhere found,

They searched the village, tried each nook of ground.

A herd had seen him take the upland track,
With stick in hand and bundle on his back;
But none had heard him tell his journey's end,
Nor on what day his coming to attend.
Poor Widow Snow was all o'ercome with grief,
But Jane came up once more and brought re-
lief;

A change came o'er his life since that dread When harsh experience showed the tempest's power.

"And hates the Whitsun ales and all their show."

began, "He's caught at last some little spark of man. No molly-coddle now with bulls and cows, And such live lumber pressing down his bows, But". here his eyes were mentioned" he 's now bore

Small comfort this; but, when some days went by,

A broken slate the widow chanced to spy, And on the fragment this short line appears, "Tell Jane she's not to marry for three years." Harsh pangs on this through Jane a minute passed,

"The man!" she said, "he mocks me to the last!''

But, in long nights of talk with Widow Snow,
And tears that did not fail at times to flow,
She learned what thoughts his bashfulness con-
fined;

And strange, sweet fancies filled her wondering

"If John were here !" dear memories awoke, One thought possessing both, though neither spoke.

A heavy footstep sounded at the door,

The handle turned, and who stood on the floor?
Toil-worn he seemed, like common sailor drest,
Blue jacket, shining hat, and hairy vest;
Across his neck two wooden boxes hung,
These at his feet with heavy sound he flung.
"You do not know me, mother?" Yes, the tone
Of the loved voice revealed him all her own;
And in his arms she lay !- but still his eye
Was fixed on Jane who sat in silence by.
She helped the widow on a chair to place,
And both sat gazing in the stranger's face.

planned,

Crossed the wide seas a man before the mast-
And, armed and eager, to the gold world past.
There week by week I added to my store,
Heaped grains on grains till I required no more,
And here I'm landed on my native shore."
Then with a kick he showed the boxes' weight-
"Five hundred ounces is my golden freight
Enough," he cried, " to crown my best design.
Oh, Jane! oh, mother! what a bliss is mine!"