These reflections passed through my mind as I came away from St. Peter's, London, on GoodFriday; they recurred as I sat on the evening of Whitsun-Tuesday in the Church of St. Katherine Cree, in London, awaiting the Flow

It may easily be imagined that it would be but rare to find really earnest and eloquent preachers in churches avowedly kept open because they are good livings for the said clergyman, and represent so much patronage in the hands of the lords spiritual or temporal. The

remaining around these churches never enter them; they will find less reality there than in the gossip of the public house; they would find not a man dealing with their condition, but a phantom of the kind described by Emerson: “I once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to say I would go to church no more. Men go, thought I, where they are wont to go; else had no soul entered the temple in the afternoon. A snow-storm was falling around us. The snow-storm was real; the preacher merely spectral; and the eye felt the sad contrast in looking at him, and then out of the window behind him into the beautiful meteor of the snow. He had lived in vain. He had no word intimating that he had laughed or wept, was married or in love, had been commended, or cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and acted, we were none the wiser for it. The capital secret of his profession-namely to convert life into truth-he had not learned."

is more important than ever that we should | himself upon what was before him, not on what ponder well the lessons which the history of was to be before us, and his work was rooted that Church has written for us. And I have in the need of the hour. sometimes thought that one secret of the power it has exerted has been its love of beauty. Its dogmas and superstitions have been hidden away under a dead language; their repulsiveness has not been obtruded on the common people, who did not understand the language iner Sermon. The church is one of those already which they were formulated, much less the dog- mentioned in that region of this metropolis mas themselves. What the Church has put for- from which the home life has ebbed away more ward has been beauty-beautiful music, flam- and more for many generations, leaving it to ing windows, noble architecture, and floral fes- the week-day interests of men who pass their tivals and processions. There is a holiness of Sundays in the suburbs, and on that day shudbeauty as well as a beauty of holiness. With der at the bare mention of "the City." their purer light, the Quaker movement has decreased because they did not perceive that outward beauty is the natural physiognomy of inward beauty. Another secret of the Roman Catholic success has been that the preaching in their Church has been more specialized than that of the Protestant churches. The only reg-poor who are doomed to dwell in the tenements ular thing for which the Catholic churches exist is the service, the hymns, chants, and decorations. The sermon is occasional. Protestantism made the pulpit the main thing in the church—a fixture on the spot where the Catholic altar stood; but the Catholics put the pulpit on one side. It is arranged on wheels with grooves, and is wheeled out only when the priest has something to say from it, which is not every Sunday. When a special saint's day, some event or question, has arrived, the pulpit is wheeled out, and the priest preaches to minds prepared and expectant. These things are, in the Roman Catholic Church, so embedded in the hard ores of superstition that it requires a good deal of refining to get at the pure metal; but I think we may say that it would be a good thing for all of our churches if they, in the first place, recognized that Truth has a right to be held up to the people invested with every beauty that art or eloquence can bestow-even if it be carried so far as in the Greek Church, where they will ordain no priest unless he be handsome; and, in the next place, that every sermon should be occasional, related to the time and event. This is only to say that no one should ever preach from any pulpit unless he has something to say. Of course, to a rich and furnished mind, there would not be Sundays enough in the year to deal with the events that arise. It is very certain that the power wielded by Theodore Parker arose in a great measure from the fact that his every sermon was occasional. The people knew that they would find the day interpreted at the Music Hall-the last fugitive returned, the statesman that had faltered, the problem that was up. The "Christian Year" of John Keble was a book of pressed flowers preserved from ancient seasons; the discourses of Parker were the living blooms of the Human Year. In reading his works one is astonished to find how little there is in them applicable to these days; but the fact explains his power in his own time. He concentrated

St. Katherine Cree-whose dismal doorway and ugly steeple, with a cock perched on it, would be uninviting in any case—is ordinarily as vacant as the rest; but on the evening of Whitsun-Tuesday, though all amusements and attractions were at their fullest, this old church was crowded to the last point of standing-room. And it was all because a service was announced related to the season, to nature, and one not put down in the prayer-book. It was all the more attractive because, while it was occasional, it was also ancient; for every sane mind finds a beauty in what is ancient. There is some difficulty in tracing the historic origin of the Flower Sermon; but there is little doubt that it took the place of some old offerings of flowers and first-fruits by the pagans to their gods; and that in it the faith of the present cherishes a bloom bequeathed it from the faith of the pre-historic past. It is the relic of the Festival of the Sun, to which were offered the finest of the flowers with which its heat had clothed nature. This is indeed the origin of

Whitsuntide itself, as the word indicates. | the service begins. It opens with a hymn sung "Whit" is the English form of the German to the tune of "Hampton :"

"weih," sacred, and an older form. It means "sacred," as in the German name for Christmas-"Weihnacht." Whitsun means, therefore, the Sacred Sun. I hope that the preachers present on this occasion, when they saw the crowd before them, took the hint, and resolved that hereafter their discourses should be as real to all who came as the flowers amidst which they had come to worship.

"While earth itself decays,

Our souls can never die:
Prepare them all to sing Thy praise
In better songs on high!"

All join in the singing; every tongue is loosed; the old walls fairly blossom with jubilant notes. The old organ catches the inspiration, and breaks out into glad peals that must have surprised itself. Then follow the intoned psalms, set to the music of Tallis-great music, now sobbing with penitence, now luminous, as with light breaking through clouds. What psalms are these for the poor of London to sing and hear? "The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor." "He shall come down like rain on the mown grass." "The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works."

In some respects the display of flowers was disappointing. Bouquets were attached to the pillars, and one or two were on the pulpit; but the floral decorations of the church were stinted. It had been advertised, "Each young person attending this special service is requested to carry a bouquet of flowers;" but flowers in London are luxuries, and the people who dwell around St. Katherine Cree are all poor. Yet a goodly number of those who came brought flowers, many wearing them in their bonnets or coats. Occasionally a smile passed as some ladies of uncertain age came in, bearing particularly large and aggressive nosegays, which seemed to assert that they were the youngest of the "young persons" mentioned in the handbills. But to most of those who came the occasion had evidently a deeper and more serious meaning. There entered two elderly and most wretch-"The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the ed-looking women. Their faces were bloated and distorted by the demon of Gin Lane; they were filthy and ragged-altogether most miserable. They came in timidly, looking each side suspiciously, as if afraid that they would be turned out. Each of them bore in her hand a cluster of fresh moss-roses-it must have taken the price of at least two glasses of gin to purchase them-which they clutched, and now and then looked at fondly and smelled, as if the flowers symbolized some little corner in their withered hearts not yet trampled on by pauperism and crime beyond the power to bear a few straggling blooms of kindness and hope. Still more touching to me was the hesitating entrance of two poor unfortunates of the street, still young, and preserving some traits of beauty in their marred faces. The policeman at the door scowled on them as they shrank in, and some laughed at the faded finery they wore. I could only see that they had white lilies in their hands, and hoped that they represented some white possibility in each-a little substitute for the alabaster box with its fragrant tribute to One who could look beneath the defilements of Sin, to the tears welling deep in the heart that "loveth much." Then came in the children, with their radiant faces, sunshiny hair, and diamond eyes, each waving his or her flow-ed. After the Evening Service, which, for a er like a banner of childhood-unhaunted by any dream that the wretched and bloated ones they passed by were once just such happy fairhaired children as they!

At length the vast congregation is still, the organ greets us with a cheerful voluntary, and

cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests." "He appointed the moon for seasons; the sun knoweth his going down." "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches." Thus sang these poor people. They came, most of them, from dens of poverty and toil, from hopelessness and pain; but the little optimists of nature, the flowers, had touched them, and they sang as if there were not a woe nor a want in the earth. The Germans call the primrose the key-flower (Schlüsselblume), after the legend that its yellow hue is got from the gold under the earth; and their fairy lore says that the child who finds the first primrose, or key-flower, may with it unlock doors, invisible to others, which lead to vast treasures. But I concluded at St. Katherine Cree that every flower was a key-flower to unlock hid treasures of faith and hope in the heart.

We next had the "Magnificat" and the "Nunc dimittis," sung to the music of Goss, and an anthem from the same old composer, who also fed among the lilies, as any one who has heard his music to the words, "The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season," need not be remind

wonder, was admirably read, the congregation joined with the same heartiness and unanimity as before in singing one of the sweetest hymns in the language to one of the gentlest and most touching strains-for who does not know and love old "Christchurch ?"

"By cool Siloam's shady rill,

How sweet the lily grows!
How sweet the breath, beneath the hill,
Of Sharon's dewy rose !"

istence. Now, I say, they must be very poor creatures who do not love flowers. But what is the meaning of these flowers that we love so dearly? They mean the boundless love of God. God might have made a world without flowers: I don't say what kind of an earth it would have been, but I mean he might have given us a place to eat in and a place to sleep in, and enough to support our poor existence. But after giving us all those necessary and useful things, his heart fairly overflowed with love, and he added the flowers!"

If Heber had written no verse but that, he would have deserved to have his grave in India adorned with every flower that gave its tint to the human heart through the ages ere it could reproduce their revelations in such hymns as his. The preacher of the occasion was the Rev. Dr. Whittemore, well known as the editor of the juvenile periodicals, Sunshine and Golden Hours, and for many writings for the young. After this Dr. Whittemore went on to deal A tall, large, and handsome man with a with the existence of sin and misery in the broad, genial face, and an amount of humor earth, and how they managed to get into the and vivacity in him which find themselves un-universe of a flower-creating Deity; but these, der a bushel in sombre St. James's, where his explanations, seemed to me to decline so he usually preaches - he arose in the pulpit far beneath his exordium that I feared the latwith an air that said plainly, "For once I ter might be spoiled, and all the flowers in the mean to let my heart play a little outside of church droop under a theological blight. So my black gown." He took his text from the I and a lad I had in charge concluded that the Song of Solomon, "The flowers appear on the Flower Festival and Sermon for 1870 was for earth." And he began: "Who doesn't love us closed, and came away, bearing only pleasant flowers? I ask all the children here, for I memories of the same, and with fresh convicmean to suppose that only children are here. tion that Solomon in his glory was not arrayed This service is for children. There are, it like our lilies, nor any doctor of divinity investseems, older people here; we will not turned with a theology half so wise and compendthem out, children, but we will forget their ex-ious as our violets.

ANTEROS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "GUY LIVINGSTONE," "Sword and Gown," "SANS MERCI,"
"BREAKING A BUTTERFLY," ETC.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

ment in the very shifts and stratagems to which they are driven; the lie trips too glibly from

NCE more an interval of some months must their lissome tongue to be painful in the utter

that to the chief characters in this story it to the betrayed as to the betrayer. In their brought no material change.

From honor to dishonor, from innocence to guilt, from safe tranquillity to incessant perilis the change much greater in the passage from life to death?

Yet no less a one had come over Lena Atherstone. Of the different stages thereof, or of the times or seasons of its accomplishment, it is not needful to write.

"They were together, and she fell."

All the variations and fioritures with which you could broider it would hardly make that sad, simple theme more expressive.

Kerneguy had not far misjudged her when he conceived her "willful or reckless to any degree; but scarcely, under any provocation, cowardly, malicious, or mean. On the whole, very nearly a grand character; but of the kind which is wrecked much oftener than more ignoble ones."

There are women who, more from triviality than utter depravity of nature, contrive to flourish, like green bay-trees, in such an atmosphere as that in which Lena was now compelled to live. They seem to find a pleasurable excite

hearts, if not with their lips, they could always
warble the wicked refrain:

"C'est le mal qui fait du bien;
C'est la piqûre de la rose;

Si on le sait c'est peu de chose
Si on l'ignore ce n'est rien."

But Lena could not carry her guilt so gayly. Constitutionally quite fearless, she was beset by none of the terrors which form part of the punishment of many in like case; nevertheless, she did not escape her share thereof. The passion to which she abandoned herself, engrossing as it was-it was the one passion of her life, remember-still left her leisure for prospect and retrospect. Both these might have stings of their own; but a trial that came almost hourly was harder to endure. Familiarity with wrongdoing did not make it easier to her to look on the face of the man she wronged.

Lena was not a very apt dissembler, and any one less absolutely unsuspicious than Lord Atherstone must have guessed ere long that something was amiss. But the quickness of perception and straightforward common-sense which served Ralph well in ordinary circumstances seemed absolutely to fail him here.

There is a disease, much dreaded by the hunters and trappers of the Northwest, called "night-blindness." Those who are stricken by it may be keen-sighted as Hawkeye himself while day endures; but when the sun has once fairly sunk below the horizon there fall on them a blackness through which pierce neither moon nor stars, and a helplessness beyond that of dotage.

Even so Ralph Atherstone, when the light that for a brief space had brightened his home began to fade, groped hither and thither, darkling; and there was none to lead him by the hand.

more on himself than on the woman whose happiness he had meant to secure-ay! and meant still-with all his heart and soul and strength. And she had seemed happy, too, in a quiet fashion, during the past year. It was hard to be forced to realize-not that he put it to himself so poetically, you may be sure that there was a worm at the root of a plant that promised fairly.

At the color of these musings no one could have guessed, watching Lord Atherstone's bearing toward his wife, either when alone with her or in others' presence. That he never dreamed of making a confidante of Marian Ashleigh it is needless to say; nevertheless, her sharp eyes read the state of things just as accurately as if every phase had been set down for her

certain night that you wot of, she had learned almost as much as, for the present, she cared to know.

A change in his wife's demeanor he did notice, no doubt. He saw that her spirits were more than variable, and that, instead of being languid and indifferent, she was now often rest-benefit in black and white. Of a truth, on a less even to irritability; but he imputed this to any save the right cause. First he thought that the dullness of Templestowe was beginning to tell upon her, and he strove to provide To one not aware of all the circumstances her with more amusement both at home and she might have seemed easily contented; for abroad. When this failed-for Lena seemed not a syllable of the words whispered in the rather to shrink from than invite society-he library at Erriswell had reached her ears; and, fell back on another supposition, bitter, no when she ventured twice or thrice to peer wadoubt, but still wide of the bitterer truth. She rily through the doorway, there was nothing in had overmuch of his company, he thought-a the attitude of the pair within that need rearough, uncongenial company at the best. No sonably have waked suspicion. Yet, I repeat, wonder it wearied her; and perhaps the very Marian Ashleigh learned then enough, and effort to dissemble this weariness tried her more than enough, for her purposes. That letnerves. This, too, he endeavored to amend.ter of Archibald Kerneguy's, every line of which On one pretext or another he contrived to be abroad most days-generally alone, for Lena's keenness for hunting seemed to have left her, and it was only the nearest meets that she attended-and when he returned home, though he occasionally looked into his wife's boudoir to tell her what the hounds had been doing, he never lingered there, as in the old times, but retreated to the library, whence he did not emerge till the dressing-gong sounded.

she could have repeated by rote, had given her
the key to it all. She caught a glimpse-the
briefest one, it is true, but still a glimpse of
Lena's face just after the fatal confession had
been murmured. And Marian could interpret
its story almost as accurately as if she had
overheard the converse from first to last.
less accurately did she interpret Lady Ather-
stone's sudden weariness that evening; the
change in her demeanor afterward, more marked
from day to day; and the augury of the cloud
that thenceforth overshadowed Templestowe.

Not

Had this exemplary person been forced to work for her living, she would have been invaluable to any secret police; for, without any

al instincts of a finished detective. She knew that it was not well to be overhasty or overeager even in the collection of proof, much less in the production thereof; and was never likely to hinder the ends of justice through stinting the allowance of "rope." Having no special dislike, as you are aware, to eaves-dropping, she was not so fond of the amusement as to practice it wantonly.

They dragged heavily, these solitary hours more heavily than any of those that had made up the sum of Ralph Atherstone's stirring life. He had few literary resources, as you may imagine; indeed, a glance at the day's paper, or the skimming of a magazine, was about the ex-practice in that line, she had all the professiontent of his reading, and he did not grow more studious now. Perhaps a book might lie on his knees but it was seldom if ever opened as he leaned back in his arm-chair opposite the fire, so motionless that only from the gleams shooting ever and anon from under his heavy, bent brows could you have guessed he was not sleeping. He never did sleep on these occasions. Indeed-though he contrived to conceal this from Lena-the night was often far spent before his eyes were fairly closed; and yet time was when even a wound, when its fever had abated, would scarce have kept him wakeful. And while he sat there ruminating, wander as they would, his thoughts always came back to the one starting-point. Perhaps he had made a fearful mistake, after all, and the penalty-if penalty was owing-must light not

On the occasion of Glynne's visits to Templestowe—they were not too frequent, but, by an odd coincidence, they always chimed in with Lord Atherstone's absence at a distant meet or shooting party-Lady Marian displayed infinite tact and discretion. While she remained in the room, she did not attempt to watch, even furtively, the words or looks either of hostess or guest, and did her best to keep the conversa

supposed to escape from the kindly North Country. At the worst of her struggles and trials her verve and good-humor had made her a welcome if not an honored guest at many houses; and, now that she had no special object in being agreeable, she was pleasanter than ever-pleasanter not only to talk with, but to look upon. Divers lines had vanished from her face; and the brightening and softening of her color were in no wise owing to art. She moved, too, more briskly; and, altogether, seemed to draw new life from her respite from cares. For Miles, the prodigal, had grown thriftier or luckier of late, and now contrived to make both ends meet after a fashion: so, even in this quarter, there was peace; and, for about the first time since her maidenhood, Isabel Shafton was able to enjoy the present without disquieting herself concerning the morrow. She did enjoy it thoroughly, and was quite sorry when she came to the last place on her list.

tion on an easy, natural footing; and, when she left them alone-as she invariably did, by-theby-she had the fairest excuse for so doing. She was an exceedingly methodical person, and it was her habit to devote a certain hour to her letter-writing; after which, unless the weather was very wild, she generally took a "constitutional." This, her custom of an afternoon, was seldom altered, whosoever might happen to be calling at Templestowe; and there certainly was no reason for treating Caryl Glynne with more ceremony than other visitors. But she never trod a whit more slowly or softly when, on her way out, she passed the closed door of the boudoir; much less did she linger to listen. Neither did she cast a single curious glance inward as she paced along the terrace by its windows. And yet it would have seemed impossible to impute to her connivance. There was never a shade of significance in her look, or manner, or tone, either when she addressed or when she mentioned Caryl. She never bantered Lena Here, besides several other old acquaintances, on the subject; much less did she attempt to she met a certain Mrs. Mansergh, a widow, like inveigle her into any confidences, or imply that herself, and also of better birth than fortune. there were any such to be made. She took Though they had never been very intimate, the just the same line with regard to purely do- two had been on sufficiently amicable terms; mestic matters. Many women, under like cir- for it happened that neither had absolutely cumstances, noticing-as, of course, she did no- thwarted the other's maternal tactics. Nevertice the growing estrangement betwixt hus-theless, it was not without envy that the lastband and wife, would have attempted to ingra- named lady contemplated the altered luck of tiate themselves with the former by a little extra Blytheswold; and, doubtless, the homely pardisplay of duteous solicitude-not to say sym-sonage, which was all she could achieve for her pathy. Marian did nothing of the sort. When the three were together she rattled on in her brisk, off-hand way, just as though there were no such things in this world as mysteries or misunderstandings; till Ralph was fain to smile, though in somewhat grim fashion, and Lena felt temporarily almost at ease. No wonder that both, for diverse reasons, felt loth to lose her cheery company.

When Philip, after finishing off his visits, came to fetch his wife away, he found this not so easy; indeed, Lord Atherstone had never been so near asking a favor of his son as when he begged that Marian might be allowed to remain, at all events a little longer. Philip's nerves at any time were hardly equal to a pointblank refusal; and the novelty of the situation quite flattered him. He was in extraordinarily good-humor, too, just then; for his mild platonisms at Westlands had prospered not ill, and he had visions of prolonging that innocent amusement whenever time and place should serve. So, grumbling a good deal to Marian, he assented-of course with as bad a grace as possible and went forth alone from the paternal roof, utterly unsuspicious of there being aught amiss there.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THOUGH she merely looked in in passing to see that things were in order at Blytheswold, Mrs. Shafton found it quite as hard as Lena had

handsome, tocherless daughter, looked lowlier than ever when contrasted with Templestowe. Though Isabel was most temperate in her triumph, and scarcely ever spoke of the Atherstones unless directly questioned, she had got a new way of smiling to herself that inexpressibly aggravated Mrs. Mansergh; and before they had been two days together she felt disposed not to let a chance slip of abating this complacency. Such a one presented itself in this wise:

Dinner was just over; and the womankind in the drawing-room, left to their own devices for a while, were conversing languidly and discursively, as-we are happy to believe-is their wont at such seasons; when the hostess, by way of something to say, inquired what sort of neighborhood lay round Templestowe. "It's rather scattered," was the reply, "and not very lively as a rule; but some new people have just come to Erriswell, which is quite within reach ; and from Lena's report, though she has not mentioned them lately, they sound very nice. By-the-by, Kate-you know every body-can you tell me any thing about these Malcolms? The husband made a great fortune in Australia, I understand: that ought to help you."

Mrs. Mansergh's countenance, vague and doubtful at first, lighted up suddenly with an intelligence by no means benign.

"Yes, that helps me," she said; "and I believe they are rather nice, though I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. So they have settled near Templestowe? That's rather odd;