a which, at such times, there seemed to spring worthy rivals of their sisters of Shandon, up an unusual tenderness. In a week she sung to immortality by Father Mahoney. was able to sit in the sunshine and talk with The chiming of the bells, mingled with the Mrs. Bennett, as that worthy woman sat flow of waters and the stirring of the breeze, knitting in the doorway. the peaceful sound of the “watch-dog's hon est bark,” and the burst of the tawny-throatIt is a beautiful night. Such a one as ed nightingale, make many a wanderer prompts one to say: “ What would I give pause on the hills and in the valleys to call to be on the sea before Venice or on the up hallowed memories amid the beauty of lake of Geneva, alone with my own thoughts.” the night. The dark woods of Warleigh on The full moon sails in a blue, cloudless sky, the left bank looking down into the cool making the fair county of Devon a very wave below, seem to listen in solemn thought paradise to dwell in. In the broad day when to bell, and wind, and bird; and further out no magic moon lends poetry and enchant- in the stream where the silvery ripples circle ment to each stream and line of hills, Devon- and run, a boat now and then is seen glidshire is as beautiful as heart can desire. ing along, manned by a fisherman, enchantJustly is it termed the Garden of England. ed with the prospect and the stillness of the Go where you will you cannot find its equal; night. you would not want to find its superior. The On a bench beneath the very oak where hamlet of Tamerton is set down between John Bannock told his early love, within two slight swellings of the land on the banks sight of the green whereon he played as a of the Tamar, a river not unsung, that careless lad, in hearing of the waters which divides the counties of Devon and Cornwall. had lent a sort of romance to his neglected Away in the distance, on this summer's childhood,-beneath the stout old tree, John night, can be seen above the hamlet, a thin Bannock sits once more to-night. Beside wreath of mist about them, the silent, him is the girl whom he protected from spreading hills of Dartmoor. Below, the insult, perhaps saved from death. They waters of the Tamar, rippling brightly in are talking together as old friends would the moonlight, murmuring any song that talk. fancy asks, but ever a sweet one, flow down “Tell me, Miss Mary—I have never asked to the sea; past ancient baronial castles, you before-how you come to fall at my past sylvan dells of English park, past many door, and where you'd come from. It's a point where stands a chapel ivy-covered, none of my business, to be sure; but I don't a rugged tower. think you'd mind ling me, would you?” On a hill above the hamlet rises the church “My story is short, Mr. Bannock ”of St. Brideaux, venerable with its eight “ I can't let you call me Mr. Bannock," hundred years of age; its architecture quaint breaks in our friend. “We mustn't be so and massive, its mullioned windows white distant. We're only poor folk, and why in the moonlight. The moon shines as not know each other better? Will you sweetly to-night as it ever did or ever will please call me John ? ” upon the overhanging gables of the little “Well, .John,' if you wish it,” she says village and the fair country around. Nearly laughingly. “My story is not long. I lived opposite Tamerton its light strikes on the some twenty miles from here, with my father old houses of the ancient borough of Salt- and mother. My mother died when I was a ash; further down the river, on England's little girl. Father then took to drinking, battered war-vessels anchored in the stream and made our home miserable.” in their old age as mementos of the past; She stopped, for a groan from John Banfurther down still, on the formidable forti- nock made her think he was unwell. She fications of the sea-port of Plymouth, with its then remembered the troubled look she had forest of masts and thousands of lights. seen on his face, and the vague rumors that From over the water on this calm night are had come to her of his irregular habits. She borne the sounds of the bells of Landulph, was sorry she had spoken. a a “Go on, Miss Mary; don't mind me. Go bushes, he had seen the game-keeper passon." ing on his nightly rounds; but never, except “My father,” continued she, “lost friend in one instance, had he been interrupted, after friend, and, although I had never and then he escaped after a hard tussle unharmed a soul in the village, the neighbors recognized. He pointed out the green where began to look upon me with distrust as the he had raced as a boy. He bade her listen daughter of the man whose character was a to those bells, which had often seemed to by-word and a reproach to the fair name of his youthful heart in the long summer nights the place in which we lived. One night my like the voices of angels. She could hear father came home from the tavern and beat the wash of the river, could she not? Often me so badly that I was ill for many days. had he lain in the woods to be lulled asleep He did not improve; and so brutally was I by that sound; and while so lying his misused that people were indignant. Finally a spent life had come before him in its full prominent gentleman took the matter in force, and-although he would tell no one hand, and father was arrested. He blamed but her-he had wept to think what an me for this, and would have killed me when honest man he might have been. But bad I came to see him in his cell. Upon my opinion had always met him. No one retestimony would rest the charge against spected him, all feared him. Having no him. Remembering what had been when friends he ran deeper in his bad courses, and my poor mother was alive, I was unwilling until a little time since he avowed—and he to be the cause of my father's punishment. prayed God and man for pardon—there was I fled from the village, not wishing any one scarcely a night when he had not been sodto know who I was or whence I came. It den with drink and flushed with fearful was night when I set out, and the next day, passion. The Squire and the landlord were foot-sore and fainting, I reached your door, the only persons who had ever had a kind where I fell, unable to proceed further. The word for him, and Underwood was his bitman who found me here yesterday brought terest enemy. He told her of the day she tidings of my father's death." came; how he had been looking at the boys Weeping, Mary broke down; thanking at play on the green, and a great feeling of her protector a thousand times for the help- remorse had come over him—such as he had ing hand he had stretched out to her. often felt alone, but never before in the John Bannock then told her the story of sight of man. Her coming, he believed, had his life. His father died when he was too really saved him; and if he had done her a young to know what he had lost. His service she had done for him what the world mother died a little later. He pointed out could never have done. But, with God's the graveyard from where they sat, and he good help, he yet hoped to live a better life. deplored the life that had barred him from Why relate what the reader can plainly doing justice to her memory. While yet a foresee? Under the old oak tree, gnarled boy he had been lodged in jail on the charge and storm-beaten, where he had told his love of stealing a watch, of which, after he was to the Mary who had died, in sight of the released, it was found and acknowledged green and in hearing of the river, he told his that he was innocent. Until then he had love to the Mary who had altered his life. been a lad of whom the village was proud. With rude and simple words he told it. That undeserved punishment had left a Not in such dainty language as would emsting in his heart, which hardened his nature bellish the archives of love, but with an and led him into the company of men who honest warmth that would have made the changed his whole character. Many a night, cheek of the stateliest lady in the land blush he told her, when the moon was shining with homage to his manly heart. Since like it was to-night, he had launched his John Bannock had so bravely made himself boat and landed on the shore below Warleigh the protector of the friendless girl no one had woods, to set snares for the pheasants of the dared to breathe a word against her good Squire's preserves. Crouching down in the name. Her gentle face had won the hearts of the children, her modest bearing the nation of game-keeper is vacant. Now, no esteem of her elders. She had not been long thanks. Good-bye.” in the village when no one could have been Underwood: “Bannock, your hand; I wish prevailed upon, much less did they desire, you joy. You have shaken my want of faith to speak of her in any but the highest terms. in human nature. It is better than I thought In view of John Bannock's change of con- it was. You have given me a lesson, and I duct and his tender treatment of the girl thank you for it. If I can ever help you in whom he honored on his own threshold, any way in my power, do not be afraid to there were shrewd heads who argued that look me up.” something would come of it. When there- The landlord: “Jack, old boy, give us fore on the next Sunday the bans of John your fist. Mrs. Bannock to be, you've got a Bannock and Mary Elmer were read in the man for a husband. And Jack, how about old church of St. Brideaux, the crowd that the green, now, eh, old fellow? And the flocked around John and his sweetheart river and the bells? May you soon have a testified to the popularity which he had boy to play there! You may count on me attained, and to the esteem in which was at the wedding." held the bride whom he had won. The fol- A new headstone stands over what was lowing congratulations will likewise bear once an unmarked grave. A sunburnt man witness to the satisfaction which the news of often walks there when the sun is going John's intended marriage created : down, and his happy wife and children walk The Squire : “John, my friend, I always with him. His heart is as light as when a said you would come out right in the end. boy he played on the green or sailed the I wish you and your bride,-yes, I must have waters of the river he loves. a kiss,—all happiness. By the way, the sit,. John Talbois. CHARLES KINGSLEY. Few of us who met Charles Kingsley dur- his early inspirations into the frothiest cyning his visit to America, will forget how sadly icism, had wearied us of our hero worship. the news of his death, so soon afterward, fell We had heard, too, of the author of Alton on us as if it were the loss of an old friend. Locke as now a sleek canon, talking in very His journey came too late, when he was conservative fashion of slavery and the on the downhill of years and had less of American republic. But the visit renewed the freshness we had always associated the old affection; and now the memoir, comwith the writer and the man. But we re- ing just after his death, gives us the whole member still the face, lighted with keen personality of the man, his relation to the thought, the soldier-like bearing, the voice thoughts of his time, and the brave part he that betrayed in its hearty tone the love of played from youth to age in its most stirring the scholar for his west country dialect, and strifes. We have read it with an eager dethe spirit with which he chanted to us the light to its last page, and count it the life of wild Norse Sagas. His presence brought a Christian workman in this England of our back the Charles Kingsley of our youth. day, which will grow larger to all seeing We had lost in later years somewhat of the eyes in each day to come. faith with which we had followed him and It is, then, a fitting tribute to him that we other noble Englishmen, as leaders in the sketch what such a life has done to help sacred legion of progress. Grim Thomas us in our aims for the same social and Carlyle in his den at Chelsea, no longer a Christian end. If I shall linger a little on prophet, but making sour jests over the Ja- his youth, it is because few have kept the maica Quashee; and Ruskin, fallen from mind and heart so unchanged into manhood. a A bright picture it is, which she who knew he says in his early letters, the profession him best has written so well in these open- “fitted to check the faulty side of his mind ing pages, of the parsonage at Holne under and give fullest room for his energy.” the brow of Dartmoor, where he was born There is not much likeness in him to the in 1819 ; the father, artist, natural historian pale, preterhuman type of clergyman we and clergyman; the West Indian mother, have been taught to revere; yet perhaps full of poetry; and the childhood spent his life may show us some reality beyond in the charming scenery of Devonshire. our pattern of cravat or manners. We have It was here he gained the tastes which never learned from him that his phrase "muscufaded in the after years ; his love of long lar Christianity” has not a little to do with walks and field sports, and with these the a clear head and a warm Christian heart. rare knowledge of Nature that kept him His biography in the little parish of Eversley, from the brute side of country training. It is as sweet a picture as that of George Herbert is delightful, in later days, when worried by in Bemerton. This scattered group of three the little strifes and little men of the hamlets near Windsor forest, made up of Church, to see how he flings off all care with farmers with a sprinkling of poachers; the a glimpse of the sea at Torquay, or a fishing old church in the midst and the parsonage trip with Tom Hughes by the Scottish under the shadow of the stately fir trees, streams. His was the healthiest of natures. was his home from the first year of his minThere was in him that rich humor, the nec- istry to his death. There was a charm to essary element of large-minded men, a him in country life, and a quiet center of bright fancy and a hunger after all living literary work. “I have no lust,” he wrote, stores of literature. Yet, if he was not born “ for the Babylon of England or the Contito be a cloistered scholar, he was still less to nent." Yet it was no rest of refined leisure. be a mere man of elegant letters. His lead- Here he labored as curate and rector in his ing trait was his earnestness, the soldier-like parish duties, visiting from cottage to cotmanhood that made him, like Robertson and tage, ready to converse with the farmer, or all of kindred temperament, accept life as a pitch hay with the haymaker in the field, battle; a calling, as Luther translates the busy with coal clubs or lending libraries for commission of St. Paul to his son in the the poor, and preaching on Sundays the vilfaith, “ to do thy knightly duty.” We have lage sermons which were afterward to speak all along, in the school-days at Helston, un- to all England. Here he brought his young der Derwent Coleridge, and in the college wife, and there grew round him a household experience from King's in London to Cam- of loving children, where he found all the bridge, the waymarks of his swift growth. society he asked, until his fame gathered at He graduates with high honors in the clas- the parsonage a group of the best scholars sics and the mathematics; but the usual in the land. He seemed to have no breath round of studies does not fetter him, and he of ambition for the clerical paradise of Lonreads everything-Porphyry and Jambli- don; and though never rich and often straitchus, Chaucer and Carlyle. He passes ened, he would not seek anything outside through an unhappy time of religious doubt, his chosen work, nor bend a conviction for an when he says hard things of the Athanasian income. I know no nobler history of an Creed; but these measles and mumps of unselfish ministry in our time. Indeed, it skepticism, as with most healthy minds, are is the secret of his literary fame, as his letsoon over, and we find him reading for holy ters show, that he looked on his novels or orders in the church. his poems as written for a high Christian It might seem as if this choice of the min- purpose. The inspiration of his genius lay istry was hardly the natural one for a man in this sense of his calling as a minister of his marked literary tastes. Yet his biog- of Christ to man; and amidst his honors raphy shows that he was not guided into he always loved to come back to the parthat path by any counsel of others, still less sonage with the three fir trees, the simple by any lower thought of preferment. It was, life among the poor, which had trained him а to be an apostle to the England of his gen- the past. The restoration of the ancient eration. church with its creed and priesthood and With this glance at the home where the ritual, was the cure of all evils. It was not young scholar found his inner growth, we strange that such a movement seemed at first can better understand the conditions in a grand reality ; sacred art, poetry like the which he began his larger work as one of “ Christian Year,” new orders of monastic the leaders of the new time. Clearly to preachers and workers among the people, know, however, what this work was, we gave it a marvelous growth. But this ideal of must spend a few words on the state of the a Nicene perfection had no reality outside English church at that critical period. As their own fancies. It was a misreading of we look back to-day, after more than forty Christian history. The episcopate of Cyprian years of a struggle greater than any since the and the infallible councils could not be transReformation, we can appreciate its meaning planted into the nineteenth century. It more truly than even the most thinking man seemed a New Jerusalem, coming down from could do at the outset. the primitive skies to England; but it was The national church was passing through only another Peter Wilkins's flying island, a new phase of its history. All those social now in Nicæa, and then in Oxford, never problems which have so deeply stirred the touching terra firma ; and on its edges stood mind of England,—the rise of the Chartist the host of Anglo Catholic saints, in many movement, the reforms in popular education, colored vestments, chanting the Athanasian the growth of dissent,—had reached a point creed with all the damnatory clauses, or showwhere they could not be put back. But ering on the profane crowd below the blessAnglicanism of the old type had no other ings of baptismal grace. The dream had its conception of a national establishment than natural awaking. Unconsciously to themas the keeper of all privileges in church or selves, as we know from that “ Apologia" state; and the Evangelical section, once in which Newman has laid bare each step the power of a spiritual life in such a man of the movement, the intellectual leaders as Wilberforce, had become as narrow in were borne by the tide of their church printheology and in methods of religious work ciples into Rome. We have not yet seen the as the high church party. Both, in Kings- end. The party survives in its second ritual ley's phrase, “were impotent to meet the stage of Mackonochies and Tooths; its thinknational want.” It was out of this pressure ers are gone, yet it holds its sway by a certain that the great Oxford movement came. Al. real work among the poor, and by the more ready, when our author began his ministry, real charm of sensuous worship. Modern John Henry Newman, in the flush of his ge- physiology has proved that in some orders nius, with Pusey, Keble and other ardent of animated being there is a brisk sensitive scholars, had awakened the re-action which life, after both hemispheres of the brain have they dreamed was the Catholic revival of been taken clean away. Eugland. We need not misjudge them at It marks the character of Kingsley, that this hour. They were honest, devout schol. from the first he saw clearly the groundars, who had studied their time through the error of the Oxford school, and was its lifewindow of their Oxford cloisters. The one long opposer. At a glance it might be idea, which gave all its real power to the thought, that to his poetic temperament such Anglican movement, was that of a unity of an ideal would have been most winning. our broken Christendom beyond the des- He was a reverent lover of the church ; and potism of a Latin church, or the sectarian the story of St. Elizabeth, wrought into his theologies of the Reformation. But they earliest poem of the “Saints' Tragedy," could not see that this is in truth the his- shows how the Christian past spoke to him, toric principle of Protestantism itself, which as to Montalembert, in every image of holy can only work out its result in the slow womanhood or saintly sacrifice. But with growth of Christian learning and social his fancy there was joined a clear English forces. Unity to them was a tradition of sense. No criticism on the school of New a |