the children of our church become aliens, and their children grow up without its sacraments and benefits, or receive those of another communion. Our zeal in making converts is known to be great; our keenness in looking into what other churches do, is known and seen to be extreme; our liberality in sending forth missionaries is undeniable; but still, how very indifferent-alas! how very miserable, the Church of England must appear in the care of her own who are scattered abroad among the nations of the earth!

Would that some of its Bishops would make a tour of inspection among these continental offsets of their Church; so many charges of inconsistency might not then be brought against our religion. Its services might then be performed in temples in some degree conformable to their dignity; its rites and its sacraments be duly administered to many who are rendered aliens by neglect; and, more especially, its children might then possess what, without the presence of a Bishop, they must, however well cared-for in other respects, be deprived of-the holy rite of confirmation.

On our way to the English chapel I had seen the well-known church of Copenhagen, called Vor Frue Kirche, or the Church of our Lady, well

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known, because it was adorned by Thorwaldsen, and contains his beautiful statues and bas-reliefs. Chaste and beautiful as the interior of this church truly is, I never can divest my mind of the idea that I am in an elegant museum, or some very peculiar reception-room. The building wants the characteristics of a church; the altar itself strikes me as being more like the place of a throne; there is nothing to inspire that impression of being within a sacred and hallowed fane, which a less elaborately adorned church, built on different principles, imparts. The dim religious light, indeed, appears to be in general abhorrent to the eyes of the Northern Lutherans, and might not be adapted to the statuary of which this building is made the depository.

Yet the Danes may well be proud of their great sculptor. Perhaps the colossal size of the figure of our Lord, over the altar, in the attitude of benediction, prevents it from being seen to as much advantage within the church, as the cast of that splendid work is seen in the hall, called the Hall of Christ, in the Museum. But the proof of beauty and of perfection is there, for the longer one gazes upon it, the more does the silent majesty of that calm face steal to the heart. The statues

of the twelve apostles, larger than life, surrounding the walls; the exquisite kneeling angel supporting the font, represented by a shell, or concha, which she seems offering to Heaven, are certainly very beautiful; but altogether the aspect of this church gives one a rather too prominent idea that the Lutherans of Denmark are no iconoclasts.

The kneeling angel, as the support of the baptismal font, is inappropriately placed just in front of the altar, and the general impression of the building as un-churchlike, is considerably heightened by the effect of this. The most pleasing idea given to me by any of Thorwaldsen's works, is the well-known bas-relief called Childhood's Aid-a child going forth in its peaceful simplicity to the battle of life, with its guardian angel walking in its steps, extending his hand over its head. It is the embodiment of a poetic conception, and a divine, too much forgotten, verity.

Within this church I had formerly seen the remains of Thorwaldsen, of the man whose hand and genius gave life and expression to marble, laid beneath a black pall to moulder into dust. They were but waiting there until the Mausoleum in which he chose to be buried among the works

of his own hand, should be ready. The Museum erected by the nation to be his monument is now completed. It is a noble edifice, with galleries built round a square, and appropriated to the occupation of the great sculptor's works, consisting of upwards of three hundred in number.

Leaving this fine Museum, erected by a nation to the memory of the son of a poor Icelandic carpenter a son whom she proudly claims for her own, and impressed with an almost overpowering sense of what genius and industry, qualities so seldom united, can effect in the short time of a single life, we came out into the large quadrangle, round which the building stands, and one end of which is closed by the Hall of Christ, from which that magnificent statue seems looking out on the space beyond. In the midst of this space we came suddenly on a little flower-bed, very small and filled with some simple, common flowers. It seemed so out of place there, that little flower-bed! The humble flowers, God's own work, looked mean beside the mighty works of man. What could induce them to make a little flower-bed there, in the midst of Thorwaldsen's Museum, looked down upon by the wonders his hand had wrought? I looked up to my com

He

panion without speaking the question. answered me by a smile, and pointed his finger downward. On the stone rim that enclosed the flower-bed I read three words that spoke to me enough"Thorwaldsen.-Born-died." Born, died-all that a tomb need tell. Of the space that lay between, God has the record.

And so this flower-bed is the great sculptor's tomb; the frail, perishing flower springs over his dust, and the marble forms his hands produced are around him.

It was a strange, perhaps a proud thought to to be buried thus; there seems something heathenish about it,-although an archbishop consecrated the ground. To die in a theatre and be buried in a museum! Such is the close of a great man's history.

The exterior of this Museum is curiously decorated, from the designs of a native artist, in coloured stucco, much resembling old-fashioned distempered painting, with scenes in the life of Thorwaldsen, more especially representing his return to Denmark, and the erection of the Muscum, some of which scenes are droll enough, while all have the merit of being quite national. The artist is said to have represented himself in all;