"FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD."

By Minnie S. Davis.

FOR a long period I have been hungry for a novel; not merely a good story, but a particular novel, the essence of which has been distilled into my own soul through real experiences. I felt quite sure that somebody had written, or would write, just the story I longed to read; and when "Faith Gartney" came, I cried "Eureka." It is not in any sense a sensation novel, nor is it one of those pre-eminently practical ones, so fashionable nowadays. is not speculative and philosophical like the works of Holmes, nor mystical and fantastic like Hawthorne. It is just this, a better word, spiritualized. The people a picture of real life idealized, or, perhaps described are all genuine, yet not commonplace, and we know and love them hence

forth.

It

Faith, the heroine, is pure, sensitive, and lovely,—one of that type of maidenhood so often painted in various lights and shadows, by a crowd of word artists, from the nesphyte to the master.

She is nurtured like a garden flower in an atmosphere of love and refinement. One day, with other young people, she has her fortune told in play, and her oracle makes a deep impression upon her mind. She cons it over and over until it becomes the keynote of her thoughts. She henceforth yearns for a mission, for a high and holy work of love, vaguely expects something to happen. The oracle is this:

and

"Rouse to some high and holy work of love,
And thou an angel's happiness shalt know;
Shalt bless the earth, while in the world above
The good begun by thee while here below
Shall like a river run and broader flow."

Things happen and changes come; still she is never called upon to perform great deeds or make mighty sacrifices. The bud expands and blossoms in soft sunshine and gentle showers.

But the glory of the book is Glory herself, in the character of an Irish maidservant. An uncouth, ill-dressed, overworked child she first appears upon the page; but what a soul is shrined in that rude casket! She has an honest, loving heart, and an imagination teeming with

But at fifteen a better day dawns for leaves her cross mistress and the "inevher. She asserts her independence, and itable baby." She finds a new home with a nice, prim maiden lady, in a dear, oldfashioned country-house. Here she sees is Faith Gartney's aunt. plenty of good times, and is sometimes "in 'em." Miss Henderson, the mistress, Glory half worships Faith for her beauty and goodness, and Faith learns to love the queer, good Glory.

Another fine character, drawn in strong lines, is Miss Sampson, a professional nurse. "Somebody must eat drumsticks;" therefore she chooses them literally and A short extract will metaphorically.

present her to the reader :

"Miss Sampson was to her [Faith] like a book to be read, whereof she turned

but a leaf or so at a time, as she had accidental opportunity, yet whose every page rendered up a deep, strong, above all, a most sound and healthy meaning. She turned over a leaf one day in this wise :

"Miss Sampson, how came you at first to be a sick-nurse?'

"I wanted the very toughest sort of a job to do. You wonder why I wasn't like most other young women, I suppose, why I didn't get married, perhaps, and have folks of my own to take care of. Well, I didn't; and the Lord gave me a pretty plain indication that he hadn't laid out that kind of a life for me. So then I just looked round to find out what better he had for me to do. And I hit on the very work I wanted, -a trade that it took all the old Sampson grit to follow. I made up my mind, as the doctor says, that somebody in the world had got to choose drumsticks, and I might as well take hold of one. . I couldn't have been

tied down to a common, easy sort of life. I want something to fight and grapple with, and I'm thankful there's been a way opened for me to do good according to my nature. Somebody's got to nurse small-pox and yellow fever and raving-distracted people, and I know the Lord made me fit to do just that very work. There aint many that he does make fit for it, but I'm one, and if I shirked there'd be a stitch dropped.""

At length a new minister comes to officiate in the small parish of K. He is about thirty years of age, richly gifted in mind, and chastened and disciplined in soul. We might search in vain to find his counterpart in real life, yet one feels that his is a possible excellence, and is glad to make his acquaintance. Indeed, I never find fault with perfect characters, their contemplation always does good; but if one must have every creation purely human to satisfy, let him ascribe, in his imagination, a few petty foibles to the model man or woman, too trifling for the partial author to mention, and conscience will be easy.

The author gives us a synopsis of one of Roger Armstrong's sermons. I should like to copy it entirely, but for want of room can only give a few meagre extracts.

This sermon gives me a new insight into the first beatitude. It always puzzled me a little, and I never felt satisfied with any explanation I have heard or read. I could not think it meant merely the temporally poor, nor could I believe it referred to those possessing humility and lowliness of spirit. I like Roger Armstrong's idea of it, and am quite ready to accept it as correct. It is thus a blessing for all hungering, thirsting, struggling humanity. All, all are spiritually poor, whatever their earthly estate, whatever their intellectual and moral powers; but there is the kingdom of heaven with its exhaustless treasures of good, the promised inheritance of each.

Here are a few bits of the sermon :"Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.' Herein Christ spoke, not to a class only, but to the world! A world of souls wrestling

with the poverty of life. In that whole assemblage-that great concourse- that had thronged from cities and villages to hear his words upon the mountain side, was there, think you, one satisfied nature? Friends, are ye satisfied?

"Or does every life come to know at first or at last how something, - a hope, or a possibility, or the fulfilment of a purpose, has got dropped out of it, or has even never entered, so that an emptiness yawns, craving, therein, forever?

"This, this is the poverty of life. These are the poor, to whom God's gospel was preached in Christ! And to these denied and waiting ones the first word of Christ's preaching as I read them were spoken in blessing. Because, elsewhere he blesses the meek, elsewhere and presently he tells us how the lowly in spirit shall inherit the earth; so, when I open to this, his earliest uttered benediction on our race, I read it with an interpretation that includes all humanity. Blessed in spirit are the poor; theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Yours is the kingdom! Because the earth is so little, the world that lies in and about this visible that we call earth becomes so much!

"Count it an assurance of more vital good when God denies you! All that in any life you know of or can imagine, that seems to you lovely, and to be longed for, is yours already in that very longing. You take its essence so into your souls. And you hold it as God's promise for the good time to come. So you have his seal upon your foreheads. So he calls you, and shall lead you into the place he has prepared for you from the foundation of the world. There is no joy, there is no beauty, there is no glory of living or acting, no supreme moment you can picture in your dreams, that is not in your life, as God sees it, stirring in the intuition you have of it now, waiting for you in the glorious fulfilment that shall be there!"

Two young hearts drink in that sermon as though it were a heavenly draught: Faith and Glory. Faith believes it in trusting joy and looks upon the minister reverently and wistfully,-reverently, that he is so wise and good; wistfully, that

she might learn more lessons from that lofty soul.

"Can it be true?" thinks Glory; will she ever be in the kingdom? Oh, blessed promise! From that hour, her fancies take a higher character. Glory's soul is growing. Everybody thinks her to be a good girl, but nobody guesses that the quiet, industrious Glory, amid her home ly duties, lives most in an enchanted world of her own, which she rules according to her wild, untutored imagination. Faith has long been a fair saint shrined in some high niche in her heart's temple, and now Roger Armstrong becomes, as it were, a high priest there.

Faith and the minister meet often. They early recognize each other as kindred spirits, and a beautiful, elevated friendship grows up between them.

Almost from childhood, Faith has been loved by a young man of wealth, high birth, and noble character. There is a tacit engagement between them; but now when Paul speaks of marriage, she shrinks with pain. Why need there be a change? She prizes him as a friend, but can she be his wife? She wonders at herself, she chides her misgivings; she ought to be so happy, but is not.

Poor Faithie, she cannot read her own heart! but the minister can interpret his, when he knows that Paul Rushleigh claims Faith as a promised bride. He makes no sign, however, as in honor bound.

Faith grows pale and sad as her misgivings deepen. Paul is noble, and loves her so fondly; but she can never be his

wife!

At last, in a moment of mortal dan ger, she can no longer mistake her heart. Her girlish affection for Paul has been superseded by a profound love for Roger Armstrong! Then she tells Paul, and in great sorrow, yet manfully, he releases her.

She has relinquished a great deal, and for what? Perhaps a lonely and disappointed life. But she has been true. Still her tender conscience reproaches her; she has grieved her family, and then Paul loves her so-poor Paul! Aunt Henderson understands her feelings, and tries

to set her right. I cannot refrain from giving a bit of a talk between her and Miss Sampson, the heroic nurse who always chooses drumsticks. Here is a new view of matrimony for you:

"Miss Sampson,' cried Aunt Faith, with all her old oddity and suddenness, just tell this girl, if you know, what kind of a commandment a woman breaks if she can't make up her mind to marry the first man that asks her! "Taint in my decalogue!'

"I can't tell what commandment she won't be likely to break, if she isn't pret ty sure of her own mind before she does marry!' said Miss Sampson, energetically. Talk of making a man miserable! Supposing you do for a little while; 'twont last long! Right's right, and settles itself. Wrong never does. And there isn't a greater wrong than to marry the wrong man, to him, as well as to you. And it won't end there, that's the worst of it; there's more concerned than just yourself and him, though you mayn't know how, or who. It's an awful thing to tangle up and disarrange the plans of Providence; and more of it's done, I verily believe, in this matter of marrying, than any other way. It's like mismating anything else,-gloves or stockings, and wearing the wrong ones together. They don't fit, and more'n that it spoils another pair. I believe, as true as I live, if the angels ever do cry over this miserable world, it's when they see the souls they've paired off, all right, out of heaven, getting mixed up, and mismated, as they do down here! Why, it's fairly enough to account for all the sin and misery there is in the world! If it wasn't for Adam and Eve and Cain, I should think it did!'

"But it's very hard,' said Faith, smiling, despite all her saddening thoughts, at the characteristic harangue, 'always to know wrong from right. People may make mistakes, if they mean ever so well.'

"Yes, awful mistakes! There's that poor, unfortunate woman in the Bible. 1 never thought the Lord meant any reflection by what he said on her. She'd had six husbands; and he knew she hadn't got what she bargained for, after all. Most likely she never had, in the

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