Mr. Hartwell was by his side in an instant. "Lay him gently on this sheet," he cried. "Now one at each corner; carry him away; keep step-so." Not a man or a boy there but would have fought for a corner of the sheet on which they bore him; not å woman of them all but would have sat up with him all night to nurse him. They thronged the doorway of the usher's room under the schoolroom in which he lay, and prayed "God bless and spare him!" But Mr. Hartwell put them all out, and would have no one there but his own wife and Betty, and the door was shut. In a very few minutes the doctor opened it again. "No bones broken," he said; "not much harm done, I hope; but a nasty burn; be thankful it's no worse. Now all of you go away." Then catching sight of little Goodchild's face, upturned imploringly, he said, "Yes, you may come in; no one else."

The next day every available means of conveyance was put in requisition, and the boys returned all to their homes. Armiger was removed to Mr. Hartwell's house, and remained there about three weeks, being tenderly and skilfully nursed until sufficiently recovered to make the journey to London. Mrs. Judd came to stay with him, and help to nurse him. He had passed through a period of much suffering, and bore the mark of the fire in a great scar upon his neck and forehead; but he was very happy and thankful to have escaped so well.

The schoolhouse, which was completely gutted, never was rebuilt. The school was broken up for ever, and very few, except Mr. and Mrs. Bearward, grieved over that.

The lads were scattered, but the world is not so large but that we shall probably soon meet with some of them again; and it may then be seen what effect these trials and experiences of the " Boy" produce upon the character and conduct of the "Man."

Darieties.

LIFE IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.-It is generally understood in the insurance offices of the United States, that the average length of life in that country is greater than in England, as shown by the English tables. And this accounts for what would otherwise be unexplained-the immense profit of the business there-the rates of insurance being chiefly based upon English tabular estimates of life.-Sanitary Record.

ARCTIC HEALTH.-The doctor of the Pandora, Captain Young's Arctic ship, in some amusing papers in "Land and War," describes his professional duty as a sinecure :-"As it may interest many persons to know what I had to do as surgeon on board the Pandora, I may at once say-Nothing, or next to nothing. We took a medicine-chest full of the choicest of drugs, as well as instruments in case of accidents. This box, which was kept under the mess-room table, was the bug. bear of everyone. It was always in the way. The last-comer at meal-times invariably found this box where he wanted to put his feet, and it was only by distributing its corners in a inost judicious and impartial manner that he was enabled to find a seat. Nobody would get ill, and therefore we all wished the box at the bottom of the sea. But, after all, it had its advantages, for it frightened away all germs of disease; and the reason for that was, that it was generally understood that any offender might expect to have it stowed in his cabin, as his special privilege for requiring its contents. By some unlucky accident on our outward voyage, it was one day found to contain the elements of phiz,' so that, after that date, the demand for pick-me-ups,' sherbet,' and nice drinks,' was perfectly overwhelming, and at last induced me to stop such burglarious proceedings by changing the labels of the bottles,

6

or putting poison' on the most palatable drugs. What consolation could any medical man find in pulling out one tooth, curing one eye, or stopping in the bud one cold? During a period of nearly four months, and among thirty-one persons, one has a right to expect some sort of illness, or an accident, or something to break the monotony; but no, it never came. Before leaving Southampton, a kind-hearted lady presented us with three large bottles of cough lozenges. It struck me that, lozenges among the crew. They took the bait admirably; so I as I had no coughs to cure, I might distribute some of these waited in readiness for all emergencies, but with no result. could not hatch a cough, nor would they get sick (there was ipecacuanha in the lozenges), but only asked for more of thoso A whole bottle was consumed lollipops,' as they called them. physicking any one." in no time; so, in despair, I gave up all further hopes of

I

DR. GUTHRIE'S SKETCH OF A RITUALISTIC CONGREGATION. "Yesterday," says Dr. Guthrie, "I resolved to see the largest

exhibition I could get of the Ritualists of the Church of England. The congregation consisted chiefly of very poorly or very grandly dressed women and young men. Mine was the only grey head in the church. The appearance of the young men (en masse) was quite marked; and I found that it had forcibly struck Mr. Chubb as well as myself. Poor fellows; they were devout indeed-some of them most devout-but they had long necks, very sloping shoulders, faces like birds, low foreheads, and retiring chins. As I looked at some of them, they recalled to my mind the caricatures of Ritualists in "Punch." Often during the sermon I thought of Sydney Smith's description of 'Posture and Imposture.'"-Dr. Guthrie's Diary.

CAPTAIN WEBB THE SWIMMER'S ANTECEDENTS.-Captain Matthew Webb was born at Dawley, in Shropshire, in 1848. His father, a surgeon at Ironbridge, had a family of twelve children, of whom Matthew is the eldest but one. After spending some time at school, young Matthew entered the training-ship Conway, lying in the Mersey. He had learnt to swim at seven years old, and his first life-saving feat was achieved while ho was on board the Conway, when he and the companions who formed the crew of his boat received each a silver pencil-case for rescuing a comrade who had fallen overboard. He was subsequently apprenticed on board an India and China merchantman, and when his indentures were expired, he served first as second officer, and afterwards as chief officer, on board various ships in the Calcutta trade, and while taking a vessel through the Suez Canal, he dived and cleared away a hawser that had fouled her. In April, 1873, having shipped before the mast in the Cunard steamer Russia, he jumped overboard in a gale of wind to save the life of a man who had fallen into the sea from the yard-arm, the Russia going fifteen kuots an hour at the time, and, though the lifeboat was immediately lowered, it was having failed in his noble endeavour to save the life of his shipthirty-five minutes before he was with difficulty picked up, mate, who had probably been stunned and sunk at once. this deed of gallantry he received the medal of the Liverpool Humane Society, as well as the Silver Medal and the Gold Stanhope Medal of the Royal Humane Society, which latter were presented to him by the Duke of Edinburgh, and a present of £100, subscribed by the passengers. Captain Webb steadily and determinedly prepared himself for the great feat of swimming across the English Channel, which he had set his heart on accomplishing, his training virtually commencing with his twenty-mile swim from Blackwall to Gravesend in four hours and fifty-two minutes. A fortnight later he gave another proof of his powers of endurance, by swimming from Dover to Ramsgate in eight hours and forty minutes. He swam across the English Channel from Dover to Calais in twenty-one hours and three-quarters.

For

SCOTT.-Of Sir Walter Scott Lord Cockburn's portrait is one of the most finished in his gallery. "What extraordinary combinations of genius with industry; of glory with modesty; of the poetical powers without any of the defects of the poetical temperament. If the acquisition of money entered too much into his literary thoughts, who ever made so liberal a use of it, or one that so much extended the renown of his country? With a strong worldly head, great power of ridicale, an abhorrence of all sentimentality, and a manner naturally coarse, no man was so uniformly gentle. Where shall we find a steadier friend? A better man in all the domestic relations? What author ever passed through so splendid a career so utterly unspoiled? To what rival was he ever ungenerous? How noble the spirit with which he bore up against the wreck of his fortune! How

honourable the feeling of justice, and the ambition of ultimate independence with which he struggled for his creditors! If literature can boast of a brighter example of professional authorship with good sense, good conduct, and good manners; of inventive fancy with regular labour; of simplicity with unchecked success and applause; and of genius being never considered as any excuse, or even as any temptation, for the slightest failure in the performance of any duty-I know not where it is. Dear Scott! When he was among us we thought we worshipped him, at least as much as his modesty would permit. And now that he has gone we feel as if we had not enjoyed or cherished him half enough. How would we cling to him were he to reappear! It is a pleasure which the next generation may envy that I still hear his voice and see his form. I see him in the court, and on the street, in company, and by the Tweed. The plain dress, the guttural burred voice, the lame walk, the thoughtful heavy face with its mantling smile, the honest, hearty manner, the joyous laugh, the sing-song feeling recitation, the graphic story-they are all before me a hundred times a day."

CEDARS OF LEBANON.-Upon the slopes of the great snow. mountain of Lebanon stood those gigantic cedar-trees-whole forests of them then-now only one or two small groups, but awful, travellers tell us, even in their decay. Whence did they come? There are no trees like them for hundreds, I had almost said for thousands, of miles. There are but two other patches of them left now on the whole earth-one in the Atlas, one in the Himalaya. The Jews certainly knew of no trees like them; and no trees either of their size. There were trees among them, then, probably two and three hundred feet in height; trees whose tops were as those minster towers; whose shafts were like yonder pillars, and their branches like yonder vaults. No king, however mighty, could have planted them up there upon the lofty mountain-slopes. The Jew, when he entered beneath the awful darkness of these cedars; the cedars with a shadowy shroud-as the Scripture says--the cedars high and lifted up, whose tops were among the thick boughs, and their height exalted above all the trees of the field; fair in their greatness; their boughs multiplied, and their branches long for it is in such words of awe and admiration that the Bible talks always of the cedars-then the Jew said, "God has planted these, and God alone." And when he thought, not merely of their grandeur and their beauty, but of their use; of their fragrant and incorruptible timber, fit to build the palaces of kings, and the temples of gods; he said-and what could he say better-"These are trees of God;" wonderful and glorious works of a wonderful and a glorious Creator. If he had not, he would have had less reason in him, and less knowledge of God, than the Hindoos of old, who, when they saw the other variety of the cedar growing, in like grandeur, on the slopes of the Himalaya, called them the Deodara-which means, in the old Sanskrit tongue, neither more nor less than the timber of God," the "lance of God"-and what better could they have said?-C. Kingsley.

THE ENGLISH STATE CROWN.-The following description of the Imperial State Crown has been furnished by Professor Tennant, mineralogist to the Queen :-" The Imperial State Crown of Queen Victoria was made by Messrs. Rundell and Bridge in the year 1838 with jewels taken from old crowns and others furnished by command of her Majesty. It consists of diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds set in silver and gold. It has a crimson velvet cap with ermine border, and is lined with white silk. Its gross weight is 39 oz. 5 dwts. troy. The lower part of the band, above the ermine border, consists of a row of 129 pearls, and the upper part of the band of a row of 112 pearls, between which, in front of the crown, is a large sapphire (partly drilled) purchased for the crown by King George IV. At the back is a sapphire of smaller size and six other sapphires (three on each side), between which are eight emeralds. Above and below the 7 sapphires are 14 diamonds, and around the 8 emeralds 128 diamonds. Between the emeralds and the sapphires are 16 trefoil ornaments, containing 160 diamonds. Above the band are 8 sapphires, surmounted by 8 diamonds, between which are 8 festoons consisting of 118 diamonds. In the front of the crown, and in the centre of a diamond Maltese cross, is the famous ruby said to have been given to Edward Prince of Wales, son of Edward 111, called the Black Prince, by Don Pedro, King of Castile, after the battle of Najera, near Vittoria, A.D. 1367. This ruby was worn in the helmet of Henry v at the battle of Agincourt, A.D. 1415. It is pierced quite through, after the Eastern custom, the upper part of the piercing being filled up by a small ruby. Around

this ruby, in order to form the cross, are 75 brilliant diamonds. Three other Maltese crosses, forming the two sides and back of the crown, have emerald centres, and contain respectively 132, 124, and 130 brilliant diamonds. Between the four Maltese crosses are four ornaments in the form of the French fleur-de-lis, with four rubies in the centres, and surrounded by rose dia. monds, containing respectively 85, 86, and 87 rose diamonds. From the Maltese crosses issue four imperial arches composed of oak leaves and acorns; the leaves contain 728 rose, table, and brilliant diamonds; 32 pearls form the acorns, set in cups containing 54 rose diamonds and one table diamond. The total number of diamonds in the arches and acorns is 108 brilliant, 116 table, and 559 rose diamonds. From the upper part of the arches are suspended 4 large pendant pear-shaped pearls, with rose diamond caps, containing 12 rose diamonds, and stems containing 24 very small rose diamonds. Above the arch stands the mound, containing in the lower hemisphere 304 brilliants, and in the upper 244 brilliants, the zone and are being composed of 33 rose diamonds. The cross on the summit has a rose-cut sapphire in the centre, surrounded by 4 large brilliants, and 108 smaller brilliants. Summary of jewels comprised in the crown:-1 large ruby, irregularly polished, 1 large broad-spread sapphire, 16 sapphires, 11 emeralds, 4 rubies, 1,363 brilliant diamonds, 1,273 rose diamonds, 147 table dia monds, 4 drop-shaped pearls, and 273 pearls."

MOTHER GOOSE.-The story of this Iliad of the nursery is told by William L. Stone in the "Providence Journal." The mother-in-law of Thomas Fleet, the editor, in 1731, of the Boston " Weekly Rehearsal," was the original Mother Goose-

the Mother Goose of the world-famous melodies. Mother Goose belonged to a wealthy family in Boston, where her eldest daughter, Elizabeth Goose, was married by Cotton Mather, in 1715, to Fleet, and in due time gave birth to a son. Like many mothers-in-law in our own day, the importance of Mrs. Goose increased with the appearance of her grandchild; and poor Mr. Fleet, half distracted with her endless nursery ditties, finding all other means fail, tried what ridicule could effect, and actually printed a book, with the title, "Songs for the Nursery, or Mother Goose's Melodies for Children; printed by T. Fleet, at his Printing-house, Pudding Lane, Boston. ten coppers." Mother Goose was the mother of nineteen chil dren.

Price,

RITUALISM IN INDIA.-The Madras correspondent of the "Indian Church Gazette" speaks in enthusiastic terms of the "wonderful improvement in Church matters" which has gecurred of late years in the diocese to which he belongs :-" Five years ago there was but one surpliced choir in Madras, and none in Bangalore, and the invocation before the sermon was quite unknown in the diocese. In 1870 the choir of St. Mathias, Vepery, were put into surplices and cassocks, and the invocation was adopted. A year or two afterwards cassocks were adopted at the cathedral at Madras; and now, at Bangalore, there are four choirs vested in surplices and cassocks, the invocation is used before the sermon, and, at the church, one choir turn to the east at the Glorias." The Lucknow Witness" well remarks :-"And this is improvement! Now, cannot this earnest writer tell us of some poor sinners brought to Christ? Cassocks and surpliced choirs, and invocation before sermon, and turning to the cast, may be important enough to some people, but all this reminds us so very little of the inprovement in Church matters mentioned so freely in the Book of Acts, that we cannot help wishing to know if sinners are turning from the error of their ways, and finding peace and joy in believing, in this highly prosperous diocese.'

STEAM PIONEERS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.-The following extracts are from the " Annals of Liverpool," which form a part of "Gore's Directory for Liverpool":

"1819. The steamship Savannah, Captain Rogers, arrived at this port from Savannah, in 26 days, June 20. The first steamer that crossed the Atlantic.

"1838. The steamship Sirius sailed from Liverpool for Cork, March 27, and from Cork for New York, April 2.

"1838. The Great Western steamship sailed from Bristol on her first voyage for New York, April 8.

"1838. The steamer Royal William, 617 tons burden and 276 horse power, sailed from this port for New York, with passengers only, July 5, and returned August 19. Her outward passage was performed in 19 days, and her homeward in 14. This vessel has the honour of being the first steamer from this port to cross the Atlantic. See 1819."

hired. Steamers, indeed, there were, plying from new London Bridge, just opened, to Margate or Gravesend, concerning which the popular belief was that they were in a manner amphibious, and that when they had completed their voyage upon the water, they could run up with their paddle-wheels upon dry land, and so conveniently discharge their cargo. No smart policemen paced the streets day and night; but ancient watchmen ("Charlies," not "Bobbies"), with rattles and horn lanthorns, slept from hour to hour in their watch-boxes, and emerged at intervals to proclaim the time of night and the state of the weather, to the admiration of country cousins lying awake to hear them. No gas lit up the streets; but oil-lamps, dingy and smoky, giving but a dim and flickering light.

A few years have passed, and not a few changes have been witnessed. At the date of this second part of our history, the great railway problem has been solved; already the first railway has been completed, and the first victim slain; already the country has been mapped out for a network of iron roads; and now first sods are being cut near London, and long viaducts of brick are being built to carry passengers and goods among the chimney-pots, and so away out of the smoke and fog north, south, east, west, and everywhere.

And yet the schoolboys who were so suddenly dismissed from Cubbinghame by the burning of Mr. Bearward's house, and who had gone to their homes, some in po'chay, others by fast coach or mail, had hardly yet arrived at man's estate. The elder boys were indeed grown up and out in the world, married, some of them; the younger were under indentures or at college. Scattered once abroad, it is hardly to be expected that many of them will ever meet together again; but the paths of some will cross each other, and a few will run side by side, like some of those new railways, for a greater or less distance through life; and as with those great highways the usefulness and durability of the lines depend upon the judgment with which they have been planned, and the soundness and excellency of the workmanship which has been exercised in their construction, so the course of these men in after-life will show what care has been bestowed upon their education, and under what good or evil influences they have been trained up; for although religion may impose restraints upon the most unruly, and break through habits which have become second nature, and so avert or overrule the consequences of bad teaching or neglect, yet in most cases the truth of the proverb will assert itself, "The child is father of the man." Looking down into a deep cutting where a gang of navvies were at work excavating soil and loading it upon railway trucks, stood a young man of about five-and-twenty, dressed in clerical black. He was tall, of fair complexion, and well favoured, with brown, waving hair, beneath which a red mark might be observed, extending from the right temple to the ear and neck, an old scar caused, as was plainly to be seen, by a burn. A younger man, blue-eyed and of slighter build, and apparently not of robust health, was by his side, and they both appeared to be much interested in the labour which was being carried on. "I wonder which are the happier in the long run," said the elder of the two, the Reverend John Armiger, "navvies who dig from morning to night and have not much else to think about, or educated people? I think I should like to have a share in

those men's labour; it must be such a satisfaction to see the great masses of earth break away and fall towards the wagons ready to be shovelled in, and to know that so much measured work is done. I never see a man breaking stones upon the road without thinking what a pleasure it must be to observe one heap grow larger and the other less."

"Stones are but stones," Willy Goodchild answered. "When they are broken they are good for nothing but to be thrown upon the road and ground to powder; and then more are wanted in their place; so there is no end to the labour. You are disappointed because you do not see more fruit of your work at All Saints' in the South; but you have a better material to work upon, and a higher object to reach after; so you must have more patience."

John Armiger was not a doctor, nor was Willy Goodchild's sister a doctor's wife; neither did they live in the country with cows and pigs around them, as they had once pictured to themselves; but in a narrow street in one of the not most agreeable suburbs of London. Mr. Armiger had been two years in holy orders, and was curate of All Saints' in the South. Not that all his parishioners were saints; if, as John Wesley says, cleanliness is next to godliness, that description would have applied to very few of the thirteen thousand of whom he was supposed to have the oversight. Yet there were good and pious men and women among the grimiest of the toil-stained multitude who thronged the factories and workshops of that dreary neighbourhood by day, and huddled together in its tumble-down houses, and narrow, sordid rooms at night; and these might have been in larger proportions, and their spiritual attainments of a higher standard, if their homes had been physically better and more wholesome. Mr. Armiger had not yet been long enough at All Saints' to know how many of these good Christians were to be found among his flock. One or two here and there he had discovered of whose simple unaffected piety he was assured; but others, who had won his confidence at first by their professions had caused him pain and disappointment. He was just now smarting under these discouragements, and his brother-in-law had persuaded him to take a holiday and a long walk with him into the country in the hope of reviving his spirits; and so they had come to Wimbledon.

"I do want to see some fruit of my labour," said Armiger, after a pause. "I don't care how hard I work; you know that, Will. I chose that curacy because it was confessedly a difficult place to deal with; and I thought that, being young, with good health and energies, I ought not to settle down in an easy, comfortable parish, nor to build upon another man's foundation. But after two years one ought to see some results. There, all those trucks are loaded, and away they go, to be tipped up somewhere else where the soil is wanted; and so the cutting gets continually deeper at this end, and the embankment higher at the other. If I could only cut down and build up in my parish like that!"

"All in good time," said Will, cheerfully. "But_time_goes on so quickly; and so little is done! I am like that poor fellow whom I went to see the other day in the House of Correction-one of my backsliders. He was shut up in a cell by himself, and was occupied there for several hours daily turning a winch fixed in the wall, with the pleasant

His

"The site," Mr. Armiger replied, "is carted away miles hence very likely; we shall never see it again. But I am glad we came here, the air is so refreshing, and the walk will do us good. I wish Susie could have come with us; but that was out of the question under the circumstances. I should like some day to bring those poor ragged children from Duck Court to have a day's run on the common. There will soon be no common left if all the new railway schemes are carried out at the present rate. See! there's the pond where the water-lilies used to grow. I should like to wade after them now if the water were not so muddy."

"That can't be the pond," said Goodchild; was a great deal larger than that."

ours

"It looks small, certainly; but it has been growing in your imagination ever since you saw it last, when you yourself were smaller. I have been down here more than once since then. I used to like having a walk upon the common with that black outline of your sister in my pocket, and many tender recollections in my heart. I think we had better be going home now; I feel a little anxious. I hope all is well in Joy Street."

Joy Street was the name of the thoroughfare in which Mr. Armiger's house was situated. It was not altogether such a misnomer as it appeared to be to those who only read the name painted up on the corner house. Its outward appearance did not indeed promise a great deal; but there is as much happiness, perhaps, in humble life as in the gay scenes of extravagance and dissipation; and, strange though it may seem, as much enjoyment to be reaped in a noisy thoroughfare as in the brightest scenes of rural beauty; for the great question is not where a man is, but what he is, and how he spends his time. Joy Street was rightly named in respect to one, at least, of its tenants, for there was not a happier couple in all England than John Armiger and his wife, and there was a promise of yet greater happiness in store for them within a very short time, when, if all went right, the only thing yet wanting in their house would be there, a presence to be felt and seen and heard every hour of the day-and of the night, too, perhaps, though that did not enter into their calculations. Meantime, the shadow of disappointment which had begun to fall upon them in parochial matters only served to draw the curate and his helpmeet nearer together in their home, and to make mutual sympathy more precious.

"You have not yet served your apprenticeship," Susan would say to him. "Do you suppose a place like this can be converted in two years? Yet Susan herself had almost thought so when she married him. Her John would work a mighty change in the place, and win all hearts; and she was

CHAPTER II.-THE RAGGED-SCHOOL. "There's but a shirt and a half in all my company."-Shakespeare. WILLIAM GOODCHILD was staying with his sister and Mr. Armiger during a part of his long vacation. He was an undergraduate at Oxford, his future calling being as yet undecided. Mr. Goodchild had thought first of the navy; then a lawyer's office was proposed; after that commerce. Commerce was never brought to any tangible shape; and literature, which was next proposed, proved equally unmanageable. Willy could not bring his father to any conclusion; so he persuaded him to let him go to Oxford in the meantime, and see how things would turn out.

"Things are sure to turn out somehow or other," Mr. Goodchild said; we need not decide at present. Yes; you can go to Oxford, and try it for a term or two, at all events."

Young Goodchild had tried it for several terms, and meant, of course, to take his degree. Beyond that his destiny was still unsettled.

"It's time you made up your mind," said Mr. Armiger to him again that day, as they were walking homeward.

"Make it up for me, John; I'll do anything you tell me, but I feel so puzzled."

"A country curacy would suit you as well as anything."

"You always say so. I should prefer a town parish like yours, if I could stand it. It must be a grand thing to be able to carry the Gospel of Christ into the strongholds of sin, to do battle with the enemy, and to save souls with fear and dangerpulling them out of the fire, as you saved some of us, in the flesh, at Cubbinghame. That is what you have to do in this parish, and it suits you, but I should never be equal to it. I should not have courage or resolution for it. I don't even think I could always live in a crowd; and besides-" he checked himself, the truth of the matter being that he shrunk from the responsibility of making the cure of souls his profession, and did not feel himself called to it, or fit for it. He also thought it would be pleasant to see some fruit of his labours, whatever his calling might be, and his brother-in-law's experience, notwithstanding what he himself had said on that subject, was not encouraging.

"A doctor?" said Mr. Armiger, suggestively.

But

"To cut off legs and arms? No; I should never have nerve for it, unless some blessed anodyne should be discovered which would send the patient to sleep, and enable me to cut at him without his feeling it. A surgeon, it has been well said, ought to have the heart of a lion, the eye of an eagle, and the hand of a woman. I am afraid I should have none of these qualifications, except, perhaps, the last." John Armiger sighed. This, he thought, was one