lii.

God signs new charters when our new desires
Are shaped by charity and faith fulfilled:

Yet, in the dimmest chambers of Man's brain
Great lights were placed, kindled at holier fires
Than ever burnt on altars. Minds that build
Their faith on Nature do not work in vain.

liii.

Alas! like Richard, strenuous Rome was doomed
Never to see her fair Jerusalem :

Her vanities, ambitions, and her wars;

The guiltless martyrs whom her ghouls entombedAvailed her naught! Those only should condemn The just who know the secrets of the stars.

liv.

But greater creeds are dead: our busy world
Forgets the soul, exalts the body where

The spirit reigned of old; the Crucified
Makes his appeal with banner almost furled,
And wandering seeds of Doubt now fill the air
Which root in gardens once Religion's pride.

lv.

Yea, from her wounds the Church of Jesus draws
The warm, red blood, and even as Beaumanoir

Drank of the precious current of his veins,
So drinks the imperial Church, whose ancient laws
Compelled two hemispheres to peace or war

Through many primrose and empurpled reigns.

lvi.

But whilst there still breaks forth one single bloom
From the far-spreading briar that wraps the land,
Hope cannot perish; there shall yet arise
From vile oppression and appalling gloom

A faith more sweet than Freedom, when His Hand
Gives us full use of earth, our Paradise.

lvii.

O brave old faith! No longer we behold
A strenuous Odo with his battle-mace

In high delirium of the maddening fray:
Nor yet a Turpin in his helm of gold,

Slashing the jewelled shield and swarthy face
Of some majestic heathen of to-day.

lviii.

Yet more than ever now we need the strong,
Brave monks and priests and bishops militant:
In these degenerate days, the world abounds
With monsters to be slain: a deep, red Wrong
Scores with grim birthmark every human ant
Who fights for bread above or underground.

lix.

Therefore, ye priests, a new, great empire lies
Open to conquest: you may sow no stars,

Nor may you sport with kingdoms, yet be sure

You have still nobler saints to canonize,
Who shall be victors in your moral wars

And make their epoch strong and great and pure.

lx.

The pagan lives in every Christian land,
More heathen than his brother of Cathay;
The weeds of vice grow higher year by year;
Abysms of darkness yawn on every hand
Ay, in Christ's fold: his missioners to-day

Need never seek the East: their work is here!

lxi.

Yea, deal with such as these, Archangel Saint,
And, in thy grace, compassionately ordain
That sapphire signets for wise cardinals,
And bishop's amethysts be carved: the plaint
Of men is heard—“ we need the Church again";
Heed then their cries and mute memorials.

lxii.

Darkness must go where all oppressors go,
And some great priest, as wise as Innocent
Who swayed the world, or brave as Julius-

Of Popes the Cæsar-may on Man bestow
The key to free us from imprisonment

Of soul, and light new fires of faith in us.

lxiii.

Behold those sands where rainbows are at rest!
The tide has left them eager to absorb

The morning's warmth on this new-minted day:
Thus may our hearts make ready to be blest
By the strong light of Wisdom's rising orb-
The mist of Ignorance must pass away!

ROWLAND THIRLMERE.

OF RUGBY.

By JOHN MORTIMER.

IPICKED it up from a huckster's barrow, and the price

I paid for it was one penny; it is a large and comely volume in excellent condition, and would, from a memorandum on the inside cover above an armorial book-plate, apparently cost the original purchaser the sum of eleven shillings" cash." It had been published about sixty years before, but with the exception of those containing the first. sermon, the leaves had remained uncut; so, beyond possession, the owner had got little out of it for his money. This, I fear, is the fate of much sermon literature, for which, I confess, I have no special predilection in bookbuying. Not that I would convey the impression of any desire to underestimate the relative value of pulpit deliverances in their influence on the conduct of life, far from it. I have listened to multitudes of them, and I hope have profited thereby, but, though in our baptism it was a solemn injunction to our godfathers and godmothers that they should call upon us to hear sermons, there was no responsibility laid upon our sponsors that they should require us to read them. The huckster had on his barrow more volumes of discourses by the same preacher and at the same price, but I selected this one because its title-page showed that it contained "Sermons preached mostly in the chapel of Rugby School": there lay the charm, a charm of awakened memories. If I had never read "Tom

B

Brown's Schooldays," it is very likely that I should have been content with the three substantial volumes of Jeffrey's contributions to the Edinburgh Review, which, for the modest outlay of threepence, had already become mine. As it was, thanks to the writer of that veracious history, though I had never visited Rugby School, I seemed to have a vested interest in it, to have been made free of its precincts, and to have sat with master Tom in the chapel there and listened to the worthy Doctor, for whom I had conceived a high regard; so, by virtue of these associations, the book was added to my store.

Of course much of that school-boy story remained in the memory, the early impression was too vivid to be easily wiped out, but one effect of my purchase was to induce me to take the book down from my shelves-regarded there only by affectionate glances during many years and read it through again. To do so was to revisit familiar scenes, to renew old companionships, to live again among stirring incidents of school life, and though there might be a consciousness of some loss of the old glamour, and of a grey light having crept into the atmosphere, the story had not lost its fascinating power in the changed conditions. On first acquaintance it had, in one's imagination, lifted Rugby into a place beyond all other public schools, and the impression still abides. Not long ago I read a modern book, laid down on similar lines, and relating to Harrow, but though it was eminently attractive, it did not influence me in the same way; the old affection remained undisturbed, it was Rugby first and all the rest nowhere.

Doubtless it was because the book was so full of vitality, so permeated with the spirit of its author, of whose schoolboy life it was the faithful transcript, that it had the power to move one so deeply. Knowing this, it was a delight, in after days, to see Tom Brown in the flesh, recognizable then as Thomas Hughes, and to hear him discourse on such a congenial subject as English poetry, in its serious and soul-moving aspects. Then and always, it