I passed trembling with fear through this arch, on my way to the Chapel, I gathered a few of the blossoms. To this day the scent of jasmine sickens and oppresses me. As Henry was staying with Madame la Franche, we did not think it honourable to draw Estelle into the affair; so she knew of nothing but our engagement, and the only witness to our marriage was Count d'Estages, then a lad about Henry's age. He was a dissipated young man, and no great favourite with either of us; but, as he was on the eve of sailing for India with his regiment, we thought him a safe person to select. What arguments Henry used to obtain the good priest's consent I never knew. We parted at the Chapel door, Henry to join his ship, I to my solitary home. It was a year after this, that I read in the newspaper an account of the wreck of the Euphrosyne' (Henry's ship), and the loss of every one on board; Henry's name being especially mentioned. Along nervous fever brought me almost to the grave, and the physicians, not knowing the cause of my illness, attributed it partly to the monotonous life I led, and recommended change of air and scene; so we gave up our house, and wandered about for many months, settling for some time at Arles, but finally taking up our abode at Florence._Long before the wreck Madame la Franche had quitted St. Omer, so that Estelle and I lost sight of each other, and never met again until a few weeks since at Stanton. At Florence, I made the acquaintance of a Mrs. Marsh, the widow of a Clergyman, who took compassion on my lonely life, and showed me much kindness. She died some years since, but it is to her, under Heaven, I owe all I have of good, all I know of Christian principles. To her, also, I owe it that, striving with my natural timidity, I made the last few years of my Father's life happier than the beginning; and that he died blessing me. I was left to the guardianship of Dr. Duncan and his wife, far-away-cousins of my Father, who were living at Florence for the benefit of the Doctor's health, and it was at their house we first met. You knew I loved you, but how entirely, how intensely, none but GOD and myself can ever know. During the brief days of our engagement, I strove again and again to speak to you of Henry Archer. Would I had done so; I should now feel blameless: but my miserable cowardice conquered, and I was silent. When I met Estelle (now Madame le Vergnier) in Stanton a few weeks ago, I felt that some misfortune was at hand. I could not account for the feeling, but it grew into certainty directly Count d'Estages appeared at the ball at Stanton Court; thoroughly unprincipled, a gambler, and deeply in debt, he extorted money from me at various times, pretending at first that he possessed most important papers belonging to Henry Archer, which I ought to see. They were, however, never produced; and, at length, finding his power over me weakened, he revealed the dreadful fact which has blighted my peace for ever. Henry Archer still lives! He was picked up by a Chinese vessel, and remained for years a prisoner, shut up in that barbarous country. By a series of strange adventures he became at length free, rich, and prosperous. He wrote several times to me at our old house at St. Omer; but receiving no answer, he asked d'Estages, who had been for some time in Hong Kong, and was then returning to France, to seek me out. All he could discover was that I left St. Omer whilst seriously ill, and was supposed to have died since. The Count gave me the most minute particulars of Henry's escape, and showed me parts of several letters in his writing, dated Hong Kong, and signed H. Archer. All doubt was

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now at an end, and my heart died within me. With the utmost effrontery the Count proposed to write to Henry, saying, he had discovered certain proofs of my death, and furnishing the full particulars-to place all the letters in my hands, to quit Stanton for ever, and to bind himself by an oath never to trouble me more; in consideration of which, I was to furnish him with a certain sum of money yearly, which he knew I could do, as he had ascertained that my Father's property was settled absolutely on me. If I refused, he threatened me with instant disclosure both to Henry and yourself. But his power over me is gone. Henry Archer has been dead to me for thirteen years, my heart is wholly yours. Whether my first marriage can be legally proved, or what claim it has over me, I know not; but this I know, I will never sit at your hearth a living lie. Therefore you shall know all, and when you return I shall be gone for ever. My own sufferings are nothing to the thought that I have brought sorrow and shame to your home, when I would have died to give you happiness. I dare not realize the thought I cannot write farewell-I can only say forgive!" Here the manuscript broke off, but Dr. Lee told us that when Mamma sent for him, it was because she believed the Count was about to make everything public, and she intended to leave home at once, placing the paper in his hands to soften the trial to Papa, and leaving Kate and me under his charge. The instant she told her story, the Count's villainy was exposed. In his younger days, Dr. Lee had been tutor in Major Archer's family, and had providentially kept up an intercourse with them since. Henry Archer had indeed perished at sea, thirteen years since; and the letters Mamma had been shown were from his brother Herbert, who was living at Hong Kong. Dr. Lee hastened at once to White Oak, and, telling the Count how completely his treachery was unmasked, so terrified him with threats of Papa's vengeance, that he wrung from him a paper confessing that the whole story of Henry Archer's escape was a fraud got up by himself, in the hope of obtaining money from Mamma's fears.

That night Mamma became seriously ill, and by morning Kate and I were breaking our hearts over a feeble, motherless baby, whose first day promised to be his last in this troublesome world. Dr. Lee baptized him, and we called him George, as I thought my Father would have wished.

Of Papa's return, and the months of unbroken sadness that followed our irreparable loss, I cannot even now bear to think. There are some sorrows which can only be submitted to, not described. Contrary to all expectations, the baby lived and throve; and a year after, when dear Kate left our home for Dr. Percival's, he was a fine, healthy little fellow, almost worshipped by Kate and myself, and Papa's greatest treasure. Papa let the Grange, and took us abroad for a time. It was plain that the example of Mamma's humble, unobtrusive piety had not been lost upon him, for he submitted to his great affliction like a Christian; but he never recovered his cheerfulness, and two years after, when he died in my arms at Rome, of a fever caught there, I could only mourn my own loss, and rejoice for him. I lived with Kate and Dr. Percival for a year and a half, and then Mr. Norris took me to the pretty Rectory which is still my home. That is six years ago, and we have two children, but George always seems like our eldest. We say we feel no difference; but, in reality, if one of the children is nearer to my heart than the others, it is he whom I always look upon as the precious legacy of "My Father's Wife."

"ESSAYS AND REVIEWS."

We have not room in our pages for any long controversy, nor would controversial articles have much interest for our readers: it is not our purpose, therefore, in noticing the above-named volume, to enter into any examination of its contents. It has, however, become so notorious through the criticisms of its friends and its foes that there will be few of our readers who have not heard it spoken of in conversation or in sermon, or seen remarks upon it in print: and we think it will be convenient to them to know something about it.

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Essays and Reviews," then, is an octavo volume of four hundred and thirty-four pages, containing seven articles on theological questions of the day, by as many different writers. They are often called "Oxford Essays

and Reviews," but this distinctive title is not fair either to Oxford or to Cambridge, the two most extreme writers both belonging to the latter University, and by their advanced “advancement" fairly dividing honours with the other five, who are Oxford men. The seven Essays are said by their authors to have been written without any concert or communication; and if this was really the case, the agreement of their results is the most remarkable literary coincidence that has ever happened among uninspired writers in this or any other country since the foundation of the world. It is also declared by them that each of them is to be held responsible only for the opinions expressed in his own Essay, and not for those of his literary bed-fellows. Public opinion is disposed, however, to consider each of the seven writers to be responsible for the general tone of the book, at least, until it is disclaimed by him; and not one of the seven has yet said anything to disclaim this alleged general responsibility.

The book is not remarkable for originality, but it is for the boldness with which it revives old infidel theories, and dresses them up in language and style suitable to modern ways of thinking and talking. Openly avowed infidelity is very obnoxious to the present age, and would meet with no encouragement, hardly even with toleration in educated and respectable society. But there is a strong speculative tendency among us, which may easily be carried into the most sacred regions, as well as the more legitimate domain of science: and there is also a great reliance on intellect, which is a good or bad reliance, according as it is combined or not with a reverent looking beyond our own, to His knowledge Whose power of knowing so infinitely transcends our own. Rash speculation and pride of intellect have been applied to sacred things in “ Essays and Reviews" so as to bring the disciples they may win to a very similar conclusion as was reached by the converts of open infidel writers in the last age.

The first Essay is by Dr. Temple, Head Master of Rugby School, and, by itself, would have attracted little notice. The object of it may be stated to be to prove that the world has gone through several stages of Religious Education, and has now reached a higher condition of Religious. knowledge than it has reached before. A parallel is drawn between the history of the individual man, and that of the world. The man is wiser than the boy; therefore the world of 1861 is wiser than that of the Apostolic age. Whether people are always wiser when they are old than they were when they were young may be questioned; and, if the parallel

is good for anything, we must look for the world's dotage (instead of its perfection, as Dr. Temple thinks) in these latter days, and not in the "dark ages." But, in reality, the Christian religion came to its greatest perfection of belief and practice in its earliest infancy; and, however proud we may be of our own times, we shall never be wiser or better than the Apostles and Christians of the New Testament age.

The second Essay is by Dr. Rowland Williams, Vice-Principal of Lampeter, a Welsh College, in which young men are educated for Holy Orders. He tries to prove that the ordinary ways of understanding the Bible are a mistake, and that now we have got into such a highly-educated stage of the world's history, we ought not to be content with the interpretations to which our forefathers bowed down. The prophets did not pre dict events, but wrote down past or current history. It was not an angel or supernatural being that slew the first-born, but the "Bedouin host," &c. The third Essay had for its author the late Professor of Geometry at Oxford, Mr. Baden Powell, and is written to prove the unreasonableness of believing that God ever worked miracles, or that He created the world. The world made itself somehow or other in the course of millions of years, and miracles are "Nature" improperly described by ignorant people. If such is the case, what greater mistake could there be than to suppose that Creation is an evidence that there is a Divine Being, or that Miracles are evidence that the Divine Being has commissioned those who work them as Moses, e. g., before Pharaoh, or St. Peter and John at Jerusalem ?

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The fourth Essay is by a beneficed Clergyman in Huntingdonshire, the Rev. H. B. Wilson, Vicar of Great Staughton: and is an evidence of the way in which people sometimes argue against an opponent so vehemently that they end by converting themselves to that opponent's side. The author of this Essay was one of the leaders in a very intemperate attack on some weak-minded Oxford men who made themselves martyrs for the privilege of interpreting the XXXIX. Articles in a non-natural sense." Mr. Wilson now thinks that this inestimable privilege is the birthright of every enlightened Churchman; and that it is the height of intellectual subtlety to make anything out of anything, according to your own interest or opinions; especially if that which you have to operate upon is the Holy Bible or the Prayer-Book. His own examples of this kind of interpretation are among the most dreadful things in the book. He considers many of the "traits in the scriptural person of JESUS" to belong to an ideal rather than an historical person; e. g. The temptation did not really happen, but is an imaginary scene put into the Gospels to complete the picture. The Annunciation " may be of ideal origin" also, the writer says, and much more to the same purpose.

The fifth Essay is by Mr. C. Goodwin, a Layman, and brother of the Dean of Ely. He deals with what is called Scripture cosmogony; and of science, who invented a theoretical account of Creation, but, living in a the manner in which he does so is sufficiently explained by saying that he believes the Book of Genesis to have been written by some Hebrew man time when he had no geological discoveries to guide him, made a mistake.

The sixth is by the Rev. Mark Pattison, at the time of writing Fellow, and now Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. It is on "the Tendencies of Religious Thought in England from 1688 to 1750." Although a very dry and uninteresting history of the subject, it is not nearly so much opposed

to our Christian instincts and Christian principles as the others; and while many would have differed from Mr. Pattison, as we do ourselves, few would have attached much significance to his Essay if it had not appeared in such objectionable company.

The last Essay is on the "Interpretation of Scripture," by Mr. Jowett, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. It is a sort of adaptation of the Bible to the theories contained in the previous Essays: and its chief object appears to be to lower the authority of Holy Scripture by shewing that very little of it was inspired in any ordinary sense of Inspiration.

Our readers may rely upon this summary giving them a true account of the principles set forth at length in this volume of Essays and Reviews.

The volume did not attract much attention at first, and those who raised their voices against its teaching were thought to do so from party spirit; but that this was not the case has been shewn by the general condemnation which has fallen upon it from all quarters of the religious world. A large number of the Clergy of all sides have memorialized the Bishops on the subject: the Low Church Record is at one with the High Church Union: the Quarterly Review has answered the book in a masterly Article, which brought the number containing it to a third edition within a few days and last, not least, the Episcopal guardians of the Faith of the Church of England have spoken out in a body on the subject, reprobating the production, and expressing their astonishment that Clergymen so writing and so thinking can retain their positions in the Church of England.

A WORD ON DISSENT AND DISSENTERS.

Do not let the title of this paper frighten the reader away, under the impression that it is a subject with which a Churchman has nothing to do, and which cannot be gone iuto without uncomfortable feelings of raising illblood between him and his neighbours. Dissent is one thing, and Dissenters are another: and it is quite possible to have the most neighbourly feeling in the world towards the one at the same time that a great dislike is entertained towards the other: while no one can deny that it is in some degree a duty to know how and what time the many "unhappy divisions," as they are justly called, have come to grow up as they have done around us and among us. Do not therefore suppose that it is necessary to be either dull or uncharitable in writing about Dissent, even in a Church Magazine: but let us look at the question of its history calmly and fairly that we may have some sound information as to the relationship which there was formerly, and is now, between the Church of England and those who are called "our Dissenting brethren.'

Is the meaning of the word "Dissenter" necessarily one of reproach or dishonour? By no means. It might be one's duty to take up both with the name aud the position of a Dissenter, and to take up with it under circumstances that would make it a great honour to do so. It is one word of three which are often connected together in peoples' minds, but which really have very distinct meanings, and might be far from belonging to the same persons. There are heresy, schism, and dissent, but dissent need not necessarily be either heretical or schismatical; for heresy implies wilful