A careless boy, with a pitiless heart, A sorrowful note of plaint and woe And the pearl-like eggs lie crushed below, And still, in the boughs of the old beech-tree, 'Mid its rustling sprays of green, The deserted nest, you still may see Peep out from its verdant screen. But the bird on its gay and gladsome wing And the mate that would sit on the boughs and sing, His summer songs are o'er. And nought can bring from the happy past (Though the walls of the dear old home may last), But memories of the dead. J. C. H. "WIR SASSEN AM FISCHERHAUSE." TRANSLATION FROM HEINE. WE sat by the fisherman's cottage, And upwards and upwards soared. All at once the lights in the lighthouse Were lit up, and flashed out wide, And far away in the offing A ship might still be descried. We talked of tempest and shipwreck ; We talked of far-away regions, Both in north and in south that were; Of all the singular peoples, And singular customs there. There are giant woods on the Ganges, And sunshine and fragrant bowers, And stately, serene men kneel there Before the lotus flowers. In Lapland, the natives are filthy, Flat headed, broad-mouthed, and small; They cower round their fires, and bake there Their fish, and jabber and squall. The girls they listened intently, And at last no one spoke any more; The ship could be sighted no longer, The night had sunk down on the shore. Blackwood's Magazine. From The Quarterly Review. THE CHURCH IN THE WEST RIDING.* THE West Riding of Yorkshire possesses greater natural advantages, as a manufacturing district, than any other part of England. Water, coal, and ironstone abound. The rivers have lent themselves readily to the formation of canals, and the development of trade has both fostered and been fostered by a network of railways. The character of the people corresponds in a striking degree with the physical features of the country. Beneath a somewhat rugged exterior there lie many admirable qualities which rarely fail for lack of strength. Indomitable in energy, strong in hatred as in love, tenacious of purpose to a fault,† not readily committing 1. Charges delivered to the Clergy at his Trien nial Visitation. By Robert, Lord Bishop of Ripon, 1864, 1867, 1870, 1873, 1876. 2. The Ripon Diocesan Calendar for 1871. 3. The York Diocesan Calendar for 1877. 4. Return to an Address of the House of Lords, showing the Number of Churches (including Cathedrals) in every Diocese in England, except Peterborough and Gloucester and Bristol, which have been built or restored at a cost exceeding 500l. since the year 1840, &c. The Lord Hampton, 1875. 5. Report of the Committee of Council on Education (England and Wales). 1876-7. 6. Thirty-seventh Report of the Society for Promoting the Increase of Church Accommodation, &c., and of the Ripon Diocesan Board of Education. 1877. 7. Reports of the Leeds Church Extension Society, 1866-1876, and First Report of the Leeds (New) Church Extension Society, 1877. 8. Twentieth Annual Report of the Leeds Church Institute and Sunday School Association, 1876. 10. Congregationalism in Yorkshire: a Chapter of Modern Church History. By James G. Miall. London, 1868. 11. Annual Report of the Yorkshire Association of Baptist Churches, &c., assembled at Keighley, May 22nd and 23rd, 1877; with the Address of the Presi dent, Rev. J. Stock, LL.D. 1877. 12. The Yorkshire Congregational Year-Book for 1877. This tenacity of purpose occasionally takes strange forms. A Yorkshire clergyman not long ago, for reasons only known to himself, steadily abstained from saying, "Let us pray," at the places where it is enjoined in the daily prayers. The scrupulous abstinence of the vicar begat a like scrupulous wrath in a rich parishioner, who consulted a neighboring clergyman. "Isn't our parson bound to say, 'Let us pray?'" "I think so, but you had better ask his reason for not saying it." "So himself to a stranger, but loving unreservedly when once his heart is gained, the as a specimen of the Anglo-Saxon race. average Yorkshireman will take high rank "In such a spot and among such a people the worsted manufacture," the staple trade of the district, "has attained gigantic growth, and become one of the wonders of this progressive age.” the population of the West Riding engenThe unexampled rapidity of increase in dered difficulties of the gravest kind. How could it be possible for the Church to furnish moral and religious teaching for masses so suddenly brought together, and under conditions often most unfavorable to her influence? If her machinery utterly broke down it would be little wonder, considering the tremendous strain thus put upon it. If, on the contrary, she has been able boldly to grapple with the task, and in some adequate degree to accomplish it, no thoughtful statesman would lightly damage an institution which can claim to be the most ancient in the kingdom, and the best adapted to meet the highest exigencies of modern times. No more trying test could be submitted than to investigate the question, whether the Church in the West Riding has largely fulfilled its overwhelming duties, and retained or recovered its hold over two millions of the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the most independent of our fellow-country men. We are not without hope that the facts to be given in this article will furnish materials for a verdict in the Church's favor. He would have been a rash man who had ventured a century ago to predict a bright future for the Church of England in the West Riding. The wilder features of the country, then so largely occupied by barren mountain and bleak moorland, harmonized but too well with the rude and rugged character of the people. Cut off from anything beyond the most occasional intercourse with the outer world, and secluded in the deep valleys which intersect the magnesian limestone and the millstone I have, but he says he sha'n't give way; and I want to "I don't care what it costs, I'll make him say, 'Let us know if I can make him." "I am afraid you could pray."" It required a strong appeal to his better naonly do this by putting him into one of the ecclesiasti- ture, and to the injury which such a proceeding would cal courts, and Church law is a very expensive thing." | occasion, before he could be diverted from his purpose. grit, their isolation was marked by the ex- a scant income and double toil; but he istence of numerous dialects, each of deemed it his duty to accept them, and at which was almost unintelligible to the once set out for his charge. No road then immediate neighbors, and their prejudice existed through the beautiful valley of against strangers took an unpleasantly Todmorden, so he walked over the hills active form. John Wesley, describing his from Halifax, and inquired about the conjourney from Manchester to Huddersfield, dition of the people from the landlord of a says, "The people ran and shouted after solitary public-house. "Be you the chap the carriage, and I believe they are the that is coming to preach to us?" was the wildest folk in all England." Large num- blunt reply that grated harshly on ears in bers of the clergy were sunk in spiritual which still lingered conversation at royal apathy, for which the condition of their tables or with the pietists of Halle and the livings afforded only too plausible an ex- philosopher of Ferney. Yet the rough cuse. With incomes often sadly inade- spokesman eventually proved an earnest quate, how was it possible for men of Christian and a staunch ally. After six average calibre to cope with the necessi- years' residence here, during which time ties of such enormous parishes as Brad- he managed, whilst walking fifty miles a ford, Halifax, or Dewsbury? Bright week on pastoral visitation, to read through lights, indeed, arose occasionally, which showed that the flame of divine grace was not altogether extinct in the Church; but they only flashed like meteors and then died out, leaving the darkness as deep as ever. A few names deserve longer notice than our space allows, as striking examples of the influence gained over this wild people by men who combined force of character and practical godliness of life. the whole of Poole's "Synopsis," Crosse removed to the vicarage of Bradford, where he remained until his death at a very advanced age. Possessed, through his wife, of an ample fortune, he lived and dressed in the meanest way in order to spend his income on the poor and in advancing the cause of missions. On one occasion the vicarage was broken into whilst the family was at church, and some twenty guineas were carried off by the thieves. "It serves me right," was Crosse's remark on being told of it, "I ought to have given them away to the poor." Crowds flocked to his ministry, churchyard, as well as church, being often filled. When missionary sermons were preached, Baptist, Wesleyan, and Congregational ministers suspended their About forty years ago a clergyman was presented evening services and attended the parish to a living in Craven, and on going to see the place, church with their congregations. Broken stayed at a farmhouse, the only available place of in health, blind, and eighty years old, he lodging in the neighborhood. There were two churches, one of them four miles distant, so he inquired on Sun- got his death-blow through persisting that day morning if he could have some conveyance in he would preach, although he was seriwhich to reach it. "There's nobbut our stag," was the reply, "you can have that if you like, it's laking." John Crosse, vicar of Bradford, a finished scholar and a perfect gentleman, had just completed the grand tour with a member of the Thornton family, when he was offered the livings of Cross Stones, in the parish of Halifax, and Todmorden, in that of Rochdale. The two together afforded A vision of a horned quadruped swimming in some adjoining water rose to his mind; but, after much explanation, he learned that the sentence, being interpreted, meant, "There is nothing but our young colt, which you can have, as it has nothing to do." A West Riding factory hand who is out of work will, at the present day, reply to the question, "What, are you not at the mill?" with the answer, "No, I'm laking." ↑ Slaithwaite was endowed with 45. a year, and seatrents barely made up the stipend to 20%. Huddersfield, when Venn came to it, was only worth 100l. per annum. The parish of Halifax is nearly twenty miles long by twelve broad. Dewsbury about twenty miles each way. ously indisposed; his only reply to all remonstrance being, "It's only a cold; you know I always preach away a cold." He left his entire fortune for charitable uses, and with part of it the well-known Crosse theological scholarships at Cambridge are endowed. Hammond Roberson, curate of Dewsbury, the original of Parson Yorke, was a man of sterner mould, and perhaps better fitted to deal with the rough and brutal manners of his flock. The operations of 197 ried self-denial, devotion, and intrepidity, Grimshaw gained the hearts of this lawless people. Their keen West Riding estimate of money was enlisted on his side spinning and weaving were then carried the home of the Brontës, amongst a popuon at the workmen's homes, and Sunday lation then described as “ very ignorant, was the day commonly selected for scour- brutish, and wicked." By dint of unweaing and milling the cloth, for hanging it on the tenters to dry, and for preparing the warps for the looms. Such work was varied with drunkenness, dog-fighting, cock-fighting, and bull-baiting. Against by his lofty refusal to exact his church the latter Roberson made a determined stand, and summoned the ringleaders to Wakefield; but the case was dismissed, as the magistrates sympathized with the sport; and Roberson was followed home, a distance of some miles, by a mob who hooted and insulted him all the way with the most disgraceful language. He was not to be daunted nor deterred from his purpose, so he indicted his opponents at the York assizes, and obtained a verdict against them. He has the credit of having founded the first Sunday-school in Yorkshire (this was in 1783); and here the first four ordained English clergymen sent out by the Church Missionary Society had their early training. He also built and endowed the church at Liversedge in the year 1816. dues by legal proceedings, and by his courageous determination to enlarge his church without the aid of a rate, a proceeding in that day almost without parallel; their strong love of equality and hospitality was captivated by the example of a gentleman who, without a word to his guests to intimate his purpose, would give up to them his own bed-chamber, and go himself to sleep in the hayloft, and who did not disdain himself to clean the boots of any strangers that had lodged under his roof; and their admiration for courage and hard work was extorted by his energy, which never flagged, and his boldness, which never blenched before a difficulty; until at length his authority over them was almost unbounded. Woe to the man whose demeanor was careless during the Henry Venn of Huddersfield, and Wil- church prayers! Grimshaw would stop to liam Grimshaw of Haworth, are household rebuke the offender, and would not pronames amongst the earlier Evangelical ceed until the whole congregation were leaders. Both exercised a wide influence upon their knees. Woe to the skulkers as preachers, many persons walking on who lingered during divine service at the Sunday ten and twelve miles each way to public house! whilst the psalm was being hear them. One good work started by sung before the sermon, he would hurry Venn still flourishes the Elland Society, out of church, and drive them in before established to assist candidates for holy him, to listen to a discourse two hours orders, of good character and ability, but long. The village blacksmith did not venstraitened means. It had the warm sup-ture on the Lord's day to replace a lost port of William Wilberforce, and numbers horseshoe for a passing stranger until the amongst the two hundred and fifty clergy parson's leave had first been obtained; and who have been aided by its funds the hon- the village races, a scene of profligacy and ored names of Samuel Marsden, the apos- riot which had caused him much pain, tle of New Zealand, Thomason of India, were suppressed, as their supporters and Henry Kirke White. The popular themselves asserted, by the parson's prayestimate of Venn may be gathered from ers. In idle weeks he preached twelve or the inquiry of a workman to one of the fourteen times; in busy ones as much as congregation at Huddersfield Church, thirty; often, it must be admitted, beyond where Venn had been preaching some his own parish boundaries and without years after he resigned the living. "What, permission for his intrusion; with what hast been to hear 'towd (i.e. the old) trum-success may be learned from himself. pet again?" --- Yet all these yield in rugged picturesqueness to William Grimshaw, for twenty years perpetual curate of Haworth, "When I first came into this country I could not in half a day's ride - north, south, east, or west - hear of one serious person, and now I have at my sacraments, |