he had received for his servicess, and finding that there was no idea on the part of the rector or the churchwardens of raising his fees, he threw up his office in disgust. Subsequent reflection convinced him he had made a mistake. It was therefore in the spirit of penitence that he wrote the following extraordinary production to his rector: DEAR AND REV. SIR-I avail myself of the opportunity of troubling your honor with these blundered-up lines, which I hope you will excuse, and which is the very sentiments of your humble servant's heart. I ignorantly, rashly, but reluctantly, gave warning to leave your highly respected office and most amiable duty, as being your servant and clerk of this your most well-worked parish, and place of my succor and support. But, dear sir, I well know it was no fault of yours, nor any of my most worthy parishioners. It was because I thought I were not sufficiently paid for the interment of the silent dead. But will I be a Judas, and leave the house of my God, the place where his honor dwelleth, for a few pieces of silver? No! Will I be a Peter, and deny myself of an office in his sanctuary, and cause myself to weep bitterly? No! Can I be so unreasonable as to deny, if I live and am well, the pleasure to ring that solemn toll that speaks the departure of a soul? No! Can I leave off digging the tombs of my neighbors and acquaintance, which have many a time made me shudder and think of my mortality, especially when I have dug up the mortal remains of some one as I perhaps very well knew? No! Can I so abruptly forsake the services of my beloved church, which I have not failed to attend of every Sunday for this seven year and a half? No! Can I leave waiting upon you, a minister of that Being that sitteth between the cherubims, and flieth upon the wings of the wind? No! Can I leave the place where our most holy service calls forth, and says, "Those whom God hath joined together (and being, as I am, a married man) let no man put asunder?" No! Can I leave that ordinance where you say, "Thus and thus, I baptise thee in the name of," etc., etc.; and he becomes "regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's Church"? No! Can I think of leaving off cleaning at Easter the house of God, in whom I take such de light, in looking down her aisles, and beholding her sanctuary and the table of the Lord? No! Can I forsake taking part in the service of thanksgiving of women after childbirth, when mine own wife has been delivered these ten times? No! Can I leave off waiting on the congregation of the Lord, which you well know, sir, is my delight? No! Can I leave the table of the Lord, at which I have feasted a mat ter of, I daresay, full thirty times? No! leave you, has ever been kind to me? And, dear sir, can I ever forsake you, who No! And I well know "you will entreat me not to after you: for where you pray, there will neither to return from following I pray; where you worship, will I worship; your church shall be my church, God shall be my God."" your people shall be my people, and your "More down and weep, and leave thee, O my By the waters of Babylon am I to sit that grow in the yard? No! One thing church, and hang my harp upon the trees have I desired of the Lord all the days of life my to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple. to be desired art thou, O my church, than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter to me than honey and the honeycomb." Now heart, still to wait upon you, which I hope think, sir, this is the very desire of my you will find to be my delight as hitherto; but I unthinkingly and rashly said I would no longer; for which "I have roared for the very disquietness of my heart." Now, if you think me worthy to wait that all is reconciled; and if not, "I will upon you, please to tell the churchwardens get me away into the wilderness, and hide me in the desert in the clefts of the rocks; " but I hope still to be your Gehazi; and when I meet my Shunamite, to be able to say, "All, all is well." I will conclude my blunders with my oft-repeated prayer, is now, and ever shall be, world without that it may be "as it was in the beginning, end. Amen." Now, sir, I shall go on with my fees a same as I found them, and will make no more trouble about them; but I will not, I cannot, I must not leave you nor my delightful duties. Your most obedient servant, Let us hope that the penitent clerk was reinstated, and was not obliged to get himself "away into the wilderness." From The Quarterly Review. THE ENGLISHWOMAN AT SCHOOL.* -- strength, and never above either, all directed to John's especial comfort, and to IN her "Letters to her Daughter," Lady that of the usual conjugal contingencies. Mary Wortley Montague introduces this The curious part of the argument is that, remark: "I have never in all my various while it is always taken for granted that travels seen but two sorts of people, and there is not only a husband in the case, but those very like one another - I mean men a pattern one, whom it will be her priviand women - who always have been and lege to love, honor, and obey, it is as invawill be the same." Whatever the ambigu- riably forgotten that there is nothing in ity of this sentence, there is no mistake this world she is more eager to do. Far as to what so clear-headed a woman, who from needing pressure or persuasion, the despatched commonplaces and sophistries poor lady is as ready to welcome that mirwith a touch, really meant; not that, men ror of manly perfections who is to complete and women are very like one another all her being, as a duck is to take to the over the world, but that the "two sorts" in water. It is astonishing how these writers one country resemble the "two sorts" in would simplify matters. Their conception another a fact which few women have of the relative positions of the "two sorts" had more opportunity of verifying. She would seem to be that of a great corporate might even have added that whatever the body, divided into two equal portions progress and changes in social habits- the men on the one side, the women on the whatever the occasional interchange of other - whence a succession of couples parts in the drama of life, from circum-emerge and pair off in regular turns. This stances past control - the "two sorts" is a pretty picture for an Arcadian “cotilwould remain distinct to the end of the lon." The mind's eye can see them meetchapter, and would not be men and women ing, giving hands, and gaily careering at all if they did not. Under these circum- down the middle; but it is not a picture for stances there is something tragi-comic in the canvas of real life. Such methodical the pains many a worthy writer has taken arrangements, stript of all their gilding, to prove that men are masculine and wom- would require men and women to reen feminine, and that it is for their mutual turn to that primitive form of society interest to continue so; while the fact, that where to be marriageable is to marry. these works have been aimed chiefly at the But there is no such thing as a state of claims of the weaker vessels, would lead to nature for civilized man: the utmost dethe inference that they are the party most velopment he is capable of is his only eager to break the appointed bounds. Ac- proper nature. "A highly artificial concordingly the central and special point dition of society" is a phrase apt to inspire round which the arguments of these writ- an unpleasant impression, as of something ers revolve is, that woman should fulfil her which has deviated from sound, simple, "mission:" in other words, that nature and normal habits; but it is only the queshaving intended every Joan to have her tionable adjective which is misleading: the John, she should seek and find her true thing itself is what every country capahappiness in a delightful round of domes- ble of progress must covet; for it means tic duties, exactly fitted to her capacity and nothing less than that in proportion as the conditions of life become more difficult and complex, they should be met by more ingenuity, more culture, more forethought, prudence, duty, and self-sacrifice. It is this complex state which interferes with what we fancy the natural relations of life, but which really raises them into a far more pure and ennobling sphere — which compels parents to part with their sons for their good to distant lands, never perhaps to see them again - which drives 1. Reports issued by the Schools Enquiry Commission on the Education of Girls. 2. Journal of the Women's Educational Union. Edited by Miss Shirreff and George C. T. Bartley. 3. The Education of American Girls. Edited by Anna C. Brackett. 1874. 4. Five Hundred Employments adapted to Women, with the average Rate of Pay in each. By Miss Virginia Penny. Philadelphia. 5. Literary and Social Judgments. By W. R. Greg. 1868. 6. The Woman's Gazette, or News about Work. Conducted by L. M. H. men to live where women of their own is no husband to supply, is but imperfectly station cannot join them—which forces supplemented by father or brother. It is husbands to make their homes in climates a forlorn sight to see maidens "withering where their wives sicken and their chil- on the stalk;" but it is a piteous one to dren cannot exist, and to continue at their see them starving on it. Poor ladies — for posts so that these loved ones may exist of such this class is principally made upelsewhere. There is no demoralization or may truly say, "All things are against us," disorganization in this. It is rather a for the parents who are bound to protect transposition of elements; a rooting up in and provide are too often both the primary one place to take root in another; a disin- and ultimate cause of the misery of their tegration which stirs and fertilizes, to en- daughters. Misfortunes are, it is true, rich and to bind again — all fulfilling the sometimes of a kind which cannot be foreoriginal mandate to replenish the earth seen, or prevented; but the breakdown of and subdue it. But in this jostle and dis- all power and resources for meeting them persion of social parts there is no doubt can be prevented. False indulgence and that the individual suffers though the false authority are the rocks on which race advances, and that "the weakest is thousands of these poor souls are wrecked. left to lament." In some homes and there are too many According to the "Population Returns" of them young women, in the sense of of 1851, as quoted by Mr. Greg, there were thinking or acting for themselves, may be in England and Wales at that time no less said never to come of age. They are than 1,248,000 women single, between the lapped in a luxury which the stoppage of ages of twenty and forty. Reckoning for one heart or one bank suddenly brings to the numbers who in England marry after an end; and they are kept in leading. twenty, this total would be considerably strings or go-carts which prevent their diminished; but, even so, it is believed realizing the intention of their own limbs. that the permanent number of unmarried The incapacity of some parents to perwomen may be accepted as about three- ceive when their daughters have come to quarters of a million. Nor is the fact, that years of discretion - the jealousy to retain the estimate was made twenty-seven years their authority over women more fitted by ago, likely to have reduced the amount, but age to lead them is a feature peculiar to rather the reverse. This discloses what English life. French mothers have, as must be called a strange social phenome- M. Mohl used to express it, a férocité non, suggestive of desolate positions and which dictates the choice in marriage both bitter needs, which has to be viewed under to son and daughter, and keeps their autwo aspects. Woman is the helpmeet for thority over both, even when married; but man, but man is the support hitherto they do not turn their daughters out, single deemed necessary for woman. Both as- and dowerless, into the world, as English pects, in the tremendous extent of their parents do. We may rail against French present non-fulfilment, are matters of the matrimonial arrangements; but, when congravest and of equal importance; but we trasted with the sufferings of thousands of have now only to do with the last. As our countrywomen, the mariage de conve‐ suming that the majority of these three-nance rises in the scale. The case is simquarters of a million women are indepen-ple to state. If we accustom a lap-dog to dent in circumstances, or so placed - live on chicken, cakes, and cream — to especially in the lower ranks as to warm washings, aromatic soaps, blue ribsupport themselves, there still remains a bons, and soft rugs - we do perhaps a body of single helplessness, living on silly thing; but if after all this petting we shifts, alms, votes, and institutions, fit for turn him out in the cold without a bone, no work, and eager to take any, of which we do a cruel thing. Nor is the matter society at every turn is made aware. amended if we have drilled him into perThere are other ties, it is true, and of a fect obedience, taught him to bark at cer sacred nature, between men and women; tain signs, to sit up and beg, and to keep but the fact is too evident, that what there a biscuit on his nose till he is told to eat - |