danger of their intercourse becoming too exterior, too altogether secular. Therefore, I think, our Lord in mercy, from time to time, takes one, by illness or misfortune, out of these pursuits. He calls them to gather round Him, to leave, for a season, Martha's much serving, and, like Mary, to come, as a family, and sit awhile at His feet, that He may renew in sweetness not only their bond to Him, but their bond to each other, that it may become deepened in truth, warmer in love, and more active in heavenly as well as earthly uses; so that when the trial is over, all concerned may see, what at the time they cannot well discern, that this illness was for the glory of God;' and, also, for the happiness of man."

On Good Friday 1850, Mrs. Schimmel Penninck made the exertion, which for many past years had proved beyond her strength, to attend the public worship of God. On that day, and for the last time, she joined the services of the Moravian Church in Bristol. Almost at the moment of setting out, she learnt that one, whom in former years she had much loved and honoured, was in dying circumstances. She took a scrap of paper, and hastily wrote the following lines:—

"My very dear and honoured Friend,

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May all the blessings of Him, who at this hour hung upon the cross for us, be with you on

this day. May He give you the full, deep, double blessing of the rich atoning blood and the purifying stream of water. Oh! may He make your bed in your sickness, and as the heavens open to you, may you, like Stephen, see Him in glory at his Father's and your Father's right hand.

"Remember me still before Him.

"Thank you, thank you, for the many blessed hours of sweet communion we have taken together before Him, in the land of our pilgrimage. Oh! may we once rest together in His holy presence, and rejoice before him together!

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My dear and very honoured friend, to Him whom your soul best loves, I commend you. I know His angel encamps around your bed, encamps with a double purpose-to watch over you under the eye of Him whose love neither slumbers nor sleeps, and because, even the holy angels, by seeing His works in His living temple, the hearts of His children, learn more of the manifold wisdom and love of God in Christ. And thus both the angel in glory and the disciple in dust are privileged to minister to each other out of the rich abundance that alike replenishes both. Farewell! Pray for me in finishing my pilgrimage, as I give thanks for you on the threshold of His glory."

Again she writes to an intimate friend,—

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At six I rode out over the Down, and got out to walk in the shade. I felt the soft green turf so pleasant, and the tall grove of firs and their rugged stems just marked by a thread of golden light, the grateful expanse of the shadowing lime and ash over our heads, and then the deep long shadows of evening ever stretching further, and beyond, far away, the blue hills and mountains rich with light, the sea like an expanse of gold. Bright was that sea, telling of the ocean of Eternity beyond the evening shadows of age, bright the hills, like the eternal landmarks of Divine truth! and oh! how bright and radiant did the sails appear of those ships which had reached the ocean. How many of them in the morning looked poor, dusky, and tattered, hemmed in between the banks of our muddy river, but once arrived at the ocean, once illuminated by that bright sun, how glorious did they look in His glory!"

CHAP. XI.

1840-1848.

"Jesus Christ is the corner and foundation stone of the Church, which is the Temple of God. He supports and holds together all the parts, and it is by a lively faith that each subsists in Him, and is united to Him." QUESNEL.

FROM early youth the study of architecture was a favourite pursuit of Mrs. SchimmelPenninck.

Forty years before a knowledge of architecture became a fashion, and while pinnacles and sockets, bosses and cusps were words in an unknown tongue, her mind, in most things before the age, had perceived its beauty, and she had diligently sought to make herself acquainted with its principles. She fully appreciated the exquisite perfection of Grecian architecture, but she dwelt with most delight on Gothic, because she saw in it a symbolic utterance of Scriptural truth.

Being one day asked to state her reasons for this preference, she wrote in a few hours the beautiful little "Essay on the Comparative Value of Grecian

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and Gothic Architecture," which will be found among of her miscellaneous works.

With Durandus and others, she believed that ecclesiastical buildings were intended not only to afford the means for the performance of religious rites, but likewise in a measure to supply the want of books in an age when printing was unknown; hence the construction of ecclesiastical edifices, both in their general forms and in their particular details, was designed to exhibit a typical or symbolic representation of Divine truth, and consequently to form a continued series of religious instruction to those versed in its silent but eloquent language.

I will make a few extracts from scattered notices of her thoughts on this subject:

"Not only has St. Jerome left us a record of his meditative walks in the Catacombs of Rome, but the walls of the rocks and caverns, and the rude masonry with which they are fashioned, are rich in Christian symbols. They have, indeed, no value as works of art, for they were produced in the decline of art, and by men probably who did not value the arts as such; but, while the execution is poor, the conception is sublime-telling everywhere of eternal truth; they declare great things in a lisping tongue.

"In every part of these ancient temples and tombs of sepulture, appear the history of Jonah, the type