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much better then than it is now." Granted. But extremes are always to be avoided, and whether the extreme independence of the present age is an improvement on that period when parents and children were so surrounded by stiffness and formalities as almost to be strangers to one another, is a matter of question. The juste milieu is the happy point to aim at, and much, very much, depends on parents, governesses, yes, and even brothers, as to how girls turn out.

Children's balls are much the fashion now, conducted in the same style as those for grown-up people, to which many children are allowed to go night after night, till they become premature men and women, imitating the talk and the flirting of their elders, instead of enjoying one or two Christmas parties where merry games are played, with no aim at being anything but the children that they are.

It is all this which leads to the want of fresh, simple, hearty enjoyment so seldom seen now among young people who have grown up surrounded with toys and amusements, until they are unable to seek interests and wholesome pleasures for themselves.

With regard to literature too. Young people must read, as every one knows, but if parents would take the trouble to examine books, before they let their daughters have them, a great deal of harm might be averted. Do not let young ladies for one moment suppose that the gentlemen they meet and dance with, like them any the better for the discovery that they are acquainted with the last and fastest sensational novel, or with all the "cant" slang of the day. Gentlemen may talk to a girl as if this were the case sometimes to her face, but when her back is turned they may be heard to speak in very unflattering terms, and a girl may have lost the ground which an easy, bright, intelligent conversation, proving acquaintance with the best of current topics and literature, might have gained her. Above all, if a young girl is fond of books, or is talented, let her neither vaunt the fact as a "blue," nor strive to hide it. Never let her endeavour to be anything that she is not; if ignorant of a subject mentioned, by far the best way is simply and straightfor wardly to own it, without being over apologetic, and invariably the desired knowledge will be readily and pleasantly given without any appearance of reproach for ignorance. An intelligent listener is of as much value in society as the most brilliant conversationalist. An aim at the artificial, at something which we have not and are not, is one of the greatest faults of the time,-it pervades everything, and even creeps out amongst those whose desire is to be good and true. In the

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matter of dress, for example, how many will wear handsomer dresses than they can well afford in order to appear as rich or richer than their neighbours, little knowing to how much greater advantage they would appear in a less expensive pretty dress with well assorted colours. False hair does seem to be going out of fashion, which is a good thing, and we will hope that "painting" is only done by a few.

We can see what the shallow falseness of French life has led to, so let us look to our colours, and let England's women study to be true and thorough. Each may say for themselves that their actions can be but a drop in the ocean of society; let them remember that "it is the drops that make the shower," and that the gift of influence, bestowed in its measure upon every human being, is far more extensive in its work for good or evil than any of us can suppose. This power of influence touches the subject of authorship more nearly perhaps than any other. Authors and authoresses, who sit down and take up your pens to make money, by rendering the bad characters in your books the most fascinating, so as to enlist sympathy in their behalf, and gloss over crimes, do you ever pause to reflect on the possible effect of your writings on those who will read them? or on the influence your tale of sin or sorrow may have on some young mind now making its first acquaintance with the world and its literature ?

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Possibly you will answer, I must write to suit the taste of the public, and I cannot help it if that taste is not quite in accordance with mine." But I say, why not write a thrilling story with a high standard and a good moral, a book that shall raise instead of lower the tone of both writer and reader? imperceptibly perhaps to the latter, for I am not an advocate for every novel being a religious novel. Without a word of religious conversation, or a mention of the word religion even, a tone may pervade a work, a tone, I say, of high moral integrity, in some one or more of the characters, which may awaken a responsive feeling in the mind of the reader. Surely if our novelists aimed at such a style of writing as this, the taste for literature, now so vitiated, would ere long become higher and purer. Once more I say, let us be warned by our sister country and by what her literature has been and is, and let us resolve, ere it be too late, that the brightness and freshness of simplicity, truth, and honour shall reign and be upheld in the literature of England.

C. L.

EASTER-LIGHT.

S. MATT. XXVIII. 10; Isa. XXXIII. 17.

LIGHT on the beautiful sea,

Moonlight soft and clear,

When the labours of day are ended awhile,

And the pitying shades draw near;

Over the waves erst wild,

Now hushed as a tired child,

Silver light on thy moontricked sea,

O beautiful Galilee!

Light on the purple hills,

Veiled in an airy mist,

When Dawn stoops low on her rosy bed,

And thousand flowers are kissed

Kissed by the beautiful Dawn,

By the dew-bright lips of Morn,

While ever her first smile falls on ye,

Wild mountains of Galilee !

Light in the shadowy woods,

Where the lilies fragrant lie,

And the sweet blue violets kiss the way

Of the Spring as she passes by;

And all the woodruffs white

Mirror the young day's light,

And the harts couch low in the dales that be

In beautiful Galilee!

Light in the Holy Church

On every altar height,

And bright in the hall and peasant's cot

There dawns that mystic light;

And saints enraptured pray,

And little children play,

In the light that streams o'er land and sea

From beautiful Galilee!

For Thou, O LORD, art He

Who has passed' to this 'far countree,'

Who stands in the fair Resurrection white,

On that shore beyond the fight;

1 Galilee, according to one derivation from its Hebrew root, means 'transmigra tion,' or 'passing from a country.' Cf. S. Austin de Cons. Ev. iii.

And ever when hearts are sad,

And ever when men are glad,

There streams from Thy Presence o'er land and sea,
The Light from Galilee !

M.

GOING TO THE CAVE OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE WITH

the

MARY.

A MEDITATION FOR LOW SUNDAY AND THE PASCHAL TIDE.

"What thou sawest, Mary, say,

As thou wentest on thy way,"

"I saw the slain one's earthly prison,

I saw the Glory of the Risen."

"JESUS saith unto her, Mary."

LET us go back to Easter Day, the Bright Day, the Queen of Days, very Feast of Feasts, the Greatest Festival of all the year.

It is always pleasant to recur again in thought to times of great happiness, to live over again happy days. How dreary life would be, if this were not permitted to us. It is for this that GOD raises up to us "wells of water," sweet and pleasant retreats amid the graceful Palm Trees, as we journey through the great and terrible Wilderness of Life, so that we, from what has gone before, from those pleasant joyful days, may recount our pleasures over again, and at last, by the grace and mercy of GOD, come in victorious, receiving from the Hands of our dear LORD our Palms of Victory, and the Rewards, which shall be given to those, and overcome in the cruel strife.

Consider for a moment, what a pleasure it is to meet old friends, who have known us years gone by, to talk with them of the dearly loved once familiar faces, and the happy times we have spent with them, perchance, in GoD's Sanctuary, with JESUS, really and truly, keeping there Festival, Sacrament and prayer, as we hardly ever hope to do again on earth. No, not till we are gathered in and meet them once again in GOD's Holy Place, the Place prepared for us, having with them "received the kingdom," that Place where prayer shall be no longer, but the denizens thereof shall ever join in one Triumphant Psalm of Praise.

That Blessedness may be far from us yet, but still if we try and persevere, if we never doubt GOD's care, ours it will be in His own good

time. Only let us follow our LORD "afar off," like S. Peter, and it may be in the all-holy Eyes of our dear LORD we may the while be running to meet Him, loving Him as we have never loved Him before, coming, ay, so close to our dear LORD, as to kiss the Blessed Feet.

Our eyes and hearts are holden, and, "when we know even as we are known," we shall understand.

So go we back to the Holy Sepulchre on this the Octave of our High Festival. Let us take a last farewell glance of the fair and pleasant garden, dear unto the Angels, and of the sad Magdalene, as she waits aghast, wondering in her grief as to how she shall roll away the heavy stone.

It is not good to stand too near holy things, lest we grow irreverent. It is not good to gaze too closely on the most solemn things of life. “Afar off” we must always be, till we hear the story from the lips of the Saints themselves in their dear native Land.

"Come see the place where the LORD lay," may be permitted to us. But the realities of the sacred story, the exceeding Brightness of our dear LORD's Presence, the holy joy of the Magdalene, no, never in this life.

How much we would like to know, and how much there is, which we are ignorant of, when those who once could tell us are gone? What would we not give to hear them speak? Thank God this holy story we have in the words of the Evangel, and we know, and believe that they are the Words of GOD the HOLY GHOST, and He cannot lie or falsify.

O how the Early Christians must have reverenced S. John, that Saint of the Sacred Heart, and aged Patriarch, decorated ever with the Golden Mitre, and Seer of the Great Ephesian Church, and concerning whom a certain one in our day has sung

"When the last evening came

Thy head was on His Breast,
Pillow'd on earth, where now
In Heaven Saints find rest.

"Thy long fair hair hung down

His glance spoke love to thine,
While love's meek freedom own'd
The Human and Divine."

How they must have hung upon and treasured up his words as he told them the blessed and glorious story of the LORD's Resurrection. For in and through that most holy tale was "the Coronation of Man, his

I Faber.

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