in the paradise of God? Oh, could we have been in that sick-room, and been favoured, like the prophet's servant, to have had our eyes opened, should we not have seen unutterable things? When He, the true prophet of His church, speaks to the heart, it is as never man spake. His words in the secret of the soul, are life indeed; and His testimonies give true wisdom to the simple, and in a very short time accomplish great things. How great things pass in the secret of the sick chamber between the soul and God, which no other human heart knows, which no ear hears. How much mercy and consolation. How many holy angels may guard unseen around, how many blessed spirits are near rejoicing, and how the imagination of faith seems almost to glimpse amongst them the illuminated forms of some so revered, and so beloved, once on earth amongst us, but now gone before, rejoicing to welcome him. they loved. But though the secret converse of the Lord to the departing spirit be inscrutable to us, we know that He is love, that He is the good Shepherd. That He who has declared His sheep shall not want, has equally declared that He will carry the lambs in His bosom. Was not dear one of those lambs? Our hope is for him, as for ourselves, in our good Shepherd, and in Him only. Let us trust Him altogether; He who through our long earthly pilgrimage has never let us want, and who in many a dry desert has made us lie down in green pastures, and led us even in the midst of outward storms, by still waters; He has the same heart towards His lambs, to open to them rivers of water, and pleasures for evermore. We drink indeed of the stream; the same love has called him to

lrink at the fountain. —but it is one blessed river of life, d.wing from Him who is life, for all our fresh springs are in Him, an 1 in Him we are all one. Oh, let us rejoice in that blessed union, which no accident, no time, no distance, -Lall ever interryt in that communion of saints, with their ever adorable Heal, the fountain and source of blessing. Yours most affectionately,

"M. A. S."

To another friend Mrs. Schimmel Penninck writes:

How often have I lately wished to say to you, be not cast down even at your deepest sorrow. The seeds of joy and peace are plantel, and will and must spring up. And remember that in everything, no state is so painful as a transition state, when the accustomed phase vanishes, and the new, and better, and more perfect one is not yet established. Never forget that the love of man, like that of God, is eternal-that it cannot die - that, having eternal vitality, it has also eternal progression and enhancement; that each phase is not only a continuation of the same love, but an improvement upon it; and that as in a precious plant, though the first green cotyledons pass away, the stem shall shoot up in renovated strength and beauty. But there is a transition state in which the form is changed. The old disappears, and the new is not yet fully developed ; and during that period how acutely we suffer, unless we can substitute faith for sight.

"In this life we love our friends both spiritually and temporally; but we are such creatures of time and sense,

that what belongs to the sensible life, occupies the principal part of our mental perspective. But when our Lord says to our beloved, Friend, come up higher,' it is some time before our mental vision accustoms itself to follow them. And it requires renewed and frequent exercises of faith, before the eye of our heart transfers its view from the adjoining room in our Father's house, to behold those we love in a higher story of the same house above. But that view will come, and come in rich, and holy, and abiding blessing."

CHAP. X.

1847 and 1848.

"The soul that lives ascends frequently and runs familiarly through the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem, visiting the patriarchs and prophets, saluting the apostles, and admiring the army of martyrs; so do thou lead on thy heart and bring it to the palace of the Great King."— BAXTER.

THE following letter, to a friend with whom at this period of her life she became intimately associated, was written in order to explain what she held to be the respective value of the Catholic and the Protestant principles.

It appears that the following letter has caused pain to the minds of some readers. The editor desired to present, in Mrs. Schimmel Penninck's own words, some thoughts on a subject which occupied a prominent place in her mind, were frequently expressed by her in conversation, and, it is believed, were often misunderstood or inaccurately reported.

An attentive perusal of this letter will show that no general comparison was intended between the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, but that the writer was solely occupied with one characteristic feature in each; on the one hand that of submission to authority, and on the other that of independent inquiry. These principles she believed in their reciprocal action to be essential to the prosperity of the Church of Christ. She regarded them as counterchecks to the licence of private judgment, and to the oppression of irresponsible power. It was her grief and pain that around these two sacred principles, intended by God to work together in the Church with a healthful antagonism, man has ranged on either side elements of prejudice and self-will which too often have issued in the separation of that which God had joined together.

It will be seen that the Roman Catholic Church is here used as the representative of one of these principles exclusively, and that the writer considers both the Catholic and the Protestant principles to be essential to the health and prosperity of the Church of Christ.

"My dear Miss S

"January 16th, 1847.

"I send you the little book of the venerated Mère Agnes, Religieuse parfaite.' It is, as you will see, a book, like Thomas à Kempis, not to be read through at once, but for occasional meditation. It is one I very much not merely like, but love; for it has been my companion through many a long year, occasionally in bright sunshine, still oftener in sorrow.

"I often wish you were acquainted with some of the Port Royal writings: for though you would pass over very much as tedious, and of little interest beyond its own day; and though not unfrequently you would meet that with which you could not conscientiously unite; yet I feel assured there is far more which you could not but highly value. You will not, perhaps, consider me a fair judge. I do frankly own myself to be deeply attached to many Catholic writings; and though I could never join a Church. through the corruptions of whose hierarchy the free access to the Scriptures may be interdicted, and where the honour paid to the Saints and to the blessed Virgin is, to use the mildest terms, so indiscreet as to approximate to the honour due to God alone; and where the necessary practice of auricular confession transfers the rule of individual con