one time, a great desire to become veiled virgins, to take upon them a vow of perpetual chastity, with the solemnity of a bishop's blessing and ratification, but on going to Bishop Williams he had discouraged and at last dissuaded them from it.

Inglesant and the young lady remained talking in this way for some time, young Nicholas Ferrar having left them; but at last she excused herself from staying any longer, and he was obliged to let her go. He ventured to say that he hoped they would remember him; that he was utterly ignorant of the future that lay before him, but that whatever fate awaited him, he should never forget the "Nuns of Gidding" and their religious life. She replied that they would certainly remember him, as they did all their acquaintances, in their daily prayer; especially as she had seldom seen her uncle so pleased with a stranger as he had been with him. With these compliments they parted, and Inglesant returned to the drawing-room, where more visitors had arrived.

In the afternoon there came from Cambridge Mr. Crashaw the poet, of Peterhouse,-who afterwards went over to the papists, and died canon of Loretto,-and several gentlemen, undergraduates of Cambridge, to spend the Sunday at Gidding, being the first Sunday of the month. Mr. Crashaw, when Inglesant was introduced to him as one of the queen's pages, finding that he was acquainted with many Roman Catholics, was very friendly, and conversed with him apart. He said he conceived a great admiration for the devout lives of the Catholic saints, and of the government and discipline of the Catholic Church; and that he feared that the English Church had not sufficient authority to resist the spread of Presbyterianism, in which case he saw no safety except in returning to the communion of Rome. Walking up and down the garden paths, after evening prayers in church, he spoke a great deal on this subject, and on the beauty of a retired religious life; saying that here at Little Gidding and at Little St. Marie's Church, near to Peterhouse, he had passed the most blissful moments of his life, watching at midnight in prayer and meditation.

That night Mr. Crashaw, Inglesant, and one or two others, remained in the church from nine till twelve, during which time. they said over the whole Book of Psalms in the way of antiphony, one repeating one verse and the rest the other. The time of their watch being ended they returned to the house, went to

Mr. Ferrar's door and bade him good-morrow, leaving a lighted candle for him. They then went to bed; but Mr. Ferrar arose, according to the passage of Scripture "At midnight I will arise and give thanks," and went into the church, where he betook himself to religious meditation.

Early on the Sunday morning the family were astir and said prayers in the oratory. After breakfast many people from the country around, and more than a hundred children, came in. These children were called the Psalm children, and were regularly trained to repeat the Psalter, and the best voices among them to assist in the service on Sundays. They came in every Sunday, and according to the proficiency of each were presented with a small piece of money, and the whole number entertained with a dinner after church. The church was crowded at the morning service before the sacrament. The service was beautifully sung, the whole family taking the greatest delight in church music, and many of the gentlemen from Cambridge being amateurs. The sacrament was administered with the greatest devotion and solemnity. Impressed as he had been with the occupation of the preceding day and night, and his mind excited. with watching and want of sleep and with the exquisite strains of the music, the effect upon Inglesant's imaginative nature was excessive.

Above the altar, which was profusely bedecked with flowers, the antique glass of the east window, which had been carefully repaired, contained a figure of the Savior, of an early and severe type. The form was gracious and yet commanding, having a brilliant halo round the head, and being clothed in a long and apparently seamless coat; the two forefingers of the right hand were held up to bless. Kneeling upon the half-pace, as he received the sacred bread and tasted the holy wine, this gracious figure entered into Inglesant's soul; and stillness and peace. unspeakable, and life, and light, and sweetness, filled his mind. He was lost in a sense of rapture; and earth and all that surrounded him faded away. When he returned a little to himself, kneeling in his seat in the church, he thought that at no period. of his life, however extended, should he ever forget that morning, or lose the sense and feeling of that touching scene, of that gracious figure over the altar, of the bowed and kneeling figures, of the misty autumn sunlight and the sweeping autumn wind.

Heaven itself seemed to have opened to him, and one

fairer than the fairest of the angelic hosts to have come down to earth.

After the service, the family and all the visitors returned to the mansion house in the order in which they had come, and the Psalm children were entertained with a dinner in the great hall; all the family and visitors came in to see them served, and Mrs. Collet, as her mother had always done, placed the first dish on the table herself to give an example of humility. Grace having been said, the bell rang for the dinner of the family, who, together with the visitors, repaired to the great dining-room, and stood in order round the table. While the dinner was being served, they sang a hymn accompanied by the organ at the upper end of the room. Then grace was said by the priest who had celebrated the communion, and they sat down. All the servants who had received the sacrament that day sat at table with the rest. During dinner, one of the young people whose turn it was read a chapter from the Bible; and when that was finished, conversation was allowed,— Mr. Ferrar and some of the other gentlemen endeavoring to make it of a character suitable to the day, and to the service they had just taken part in. After dinner they went to church again for evening prayer; between which service and supper, Inglesant had some talk with Mr. Ferrar concerning the papists, and Mr. Crashaw's opinion of them.

"I ought to be a fit person to advise you," said Mr. Ferrar with a melancholy smile, "for I am myself, as it were, crushed between the upper and nether millstone of contrary reports; for I suffer equal obloquy - and no martyrdom is worse than that of continual obloquy - both for being a papist and a Puritan. You will suppose there must be some strong reason why I, who value so many things among the papists so much, have not joined them myself. I should probably have escaped much violent invective if I had done so. You are very young, and are placed where you can see and judge of both parties. You possess sufficient insight to try the spirits, whether they be of God. Be not hasty to decide; and before you decide to join the Romish communion, make a tour abroad, and if you can, go to Rome itself. When I was in Italy and Spain, I made all the inquiries and researches I could. I bought many scarce and valuable books in the languages of those countries, in collecting which I had a principal eye to those which treated on the subjects of spiritual life, devotion, and religious retirement; but the result of all was that I am now, and I shall die,- as I believe and hope shortly,- in

the communion of the English Church. This day, as I believe, the blessed sacrament has been in the church before our eyes; and what can you or I desire more?"

The next morning before Inglesant left, Mr. Ferrar showed him his foreign collections, his great treasure of rarities and of prints of the best masters of that time, mostly relative to historical passages of the Old and New Testaments. Inglesant dined with the family, of whom he took leave with a full heart; saluting the ladies with the pleasant familiarity which the manners of the time permitted. Mr. Ferrar went with him to the borders of the parish, and gave him his blessing. They never saw each other again, for two months afterwards Nicholas Ferrar was in his grave.

A

THE VISIT TO THE ASTROLOGER

From John Inglesant'

FTER two or three days, Eustace [Inglesant] told his brother one morning that he was ready to go into the West; but before starting, he said he wished Johnny to accompany him to a famous astrologer in Lambeth Marsh, to whom already he had shown the horoscope, and who had appointed a meeting that night to give his answer, and who had also promised to consult a crystal as an additional means of obtaining information of the future.

Accordingly, late in the afternoon, they took a wherry at the Temple Stairs, and were ferried over to Lambeth Marsh, a wide extent of level ground between Southwark and the Bishop's Palace, on which only a few straggling houses had been built. The evening was dark and foggy, and a cold wind swept across the marsh, making them wrap their short cloaks closely about them. It was almost impossible to see more than a yard or two before them; and they would probably have found great difficulty in finding the wizard's house, had not a boy with a lantern met them a few paces from the river, who inquired if they were seeking the astrologer. This was the wizard's own boy, whom, with considerable worldly prudence at any rate, he had dispatched to find his clients and bring them to the house. The boy brought them into a long low room, with very little furniture in it, a small table at the upper end, with a large chair

behind it, and three or four high-backed chairs placed along the wall. On the floor, in the middle of the room, was a large double circle; but there were no figures or signs of any kind about it. On the table was a long thin rod. A lamp which hung from the roof over the table cast a faint light about the room, and a brazier of lighted coals stood in the chimney.

The astrologer soon entered the room, with the horoscope Eustace had left with him in his hand. He was a fine-looking man, with a serious and lofty expression of face, dressed in a black gown, with the square cap of a divine, and a fur hood or tippet. He bowed courteously to the gentlemen, who saluted him with great respect. His manner was coldest to John Inglesant, whom he probably regarded with suspicion as an amateur. He however acknowledged that Inglesant's criticisms on the horoscope were correct; but pointed out to him that in his own reading of it many of the aspects were very adverse. John Inglesant knew this, though he had chosen to conceal it from his brother. The astrologer then informed them that he had drawn out a scheme of the heavens himself at the moment when first consulted by Eustace; and that, in quite different ways and by very different aspects, much the same result had been arrived at. “As, however," he went on to say, "the whole question is to some extent vitiated by the suspicion of foul play, and it will be impossible for any of us to free our minds entirely from these suspicions, I do not advise any farther inquiry; but I propose that you should consult a consecrated beryl or crystal, a mode of inquiry far more high and certain than astrology,-so much so, indeed, that I will seriously confess to you that I use the latter but as the countenance and blind; but this search in the crystal is by the help of the blessed spirits, and is open only to the pure from sin, and to men of piety, humility, and charity."

As he said these words, he produced from the folds of his gown a large crystal or polished stone, set in a circle of gold, supported by a silver stand. Round the circle were engraved the names of angels. He placed this upon the table, and continued:

"We must pray to God that he will vouchsafe us some insight into this precious stone: for it is a solemn and serious matter upon which we are, second only to that of communication with the angelical creatures themselves; which indeed is vouchsafed to some, but only to those of the greatest piety, to which