a quiet resting-place. It was the day of the preparation for the Sabbath, and on the following morning he went to church for the first time since his period of insanity. Then again there came to him a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and in a somewhat curious way. A worshipper, whose whole soul seemed thrown into the praise of God in the psalm which was George Wither has left us a curious, and literally a "musical" hymn, on the manner in being sung, attracted his attention. He says: “I which the song of praise should be sung. commences "Come, O come! in pious lays Sound we God Almighty's praise- It looked at him, and could not help saying in my heart, with much emotion, "The Lord bless you for praising Him whom my soul loveth." When the service was over he went back to the quiet spot where he had found joy on the previous day, and there he felt again that glorious Presence which giveth life. "I could say, indeed, with Jacob," he says, "not how dreadful, but how lovely is this place! it is none other than the house of God." And that spot was the birthplace of the hymn "Far from the world, O Lord, I flee, From strife and tumult far, "The calm retreat, the silent shade, "There, if Thy Spirit touch the soul, Oh, with what peace and joy and love "There, like a nightingale she pours Nor asks a witness of her song, The scene of the hymn is given in the second verse. Dr. Watts was a great admirer of Nature, and is often very felicitous in his descriptions. He did not pretend to the dignity of a poet, in fact, he disclaimed the title. "I make no pretensions to the name of a poet or a polite writer, in an age wherein so many superior souls shine in their works through the nation." Nevertheless, in some of his writings he showed a keen sympathy with the moods of Nature, and has left us some exquisite hymns of praise, as This music of praise, so quaintly described by Vaughan, is very real. The writer remembers one summer evening, strolling on the slopes of Snowdon. It was a still Sabbath night, the sun was just sinking, and everything that had voice was singing its evensong. Birds trilled their merry lays, insects made an organ accompaniment, and, from a little conventicle down in the valley there rose the strains of psalmody. No sermon upon the goodness of God, no appeal from the pulpit, could have made a greater impression on the mind than did this hour of communion with God in Nature. It was rest for the soul-it was heaven in germ. All the scene was full of thought, which words about it would only have obscured. Hours like these have often been seized with advantage by our hymn-writers, and some of their best effusions have sprung from such scenes. so with Cowper. When he was recovering from that awful darkness which eclipsed his soul, he was advised to leave St. Albans, where he had been staying under the care of a physician, and visit Huntingdon. When he arrived there, feeling himself a stranger among strangers, and dreading a return of his fearful malady, he wandered away, strolling quietly through lanes and fields; alone, yet not alone, for God was with him. The scene was so peaceful and calm that its spirit entered into his own soul. Coming to a grassy knoll and beneath a leafy canopy, he knelt down and poured out his heart in prayer and praise. It was an hour of deep and holy joy. Confidence in God came back to him again, and his soul had found It was "Eternal Wisdom, Thee we praise, With Thy loved name, rocks, hills, and seas, "Rejoice, ye righteous, in the Lord;" "I sing the almighty power of God," The object of Dr. Watts's hymns, we are told in his preface, is to give expression to every aspect of Christian experience; but we are glad to find that he sometimes leaves the doctrinal and experimental, and turns to the outer world, to find refections of the inner life, interweaving the mysteries of Nature with those of Revelation. That he possessed the happy art of reading the lessons from both books, and turning them to good account, may be gathered from the use he made of a scene with which he was familiar. One day when he was at Southampton he sat by the open window of the parlour looking across the water; there lay the pleasant fields and woods of the New Forest, and close beneath him flowed the river Itchen. The scene is one of the pleasantest in Hampshire, and was worthy to remind him of the heavenly land. He has immortalised it in the hymn, "There is a land of pure delight," and has given a very happy description of it in the verse "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood So to the Jews old Canaan stood, Charles Wesley has interpreted a scene at the Land's End in a similar way. The extreme projection of the Land's End stands 200 feet above the boiling, seething waters of the Bristol Channel and the Atlantic. It was on this promontory that the hymn was written "Lo! on a narrow neck of land, "Twixt two unbounded seas I stand." We often get in Charles Wesley's hymns a snatch of glad some song, even in the midst of descriptions of conflicts and difficulties in the spiritual life. In a hymn, for instance, on the mercy of God, we get the verse "Its streams the whole creation reach, So plenteous is the store; Haste is apparent in so many of his writings, that "When by the dreadful tempest borne They know Thou art not slow to hear, "The storm is laid, the winds retire The sea that roars at Thy command, Our space will not allow us to give many more specimens of the hymns of creation, but we cannot close without introducing the writings of one of our living authors, whose hymns, we think, are destined to be favourites with the people so long as singing shall form part of the worship of God in the sanctuary. About twenty miles from London, on the SouthWestern Railway, is the town of Staines, and half-an-hour's walk along the Causeway will bring you to the village of Egham, in Surrey. It has one long, straggling street, but the surroundings are very beautiful. The river- "Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full "— flows grandly along past the meads, backed by Cooper's Hill, of which Denham says, in his poem named after the place, "If I can be to thee A poet, thou Parnassus art to me." We are told that "it was on his preaching tours, by the roadside, amidst hostile mobs or devout Not far off is the pleasant village of Englefield congregations, and, in his old age, in quiet journey-Green, and a little beyond that is the spot which ings from friend to friend, that he poured forth the great mass of the Wesleyan hymns. When his life of beneficence and courageous conflict was almost over, it must have been a sight to call forth tears as well as smiles to see the old gentleman (dressed in winter costume even in the height of summer) dismount from his old grey pony, and leaving it in the little garden before his friend's house in the City Road, enter the parlour, sard in hand, and note down the words of some sacred song which had been chiming through his heart." is such a gem of beauty, Virginia Water, standing in the midst of Windsor Forest. Amid such scenes as these lives and works the Rev. J. S. B. Monsell, whose charming hymns are full of fresh and fragrant thought, and breathe the very spirit of love and holy joy. Many a time has the writer sat in that church at Egham, and listened to the words of life from his lips. Standing there in the pulpit, with a small Bible in his hand, unencumbered with notes or sermon-book, the preacher has held his audience spell-bound, while in plain, simple language, yet full of tender, poetic thought, PART II. THE QUEEN OF THE ROSES. A FAIRY PARABLE. 'ND now I will go back to my kingdom," said the Fairy; so she picked up the leaves of the withered rose and laid them in the dead man's hand, and flew away to see the changes in her country since she left it twenty years before. "For," she argued within herself, "time changes all things, and twenty years is a great deal, even in a fairy's lifetime." When the Queen arrived at her own country, she found that the Elf had tyrannised over all her happy people, and had grown fat, lazy, and luxurious. She flew to her rose-tree, expecting to see it larger than ever; but, to her grief and dismay, she found it had been choked with weeds, and the few branches that were left had grown spindly and poor, and the blossoms on it looked more like wild roses than cultivated flowers. The fairies had abandoned their homes in the flowers, and they were left a prey to caterpillars and all sorts of insects. The Fairy flew about the garden, and everywhere she saw desolation and disorder. Every one of the lilies, violets, and sweet-scented flowers had been killed by the weeds, in which lived all sorts of wicked little people, who darted their poisonous stings at the Queen, and would have destroyed her, had she not been both quick and brave. The discontented fairies who had listened to the flattery of the Elf, and had believed in his promises, had been killed by him; and those that he spared he made work and wait on the elves, instead of being waited on and worked for, as they were before they grew discontented and abandoned their sovereign. When they saw their queen, they would have been glad to help her to the throne again, but there were too many against them. Had the Rose-queen desired to regain her kingdom, she could have done so by calling on the birds and the bees, who were always her friends, to help her; but she did not care to inhabit a place which had once been so beautiful, but was now so dreary. The Fairy flew to the place where the Elf held his court, and found him surrounded by courtiers as fat, lazy, and bloated as himself. The Elf was very much surprised to see the Queen, whom he had thought dead years ago, and asked her where she sprang from. "I come from the abode of human beings," said the Fairy; and then she told him all that had happened to her from the time of her going away, adding, when she had finished, "If I had not been taken by the lady, you would not have been allowed to reign, and my rebellious subjects would never have had their eyes opened to see their discontent. So, you see," she said, turning to the few fairies near her, "out of evil comes good." "Ah! ah!" hissed the Elf, "you can't restore that ;" and as he spoke he pointed to the house that stood in the midst of the garden, and had once been in good repair, but was now decayed and tumbledown, with the windows (that the fairy had last seen with curtains before them) all broken, and part of the roof fallen in, and like the garden, desolate of everything good and beautiful. "Ah!" sighed the Fairy, as she thought of the happy and beautiful girl who once lived there, "this is indeed worse than all." "You said she died," hissed the Elf, breaking in on the Fairy's sad thoughts. "I know she died. I saw her coffin carried out under those trees, and I was glad, for I hated her; she never let a weed grow, and killed thousands of my followers. She was always cutting, and tying up, and gardening, till everything was in a state of order that was perfectly unbearable. She had the caterpillars, earwigs, and other insects caught and killed, because they ate the flowers, till they dare not touch a leaf; even the frogs and toads had to keep under the stones in the shrubbery when she was near. She did not set traps for the birds, though they ate the fruit, nor kill the butterflies and bees, no, nor the flies, excepting the bluebottles, the only flies that I care for; so I was glad when she died, for I knew the old people would not stay here after their darling had gone, and the place is a deal too dull and quiet for any one else to take it. Besides, it fell into decay in a few years, and now the house is overrun with rats and mice, so no one is likely to live here again, and you will not restore peace and order, however you may try. Besides, the kingdom is mine, and I can drive you out, for I am all-powerful, and those who disobey me are put to death." And the little Fairy hearing this, put her hands before her face and wept at so much wickedness, and spreading her wings she flew away out into the wide world, not knowing where to go to find friends or a home. When the Fairy flew away, she did not know which way to turn, and as all ways were the same to her, she flew straight on, and flying for miles and miles, she came one evening to a garden where the sun was streaming on the flowers, and glittering on the windows of the house that stood in the midst of the garden. It all looked so bright and peaceful that she was fain to go in and rest. So she flew to a beautiful rose-tree that grew on the lawn, and as she nestled in its leaves she almost fancied she was in her own kingdom, in the old happy days before she became acquainted with so much trouble. The birds sang, and the flowers smelt so sweetly, that overcome with fatigue the Fairy slept. She was awakened by a familiar sound. Buzz, buzz, hum, hum, was the noise the Fairy heard, while something fluttered round and round the rose, and finally dived into the very centre of the flower where the Fairy lay. The & Queen instantly recognised in the intruder one of her old friends the bees. The Bee was delighted to see her, and carried her off instantly to the hive to visit his Queen. The old Queen was dead long ago; but the bees were always friends with the fairies, and the little Queen had only to tell them of her misfortunes to make them all sympathise with her, and endeavour to help her as much as lay in their power. "I have heard my great-grandmother often speak of you," said the queen Bee, " and I shall be most happy to help you as far as I can. My great-grandmother often told me what a beautiful kingdom yours was; but when you were so suddenly taken, and the Elf became king, we had to fly; for the Elf killed all the best flowers, and we should have starved had we stopped." And have you been here ever since ?" asked the Fairy. "Yes,” replied the Bee; “and we are very happy. The Queen is very good, and I should advise you to stop here. It is no use your caring for such a lot of ungrateful people as your subjects have proved; so stay with us. Take up your abode in the rose-tree. The lily is queen of the flowers here; but I am sure she will welcome you, and try to make you happy.” The Lily did welcome the Rose; but the Fairy though she lived in that garden many happy years, pined for her own country and her own people, and one day she begged the Lily-queen to accompany her to her kingdom once more. The Queen consented, and they arrived with a long train of fairies and bees at the garden. Another change had taken place. The house had been repaired and was inhabited again. Men were at work on the grounds, restoring them to their original beauty. The queens, returned, collected an army together, and marched to the garden. They killed the Elf, drove out the toads, lizards, earwigs spiders, slugs, and caterpillars (the mortals unknowingly aiding them), and restored the kingdom to order and peace. Little children pulled up the weeds and planted fresh flowers, the house and garden echoed once more to their pattering footsteps and merry voices. Then the Fairy left her home among the lilies and went to dwell in her kingdom, and to rule and watch over the happiness of her subjects. L. F. "THE QUIVER" BIBLE CLASS. 96. An Ephesian Christian who accompanied St. Paul to Jerusalem ? 97. There are tinkering gipsies mentioned in Scripture. 98. Who was David's companion at the early part of his reign? 99. A king who had eighty-eight children. 100. There were 10,000 people cast down from a precipice and killed. 101. Where is there given a table of Jewish weights and measures? 102. The tree of life mentioned in the Revelation is also spoken of by one of the prophets. 103. Give an instance of the consecration of a piece of ground. 104. A man who wept when those who had injured him asked his forgiveness. TO OUR READERS. We have received a letter from a Correspondent in reference to our Bible Class, and as what is mentioned in it may prove sugges tive to some of our readers, we print the following extract: "I am so pleased with your Bible Class that I, being a teacher of a large class of senior scholars, have adopted the plan to get the youths to search for the answers to your questions. I have promised a prize book to the youth who gives the first one hundred correct answers to the questions, having in this a twofold object, first to make them search the Scriptures, and next to read THE QUIVER." In compliance with a further suggestion made in this letter, we propese in future to allow two weeks to pass before giving the answers, thus affording to those who adopt the plan of our Cor respondent the opportunity of allowing their class to devote Sunday evening to the study of the questions, the answers to which are to be ready on the following Sunday morning.—ED. ST IR FREDERIC was again shut up in his private | Peters family than to himself. He knew how it apartment at the Tower. He lived in a state would be when he admitted them, but he had not of seclusion, partly from choice, partly from neces- the strength of mind to resist their encroachments. sity. The house seemed to belong more to the Lady Peters was his aunt, and carry it off as she VOL. V. 224 |