"And who are not fit for the companionship of men," added Patricia, bitterly. "I tremble when I see Harry with any of them. I know the style of man as if I saw him-dull eyed and heavy jawed, with a narrow forehead and a neck like a prize ox." "He certainly had most of those characteristics," said Anne. "I was favoured with a view of his back most of the time, and that was broad enough. Some people would call him handsome, I dare say, but he has a settled scowl even when he smiles." "And Harry has gone to dine with him! I wish you had gone too,” said Patricia, thoughtfully. "He told his wife to ask us both, and the poor little thing pressed me to come; but I did not like to leave you, dear," replied Anne. a week. The mother and her two daughters had hitherto contrived to make the place look quite decent. Mrs. Chapelle, a rather helpless woman where dealing with strangers was concerned, managed very well indoors. The front room looked like a little parlour, where a few books in a hanging bookshelf, a few simply-framed drawings in chalk and pencil on the wall, and a vase of flowers on a small worktable, made the absence of more substantial furniture pass unnoticed. There was another little table and four cane chairs, and an article which looked like a chiffonier, but was in truth Nelly's little bed, which assumed that shape by day. The back room was a bedroom for the mother and sister; the cooking, what there was of it, being done in the little back "You ought certainly to have gone," said her kitchen, used in common by the whole house. sister. "Is Harry not at home to-night?" said their father, as he sat down to the early supper which he took before retiring to his room, and a frown darkened his face when Anne replied that he was dining with a friend. "Connected with the business," put in Patricia. And the frown settled for the night in spite of Anne, who, by way of diversion, gave an exceedingly innocent account of the invitation. At length he kissed them and went off to bed at the primitive hour of nine, seemingly quite unconcerned about the four dreary hours which the sisters spent in waiting for the diner-out. They sat on in the dark, or rather in the light of the summer moon, Anne at Patricia's feet, talking together in whispers. Then for a long time they were silent. At last he came. It was Patricia who lighted the room, and to her scrutinising eye the clear face was a little blurred, the frank blue eyes a little dimmed and her quick ear detected several faults of pronunciation. His host had plied him with champagne and then with brandy and water too freely. They parted for the night at the drawingroom door, Patricia refusing the usual good-night kiss and hastening up-stairs. When a little later Anne entered their room and closed the door, Patricia stood in the middle of the floor holding her head with both her hands. "Anne-Anne!" she cried, "this life is worse than death!" CHAPTER IV. THE CHAPELLES. THE cab containing Nelly Chapelle stopped, as directed, at No. 14, Elm Row. It was a row, and a long row, of dismal little brick boxes; the elms were an imagination only. No. 14 was exactly like No. 15, and that was exactly like No. 50; three papered boxes to the front, on the top of the others, and three at the back. Each house in the row, however, held at least three families. The ground floor at No. 14 was rented by the Chapelles for three shillings Mary was ten years older than Nelly, the three children who had come in between having been swept away by scarlet fever in one week, at a time when the family had been suffering extreme privation. Poor Mary had missed all Nelly's beauty, but she had had the advantage of education which Nelly had not. She had been sent to school and had been taught a few accomplishments. Her mother had improved her music on a hired piano at the time when her father gained his two hundred a year. She, like the mother, was an unenergetic, unenterprising woman. She would do the task that was set before her to the best of her power, but would seek for and strive for nothing beyond. She was but a girl when the task of breadwinning was set before her sternly enough. At the same time it happened that one of the tradespeople in the neighbourhood had ambitious daughters and wanted a daily governess; and so, without looking about for anything better, Mary Chapelle took the situation and got paid less than half the value of her services. This engagement, however, led to one or two similar ones, and Mary was well content so long as she was fully employed. But employment was not always to be had, and as the family circumstances became poorer, her pay became poorer too. She had to depend on personal recommendations, their lodgings being too shabby for any one to seek her there. She could have had more than one engagement at the publichouses which abounded in the neighbourhood, for she had a naturally powerful voice, of great sweetness too, though quite uncultivated, but this she revolted from; and, even at his worst, her father would not have allowed her to accept the degrading position of a lure to drunkenness and worse. So she had to tramp long distances in all weathers to teach at the houses of the friends and relations of her various pupils-sometimes welcomed by a friendly kiss from the Anna Maria or Sophia Ann whom she instructed in the art of torturing her neighbours on a cracked piano, and set down in a warm parlour; perhaps offered a glass of porter, or a cup of tea, and sometimes shown into a chill unused room, and treated—well, as badly as the instrument without at its height before, at Nelly's entreaty, the nearest deserving it so much. Nelly, on the other hand, could do nothing in particular; could neither draw nor play, though she had a far more sweet and winning voice than her sister, and a better and quicker ear. She had been born in their days of poverty, and owed all the education she had to her father, who taught her, and set her tasks in writing and arithmetic, and even the rudiments of Latin. A capital little housewife was Nelly at fifteen, making ends meet better than either the mother or Mary, and repaying her father's care with a tender watchfulness over the great sin of the besotted man. Nelly was his guardian angel, and she trod, unpolluted, where angels do not fear to tread, just because they do not fear pollution. Sad scenes Nelly had seen with those clear eyes of hers. Evil men and sinful women she had met on the dark streets, where she hovered waiting for her charge; but no harm had come to her-nay, good had come. Her tenderness for one sinner made her tender of other sinners, made her believe in endless possibilities of goodness in the very worst. Many a night, too, the poor child had sat up waiting for her father, when the mother was too weak for the task, and Mary had to be fresh for the morrow's labour, knowing well what she had to expect when he came-not, indeed, oaths and brutalities, but idiotic smiles, which banished joy from Neliy's face for days, and maudlin affection that wrung her heart with anguish. And then had come that last agony of apprehension that crowning misery of a deathbed in an hospital-ward, with no gleam of kindly recognition to soften it. It was a sad youth for a girl, and many would have broken down under it; but Nelly had that pure and perfect health which belongs to some delicate natures, and though she grew up pale as any lily, she had never known a day's sickness. It was terrible to break down now when her strength was needed more than ever. For weeks she had been the sole support of the family. Mary's health had suddenly failed; she had been complaining of a cold in the spring, and to her mother's petition, that she should stay at home and nurse herself, she had replied: "It is only a cold. It will go away of itself." So she went out one morning as usual, and in going from one house to another, was caught in a cold heavy shower. The house she went to was one of the comfortless genteel sort. She was put into a room kept for show, with a great yellow and black paper fire-screen instead of a fire. She put off her wet cloak and asked that it might be dried for her; but her feet were damp, and she shivered as she sat guiding the hopelessly awkward fingers of her pupil over the keys. When she came home it was with eyes and cheeks u-naturally bright, with a short weak cough and a cucting pain-in a word, with inflammation of the lungs. practitioner was sent for. He treated her very When Nelly alighted from the cab, anxious, if possible, to get into the house without being noticed, she felt, almost before she saw, that there was something strange about it. The little worktable with its crochet cover and vase of flowers was not to be seen. The blind was down: so were those of the windows above. Still Nelly, though oppressed by a feeling of the apprehension which used to haunt her in the old days, did not think of death. She had left Mary better than usual in the morning, talking even of days to come. She herself had felt unwell, her diet being somewhat of the lowest, a good deal lower than prison fare or workhouse either; and the heat of the day in that close den of hers, had overpowered her. She felt faint again as she looked up. How stupid I am," she thought. "Of course, I am home early, and the blinds are down to keep out the sun." But when she saw her mother's face at the door, then she knew that it was not that, but that one had ceased to see the light of this world for ever. Mary was dead. Mary was dead; but when that one afternoon and night was over, work must go on with Nelly as usual. She must leave the house in the early morning and proceed to the factory, and fill her place there, lest it should be filled for her, and she trembled to think of that. Work was precious, and she thought of the money they owed already, and determined to report herself at once as quite well and only ask for one more afternoon on which she might follow her sister to her place of rest. So the next day saw Nelly at her post again, and when the hour arrived at which Mr. Palmer was to be found in the counting-room, she descended and made her request. It was granted, as a matter of course, and one of the younger clerks of the establishment was ordered to take her place for the day she named. Just as Nelly was turning away from the desk at which the father sat, and had been sitting, as it happened that morning, for some time, the son entered the office Nelly bowed gravely and would have passed out in silence, but he stopped her, and inquired if she was quite well. "Quite well now, thank you," replied Nelly, grateful for the opportunity of proclaiming her efficiency. "It was only the heat-and," she added, seeing that Mary was so uncomplaining that the disease was the heat was likely to be as great as ever-" and my sister's illness. She died yesterday before I could reach home, though you were kind enough to send me so early." Harry Palmer caught his father's eyes fixed sternly upon him, and he allowed Nelly to pass, and took his place at one of the desks. His father took no notice of him whatever, though they had not met that morning before. The young man had not made his appearance at the breakfast-table, and had thereby defeated the efforts of his sisters to conceal the state of matters the preceding evening, or rather morning. Age is wakeful and suspicious, and his cross questioning at the breakfast-table, together with the SECOND PAPER. ST. PAUL AS A FRIEND. BY THE REV. SAMUEL COX. told the Thessalonians how grieved he was to hear F the innumerable other illustrations such sorrowful news of them, that he would have which suggest themselves, we select come to them if he could, that he had desired to only two, and these more special and see their face with great desire, that he had tried personal in their tone. St. Paul, I to come again and again, but had always been think, loved Timothy before any hindered. He goes on to say that now at last other of his friends; and that not simply because when he could no longer forbear, only, as the words he had won him to the faith and service of Christ-imply, when the imperative sense of duty had he had many other friends who owed even their own souls to him; but of Timothy he always speaks with peculiar tenderness, and once* he expressly affirms that he knew no man "of an equal soul" with him. Timothy was with the apostle at Athens. While he sojourned and laboured in that city, St. Paul heard that his recent converts at Thessalonica had been called to endure a great fight of afflictions, that they were troubled and persecuted on every side, and that some of them, if not falling away from the faith, were slipping into errors both of doctrine and practice. Now we know enough of the apostle, and of his fatherly anxiety for the churches he had planted, to be sure that such tidings would fill him with care and grief, that he would be willing to lay down his life to save the Thessalonians from their peril. Yet, though he would not have counted his life dear unto him if, by losing it, he might save them, there was one thing as we should think, a much lesser thing-which he found it very hard to do. It was to send the only friend he then had with him to Thessalonica with instruction and advice. We could hardly have believed that the apostle would have hesitated to do anything which the service of Christ and the cure of souls demanded of him, had he not told us with his own mouth that he did hesitate. But he has told us. If we turn to 1 Thess. iii. 1-8, we find his own account of the conflict he had with himself before he could determine to send Timothy to Thessalonica and be left alone at Athens. He has already * Phil. ii. 20. overmastered the exigencies of personal feeling, he had sent Timothy-had determined "to be left alone at Athens "—that his friend might establish and comfort them in the faith. How long and sharp the conflict was before he could consent to let Timothy leave him, we may infer from the fact that twice in a few sentences, once in verse 1, and again in verse 5, he repeats the phrase, "when I could no longer forbear." In his dread of losing the only friend he had with him, he had forborne as long as he could, had put off parting with him, had tried to hope that there would be no need to part with him. That throws new light on the character of the apostle, does it not? To me it seems to set him closer to us, and make him dearer to us; for it shows that even the heroic Paul found duty hard, even as we find it hard. He did it, but he hesitated about doing it; he had to compel himself to do it; it pained and grieved his heart to do it. Nothing, indeed, would be more base than to take pleasure in pulling a great man down to our own low level. But, on the other hand, nothing can well be better or more animating for us than to feel that, great as he is, he is nevertheless a man. Nor do we degrade St. Paul to any low level by saying rather, by acknowledging, for it is he who says it-that he found it hard to do his duty, if only we remember what it was that made it hard, and th, however hard it was, he did it. It was nothing but his pure deep love for Timothy, nothing but his profound craving for the human sympathy which made the Divine sympathy real. ST. PAUL AS A FRIEND. and present to him, that led him to demur and hesitate before he could determine to send his "son" away and to be left alone. The apostle does not suffer in our thoughts, for he discharges the ministry of his apostleship at the very greatest cost and loss; and if the apostle does not suffer, how much does the man gain, and the friend! Who would have thought, if he had not told us, that St. Paul was so tender and devoted in his personal attachments, that to sacrifice these, or the temporary enjoyment of them, was the sacrifice which he found it most difficult to make? Instead of lowering, it elevates our conception of Paul to learn that he, who had "left" all else, also left love, the profoundest and most sensitive human love, for Christ's sake and the Gospel's. We have an almost parallel instance in 2 Cor. vii. From that Epistle we know into what a tumult of grief and anxiety the apostle was thrown when tidings came that his converts at Corinth were departing from the faith. Some of them had fallen into gross and notorious immorality; others were denying the very incarnation and resurrection of Christ. Some were abusing their freedom; others were striving to impose the yoke of the law on their brethren; and a few were suspecting and ridiculing the apostle himself, insinuating that he was actuated by sinister motives, sneering at his rhetoric as contemptible, and at the meanness of his "presence." He writes his First Epistle to them, arguing, reproving, beseeching-exhausting himself in appeals to their reason and conscience and heart. No sooner is the letter dispatched than he grows restless with apprehension; he fears that it will do harm rather than good. His fears so goad and prick him that he cannot stay at Ephesus, or indeed in any other city. He sends Titus to Corinth, to ascertain and report how his letter has been received. He bids Titus meet him, as quickly as he can, in Macedonia. He wanders from city to city, finding no rest. At times he "repents" that he had written a letter which could not fail to cause much grief. He is overwhelmed with disappointment when in city after city he inquires for Titus in vain. And at length, when Titus reaches him with happy tidings, he breaks into a passion of love and grief, ruth, and thankfulness, which we may trace in every paragraph, and almost every sentence, of his Second Epistle. But the point we have to mark is that which comes out in the seventh chapter. As we read it, it is really almost impossible to tell whether his friend Titus, or his converts at Corinth, are most in his mind and heart. It is one of the most impassioned utterances in all literature. Now he glories in the Corinthians. They fill him with comfort to overflowing, joy to painful excess. And, again, he grieves that he should ever have 407 grieved them, and can only console himself with the happy effects of their grief that it was a sorrow to repentance and life. In one verse he begs them to forgive and receive him; in another, he is lost in admiration of the virtues they have displayed. In short, he lays bare his whole heart to us, and we see in what a tumult of fervid passionate excitement it was. Yet, beneath all this grief and joy, this intense sympathy with the Corinthians, there runs and heaves an undercurrent of feeling for Titus hardly less passionate and intense. The mere coming of Titus has been a great comfort to him; and not only his coming, but the assurance that the Corinthians had been kind to Titus and had comforted him. “I was comforted in your comfort: yea, and exceedingly the more I rejoiced for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all." In the frankness of confidential talk, Paul had often boasted to Titus of the Corinthians-how good they were, how gifted, how kind; and now it is an inexpressible happiness to him that his boasts have been verified-" if I have boasted to him of you, I am not ashamed;" and that Titus has learned to love them with a deep "inward affection." And thus throughout the chapter, he makes much of the Corinthians and much of Titus, till we cannot say whether we more admire the apostle or love the friend It would be easy to adduce many other passages in which St. Paul's friendship, his deep constant craving for human sympathy, and his quick ardent response to every touch of personal affection, find utterance in forms quite as striking and beautiful as those at which we have glanced. But, perhaps, these will suffice. Taken from different periods of his life, they all breathe a most tender, loving, passionate spirit, and prove that he was not less excellent as a friend than as a servant and minister of the truth. Such a view of St. Paul's character shows in what spirit we should fill the human relations into which love enters. No austere eremite of the woods, no recluse bent only on saving his own soul, could possibly have spoken the words we have heard St. Paul speak. For Simon Stylites to have uttered them would have been more difficult than to have grovelled in his filth on the pillar's top for thirty years. To hate men, to shrink from them, to break away from any natural human ties on plea of serving God, is alien to the spirit of the Gospel. St. Paul, the greatest exponent of the Gospel, teaches us to seek perfection by loving men and serving them. From him we learn to open our hearts to all affection, to prove that we are good Christians by showing that we are good friends. This, however, is a common and familiar truth. Let us touch a lesson more special and germane. All these fancies and their kin—and they play a by the example of St. Paul. If he shrank from being left alone, he also shrank from being left with only one friend. "Only Luke is with me!" he sighs to Timothy: “do your best to come to me, that I may at least have two friends with me; and bring Mark, if you can, that I may have three." His heart was large enough to hold many friends. And, as we have seen, while he loved them, and that most tenderly, for their own sakes, he loved them most of all because their friendship made God's friendship more real to him,—because their love brought home to him the love of God. Youth is the season of friendship. Then we most easily yield ourselves to the attractions of what-large and tragical part in many lives-are rebuked ever is admirable, or seems admirable to us, and are most easily moved to love whatever seems great or good or fair. But when we have grown harder with years, we are a little apt to look down on the feelings natural to that period as romantic in the bad sense-as vain, illusory, dangerous. Parents, for example, will often, not simply try to save their children from injurious friendships and attachments, but will distrust the sincerity of their feelings, and sneer at friendship and love as things of no account. And thus they often wound sensitive hearts with a pain of the intensity of which they have no conception, or breed a selfish scepticism and hardness with which they are afterward shocked: meaning kindness, they are often most unkind. We cannot for a moment suppose that St. Paul would have taken that tone. Himself as keen and sensitive and faithful a friend as ever man had, all human friendship and love were sacred to him. He could not have spoken of them with a sneer. He would have respected them even when they were excessive or wrongly placed. He would have said, "This pure holy feeling is given to be the spring and blessing of your life. It is too precious to be lavished on unworthy objects, or to be too hastily bestowed." But if parents and guardians are sometimes to blame, young persons, in the fervent period when attachments are most natural and most graceful, often take up what are really romantic and impracticable notions. They admire, let us say, some person of their own sex-their own sex, since that may save us from dubious interpretations. They hear and read and talk much of loyalty and devotion. Their friend is, and ought to be, everything to them. To love any one else as they do him or her, would be a sin against love-a sort of infidelity. And, indeed, there are vain and selfish persons of all ages who fall into this or a similar mistake. They must have their friend all to themselves. They may have more friends than one, but none of their friends must have any friend but themselves. They even think jealousy a part of love, instead of its death, or a proof that their love has been love of self and not of some one else. Only the love of good men could do that. And hence, in the whole circle of his personal friends, we find none but good men-none of his Hebrew or Greek fellow-students who had rejected the Gospel, for example, but only men and women who, if not eminent in capacities and gifts, loved Christ and gave themselves to the service of man. Hence, too, it was that, when human love failed him, he could rest in the love of Christ; when no man stood by him as he confronted the lion, he could feel that the Lord stood by him, and strengthened him, and delivered him out of the lion's mouth. If therefore we take this most true and tender friend for our exemplar, we shall learn from him how to choose our friends: that only those who are good, who love God and man, will be able to fulfil the highest offices of friendship for us; that so soon as anything wrong or base creeps into our relations with others, our friendship with them becomes a snare and a peril. We shall also learn that, strong as our craving for human sympathy and affection may be, and right as it is for us to make friends of men, the true Friend, the best Friend, is He who will stand by us when men desert us, who can go with us where men cannot accompany us, if they would. The great Friendthe Friend who sticketh closer than a brother, closer even than "brother Paul," is He who will be with us in life, and death, and after death; and all other friendships are valuable to us in proportion as they lead us to Him and keep us with Him. T REST FOR THE WEARY. HERE'S a voice coming in from the ocean, And the heart in the sounding commotion There's a glory flung over the valleys, |