is all in all to them; when severe sickness has attacked themselves, and brought them face to face with death, which closes that life for ever; when its hopes are crushed; when its pleasures pall; when in any way the thought of its uncertainty, of its brevity at the longest, of its unsatisfactoriness at the best, arises within them, then the Lover of all souls is present with these souls, is seeking to gain an entrance into them, that He may quicken and foster that Divine life which is well-nigh extinguished. When, again, the Divine life momentarily manifests itself in one in whom it has been well-nigh extinguished by habitual selfishness and sin-when some upspringing of impulsive kindness in him has found expression in generous deeds-when he has felt, however briefly, the joy which there is in a pure affectionwhen the recognition of goodness in others-of the forgiveness of the friend he has wronged-of the unseifish devotion of the wife, the sister, the daughter he has treated with cold neglect, or even with cruel harshness has awakened in him a genuine admiration, or has made him ashamed, at least, of his baseness-when, on any of these occasions, the better nature in him has asserted itself, then the Spirit of God, from whom all goodness flows, has drawn near to that man that He may reinforce his better nature; that He may give to his truer and higher self the victory over his lower self; that He may reduce to due subjection the flesh with its evil desires and tempers, and may make his soul that had been tossed by passion, calm and heavenpossessed.

All through the mortal lives of men does the Divine Spirit seek to enter and to rule the hearts from which, because of their insensibility to the nobler influences, it may be said that He is excluded. By the goodness and forbearance in which He makes His sun to shine on the evil and on the righteous, does God seek to lead the careless and the godless to repentance. By the severity, on the other hand, in which He makes the ways of transgressors hardcausing their sins to find them out in the shape of pain and satiety, or of shame and remorse, or in the shape, at all events, of deprivation and the loss of the purest enjoyments of existence, He shows them that it is indeed an evil and a bitter thing to shut Him out of their hearts. All through this present life does God carry on His stern processes of discipline for the rebellious souls that will not yield to that gentler rule which He carries on in the hearts of those who, as His dear children, have submitted to His authority, and whom "He guides with His eye." Of the future state we know little, and should speak with modesty. But concerning it, those may be right who trust "the larger hope," and believe that the charity of God, which "never faileth," will there at length enter and possess the souls that have remained impervious to it here, coming first as a consuming fire to purge out their evil, and then as the genial and inspiring flame of a new and nobler life.

But the Divine Spirit, who ever seeks to possess and to animate the souls from which He has been longest excluded, also seeks, I go on to remark, to possess more fully and to animate more entirely the souls into which it may be said that He has already

gained an entrance-the souls of which the Apostle Paul speaks of as His temples. The men and women whose state may be thus described "have tasted of the heavenly gift, and become partakers of the Holy Ghost." "Walking in the Spirit, they no longer fulfil the lusts of the flesh." The lower nature has not, at all events, the mastery in them. They live lives which are those of increasing harmony with the Divine will, which are therefore filled in a measure with Christ's peace and Christ's joy. Having sown to the Spirit, they reap of the Spirit those blessed fruits. Having begun early this wise husbandry, they gather in a more abundant harvest than those who long have sown to the flesh. But while those of whom I now speak have in them that eternal life, that true and spiritual life, i.e., which Christ died that they might have, they may yet possess it more abundantly. The Divine Spirit rules within them, but He may rule there more completely. God is crer seeking a more entire possession and mastery of the hearts which are already conscious of His indwelling. He constantly knocks at the doors of these hearts that He may gain a fresh entrance into them, that He may dwell in them with mightier energy and ampler power. Through more gateways than one the Divine Lover of mankind seeks this fuller admission into man's inmost being. He seeks for it by the gateway of the intellect. When new views of truth are presented to us which correct our prejudices and humble our conceit, God, we may say, knocks at the doorways of our minds, that being admitted into them He may fill them with His light. When a religious teacher, for example, of fine spiritual insight, points out to us that, though the Infinite Spirit, who lives in all worlds, and works through all ages, must transcend our highest thought of Him, must in wisdom and goodness, in justice and mercy--in the love of which justice and mercy are but different manifestations— be better than we can think Him, He cannot in any of these attributes be worse than ourselves, or other in kind than ourselves-when, I say, the enlightened theologian of our own day reminds us of these truths, which the theologians of other days have too often obscured, God, speaking through him, is freeing us from the confusions which have made our trust in Him hesitating, unintelligent, imperfect; He is entering our hearts as the light which transforms itself into love; He is filling our hearts with new hope and strength and joy.

But God seeks to gain a fuller possession of the inmost shrine of our being, not only through the gateway of the speculative intellect. but through the gateways of our imaginative and emotional and moral natures. When, on the page of the historian, the biographer, the poet, we become acquainted with a personage that is truly heroic or noble; or when, in actual life, we meet men or women whose characters have in them much of moral loveliness, our enthusiasm for all things "pure, and just, and honourable, and lovely, and of good report" is intensified. Thus God, from whom all noble thoughts come, in whose strength all noble lives are lived, who is Himself. the perfect goodness, the perfect loveliness, has drawn near to us, that He may transform us more completely

into His likeness. Again, when the burden of new duties is laid upon us, He who is the Lord of the conscience, we may say, is seeking to enter our hearts anew, and to rule them more entirely. When the young man, beginning business for himself, or entering upon a profession, realises his responsibilities, and what it is that he now owes to himself and to society, the Divine Spirit is assuming a completer guidance of his life. Marriage, in like manner, and the birth of each infant into the home; marriage with its new interests, its new objects of affection, its new duties, brings God nearer to the husbands and wives, the fathers and mothers, whose desire it is that their human loves should in "a higher love endure."

Once more, the demand upon our sympathy which is made by any fellow-creature in his distress, is the appeal of God Himself, and of the Christ by whom God is manifested, for a place in our hearts and a larger lodgment there. Every sufferer that we relieve by our charity, every sorrowful fellow-creature that we soothe by our sympathy, is the substitute, the representative of Jesus. In giving to these sad and suffering fellow-creatures a place in our thoughts, we are giving Christ a place there. With all thoughts of pity which lead to deeds of mercy, His spirit, the spirit of love, enters into our hearts, enlarging them, purifying them, making them more tender and more wise.

It is not, we thus see, through religious rites alone that God draws near to our souls. It is not in one rite of religion in particular, as Catholics and semi-Catholics, in their lower teaching, at all events, affirm, that we can alone enjoy the real presence of Christ. The Spirit of God and of Christ is really present with us whenever our hearts are pitiful, whenever our hands are helpful, whenever conscience acts healthfully, whenever we realise our responsibilities as members of families, whenever we discharge faithfully our social duties, whenever our admiration for moral loveliness is intense, whenever our love of truth is ardent.

But if the Spirit of God and of Christ may be really present with us all through our work-day lives, He may also be present with us in our religious worship. He is present with all true worshippers. Wherever two or three are gathered together in His name, there is He in the midst of them. We need our religious observances, our days of rest, our weekly meetings for social worship, our hours of meditation and prayer, 'our communion seasons. By these Christian institutions the Christian spirit is kept alive within us. Our hours of religious thoughtfulness, our days of rest and worship, throw a light upon our ordinary lives, in which the Divine purpose in them should become clearer to us. The special worship of our communion seasons reminds us specially of the ties which bind us to God and to our fellow-men, of God's love to man, and man's worth as the object of that love. Let us seek, when the communion season again returns, to engage in its worship with the spirit and with the understanding also, and thus to have our spiritual life quickened and intensified. Let us seek by faith so to draw nigh to God as that He may draw nigh to us and fill our hearts with His spirit, the spirit of love, which dwelt without measure in Him whom we call our Redeemer and our Lord. Let us invite Him to enter into our hearts as our guest, so that He may become our entertainer, and supply our wants out of His fulness, and give us "grace for grace." Let us thus seek to have a true communion with God, and to enjoy the real presence of Christ. Let it be seen, in the work-day lives to which we return, that we have indeed been in His blessed presence. If one should tell us that he is independent of such outward ordinances of religion as the sacrament of the Supper, let the reply which, not with our lips, but by our lives, we make to him be this:

Our faith, thro' form, is pure as thine; Our hands are quicker unto good;

O sacred be the flesh and blood To which we link a truth divine.

morning-not a breath of wind abroad-a strange landscape flashed upon me with that singular clearness of atmospheric lustre which is never seen on this side of the Alps. I started as in a dream. It seemed a sudden glory let down before one's halfshut eyes. The town of Argóstoli and the hills around stood as if almost touching the orb of vision in their clear-cut, vivid outline. They seemed to quiver in their strange distinctness with the gentle motion of the vessel. The vision was exhilarating, and I went on deck to feast my eyes with it.

The same afternoon we were in the bay of Zante, with a broiling sun overhead, and nothing for it but to find some cool corner to consume the abundant fruit brought on board and dream over the Odyssey. It had pleased me to assume the truth of the ancient tradition which identifies Corfu with the Scheria or Phæacia of Homer; and the tradition has certainly

something to say for itself. A more fitting spot for the clothes-washing scene in the sixth book, and the romp of Nausicaa and her maidens when startled and scattered by the "brine-covered" and naked Ulysses, cannot be imagined than the fountain of Cressida, about three miles west of the modern town, but nearer what is supposed to have been the Corcyra of Thucydides. The fountain rises in a strong, leaping gush of water, which runs towards the sea with a rapid eddying flow. At hand is the pebbly beach for the drying of clothes in the gleaming sun, the green turf, "the river rolling nigh," and even the thickets for hiding the naked hero. The spot is an idyllic one for a maiden romp; and the distance from the ancient city just such as a princely maiden would like to drive in a mule carriage, to show her skilful driving and the paces of her nicelystepping mules. It was pleasant, at least, to call up the picture as we stood on the green bank by the sparkling rush of water rising in a leap from the rock. And now, again, as we passed out of sight of Ithaca, the rough island home of the much-suffering hero

"Rough, but a good nurse, and divine in grain

Her heroes,"

it was natural to turn once more to the fascinating page, and dream away the languid hours over it. We lay there during a long hot day, for what purpose I do not know; but at length we sailed away back for the Gulf of Corinth, having taken on board two young English officers, who proved most pleasant and intelligent companions.

Late at night we anchored off Patras, and I started early next morning to visit this rising commercial town, the centre of the great currant trade of Greece. My thoughts, however, were not running upon currants, but on the old associations of the place with St. Andrew. Here, according to tradition, the Apostle was crucified, and the strange mournful emblem of his cross, so familiar to all Scotchmen, carries us back to the dim days when he is supposed to have laboured and suffered at this spot. Shall we ever be able to clear up the dimness of those early times, and solve their strange contradictions? I fear not. The sharpest steel of criticism returns blunted when it touches them. Did St. Andrew ever live, and labour, and suffer, at Patras at all? Are his bones still lying there, as the stranger is assured, in the plain wooden coffer in the white cathedral church near the shore by the holy well which bears his name? All the devout of Patras profoundly believe this, and flock thither on the anniversary of the saint, lighting up the sacred shrine with their tapers as they invoke his guardian care. Or were the apostolic remains transported to Amalfi, as good Catholics of the south of Italy believe, while they point with confidence to the noble church which there rises above their supposed resting-place? Or did St. Rule carry them off to St. Andrews, and build a shrine for them there, and rear a national Christianity on the devout hypothesis? Who can tell? Who can unriddle the contradictions of an age which cared nothing for contradictions, whose faith fed upon the very puzzles which whet our logic, and revolt our historical sense? And yet

there is a charm in these old legends. Hopeless as they are for the historian, they are beautiful to the imagination, and we would not willingly part with them. They light up the darkness of the past with an ideal if not a practical interest. I felt that morning at Patras as if St. Andrew were a more living character than I had before realised him to be. I gave some vent to my eager interest in the subject, and even to my curiosity as to the disposal of the apostolic bones. But I had forgotten, and my readers here have not heard of, my old friend the polemic Protestant who frowned upon me at Assisi. He speedily denounced my enthusiasm as rubbish, wholly unworthy of a British Protestant, and laughed with merciless incredulity at the old wives' fables about the bones. If "all tales be true, that's no lie." I can never forget the jocund scorn with which he pronounced the contemptuous words, and turned upon his heel. I felt humbled, as I am apt to do, in the presence of a dogmatism confident in its own lack of knowledge, scornful in its narrowness; and I said nothing more of St. Andrew.

Leaving Patras, we touched at Naupactus, and then at Vostitza, the ancient Egium, passing from one side of the gulf to another. There is a magnificent plane-tree at the latter place, which attracts the visitor. Crossing still once more, we anchored at Galaxidi, in the bay of Salona, and there spent the greater part of an afternoon. Parnassus rose full in view to an imposing height, flecked with gleaming snow. I longed to visit Delphi, but the journey was impossible with the time at command: and so I satisfied myself with a long walk till I came opposite the mountain gorge which conceals it. could not help feeling, as I looked round on the barren country, and the naked unfertile ranges of mountain associated with youthful dreams of intellectual glory, how one's dreams become dwarfed in the light of reality; and yet it only required a slight effort of imagination to people the scene with ancient life and the ideal glories with which it inspires all cultivated nations.

Next morning we found ourselves in the bay of Corinth, and we gladly parted with our steamer, not without some farewell expostulation with the stupid Greek steward. A more wretched-looking place than New Corinth it would be difficult to conceive; a few half-finished houses, without arrangement or comfort of any kind. We contrived, however, to get some coffee, and to hire a rickety carriage to take us to the ruins of ancient Corinth, lying around the base of the Acro-Corinthus some two or three miles' distance. Seven magnificent Doric pillars, the remains of a bath of Venus, and of an amphitheatre at some distance, compose the ruins. The desolation is everywhere complete, and the visitor wanders from point to point without meeting a human being. All the more readily does the memory recall the ancient splendours of the place, the excitements of the Isthmian games in its neighbourhood, and especially the Corinth of St. Paul and Gallio, "the deputy." It was the thought of the great Apostle that most filled my mind as I stumbled amongst the ruins-How he came on here from Athens and found a certain Jew of the name of Aquila, lately arrived

from Italy with his wife Priscilla; "and because he was of the same craft he abode with them and wrought; for by their occupation they were tentmakers. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and Greeks."1 There is an undying interest to the Christian student wherever the steps of this wandering teacher rested; and while the "many wise men after the flesh," the many "mighty and noble" which the Corinth of his day contained, are utterly forgotten, and the deputy, the brother of Seneca, is only remembered in connection with the scenes in the Acts of the Apostles, the poor teacher whom they despised has filled the world with his name, and given to the spot where they once dwelt its chief attraction.

After rambling amongst the ruins, we returned, and crossed the Isthmus. The day was fresh and beautiful, and I, with one or two others, preferred walking. The distance is about five miles.

There

are few or no traces of cultivation; but in the exquisite spring sunshine, and amidst masses of broken and irregular verdure, smelling sweetly of thyme and crowned with pines, we enjoyed the walk greatly.

About a mile from Kalamáki lies the place where the celebrated games were held. All is now silence and waste; but the eye can trace the outline of the Stadium, and the fancy picture the excitements of which it was once the living scene. It was still early when we reached Kalamáki, and we had to wait some time for the steamer to Athens. We amused ourselves inspecting the coarse industries of the place, which was pervaded by a squalid activity consequent on the sailing of the steamer. The dirt and disorder of Greek ports appear here in perfection. The town or village consists of a few houses scattered along the shore-on the opposite side of the bay from Cenchrea, the old port where St. Paul shaved his head-" for he had a vow "—when he sailed thence from Corinth, taking with him Priscilla and Aquila. At length we embarked, and steamed towards the Piræus, past Ægina and Salamis. Thickcrowding memories rose as we passed both; but we were soon in the harbour of the Piræus, amidst all the wild bustle of landing. We were shrieked at in the language of Themistocles, torn from our luggage, restored to it, and finally found ourselves driving towards Athens amidst clouds of dust.

"BETWEEN the Preachings," or "Twal-hours," as an older generation called it, is just such a subject as Sir David Wilkie could have painted to the life for us, overflowing with the sedate humour of his own countrymen; and right worthy it would have been to hang beside "The Village Politicians," or "The Blind Fiddler," or "Saturday Night," or, indeed, any of the best of his famous Scottish character subjects. "Twal-hours!" These words, uttered in my hearing the other day, struck me like the familiar air of an old Scotch song, and, almost before I was aware, I found myself busy sketching the interior of an oldfashioned kitchen-such as I knew long ago in "life's young day," and which I could still, I think, find my way in blindfolded without breaking my shins-and peopling it with faces and forms which came stealing out from amid the dim shadows of the past, and took their places round the cheerful ingle-side.

The walls in my sketch were coloured with yellow ochre, of that warm, comfortable shade so common in every poor man's kitchen, which is at once his dining, and drawing, and bed-room, too, sometimes. The fireside was none of the narrow, contracted family altarplaces, where the soul must sit "crulged," like the body, to catch from between the bars its inspiring warmth, but wide and roomy, with "swee and links suspended above the ruddy flames. It had no oven or other modern ironmongery fitted into it. Its ample chimney-place, built-in jams, and backwardsloping ash-hole-in fine symbolic keeping with the genius of the fireside-were a stainless white. It was set in a black varnished frame, or mantel-piece, on the top of which stood, at each corner, a brass 1 Acts xviii. 3, 4.

candlestick, with a cast-metal sheep in the middle, its woolly sides shining with the housewife's blacklead. Behind the elbow-chair-overlooked by the lemon-coloured face of the "wagetty-wa'," its swift fingers pointing to a quarter past one-was the wellscoured wooden dresser reclining against the wall, with the bleared November sunlight from the window glimmering on the ultra-marine flowering on the broth-plates in the delf-rack. Crammed in a "boal” in the wall, between the edge of the mantel-piece and the dresser, was the household library. Plainly recognisable among its confused mass of dingy brown colour were such common favourites as the Bible, in frayed sheepskin covers, a well-thumbed copy of Burns, "The Scottish Chiefs," "Scots Worthies," a book of old ballads, "The Pilgrim's Progress,' Progress," "Robinson Crusoe," "Mungo Park's Travels,' ," "The Vicar of Wakefield," and Walker's Dictionary-the latter always in high request when an epistle was being written. Opposite the dresser, on the other side of the kitchen, in the shadow, with a looking-glass and work-box on its top, was a lowset chest of mahogany drawers, in whose dark panels I could see the reflection of the fire dancing up and down, and could almost believe I heard the "flapping of the flame." Back towards the door was the bed. with violet striped hangings, and blood-red carpet coverlet, loaded, like a sacrificial altar, with a miscellaneous collection of Sunday finery, such as bonnets, hats, shawls, coats, and neckerchiefs. At the foot of the bed, in the corner, was the meal-barrel, painted a bluish green, and hooped with black; and between it and the window a deal table with a bing

2 Acts xviii. 18.