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MY AUNT NELLY'S PORTFOLIO.

(Continued from Vol. VII., page 341.)

"THE butterfly has been said to be an emblem of the soul." This thought involuntarily passed through my mind yesterday as I knelt at the altar in a village church, and perceived a butterfly struggling his way upwards by a series of broken feeble efforts, between flying and hopping, on the piece of slanting wall which intervenes between the communion table and the windows above. I did not, of course, follow up the parallel at that time, but afterwards thinking over the circumstance, it seemed to me so full of significant meaning that I longed for my namesake and fellow-contributor's skilful pen to bring it well out. It would make a capital pendant I thought for Mary's "Moth on the Cross," if she would but take it in hand.

By what means the caterpillar had found its way into the holy temple, or from what corner, awakening from its mysterious trance, the creature had started into life and light, remains for conjecture; perhaps, who shall say, it took its first flight from the baptismal font. Be this as it may, the poor insect wore not the appearance bright, vigorous, unsullied, of one hatched amid primeval freshness and purity. There was somewhat of a marred and blighted look about its plumage, a crippled air in its movements, which, to express my meaning more familiarly, betrayed that he was not "quite at home." Incapable as he seemed of a sustained flight, there is no saying how the poor thing had made his way to the foot of the altar, and thence to his position on the wall where I first observed him; but what will not constancy of purpose effect? he had finally succeeded in establishing himself in a snug corner of the lower window-pane, where the rays of the sun, the author of his being and sole fount to him of light and happiness, could visit him. Those to whom it may have happened to witness the launch of a butterfly will remember the thrill of ecstasy which seemed to pervade its frame, till after basking a brief while in the beams of the sun to renovate its powers, he made a sudden rapturous spring into his congenial elements of air and light. So it would doubtless have fared with my poor captive but for the intercepting pane; once remove that brittle impediment, and see how he would wing away to regions of inexhaustible delights

"To worlds where"-butterflies-" are blest,"

where he could meander at will among brakes of flowers which even now spread their silken bosoms, rich with draughts of nectar, to welcome him; where he might sip and soar the livelong day,

join in mazy dance with fair bright loving creatures like himself; revelling the while in the rays of that bright luminary from whom all his felicity derives its being and support. But I may not pursue my allegory into "things too high for mortal" pen; remembering too, that my proper business is to set forth the thoughts of others. The subjoined little sketch seems to follow naturally on the "Porch Nest," and on that account I have selected it from the portfolio.

THE TIN TACK.

I mentioned that we had occasion to repair our ancient wellworn vicarage. The lesson which my poor little Porch Wren supplied was not the only ray of moral light which beamed upon me through the chinks of those dear old walls.

Nobody questions the danger of meddling with an "old house,” it is so generally acknowledged as to have grown into a proverb, and there is truly a perilous sympathy in its several parts. One evening when the family party were assembled in my brother's study, now become our chief apartment since its neighbour was undergoing repair, it was found that the door refused to close. What should this mean but that the dining-room, in resentment at the liberties which were being taken with it, was bringing the roof down upon our heads. While we womankind stood trembling by eying the door frame, and contracting ourselves into the smallest possible compass, my dear brother called a council of war on the staircase, where he and the head mason conversed in a sort of conspirator tone which only served to increase our fears. All we could make out were snatches of sentences, "Not any great danger," "by to-morrow's light," "my life for yours," with such like arguments of consolation as however well intentioned are sure to produce the contrary effect. They dropped like sparks on the ready combustibles of our female imaginations. I can never forget my terror as I skulked through the portentous doorway to go to bed, nor the visions of ruin and concussion which pursued me there. And what terrified me more than all was my dear brother's tapping at my chamber door, on the way to his own, to bid me try and make myself easy for the night, for that the mischief would be inquired into early the next morning. He kept his word. There were he and the master workman by dawn of day, peering through every inch of the old walls; but, notwithstanding that no fresh crack could be detected, the cause of alarm remained; the bookroom door still refused (in Cornish phraseology)" to go home," proving, they said, "there must be a breach somewhere."

The consultation awoke me from the first wink of sleep I was able to obtain, and attracted me to the door where, wrapped in my flannel dressing-gown, I listened with a throbbing heart to catch what I could of an incoherent dialogue as of two persons in anxi

ous search of what they were long unable to find. The debate was all at once brought to a point by a startling and loud exclamation on the part of the mason; "As sure as you are alive, sir," he said, "I have found out the murder." "Murder!" thought I, "then we are to be buried alive at last!" If the roof had actually descended on my head, I could scarcely have felt a greater shock; judge then, kind reader, of my unspeakable relief on hearing the examining parties chuckling together over the detection of a tin tack which had accidentally lodged between the door and its frame, and occasioned all this commotion. Laughable enough it was, I cannot but own, yet where is the person who will declare he has not, during the whole course of his life, been the prey of terrors still more ridiculous and unsubstantial? The nightly apprehension of housebreakers where houses are seldom, if ever, broken into; the fear of rats where there is not so much as a mouse-hole for them to creep through, terrors about ghosts and goblins, with the thousand "chimeras dire" and vague which are entertained night by night and vanish at the dawn of day, dismissed without one serious thought or endeavour to conquer them; ah, this is the real folly; here lies all the mischief, for how shall we hope to detect and conquer what we never bring to the light? Had my brother not persisted in searching out the cause we should probably have suffered to the end of our lives the inconvenience of an illclosed door, and the fear of a falling roof.

Let us then, the victims of a self-inflicted tyranny, imitate his wise proceedings; let us examine our tormentors at the Fountain of light; let us fall low before Him to whom all things are in subjection, and pray to be delivered from every fear but the fear of sin; let us cast all our cares and our fears with infantile trust on Him to Whom the darkness is as the noon; then, as the shadows of night vanish before the risen sun, we shall lay our heads on the pillow in tranquil confidence, and nothing shall make us afraid.

Shakespeare tells us there is "good in every thing” if we will take the trouble to extract it; but I question whether anybody, even the great moral alchymist himself, ever before thought of making anything out of a Tin tack.

My dear Aunt Nelly, however, laboured under a mistake when she declared that all we females partook of the general dismay; I well remember the scene she has described, but do suppose, if the roof had really fallen on her head, my heroic mother would have deemed it a weakness to put out a hand to ward it off. Methinks I see her now, as she looked when the panic broke out, quietly pursuing her occupation, and trying not to look contemptuous, because my father, for whom her feelings of reverence were deep and inviolate, seemed to partake of the general alarm.

FUNERAL OF A CLERGYMAN'S WIFE.

Such a

It is a part of the Divine economy in this lower world, that the abuse of gifts, in the end deprives us of their use. "To him that hath shall be given," while "from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that he hath." We see this principle exemplified in the things of this life, no less than in those pertaining to the life which shall be. It is true both in nature and in art; in the physical and intellectual, as well as in morals and religion. When Esau "despised his birthright," "he found no place of repentance, though he sought it earnestly with tears.” train of thought is almost forced upon us, when we contemplate the manifold instances in which the Church of England has in modern times neglected her trusts, and been faithless to her high calling; and thus lost, at least for a time, full many a precious gift, which, but for her own apathy and carelessness, would have enriched the treasure-house of our faith, our hope, our charity. Her's was the education of the people, from the prince to the peasant; her's it was to declare the counsel of the Most Highest; her's to guide the legislature of the country, so that all things might be "ordered and settled upon the best and surest foundations," of the fear and love of GOD; her's to sanctify all things, by offering of the first fruits to the bountiful Giver of all; her's to extend the blessings of the Gospel of peace, not only to her own sons and daughters throughout the whole of the British Empire, but to proclaim liberty to the captive children of idolatry and superstition, wherever her twice-crossed banner was unfolded in the sight of the nations. What has been the consequence of neglecting all these gifts, to a very great extent the troubles, alarms, and anxieties of our own day must in some measure reveal, even to the least observant.

There is now, however, by the good band of our GOD upon us, a great change in our way of looking at these gifts. The chastisements of our heavenly FATHER have in some measure aroused our slumbering energies, and in a variety of ways we are endeavouring to build again the walls which have been thrown down. Oppression and rebuke from without have kindled new zeal and devotedness within; and as we begin to look to our patrimony, and to survey the long neglected gifts of our branch of the Church Catholic, we are constrained from time to time to exclaim, "What hath GOD wrought!" as well as to derive, from the revival of various subsidiary aids to devotion, that warmth, and life, and comfort, to the existence of which they are (if not essential, yet) undoubtedly conducive in no ordinary degree. We have to record an instance of that sort

of good which we deem derivable from every truly Catholic practice, judiciously preserved or restored, in the funeral of the much lamented wife of the Rev. T. A. Pope, of Stoke Newington. If the several occasional services constitute, from their personal and domestic nature, the most perfect instance of that "soothing tendency in the Prayer Book" which it has been the chief purpose of the amiable author of the Christian Year to exhibit in his lovely verse, it cannot be matter of slight importance that, in the actual use of those offices, such adjuncts and modes of offering them up to the throne of the Majesty on High, should be most sought after and encouraged, as best harmonise with their innate beauty and sacred pathos.

The gifts of music have been much neglected in the English Church. We have been too apt to think of it as something alien from devotion; a mere relief from the tedium of continuous worship-an interlude, to rest both the congregation and the Clergy-a stop-gap, to give time for the passing from the reading-desk to the altar, from the altar to the vestry, from the vestry to the pulpit, and back again; instead of the very voice of the Church-the thurible whence the incense of prayer and praise might, at all times, fitly rise from earth to heaven.

Hence men have come to be ignorant that, as there is the note of joy and gladness, when the Church would rejoice in the LORD, there are no less songs of comfort to the mourner; a minstrelsy not jarring upon the heart bowed down under the afflicting dispensations of God's providence, but binding up the broken heart,-pouring in the oil and wine of heavenly consolation into the wounded spirit,-breathing peace and hope, and even tranquil joy, into the souls of the disconsolate,-bringing down the songs of paradise to our lower world, -echoing the seraphic songs of the hierarchy of heaven, "Blessed are the dead that die in the LORD. Yea, saith the SPIRIT, for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."

At the request of her husband, the mortal remains of Adelaide Pope were committed to the earth with all the soothing and soul-stirring concomitants of a Christian's funeral. The choirs of Christ Church, Hoxton; S. Matthias, Stoke Newington; assisted by the children of Her Majesty's Chapels Royal, and some of the students of S. Mark's College, Chelsea, under the direction of the Rev. Thomas Helmore, attended to do honour to Almighty GOD, in remembrance of the holy life and conversation of her whom He had sanctified on earth, and whom He had at an early age called away from earth to "sleep in JESUS." The processional anthems were duly sung at the entrance of the Churchyard, as the whole of the officiating ministers and choir, to the number of about thirty, habited in surplices, preceded the corpse,

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