that the sound was of a solemn, fulltoned organ filling the cathedral with strains old as hymns of the mediæval Church, yet fresh as the child's prayer of this morning,-they could not but feel that, if the forms and developments had been diverse, the spirit had been one, and that there was still a sacred unity in which all could sympathise who knew and loved the Lord. The music of "The Christian Year" might not draw Nonconformists into the Church of Keble, but it taught them to feel that the Church of Christ was a larger thing than even Keble knew. Accordingly, in the Nonconformist chapels, and by the Nonconformist firesides of England, praise rises to heaven in the words of Keble, and such strains as "Sun of my soul, thou Saviour, dear," and "O timely happy, timely wise," are as dear to the Nonconformistheart as any hymns of Cowper, Watts, or Wesley.

It seems about as correct as most of our theories and opinions are, that every man born into this world comes gifted with power to do some work specifically his own, some work which no other man, though possessed of the highest genius, could do so well as he, and which, therefore, it ought to be the main effort of his life to accomplish. It is agreed that John Keble achieved nothing of high importance except "The Christian Year." His life was devoid of excitement or incident, and none of his other literary performances caught the ear of his countrymen. Born in 1792, he proceeded in very early life to Oxford, won, while still a mere boy, the highest honours of the university, "turned from the admiration which haunted his steps, and sought for a better and holier satisfaction in pastoral work in the country," lived and died as pastor of Hursley, without an ambition discernible by human eye except that of serving God and benefiting man. One of the most refined and cultivated men of his age, he devoted himself to the task of ministering to rustics, and never felt that the work was beneath his powers. In one of the pieces composing "The Christian Year," there is a stanza, the third of the

following,exquisitely applicable to his own case. As of old, he says, the Saviour sent out His disciples in pairs, "to soften hearts like morning dew;" So evermore He deems His name

Best honoured and His way prepared,
When watching by His altar-flame
He sees His servants duly paired:
He loves when age and youth are met,
Fervent old age and youth serene,
Their high and low in concord set

For sacred song, Joy's golden mean:
He loves when some clear soaring mind
Is drawn by mutual piety
To simple souls and unrefined,

Who in life's shadiest covert lie. In converse with these "simple souls and unrefined," carrying on at the same time a converse with some of the foremost intellects in the religious world of the nineteenth century, his life glided away. From a boy he commanded not only the esteem, not only the affection, but the reverence, of those who knew him. This reverence" seems to have been felt by all his friends, and the peculiarity was that it was combined with an almost passionate-say rather a more than passionate-affection. Perhaps the most eloquent commemoration of a friend which ever took place, was the inability of Dr. Pusey to preach his funeral sermon. But as was said, The Christian Year" was his gift to the Church and the world; and now that his eye has closed-losing sight of earth just as the blossoms were breaking from their sheaths, and the clouds of a long and dreary spring were beginning to be touched with the golden streaks of summer,-it is of "The Christian Year" that we have to say that little which it is necessay to say at all.

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The writer with whom we first and most naturally compare Keble is Herbert. The Christian poet of Bemerton is beyond all question destined to a literary immortality, and it is probable that in direct imaginative force, and in occasional felicity and nervousness of poetical expression, he bore the palm from Keble. More of pure and concentrated poetic genius goes, it may be, to the composition of such a lyric as "Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright," than was possessed by the au

thor of "The Christian Year." But Herbert is quaint to a fault,-quaint to an extent to which no really great or popular poet ever was quaint. He is often, also, flat and inelegant, if not positively coarse.

Look on meat, think it dirt, then eat a bit, And say withal, Earth to earth 1 commit. This famous couplet, which is neither sense nor poetry, but unchristian in idea and detestable in sound, stands not alone in Herbert. Accordingly, he is one of those poets who are more perused by writers than by readers, by persons who want to be thought poetical, and who therefore affect raptures which they do not feel, than by persons who merely seek delight in poetry. On the whole, we pronounce the religious poetry of Keble decidedly superior to that of Herbert. It has, no doubt, its faults. It is often obscure. It is occasionally languid. The author's sensitive dislike of everything like glare, extravagance, bravura, has made his elegance at times too subdued, his classicism too classic. More serious is the blemish,—and it constitutes a real deduction from the value of the poem, that the Anglicanism of Keble betrayed him into writing on a few "extra themes," which were worthy neither of his genius nor to be admitted within the limits of "The Christian Year." "Gunpowder Treason," "King Charles the Martyr," "The Restoration of the Royal Family," "The Accession," -these are not subjects for sacred song. The verses about "Gunpowder Treason," indeed, avoid the difficulty by not containing, so far as we can detect, a single allusion to Guy Fawkes, his lantern, his faggots, or his intended victims. They are, besides, good in themselves, and contain this famed and beautiful stanza, descriptive of the way in which Anglicans of Keble's school are expected to refer to the Church of Rome:

Speak gently of our sister's fall:
Who knows but gentle love
May win her at our patient call
The surer way to prove?

If the lines in which "King Charles the Martyr" is celebrated were turned out of the poem, the improvement would be great. Poor Charles, one of

the most pitiable of men, came of a stock which produced a few vigorous branches in Scotland, but never one after the days of Mary Stuart. James I. was a fool; Charles II. was a reprobate; and though Charles I. was neither fool nor knave, his ability was the sickliest of which we have historical record, and his moral character had an incurable obliquity. Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie:" that maseuline line of Herbert's was beyond the reach of Charles. He was wellintentioned and had fine qualities; rude Cromwells, strength-worshipping Carlyles, have been hard upon him; but he was no man whom you can wholly admire, no exemplary personage in any sense, no subject for panegyric as a Christian martyr, and when Keble praised him he praised a far worse man than himself. It is suggestive,-it is most gratifying, to find that the two or three subjects which are wholly unfit to be included in "The Christian Year," belong to what may be called the sectarian element in the Anglican Church and in Keble's character. When his song is Christian, even though Anglican, it is great and beautiful; when it is Anglican rather than Christian-that is when it is sectarian-it becomes poor and feeble. The human element in these added pieces-this also is very observable-accords admirably with the general character, with the religion, the Christianity, the spirituality of the poem. There is nothing in "The Christian Year," nothing in the English language, finer in its way than the lines on Matrimony. We must make room for the two closing verses:

'Tis He who clasps the marriage band,
And fits the spousal ring,
Then leaves ye kneeling, hand in hand,

Out of His stores to bring
His Father's dearest blessing, shed
Of old on Isaac's nuptial bed,
Now on the board before ye spread

Of our all-bounteous King.
All blessings of the breast and womb,
Of Heaven and earth beneath,
Of converse high, and sacred home,
Are yours, in life and death.
Only kneel on, nor turn away
From the pure shrine, where Christ to-
day

Will store each flower ye duteous lay,

For an eternal wreath.

Of the beauties and merits of the poem we might speak at any length. The first line seems to announce that a higher note is about to be struck in religious poetry. "Hues

of the rich unfolding morn" break majestically upon our sight, and a new and lofty music is in our ears. Delicate observation of nature's beauty, the pulses of coloured light that tremble around the path of the rising or setting sun, the blue mist that traces the torrent's path in its windings along the hill-side, the "vernal red" which tips the willow branch ere the blasts of winter are gone, all these take a finer light from spiritual feeling, as a landscape shows most delicately at evening through vistas of forest trees. There is ever the glow of heartfelt adoration as the glory and goodness of God are contemplated:

"The sun and every vassal star,

All space beyond the soar of angel
wings,

Wait on His word: and yet He stays

His car

For every sigh a contrite suppliant
brings.

He listens to the silent tear

For all the anthems of the boundless sky."

Of the Divine tenderness there is a wonderfully true and deep apprehension :

"Freely thou givest, and thy word
Is Freely give;'

He only who forgets to hoard,
Has learned to live.
Wisely Thou givest-all around
Thine equal rays are resting found,
Yet varying so on various ground,
They pierce and strike

That not two roseate cups are crowned
With dew alike."

Sometimes there is an almost mystical, but always deeply Christian, apprehension of the teachings of nature:

"Sin is with man at morning break,

And through the live-long day
Deafens the ear that fain would wake
To nature's simple lay.

But when eve's silent footfall steals
Along the eastern sky,

And one by one to earth reveals,
Those purer worlds on high;
When one by one each human sound
Dies on the awful ear,

Then nature's voice no more is drowned,

She speaks and we must hear.
Then pours she on the Christian heart
That warning still and deep,

At which high spirits of old would start
E'en from their Pagan sleep.
Just guessing, through their murky
blind,

Few, faint, and baffling sight,
Streaks of a brighter heaven behind,
A cloudless depth of light."

A somewhat similar line of thought is in the following:

แ By our own niggard rule we try
The hope to suppliants given;
We mete out love, as if our eye
Saw to the end of heaven.

*

When thou hast told those isles of light,
And fancied all beyond,
Whatever owns in depth or height,

Creation's wondrous bond;
Then in their solemn pageant learn
Sweet mercy's praise to see;
Their Lord resigned them all to earn
The bliss of pardoning thee."

Of the exquisite way in which Keble's spiritual fancy dealt with Scripture, take this simple illustration:"Reason and Faith at once set out

To search the Saviour's tomb;
Faith, faster runs, but waits without,
As fearing to presume,

Till Reason enter in and traced
Christ's relics round the holy place-
'Here lay His limbs, and here His sacred
head,

And who was by to make His new-for-
saken bed?'

Both wonder, one believes-but while
They muse on all at home,
No thought can tender Love beguile
From Jesus' grave to roam.
Weeping she stays till He appear-
Her witness first the Church must hear-
All joy to souls that can rejoice
With her at earliest call of His dear,
gracious voice."

This on a child is very beautiful: "O tender gem, and full of Heaven!

Not in the twilight stars on high,
Not in moist flowers at even

See we our God so nigh."

We had marked many other passages for quotation, but the limits of our space forbid. Every reader ought to be familiar with the poem, as a whole. There is hardly any book which we would more willingly put into the hands of young people than" The Christian Year." Not only does it breathe a spirit of

*St. Peter and St. John.

pure and fervent religion, but its every strain is inspired with tender, and noble, and refined human feeling, and by reading it and re-reading it, if by any process whatever, will a young man become all we mean by a Christian gentleman, and a young woman all that we mean by a Christian lady. So far as we know, the breath of calumny never cast a cloud on Keble's name. Here

below he was beloved by all good men, and, in the silent wood, at hush of evening, angels met him. It is with solemn joy, with hallowed pride, that we think of such a man. Christianity is still capable of being the soul's life of such, and scep tics will find the fact worthy of consideration. If mankind were all Kebles, earth would lack but little of heaven. PETER BAYNE.

MARCHMONT WALKER was the best friend I had in the world. We had been at one school when mere boys; we had matriculated at the same college; both had chosen the clerical profession from convictions of the strongest kind, and we were so knit together from kindred feelings and mutual sympathies, that no two brothers could have loved each other more dearly than we did. We were both fortunate in obtaining good curacies soon after our ordination. Mine was in a quiet country village in Westmoreland, amongst a primitive and uncultivated race of people; whereas Marchmont was thrown into a different sphere of action and interest, being located in a cathedral town in the south. His duties differed essentially from mine, whilst his temptations were greater. could not count a single rich man amongst my people, while in the district he visited there was scarcely a poor man to be found!

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was welcomed in the houses of the great; I entered only the cottages of the humble. I can hardly tell what might have been the moral effect of our diverse surroundings, but I know that the effect, socially, on Marchmont at least, was immense. I had left him a mere youth in manner and knowledge of the world, but when we met again after a year's separation, I could hardly recognise the calm, polished, dandy-parson as my old friend. I hope I did not degenerate into a boor from the influence of my as

sociates, but Marchmont objected strongly to the cut of my coat and the shape of my whiskers; and if the substitution had been practicable, would have lengthened the first at the expense of the second.

But we still preserved our former affections, although Marchmont rigorously avoided anything like a religious discussion, and seemed to me to have lost some of the pleasant candour which had formerly charac terised him. He would talk of the dean, and the dean's daughter; he was eloquent over the canons: gracious in his mention of the minor canons; enthusiastic about the archdeacon; but he confined himself to the most sparse and meagre details of his own opinions and doings, and checked me rather sharply once when I referred to the Puseyite tendencies of a brother curate in the north.

"I have known some who would cavil at the most simple forms and observances. After all, Theo, we are not lads any longer, to be frightened by every fashionable scare-crow that folly and prejudice set up: we have to follow our consciences, and even should they land us at Rome eventually, surely a zealous Papist is better than a lukewarm Protestant."

He walked away as he spoke, and during the rest of the time we were together he studiously avoided any renewal of the subject; but the conversation left a painful impression on my mind, which I found it difficult to efface. I went back to Kirby-Clarence with a certain sense of having lost something in my friend;-not his love: that I felt I might count on fully; but his free, full confidence! I was not surprised that in his future letters he spoke less and less of himself, whilst he enriched his correspondence with copious details of others' actions, and probable feelings, flavouring the whole from time to time with that delicate dash of clerical scandal which is supposed to be so palatable to an ecclesiastical recluse.

At last they took a tenderer, and to my mind, a far pleasanter tone. He had an interest now which he dared to confide to me. In the beginning he only spoke of his hopes in vague terms, and I could not tell how near or how complete his happiness might be. But suddenly, without a word of warning, came an imperious summons-"I am to be married on Tuesday week, and come you must; Minnie says so! Wish me joy, old friend, from the bottom of your honest heart; mine is so full, so eager, so restless, I dare not trust myself to write more."

And that was all. Who was Minnie? Where was I to go?

Well, I started early on the Monday morning, and I went straight to Marchmont's lodgings at Dex. There I found my friend, and there also I found an almost passionate welcome.

"God bless you, old fellow," he

said, taking me by both hands, "I knew you would come. Minnie was anxious to have you, and so was I; it wouldn't have seemed quite right somehow, if you hadn't been there."

He talked on so earnestly, so brightly, that it was a good while before I could ask any of my own questions, with the least chance of obtaining coherent answers. I then astonished Marchmont by requiring some account of "Minnie;" and he could hardly be persuaded that he had not told me clearly from the first that she was the Dean's daughter. His transports, his vivid exaggerations, I spare the reader for his own sake; besides, I am an elderly man now, grim, grave, and grey, and perhaps these things might appear ill suited to my pen. I may add that nothing would satisfy my friend but that I should go at once to be introduced to his bride, and that I came away with the impression that she was a fair, modest, gentle young woman, who seemed likely, so far as I could judge, to make Marchmont's married home as bright as his hopes; and that is saying a great deal.

Mr. Walker was a man of substance, and when his son entered into an alliance so promising in every way, he made the young couple such a provision as not only secured them every comfort, but also every luxury. No two people could have started in life with fairer prospects. How often and often since have I compared my friend's fate to that of some goodly vessel sailing forth at morn on a tranquil sea; but at night when the storm rose, and we counted that the goodly vessel would put forth all her strength and speed, to fight her way back into the haven, she succumbed to the waves without a struggle, and perished miserably in sight of land. When I left Dex I had only one fear for Marchmont-that he might be too happy and prosperous. heard from him occasionally, but his letters were much less frequent than they had formerly been, and I did not wonder at this. All the sympathy he could need, he now found in the tender woman who

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