the opening words, which were uttered | had caused enough discomfort for one somewhat as follows:

morning, replied that he would not examine them further that day. So saying, he seized his hat which was even seedier than his grey coat-in his right hand, placed the head of his crutch comfortably under his left armpit, and with a "Goodday, sir,' to Mr. MacTaggart, and a

school in general, he hobbled his way out.

From this point, Goliath, like a race-horse well trained and held in, gradually increased his pace, till at last each line seemed like a single long word. He" Good-bye for the present, boys," to the seemed to be hurriedly running through a list of strange names in some barbarous tongue. Mr. MacTaggart looked pleased, and cast a triumphant glance at the lame stranger in the seedy grey suit. The grim smile on the face of the latter gradually widened into a broad grin, followed by a peculiar low chuckle.

Then, rising from the form on which he had seated himself, and leaning on his crutch, he asked-pointing to little Goliath who was regarding him fixedly, "Would. you be so good as to inform me who delivered that celebrated oration which you have read with such remarkable fluency?"

To this question poor Goliath replied in a very crestfallen voice, "Ha nel berl akum." The free translation of which is, "I do not understand English."

When he was gone Mr. MacTaggart I asked us if we knew who he was. Nobody knew; nobody could give him the slightest information. It was an inexplicable E mystery. Poor Mr. MacTaggart, I think, took him for a school inspector sent by the government. Had he known the truth, he certainly would not have put up so meekly with his intrusion and interfer

ence.

The next day the murder was out. The school was full of it. "Do you know who that impudent cripple was who came "Yes; yesterday?" "Yes; do you?" everybody knows it;" and so on through the school. Everybody except myself seemed to have heard the news. The mysterious stranger in the seedy grey suit was according to his own account, which nobody seemed inclined to doubt — a highly educated Englishman who had seen better days. He called himself Mr. Mr. MacTaggart blushed, but did not Slater. He had come to Glen Büe to set speak. The stranger then put some ques-up a school in rivalry to Mr. MacTaggart's, tions to other boys in the collection class, but without eliciting any very satisfactory answers. One said that friends meant 'kahrshdun,” which was correct so far as it went; another that ears meant "clausun," which was also right; while a third translated bury by "derchkun," which is the Gaelic for berries. From the generality he got either the answer "Ha nel berl akum," or "Ha nel ism" (I don't know). At last the stranger gave it up.

and in this purpose he was supported by the powerful influence of Mr. Sinclair, the proprietor of the neighboring slatequarry. Mr. Slater remorselessly exposed the shortcomings of the existing school, and made large promises on his own account. He would undertake that within a year nearly all the boys in his school should at least speak English fluently, while, if a boy of average intelligence stayed with him three years, he would guarantee that by that time he should speak not only English but also French This seemed plainer English to them and Latin with as much facility as his than Shakespeare; at all events, they un-native Gaelic. Somehow people gener.

"That will do, my boys," he said; "you may go to your places.'

derstood him and went.

The stranger then turned to the old schoolmaster and said that he did not wish to trouble him further; that he thought he had examined his boys quite enough to ascertain their capacities and acquire. ments; but still, if he (Mr. MacTaggart) wished it, he would examine the writing and arithmetic.

Mr. MacTaggart replied gruffly that he might if he liked; that he did not care whether he did or not.

The stranger, thinking perhaps that he

ally, though they freely expressed their disapproval of his conduct towards Mr. MacTaggart, accepted Mr. Slater at his own valuation. Many, like my mother, had been long dissatisfied with Mr. MacTaggart's parrot system of teaching, and determined to give Mr. Slater a fair trial. Before many days had elapsed, the latter opened his school with a very respectable number of boys, nearly all deserters from the older establishment. The present writer was amongst the number.

ALBIN MAC RAE.

3

From The Spectator.

THE MORAVIANS AND THE LEPERS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.]

SIR, ten and done in connection with the work and name of Father Damien and his leper mission, that it is but fair that some mention at last should be made of the many years' work, of a far earlier date, of the devoted Moravian missionaries amongst the lepers of South Africa. Although a work of considerable extent, carried on under the auspices of our own government, few seem ever to have heeded it, or heard of it.

of praise and thankfulness for the restoration of their beloved "father and mother."

A school was now opened for the chil

So much has been said and writ-dren of the lepers, and such adults as chose to attend. "It is most touching," wrote the teacher, "to see the scholars turn over the leaves of their Bibles with their mutilated hands. On Sunday morning you would find such miserable beings as pressed round Jesus to be healed of him exerting all their ingenuity to reach the little church-here a young lazar sitting on the ground, thrusting himself forward with difficulty; there another, creeping on his knees and the stumps of In January, 1822, a Moravian brother, his arms; further on a patient, wholly the Rev. Mr. Leitner, and his English deprived of hands and feet, in a wheelwife left the society of their fellow-mis- barrow, being conveyed to the house of sionaries, and at the request of the then prayer by a brother in affliction, whose governor at the Cape, Lord Charles Som- head and face are swollen till they look erset, removed to the Leper Hospital at like a lion's. Go into the wards of the Hemel en Aarde, a lonesome spot, far re-hospital. On one couch lies a leper whose moved from all human habitations, and so hemmed in by lofty rocks that only a small strip of sky was visible above. Here they entered upon their self-denying, repulsive, and, as then supposed, perilous duties. Year by year the work progressed. Diligence superseded idleness, the languor of despair and wretchedness gàve place to cheerful industry. The hospital was surrounded by neat gardens, and a large plot of land brought under cultivation by the lepers themselves for the general benefit. Then, under the missionary's direction, an aqueduct was constructed, which supplied the little colony with water for their gardens and houses. By night and by day the presiding brother was ready to minister to the temporal and spiritual wants of his patients, and many a wild, depraved outcast was led to submit with resignation and Christian fortitude to the lifelong trial and affliction before him.

During six years of service, Pastor Leitner baptized ninety-five adults; and sad was the Easter day when he was suddenly removed by death in the very act of administering this rite to one of the con

verts.

A successor was soon found to fill up the breach, and to labor in the same devoted spirit; and when the Leper Hospital was removed from Hemel en Aarde to Robben Island, a low, sandy islet, surrounded by dangerous rocks, near the enentrance of Table Bay, seven miles from Cape Town, the patients urgently petitioned government to let their Moravian go with them. On the arrival of the missionary and his wife, the whole company of lepers broke forth into songs

teachers

hands are gone, before him an open Bible. He has reached the bottom of the page, but cannot turn it over. He looks round, and one who can walk, but is also without hands, takes another, who has lost his feet, upon his back, and carries him to the first to turn over the leaf.”

In 1860, the governor expressed a desire that a competent and qualified master should be sent to take charge of the schools, and again a young Moravian brother was found ready to leave home and its comforts and privileges, a widowed mother and other relatives, to go to this desolate island of lepers. "Poor crea. tures!" he wrote after his arrival; “ of them are dreadfully afflicted, and at times the effluvium is intolerable; but they are very attentive and eager to profit." For five years this earnest worker continued his labors; then he too was laid to rest in the shadow of the little church on Robben Island.

some

Thus, during forty years, a succession of Christian men and women from the Moravian congregations gave themselves up to live and die in their self-sacrificing work amid this mass of human misery and corruption. When at length, in 1867, the colonial government appointed a chaplain of the Church of England to the hospital, these devoted missionaries regretfully resigned their post on the lonesome leper isle. They did not, however, retire from their work amongst the lepers, for since that time they have labored arduously in the Leper Home at Jerusalem, founded by Baron von Keffenbrinck Ascheraden and his wife, whose compassion had been

aroused by the pitiable condition of the | mal can not only see on either side, but by wretched lepers who lingered neglected rolling his eyes backwards, as we see in a and forlorn, unsoothed and untended, outside the gates of the Holy City.

vicious horse, can see objects almost in his immediate rear. The effect of the blinker is both physically and mentally injurious to the horse. In the first place, especially when large and brought near the eyes, it has the effect of heating them and hindering the free passage of air over them. In the next place, it causes the eyes to be always directed forwards, and thus produces a most injurious strain on the delicate muscles. We know how painful a sensation is felt when we are obliged to strain our eyes either backwards or upwards for any length of time, and the horse suffers no less inconvenience when it is forced to keep its eyes continually strained forwards.

The story of the work here would be too long for my present letter. I might tell of the missionary's wife, unable to induce any to assist her, herself doing the household work and loathsome washing until a Christian Arab girl came for ward, and at length another sister went out to her aid, the missionary ministering to the wants of the dying patients when contact with them was well-nigh intolerable, both of them welcoming the enlargement of the hospital and the reception of the additional sufferers who clamorously besieged the doors at the death of every leper, "for," said they, "it cuts us to the heart to send them back to a life almost worse than that of a beast." I trust, sir, you will pardon the length of this letter from one who highly esteems the Moravians, well knowing the worth and solidity of their work wherever under-strap and buckle, that a mere narrow strip, taken. I am, sir, etc.,

The worst examples of the blinker that I have ever seen were in the United States, where the blinkers (or "blinders," as they are there named) are often brought so closely together in front by means of a

barely half an inch in width, is left for

THE AUTHOR OF "MORAVIAN LIFE IN vision. This again is done with the best THE BLACK FOREST," ETC.

From The Leisure Hour.
BLINKERS.

WHEN a horse is used for the saddle no one thinks of meddling with his eyes, and we allow the animal to use them freely, as nature has directed. But no sooner do we put the same animal into harness than we think ourselves bound to fasten a black leather flap over each of his eyes, so as to prevent him from seeing objects at his sides, and to limit his view to those which are in his immediate front. This is done with the very best intentions, the object being to save him from being frightened by startling and unwonted sights, and only to leave a sufficiency of vision wherewith to guide his steps. Herein, as in feeding and stabling the horse, man judges the animal by himself, forgetting, or rather having failed to notice, that the eyes of the horse are exceedingly unlike our own. Our eyes are set in the front of our heads, so that if blinkers were fastened to our temples our range of vision would be but slightly limited. But the eyes of the horse are placed on the sides of the head, and are rather prominent, so that the ani

intentions, the object being to save the animal from being afflicted by snow-blindness. Now the horse's eyes are in many respects different from our own, and are not affected, as is the case with ours, by the vast expanses of dazzling snow which are rendered even more dazzling by the clear atmosphere and brilliant sunshine of America. One of its safeguards lies in the remarkable structure which is popu larly termed the "haw," and scientifically the "nictitating membrane." This is a sort of third eyelid set beneath the true eyelids, and capable of being drawn at will over the eyeball, thus performing the double duty of shielding the eye from the direct glare of light, and clearing its surface from dust or any other foreign substance. This membrane is seen in its perfection in the birds of prey, so that the proverbial statement that the eagle trains itself to gaze at the midday sun has some foundation in fact. It sometimes happens that the haw becomes inflamed, especially when the ventilation of the stable has been neglected, and in such a case the groom, considering the inflamed and projecting membrane unsightly, actually cuts it off, not having the least idea of its real struc ture or of the inestimable service which it renders to the animal.

REV. J. G. WOOD.

the

ates

VIII. QUEEN LOUISE,

they

Fortnightly Review,

Contemporary Review,

National Review,
Fortnightly Review,
Nineteenth Century,

Murray's Magazine,

VII. RECREATIONS OF A DOMINICAN PREACHER, Temple Bar,

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