miracle had been worked. He was inno- | case." And I got well, too; happiness is ⚫ cent! A flood of joy and gratitude rushed over me. I found no difficulty in believing now. There was no stunned feeling, no impossibility. The wonder was that I had ever thought him guilty. He! Marcus! my husband! the noblest of men. a worker of miracles, and I was the happiest girl in England. By-and-by I confessed to my husband what I had believed when I found my Bible, and he said he only loved me the better for my devotion, and called me a heroine, whose heroism had nearly cost her life. But the only I covered his dear hands with kisses in sorrow I now have in the world is that humble reverence. "I was such a bad fellow," he said, smiling and stroking my hair; "or, if not bad, such a thoughtless, harum-scarum fool. You saved me, little wife-you, with your innocent face, your generous actions and your book, for I kept my promise. I read it every day; I did indeed. If I am a better fellow now, it is your doing." Was ever any creature in the world so happy as I for that one blissful minute? And then I suddenly recollected that he was going to die. It could not be. God could not be so cruel Just as we were again happy, in the moment that my own Marcus was given back to me, God would not take him from me. I clung to him, I whispered in his ear: "I know you will live; I know you will live." anything should have made me believe that my husband was-I cannot write the word. I am so glad that the belief almost killed me. And if it had done so quite it would be no more than I deserved, and the verdict on my death ought to have been given in the three expressive words: "Served her right!" From The National Review. CANON KINGSLEY AS A NATURALIST AND COUNTRY CLERGYMAN. EVERSLEY is a parish favorable to the study of natural history, owing to its extensive wastes, in which wild plants and animals always abounded. The derivation of the word from the Anglo-Saxon léah, an open pasture among woods, and eofer ever, in modern English a wild boar, suggests that big game of that sort was still found in the woods of this neighborhood late in the Saxon period. In fact, the parish of Eversley was probably one of the last lairs of the wild boar in the south of England, and the existing village green formed, in all probability, in early times, an open pasture among the woods, or one of those natural clearances in which the earliest Saxon villages appear to have been built. As for me, strength had returned to me in a wonderful manner. I had been wasting away from the hopelessness of my sorrow. With hope, the power of recovery came back. I sat by him and kept giving him the nourishment and stimulant from time to time. And by-and-by he fell asleep, and still I sat by him, while my heart went up to God in prayer and praise. Doctor Winsley called late to see me, not Marcus. He could not believe his eyes when he found him not only alive, Kingsley lived for a short time as cubut in a calm, profound slumber. Beck-rate of the parish, after leaving Oxford, oning me out of the room, he insisted that in a small cottage on the green, commencSir James Paget should be telegraphed ing his life-long work in the midst of a rustic population, whom he himself de"There is not the internal injury I ap- scribed as fond of poaching and regular prehended. I have mistaken the case,' "in nothing but in non-attendance at church. It is not surprising that, in spite of his pleasing outlook on the green, enlivened as it was on summer evenings by young people playing cricket and by groups of gossiping elders, the prospect that lay before the highly educated and well-born young clergyman, who had suddenly passed from a college where he had been extremely popular to a rural curacy and a cottage, proved at first dull and irksome. for at once. he said gently. "I should like another opinion, and that the best that can be had. It is a most unusual case, but I hope for the best." "I knew he would recover," I said calmly; but notwithstanding my calm words, floods of happy tears burst from my eyes. And I was right. He recovered, and the accident left no bad effects behind, though Sir James agreed with Doctor Winsley that it was "a most unusual Within a year his position, from a worldly point of view, had improved; he had received the gift of the living, and become the rector of Eversley instead of | ing proclivities, and the freedom enjoyed the curate, and his good fortune was com- by a thinly scattered population in a wild . pleted by an early and happy marriage. district. But at the first blush, before he knew even the names of the members of his flock, he wrote to a friend in despair: "I am alone! My parish is particular for nothing but want of houses and abundance of peat-bogs." It is not surprising that the rector who estimated his flock so highly should have been himself esteemed by them. His opinions on subjects relating to the working classes were reflected in his private intercourse with the rustic people about him. To the laborers of Eversley he became a friend and father. His bearing towards them was entirely unconventional, and at a time when hand-shaking was not so common as it is now, he never omitted that friendly form of greeting. He would join the laboring men occasionally at the bar of the village inn in passing, taste their beer, smoke a pipe with them, make them laugh, and sometimes make them cry. All this was the genuine expression of his sympathy, and the manly race among whom he lived thoroughly appreciated his conduct, knowing well the worth of their friend and teacher, and comprehending his eminence outside their circle. The young curate's future course of life had not been at that period precisely shaped; but even before we have marked out our intended careers, with pains and care, instinct, or a consciousness of the natural bent of our powers, sometimes declares their character, and we enter, half unconsciously, the road we shall never quit. In one of the earliest letters written from the cottage on the green, Kingsley referred to the happiness which his new mode of life already afforded him, attributing that result of his labors to the daily performance of duties such as an energetic and conscientious curate could not possibly avoid in a parish so bénighted as Eversley then was. In that same year, Kingsley's life at Eversley consisted in 1842, his mother paid him a visit, and re- the unwearying performance of duty, withported the people already devoted to her out noise or apparent effort. The village son. In a letter of hers, written at this church was now always full, the Dissenters time, she sounds the key-note of success-desisted from their opposition and came ful curacy, and of every other kind of to church, drawn thither by the rector's useful ministry, when she mentions her power of attraction, the magic of a good son's power of attracting sympathy and man's influence. All that Carlyle so pasconfidence, and his hearty interest in what-sionately preached in regard to "work ever lay in his path. Persons who do not comprehend the character of rustics would be astounded at his estimation of the humble folk around him. "The clod of these parts," says their rector, "is the descendant of many generations of broom squires and deer-stalkers; the instinct of sport is strong within him still." "Well, he has his faults, and I have mine," he says somewhere; "but he is a thorough good fellow nevertheless, civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; a far shrewder fellow, too-owing to his dash of wild forest blood, from gipsy, highwayman, and what not-than his bullet-headed and flaxen-polled cousin, the pure South-Saxon of the chalk downs. Dark-haired he is, ruddy and tall of bone; swaggering in his youth, but when he grows old a thorough gentleman, reserved, stately, and courteous as a prince." Old people in Eversley could remember the time when the royal deer sometimes used to stray into their parish, whence they seldom returned; and Kingsley himself believed the character of his flock had been greatly influenced by their sport and "duty," Charles Kingsley habitually practised in his daily life at Eversley. "I have learnt," he said in a letter to an old schoolfellow, "to do the duty which lies nearest me; and if a man be busy about his duty, what more does he require, for time or for eternity?" "All the poor," said one of his parishioners to me, still grieving for his loss, "flocked to him. I never saw such affection for any man before, or such a sway as his was, and all because they loved and trusted him." "And the rich too?" I asked. "When the people come round a man the rich must follow," was the reply; and I dare say that, in the simple life of a country parish, the squire and farmers cannot long resist the influence which wins their humbler neighbors, though such a prophet on the labor question as the author of "Alton Locke " have been understood. may not at first Some squires and farmers, thirty years ago, would hardly comprehend his treatment of the poorer class, his shaking hands with humble folk, and his advocating Sunday recreation for people shut up in cities. I mentioned his humor. Some prayer and humiliation, and thereby established a chastened and happy tone which lasts till now; written six or seven pages of a difficult part of my essay; taught in the school; thought over many things while walking; gone round twothirds of the parish visiting and doctoring; and written all this." persons would hardly understand his fa."I have since nine this morning cut wood mous picture of a village pump, which he for an hour; spent an hour and more in sent up to an examiner at Cambridge with a paper on mechanics in the mathematical tripos. He was first-class in classics and second in mathematics. The candidate had to "describe the common pump; and Kingsley, having no more to say on the subject, drew a great picture of a pump on a village green, padlocked and chained, with a stately beadle, and people He practised music for the sake of the waiting with empty buckets, and a notice singers, and medicine for the sake of the on the spout, "This pump locked during poor scattered over a wide parish, and divine service." Those who dislike such acquainted himself with the wages and humor may be glad to know that, from a wants of the people generally. If definicurate, he filled his church to overflowing. tions are needed as to the best and most Radical as some might deem him from his useful life a country parson can lead, sympathy with the popular movements of there can be no doubt it should be practiforty years ago, his busy life at home, cal and active rather than meditative. unresting, untiring" in the performance The rigid methods of effeminate ascetics, of duty and of daily drudgery, condoned hermits, and sin-hunters, ever self-accusall faults, even among those country gen-ing, preferring "holy thoughts "to good tlemen and others who could not share some of his opinions. 66 Occasionally, though rarely, Kingsley followed the hounds. His love of sport was undisguised. "Is it not a joy," he says, "to see such a thing alive? It is to me, at least." He is speaking here of a noble fox-hound, for which Mr. Morrell gave £200. "Well worth the money," says the rector; and then he thus describes Virginal finding a fox. "Old Virginal's stern flourishes; instantly her face quickens. One whimper, and she is away full-mouthed through the wood, and the pack after her; but" (surely this is a saving clause) "not I. I am not going with them. My hunting days are over. Life, as my friend Tom Brown says, is not all beer and skittles; it is past two now, and I have four old women to read to at three, and an old man to bury at four; and I think you will respect me the more for going home and doing my duty." A many-sided man usually excites some prejudice, and the sporting tastes which would not have damaged him at Eversley might have done so elsewhere. But it is one thing to feel a passion, or a natural inclination, another thing to indulge it too freely; and the rector, as a sportsman, was most abstemious. In spite of a few days' fishing in the season, and an occasional ride to the meet on a well-bred screw which he usually rode, preferring clever hacks of breed, though slightly blemished, and not caring to indulge in costly horse-flesh, he was from first to last a great worker. When in training, as a curate, for the busy life before him, he described a day's routine in these words: actions, a cell and a scourge to a parish He the rod that hurts fish only - but for want of time; so he employed it rarely and for relaxation, as in the case of his other sports. Whatever may be said of fishing in the abstract, or of the moral or immoral influence of sport, the social habits of the rector placed him in sympathy with his people. He was at home with all classes among them. With the farmer he discussed the rotation of crops, and with the laborer the science of hedging and ditching; and yet, while he seemed to ask for information, he often gave more than he received. The rustics of his flock oddly but affectionately called their famous rector "Un cle." They had found him through many years without variableness, their best and wisest, as well as most witty and amusing friend. He had started all their best institutions, or at least made them flourish -church-going, for example, instead of loafing about unlaced and idle; cricket, schools, clubs, and more modes of making the best of the blessing of existence than I can find room for in this catalogue. He had effected in his parish as much or more than Professor Henslow at Hitcham, or Mr. Rham at Wingfield, or Mr. Stubbs at Granborough. He stands among the first of those country clergymen who have taught their flocks "pure religion, breathing household laws," by the influence of acts and deeds. such scales as the world employs in its estimation of a man not yet well known and not at all understood. To some his theology, as the friend and champion of Maurice, seemed extremely faulty; to others, after "Alton Locke was published, he was little better than a Chartist of the Feargus O'Connor type. To Eversley alone, both in the early days of his notoriety and afterwards of his fame, he was always the same simple-minded, faithful friend and teacher, a perfect parish priest. Professor Hoppin of Yale College, in his book on the "Old Country," written after touring through the places he describes, assured us, and might have told Kingsley if he had been at home when he called, that America loved and honored him, and that a great enthusiasm existed for him in England; but Eversley knew nothing of this outside fame except by the merest hearsay. It only knew him as a parson such as Eversley had never seen before. Those who are familiar with the life of Kingsley must be aware that he shared one of the commonest tastes of country people, and one which usually fascinates the young, and which Professor Henslow encouraged with excellent effect in his Suffolk parish. He had always been a In Mrs. Kingsley's life of her husband,* naturalist. As a schoolboy he used to a letter by their son sketches, in a homely climb the tallest trees and examine the way and from memory, the rector and his most unapproachable birds' nests in the boys walking to Bramshill on a Sunday topmost branches, doing so as a student evening, and describes the kind of converbent on observation and not for the pur-sation that beguiled the way. pose of taking the eggs or destroying the young ones. At Oxford he had passionately devoted himself to zoology and botany. At Chester, where he resided a short time, he founded a most useful field club. At Wellington College he riveted the attention of the boys by delightful lectures on the wonders of nature, and at home on the moors or in the fir plantations of his "winter garden," nothing relating to his favorite study escaped his notice. "Feed on nature," he says in his well-known essay called "My Winter Garden," and he shows the same love for the same good old dame in these simple verses: Come wander with me, she said, And he wandered away and away And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more wonderful tale. Beyond the boundaries of Eversley, after the publication of his earliest volumes, Kingsley was weighed at first in He says that on Sunday evenings the whole family generally walked over to the services which were held in the schoolroom at Bramshill. Sweep, the retriever, would follow them stealthily a short distance, and then stand with ear cocked and one paw up, hoping against hope that he might be allowed to come on. And very unwillingly his master used to send him back with a sorrowful "No! go home, Sweep." The rector would then stride on. Then he would pause and look down the cultivated valley winding through the purple heaths, the rectory among its trees the nearest roof, and then the hamlets and the village greens, with, perchance, cricketers upon them. Even for such a lapse as cricket on a Sunday evening he had not always a reproof. "For cricket," he would say, "is better than beer; and the poor lads don't get a chance to play on week-days. But," he would add, speaking to his children, "remember, you do." As they cross the moor, which has since been sown with self-scattered fir-seed, and is fast becoming a forest, his talk would drift, perhaps, from sport to natural history. He would point out the fox's earth Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of Life. Edited by his wife. as they passed, and direct attention to the tiger-beetle that whirred from beneath their feet; or the night-jar, which the approach of the party had disturbed a few hours before evening, its usual time of flight. And ever and anon some incident of a pleasant stroll would strike a deeper chord of his religious nature, and then, sometimes, a few words spoken with the insight which poets possess, would entirely remove some of the troublesome stumbling-blocks which his young hearers, in the course of their cogitations, had not been able to dispose of unaided. When Mr. Darwin published his paper on climbing plants, the rector wrote from Eversley to thank him for having made the study of nature a "live thing, not a collection of names." Lathyrus nissolia had been an old puzzle of his. The mystery was solved. The explanation of the filament at the petiole end of the bean was equally satisfactory. My work," he added, "lies elsewhere now. Your work, nevertheless, helps mine at every turn." Kingsley's oral or written teachings in the department of natural history seem to me the most fruitful of his many labors. Who can measure the effects of his delightful lectures at Wellington College when it was first erected among the fir woods of his own district? He recommended the collection of specimens for It is pleasing to recall the distinguished rector's attachment to dumb animals among the traits of his every-day life. Like Mrs. Somerville, he believed that some of the created beings inferior to man were destined to share the blessings of a future state of existence. His dog and his horse were his friends. As a perfect horseman, possessing the patience and much of the skill of a Rarey, he was a pattern to all who ride, reasoning with the animal he governed, and talking to it in gentle tones, mindful that the panic-fear both of horses and children is increased by harsh punishment. A Scotch terrier named Dandy was the rector's companion the College museum, and declared to Sir in all his parish walks, a diligent attendant at cottage lectures and school lessons, and a friend of the family during thirteen years. He was buried near home, under those fir-trees on the lawn, beneath whose shade his master himself now lies. Fideli Fideles is the inscription on Dandy's gravestone. Close by lies Sweep the retriever; and Victor, a Teckel, presented to her distinguished chaplain by the queen, rests on the same spot. Even in this brief narrative, one would not willingly omit to mention the rector's cats, the delight they afforded, and the affection they yielded, nor the "natter jacks" (running toads) of the garden, the sand-wasps which frequented a cracked window-frame, the fly-catcher that nested every year beneath the master's bedroom window, and the favorite slow-worm of the churchyard. Kingsley's children were taught to handle gently even toads, frogs, and beetles, these being, as he would tell them, "the works and wonders, like all things, he has made, of a living God." That such lessons were effective, his little girl proved one day by requesting "Daddy," before numerous guests, "to look at this delightful worm," a very long one which wriggled in her hand. Study nature," he says. "Do not Charles Lyell, whom he addressed on the subject, "I shall go shamelessly a-begging for typical forms of any kind, the intermediate gaps to be filled up by the boys themselves." At Chester he engaged in the same useful work, starting a class on physical science, which grew into the Chester Natural History Society, numbering six hundred members, with a president, a secretary, monthly meetings, summer excursions, and winter courses. Would that every country curate were such a naturalist as Kingsley! Many a picturesque sentence in his writings bears witness to his love of that "winter garden" he described so well, and of its four native evergreens the Scotch fir, holly, furze, and heath. The fir plantations of Bramshill stretch nearly four miles from the rectory gates, and there are none in England superior to them, no Scotch firs in the country better than the big trees in Bramshill Park. The Bagshot sand formation of this district is particularly favorable to the Scotch fir, but there are spots where belts of clay alternate with the rolled gravel and sand of Bagshot, and here every kind of tree, English or imported, except the elm, grows well and rapidly. Lord Eversley has a rare collection of beautiful trees at Heckfield, which Kingsley delighted in, |