And the vicar, who had been critically surveying the scene, replied, "We are not in London yet, my bairn; these are only suburbs. But everything is strangely altered since I was here last. Well, twenty-five years make a difference-a whole quarter of a century; only I hope we are not going to live steam lives now that we have taken to steam coaches."

"Tgude Lord forbid!" responded Margery, piously, and evidently alarmed at the bare possibility of the notion. "But," she added, triumphantly, "I dinna b'lieve they can mek us walk and talk by steam."

"Talk by steam!" echoed Martin. "'Deed, it's to be hoped they wunna. We might as weel gang an' live in steeple, wi' t' bells ringin' an' clashin', gin women's tangues iver gang by

steam."

We went to an inn at Islington, where the vicar himself had been accommodated on the occasion of his former visit. It was a most respectable house, he said, very quiet, and he knew the people. But, alas! the quarter of a century which had elapsed since Mr. Gibson paid his last bill had transmogrified the quiet country-like inn into a busy, bustling, noisy London hotel. The old landlord and his cheery wife were gone. Whether they had failed, or were retired, or were dead, the vicar failed to learn; no one knew anything about them. The consequential waiter had never heard their names, and the pert chambermaid tossed her corkscrew ringlets, and replied that it was not likely she should know anything of people who lived there five-and-twenty years ago, for fiveand-twenty years ago she was neither born nor thought of. This young lady, with her ringlets, and her fine cap, and her mincing London airs, completely overpowered me and silenced the vicar; and Phoebe whispered, "Is t' Marchioness like that lady, d'ye think, Hughy?"

And the vicar replied shortly, "Tut, child, that's no lady, only a dressed-up impudent hussy not half so comely as our Eaglesmere wives and lasses."

Of course we got little sleep. Phoebe and I were the only ones who had anything like a night's rest. Margery said one might just as well try to sleep in Bedlam; and on being told that "Bedlam," the old familiar name for Bethlehem Hospital, was not so very far away, only on the other side of London, she began to consider whether the tremendous racket without might not be caused by the Bedlamites who had broken loose and were escaping

away en masse.

I could not eat my breakfast,-such a breakfast, too!-for jumping up and running to the window to see what was passing. Now it was a coach, now an omnibus, which strange construction scared

Margery nearly as much as the train; now cabs, now carts, now a nondescript vehicle, and now all of them together, while footpassengers came and went unceasingly. We had arranged to spend one day in London, and of course it was to be devoted to sightseeing. Margery declined to accompany us; in fact, the poor old woman was really tired; and though she did not like to own to her seventy-three years, she was fain to confess that the infirmities of age were creeping upon her, and that she was unequal just yet to any further exertion. So she stayed at the hotel, while the vicar, Martin, Phoebe, and I set forth on our important expedition. We drove down the City-road. I remember that I thought the fourwheeled cab we had engaged a very fine carriage indeed. We looked into St. Paul's, and Martin, with an air of dignity, told some of the vergers that he had been parish-clerk of Eaglesmere for thirty years! But the news did not seem greatly to impress them; they only stared at hearing the broad Border dialect, which I dare say they failed to comprehend. They recognised the cloth, however, and bowed respectfully to the vicar.

We "did" St. Paul's very cursorily, and then we drove to the Tower, and we "did" that more thoroughly, the vicar expounding as we went along. And that was really the chamber where the two young Princes were murdered! And that was the armour that Edward the Black Prince actually wore! And there were the block and the axe-the real block and the real axe-which had chopped off people's real heads! It made my blood run cold to think of it, and I shivered as Phoebe laid her fat little hand on the deeply dented block, and as the vicar passed his finger along the dulled edge of the awful, ponderous axe. And there was the cell in which Sir Walter Raleigh had been shut up at nights; and there were the thumb-screws and other little playful instruments with which tyrants amused themselves at other people's expense in the good old times!" And there was the Traitor's Gate, and beyond it the River Thames. This was seeing the world with a vengeance Kendal and Milnthorpe were nothing to this; no, nor even Lancaster and Preston!" proud Preston on the Ribble," as Mr. Gibson called it.

From the Tower we drove away westward, through old Cannonstreet, once more under the huge shadow of St. Paul's, down Ludgate-hill, up crowded Fleet-street, through Temple Bar, along the busy Strand, to Charing-cross; by haunted Whitehall, to-Westminster Abbey. Ah! that was a veritable minster, a cathedral worth seeing. St. Paul's had not greatly impressed me; it was huge, it was stupendous, it was grand even in a certain way, but, on the whole, it disappointed me, as it has since disappointed many an older person in search of aesthetics. Westminster with i's dim chapels

and long, shadowy aisles, its solemn choir, and its ancient regal tombs overwhelmed me. They were beautiful, awful, soul-subduing, and I would have given much to linger long in Henry VII.'s Chapel, and to stay peacefully by myself at the shrine of Edward the Confessor. But, child as I was, the vulgar, florid monuments of the Georgian era revolted my taste, and, to the disgust of the verger, I refused to contemplate even a Roubilliac.

We had some soup and cold beef at a cook-shop not far off, and then we drove back to the hotel in the dusk, to find Margery rested, but unamiable.

The next day we said good bye to our excellent friend the vicar; he saw us off by the Southam coach, which started from Charing

cross.

(To be continued.)

THE CHURCH OF NEUCHATEL.

BY THE REV. DR. EDERSHEIM.

PERHAPS one of the most marked signs of the times is the prominence given everywhere to ecclesiastical questions, and among them especially to that of the separation between Church and State. It almost seems as if the dream of Cavour about a free Church in a free State were to become reality. In measure, as political liberty is better understood in its various bearings, ecclesiastical liberty is also making progress. The State will no longer be controlled nor overshadowed by the Church. Every member of the commonwealth claims those rights and privileges which equally belong to all, and that without having to undergo the ordeal of the Church, or requiring its preliminary sanction. On the other hand, the Church is beginning to feel uneasy under the yoke of the secular power. Not to be allowed to make or to enforce its own laws, to meet in assembly, nor to determine what is its doctrine or its discipline; to elect its own officers, or to remove them; but to have all this imposed from without, by a power altogether foreign; not to be at liberty even to go outside one's parish, though it were into the most heathenish district, to preach there the Gospel of Christ-all this, and a great deal more, constitutes an amount of bondage for which even splendid prizes, exclusive privileges, and social standing may not be an adequate compensation. In point of fact, both High and Low Church are finding the situation not much longer tenable. Every party speaks

of setting its house in order; every one looks for the speedy disestablishment of all churches. It has taken place in Ireland, with unexpected rapidity, and so manifest benefit to the Church itself, that the direst Micaiah of last year could scarcely wish to see the former state of things restored. Nor is it only in Scotland, Wales, and England that the question is now mooted. It is discussed in the Parliaments of Spain and Italy; it has arisen in Germany, and is at this moment receiving its most remarkable practical solution in Switzerland. Small though the area of observation here be, the fact that another State Church is about to be disestablished, and that by mutual consent, but especially the peculiar circumstances of the case, place this out of the ordinary category, and give it an importance all its own.

In point of fact, there is really no parallel, at least in Europe, to what is now going on in the Canton of Neuchatel. It is absurd to compare it, as some French journals have done, with the Irish Church. There is nothing in common between the two, except that in both cases the former relations between Church and State have ceased. The Irish Church was that of a comparatively inconsiderable minority, placed among a hostile Roman Catholic majority. It involved abuses so glaring that most thoughtful Englishmen, unconnected with Ireland, were ashamed to hold up their heads in its defence. Not so in Neuchatel. The Established Church there is that of the overwhelming majority. It has retained the warm affections of the population. It is a strictly orthodox, and yet an eminently liberal Church; and it has been the Church of the people ever since the Reformation. There is nothing to

complain of in its pastors, in its teaching, discipline, or working. It seems nearly perfect. Nor has the Church any special reason of dissatisfaction with the State. On the contrary, it is admitted on all hands that hitherto the State has not on any occasion interfered with the Church, but allowed it the fullest and most uncontrolled liberty. Nor is there any immediate danger of collision between them. And yet, though the Church has not taken the initiative, it has been quite willing-one would almost say eagerthat its present connection with the State should be severed. To complete the strangeness of the situation, the pastors and people do not hold "voluntary" principles. On the contrary, they deeply deplore a step which yet they regard as absolutely necessary, if they are to be faithful to their duty. Indeed, it were impossible to employ more noble, elevated and Christian language than these men use in vindicating their motives. So far from the odious "haggling" for money which constituted the most repulsive feature of last year's clerical discussions on the Irish Church, they propose to act with a disinterestedness and liberality which to us

I

outsiders seems almost excessive. Instead of clamoring about compensation and vested interests, they actually propose to give up a fair proportionate share of their property to those who, differing from themselves in doctrine, may, on the breaking up of the present Establishment, wish to form separate churches! Never before, perhaps, have ecclesiastics given such an example to the Church and the world; never before, perhaps, was it so much required.

Most summer tourists will remember the pretty little town of Neuchatel. It is the first Swiss town and the first Swiss lake reached from France, and delightful is the contrast of dark pinetrees and mountain-peaks after the endless, burning flats through which you had passed. Then you are hurried along curves and windings, which make this railway a marvel of engineering skill, till at last you emerge upon the friendly town which nestles below, on the shores of the lake. There is nothing peculiarly attractive about the situation of the place, though you may on a fine evening see the red glow in the far distance upon the Bernese chain of Alps.

Neuchatel is the capital of a small canton of the same name It disowned the authority of Prussia so late as 1848, and then joined the Swiss confederation. The people are hardy and industrious. They combine in a marked manner the politeness of their French, with the sturdy independence of their Swiss neighbours.

The

Neuchatel embraced the cause of the Reformation under the preaching of the fiery Farel, the friend of Calvin. For these last three and a half centuries it has had its Established Church, which ever since its foundation has been allowed very much to regulate its own affairs and to manage its own property. Until lately the rule has been exclusively vested in the hands of the clergy, there being no lay representatives in the ecclesiastical courts. Church property was administered by the "Chambre Economique,” or financial committee of the Synod. The clergy seem, on the whole, to have exercised their authority with wisdom and moderation. The Revolution brought no charge against them, and though it introduced popular changes, no blame has ever been cast or implied on the past. On the other hand, the Synod willingly accepted the modifications made in 1848, even though they deprived the clergy of some of their power. In fact, the Synod expressly records, as cause for thankfulness, that the constitution of 1848, for the first time, laid down the true and Christian principle that "neither political nor civil rights of any kind shall be made dependent on church-membership." Up to that period it had been necessary to be a member of the Established Church, in order to enjoy the rights of a citizen, and the Synod rejoices that a return has been rendered impossible to a state of things under