man of the Church of England reviving religious processions, from which even Catholic priests abstain in this country.

A scene, in perfect contrast to the funereal exhibitions of Good Friday, was presented on the following week. The church was richly adorned with flowers, and flooded with light; the high altar, with its large cross, presented a most gorgeous appearance—it was one blaze of light. There were at least one hundred candles on and around it (unless, from reflection, some of them appeared double). The priests and choristers were in white, the former with scarlet scarfs and biretta (?) caps. The service closed by a procession, which passed from the chancel down the south and up the central aisle, preceded by an acolyte, swinging his censer, and filling the church with incense. The procession consisted of priests and choristers, with crosses, banners, and lighted candles held aloft. To the pealing tones of the organ, with slow and measured steps, the congregation reverently standing, and a few joining, whilst the incense rose, the hymn was chanted, and the public worship of the day closed.

Such is Ritualism fully developed in St. Peter's-in-the-East. In what essential feature it differs, either in doctrine or in practice, from Popery, it would be difficult to say.

St. Peter's was built partly by grant from the Bishop of London's Fund. The Mission of which it is the centre is sustained at a cost of more than two thousand pounds per annum. Giving an account of the consecration service, the superior of the Mission thus writes of the patronage of the Bishop, now Archbishop of Canterbury:-"After the usual toast of Church and Queen, the Bishop's health was proposed by Mr. Barnett, and heartily received by the large and influential company. The Bishop, in reply, proposed the writer's health in very kind and handsome terms, making the most liberal allowance for points of difference, and hailing the Mission as one of the great means of drawing the sympathies of the wealthier and more influential residents in the West of London to their poorer brethren in the East. In like manner he said that none could think of the self-denying labours of the Sisters without taking shame to themselves in their comparative ease and luxury. The Bishop's words were received with great enthusiasm, and will long be remembered as among the most cheering of the many happy recollections of this bright day." "The final settlement of the district, and the consecration of St. Peter's as the Parish Church, the presence and hearty sympathy of the Bishop, both at the consecration and in the season of cholera, have all tended to give a public recognition to the work of the Mission, which, we hope, will finally silence unfriendly prejudices, and remove the remaining obstacles to our work."

Liberal allowance for points of difference indeed? Is it not rather Episcopal sanction and support of popery. How long are the prestige and power of the Church of England to be thus prostituted to promote the soul-destroying errors and practices of the apostate Church of Rome?

THE SCULPTOR OF BRUGES.

By Marie Sibree.

PART VI.-THE DAWNING OF LIGHT.

FOR several days Avallo's life hung upon a very slender thread, and the unwearied care and devotion of his grateful nurse did more to save him than the best medical skill could have done. It was not until all immediate danger seemed passed that she yielded to the Count's entreaties, and allowed Gretchen to watch, while she took a few hours' rest. Some of the soldiers, and amongst them the Count's servant, rapidly recovered, thus lessening her labours; indeed, it would have been impossible for her to have continued such untiring exertions much longer.

Anka was standing by Avallo's chamber window one afternoon, and, thinking that he was asleep, let her thoughts travel away, and dwell sadly on the past, vainly asking herself how it would all end with Cuthbert ? whether he would yield to circumstances, and stifle his doubts, or whether he would fight them fairly? Her own future lay dark before her, a lonely path ending with the grave. The bitter tears streamed from her eyes at the desolate prospect-her trusting heart almost shrunk within her, until, from the dim recess of memory, came sweetly floating over her troubled soul the soothing strains of a hymn she had heard in her childhood, sung by one who had seen many days and nights of darkness:

"Every sorrow, every smart,

That the Eternal Father's heart
Hath appointed me of yore,
Or hath yet for me in store,

As my life flows on I'll take
Calmly, gladly, for His sake-
No more faithless murmurs make.

I will meet distress and pain,
I will greet e'en Death's dark reign,

I will lay me in the grave,

With a heart still glad and brave."

And Anka lifted her head again, now smiling through her tears.

66 'Nurse," said the Count, who had taken note of the evident distress of his attendant, and then had been puzzled by the gleam of contentment that suddenly broke through the clouds. Anka composed her face and went to him, wondering if he had really slept. To her astonishment, he said—

"Would you mind taking off your cap for a minute ?” Anka thought he must still be light-headed, and felt his pulse. "I know what I am saying, good Sister: it is a strange request, and perhaps an impertinent one, but do humour a sick man."

She was sitting beside his couch, and after a few moments' hesitation, with a look half-vexed, half-amused, she took off her cap. The change in

her appearance was almost as great as Avallo expected; at least ten years seemed to be taken from her age. "The likeness is not perfect yet," thought he; and without saying a word he raised his arm and drew out the comb that confined her long hair, which fell down over her neck and shoulders. Anka started up, with an exclamation of annoyance.

"There is no doubt now," said Avallo, "Just such a look of proud indignation did you wear when my boisterous companion, Carlos Alba, demanded your name. I have suspected that you were Anka Gerhardt for some days. Why did you try to hide your name from me now?" Anka was silent, but no longer angry. "I wonder," continued he, "that you chose to select me as an object of compassion, when there were hundreds of sick Belgians with much greater claims."

"None with such claims as Count Avallo. If he had not generously interceded for an unknown, friendless girl, they would have tried by torture to make her tell that which she never knew. By such acts as these we learn to forgive the sins and injustice of your nation.”

"And we need forgiveness," said the Count. "I am not the only soldier who feels in his heart that this is a cruel war; and no Belgian can hate that blood-thirsty Alva more than some of his own countrymen do. But Anka Gerhardt need not speak of generous deeds: she has repaid a hundredfold the little debt she owed."

"Increase my debt now, Count, by taking some genuine sleep," said Anka, coiling up her hair, and replacing her sober cap. This was hardly done, when there was a sound of voices, and heavy feet coming along the gallery. A quick knock at the door was followed by the appearance of a short, stout man in armour. A black plume shaded his face, but before he could remove his head-piece, Avallo had recognised him and pronounced his name.

"Carlos Alba! you in Liege! what news?"

"The best news is that my old friend is still alive," said Carlos, with a gay laugh, grasping Avallo's nerveless hand. "We heard you were dead; but I could not rest satisfied with rumours, so got leave to come myself. Your servant, good Sister," he added, saluting Anka, with a familiar, jovial air, but evidently not recognising her again.

"Where is our company now?" asked Avallo.

"On the way to Heiliger-Lee. Aremberg has the command. How long will it be before your patient is fit for harness again, nurse?” Anka was leaving the friends alone, but she came back to caution the burly visitor, and to remind the Count that his very life still depended upon quietness.

“These are famous quarters to be in," remarked Carlos, when she was gone. "And faith! that is a comely Sister. I am ready to envy you, Avallo, in a chamber fit for a king, and a pretty face to look at all day."

"You forget the other privileges," replied the Count, dryly; "I have a comfortable hole in my chest, and a pretty long cut in my arm, not to

mention such items as an aching head, and a body too weak to turn itself under this velvet and gilt canopy."

"Oh, well, those are certainly drawbacks," laughed Carlos, " and I am a coward at bearing pain.

But I wish you were well enough to come

on with me to Heiliger;" and he launched out with great animation into a description of an engagement that had just taken place at Dam, until all the soldier was roused afresh within Avallo, and, forgetting his distaste for the cause of the war, he longed to be in the camp once more.

Anka's warning had been only too necessary, for the excitement of Alba's company so exhausted the Count that he became much worse that night. The surgeon came; said little, but looked very grave; and Anka felt alarmed. Carlos was very sorry and penitent, meekly rendering what small assistance he could; and Avallo, ill as he was, could not help feeling secretly edified at his respectful behaviour to Anka. To her, this second anxious watching was more painful than the first. She blamed herself for leaving him; but she felt guilty of a worse neglect-his bodily wants she had assiduously laboured to supply, but in the matter of religion not a word of comfort had she ventured to address to him. She had talked to the other soldiers, for she found that most of them, with the Count, had served in Germany, and had a pretty fair knowledge of her mother tongue; but patient and submissive as Avallo had always been, Anka had found her timidity unconquerable whenever she had wished to speak. She felt sure he was not a strict Catholic, and she was equally sure, from the position which he held, that he was not of the Reformed faith. She did not know that in an exclusively Catholic country the male part of the population was almost entirely infidel; the women and the priests maintaining the ponderous machinery. Avallo's mind was too liberal and enlightened to be under the influence of gross superstition, and all that was good and noble in him recoiled from a system that sanctioned and delighted in an auto-da-fè. He had made up his mind that religion was a gigantic sham, used by all parties to cover their real motives; and he wondered greatly at the folly of heretics, who could be so besotted and blind as to choose death, rather than exchange one form of idolatry for another. Such had been his honest convictions, until he was suddenly taken out of the busy outer world, and shut in with conscience and memory. He had now time to begin a new study-the study of himself; and here he made strange discoveries, which led him to ask himself, sometimes, if it were possible that any truth could lie under all those ceremonies and impositions he so despised? As his chances of recovery became greater, he grew easier, but now he was again face to face with death, and the certainty of a state of consciousness hereafter was impressed upon him.

Carlos Alba was brave enough in the battle-field, and the boldest in scoffing at all that was sacred; but to see death coming slowly in that silent chamber, away from the din and rush of conflict, was another thing, and when he thought that his friend could not have many more hours to live,

he offered to go and find a priest. Avallo, however, declined his offer. It was too late for him to sift out the truth; and to receive extreme unction could not, he felt assured, alter his position in the mysterious and awful beyond.

Anka smoothed his pillow, with a face nearly as pale and as troubled as his own. "Do you grieve for me, Sister Anka?" whispered he. "If human pity and tenderness had power to heal, I should have had sound limbs a week ago. If there is another life after this————”

66

'Why do you say if? I know there is," replied Anka, in a tone of quiet assurance.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"Because the Word of God says there is; and because my own soul tells me so every day."

"You

"How does it tell you that which thousands of mankind deny ?” "You do not deny it, do you Count?" she asked, earnestly. don't deny the thing that is hidden from you, at this moment, by a veil more fragile than a spider's web. Has no voice within told you, in language that lips cannot utter, that this is but the beginning of life ?”

Avallo looked at her with surprise: she had put his own thoughts into words. How Anka deplored her own cowardice in letting so many opportunities slip! While she had been praying for him, he had been uncertain whether there was any God, or any world to come. He was too weak to talk much; but after a long silence he remarked, "I know you believe that your faith is purer than the Catholic. What is your guide ?”

"The simple Word of God.”

"Ah, but so the Catholics say, and yet the enmity between you is deadly."

"It is true they profess to be directed by this Word; but they will not let the people read it for themselves, lest they should discover how shamelessly its truth and purity are perverted. They have added and changed it so much, and overlaid its simplicity with such a mountain of traditions and human inventions, that Jesus Christ would not recognise this as the religion He founded."

"And what does that Word teach you?" he asked.

"That love to God and love to man, whether friend or foe, is the beginning and end of all religion."

"To love my fellow-creatures were not so hard a task, but who is God, that I should love Him?”

"He is our Father, revealed unto us by His Son Jesus Christ," replied Anka. The Count lay pondering over her answer, until he fell asleep; and when at last he woke, he was so refreshed that both doctor and nurse felt there was room again for hope. Carlos, unused to so much quiet, had scarcely been able to control his restlessness during this long sleep, and

now he was full of delight, and his spirits rose as high as ever.

"I thought it was all over with you last night, old comrade," said he,