He poured out his whole heart, exhibiting all its treasures, both of love and religion-what he felt towards God and his future wife; and having told all his hopes, anxieties, and mental troubles, he entered into arguments to justify his new convictions, with the intent of winning Mary over to them. But he had not fairly calculated the strength of her impressions. Her love was beyond doubt, and upon any other point his word or wish would have been law to her, but on this question there was no human power which could have turned her away from her purpose. Still, there was no such indication in her answers, and after several letters had passed the Rector almost began to hope he should succeed in satisfying all her doubts, and in removing all her fears. For this he prepared, in one epistle of no ordinary length, and which was written immediately after the close of his hood-winking debate with Barrington.

He

It could not have been that Bridling had learnt the nature of the recent correspondence, and yet, had he done so, he could not have hit the mark more successfully than he did, by his sermon on the Sunday following the receipt by Mary of Lester's last letter, for he preached from the text, "There is a faith that overcometh the world, and there is a faith which is overcome by the world," and it was upon the latter clause he chiefly dwelt, showing how "the frail children of earth refuse the leading of the Lord, in order that they may work out schemes of their own," and how, "through clinging to the idols of their hearts, they prove faithless to the commander of heaven." dwelt upon this with great unction, and was especially grand while descanting upon how many persons, who declared themselves unable to afford a penny a week to the missionary fund, for saving souls in heathen lands, yet indulged in tea and sugar, with other superfluities. Probably this was urged because, during the past week, which he had devoted to "missionary work," several poor old women had declined to subscribe; but his great aim in the discourse was to operate upon the heart of Mary, and, if possible, to coerce her into esteeming it to be a duty she owed to heaven to abandon her engagement with Lester. Until this was done, he felt sure all his love approaches would be fruitless, but that effected and the coast cleared, he felt certain of success.'

Mary sat listening intently, and feeling as one condemned; she knew that the preacher was ignorant of the contents, even of the tone of her letters, and concluded that this discourse was a special warning kindly vouchsafed her by heaven, which she dared not disobey, so that immediately after her return home she sat down to compose the letter, which was to leave her husbandless, unfriended, and alone, in a world which she no longer loved. Still it was with great calmness she wrote thus :

"Dear Lester,-I feel that this must be my last letter. All my hopes of happiness have vanished; once more I am free and alone, so to live and die. Hitherto I have dealt unjustly with both you and myself, in not stating plainly what must be, now that you have abandoned the only religion and faith whereby men can be saved. I wished to say, but could not summon courage, that I dare not become your wife. Your dear mother made me promise that I would not marry you unless you kept in the Church, or at least adhered to our holy religion. She always had a fear that you would not, and it was her constant commandment to me never to marry, to become the mother of children who would be trained to reject the word of heaven and the redemption of Jesus. I promised her to be obedient, and although she is gone, I am still bound by my pledge; for when she lay upon her dying

bed, even then, and to me, they were her last words; she bade me remember my promise. Ofttimes you have asked me what that promise was, and, although I never told it, yet it was the only secret I had from you-now you know all, and will judge me kindly. You would not respect me were I to be untrue unto that dear angel mother of ours. No, Lester. I dare not marry you now; for my life would be miserable, and my future happiness must be destroyed. Think of this, dear Lester-how could I be happy in heaven, knowing that both my husband and children were suffering the eternal punishment of unbelief? There could be no heaven for me unless those I loved upon earth were my companions. All else would be vain. No, Lester, no, it must not be, for I dare not forsake my God, although I love you above all else upon carth. How happy should I have been in becoming your wife! I have not told you half my love, but now I may confess that, after the thought that I was to be your wife there was nothing else in life I cared for. And even now I could sacrifice my own soul to save yours. I would be content to bear the anger of heaven, if by doing so its wrath would be turned away from your head. There is no agony I would refuse to endure if it

would save you from suffering. Nay, Lester, and now I would even marry

you, and do all that you wished, but for the thought of what suffering would. be entailed upon our innocent babes. No! no! it must not, cannot be. And yet, how I have prayed to God to keep you in the right path-how I have petitioned Jesus to preserve you unto himself.

"But, Lester, dear Lester, do not misunderstand, and do not be angry with me; I can give you up, but I cannot bear that you should be angry with me. And you will not misunderstand my motives. I have seen enough of the world to know how fickle and ungenerous are many of my sex, but you will not class me with them. I could not bear for you to think I can ever look upon another with the eyes of love. Indeed, I wish that were unsaid, for I know you are too just and wise to misjudge me so greatly. Remember that poverty and sickness, and the hatred of the world, would never have operated to make me change my mind. Indeed, even now that is not changed. You are the only being on earth I love, and now I love you all the more fondly because I know your danger. Had it been that poverty had come upon you, then how gladly should I have used my hands to earn the means of making you comfortable; had sickness or blindness, or any other physical calamity befallen you, I would have been your constant nurse; and had the world hated you, I should have been almost glad, for in my love and tenderness I would have been all the world to you. All, or any of these, I should have hailed rather than feared, and their coming would but have made our union more complete; but now that the calamity has come in the form of unbelief, all that I can do is to devote my time here, and hereafter, to praying God to have mercy upon your soul. To that will I devote myself. Neither pleasure nor profit shall induce me to enter a world wherein I should be prevented from fulfilling that promise. And do not endeavour to turn me from my purpose, do not endeavour to argue me into compliance with your wishes. I am but a poor weak girl, and, loving you as I love, I cannot but fear that your words would subdue me. I trust to your sense of honour, and that will protect me. But, Lester, should it be that in after years my prayers are answered, so that you return once more within the Church of God, need I say that my heart would overflow with joy? Be a faithful minister of the Church, and I will be your slave; but, being out of its fold, I can only weep, and pray God to have mercy on your soul. Forgive me all my

faults and failings; forgive me all the pain I am now inflicting, although it is not half what I feel, and believe me to continue,

Lester read this letter without uttering a word: he read it again, but with strong emotion, which could not be wholly held in subjection, for as he read the big tears stole down his fine face, while a gloomy aspect gathered upon his countenance. The letter fell from his hand when its second perusal had closed, and he sat motionless until Ella entered and roused him from his mournful reflections. Perceiving that something was amiss, she enquired for the cause, when, departing from his usual course, he handed her the letter.

Ella read every word, not because of feeling anxious to avoid missing any portion, but simply because of being at a loss to suggest any means of modifying the force of the shock. On the one hand, she knew the force of Lester's love, and, on the other, the firmness of Mary upon such a point, and, knowing these, she could not conceive how the calamity was to be averted. Having completed the reading, she stooped over her brother, and, kissing him, whispered,

Though all the world shall forsake you I will never fail to be your companion. I am astonished that Mary could be so cruel, but probably she will see her error, and change her mind."

We cannot hope for that, Ella, and we must not blame her. She has been trained to believe without enquiry, and it is certain that her very sense of honour will prevent her from enquiring now. If she were reasoned out of

her religious ideas, she would fall back upon the idea that her hopes and love had deceived her, and then, at once, she would abandon all thoughts of adopting the new theories. There is no hope in her, and there is none that I can return to the exploded theologies. In fact, and now that this fearful rupture has occurred, I should hardly be able to believe the old theories to be true, even were their truth to be demonstrated to me, for I should fear that I was led by my desire to secure the hand of my heart's idol. There is nothing for me to do but to bear patiently until my cup is filled, and I shall lie down to rest in the old churchyard."

Hush, George! hush, and speak not of death. We two can be all the world to each other, and if I cannot compensate for all that you have lost in Mary, I can make the world and life to be worth enjoying.'

This was uttered in those deeper and musical tones which Ella employed whenever she was saying anything very important, and that came from her heart; but now they were so peculiarly sweet and solemn that Lester could not avoid being deeply moved, although for some moments he answered not. At length, taking her hand, he said,

Ella, for years we have been brother and sister in the truest sense of that term, and although I did not always appear to perceive it, I have always felt that you were making sacrifices on my behalf. You have done your part, and now I must look to make you happy, which will not be if you are constantly bound to my side. I had hoped that there would be two marriages on one day-there can be but one, yet that shall not be marred through my misadventure. You, at least, shall go to the altar."

"George," cried Ella, "I have not spoken on that point."

"No, dear Ella," interposed Lester; "but Barrington has."

"So he may have done; but, George, I never entertained the thought,

only as connected with yourself and Mary, and if that is not to be, then I'll not leave you alone. And if Mary knew you as I do, she would never have written that letter."

"Perhaps not, Ella; and yet does it not generally happen that they who are the most anxious to be right give the most offence, and endure the most? But my troubles would be increased were I daily made to feel that your happiness and that of Barrington had been wrecked through my loving the truth. It shall not be; yet, still, I shall never forget your devotion. And why should Mary be different from yourself?"

"I wish she had never gone to Devonshire, for had she been here I feel that her eyes would have been opened long ago. Why not? You are the only religious man I know, and if you were to deny religion altogether I should love you all the same, because you would be my noble and generous brother in spite of your belief. Indeed, I am quite convinced that the creed has but little to do with the life, and that's why I am so angry with Mary." Just at this point Barrington entered the room to announce that his immediate presence in London was required, and before the words, “I wish you would go with me," had escaped his lips, Lester answered, "I will go." He knew of a gentleman who would gladly use his pulpit, and before three hours had passed the two travellers were on their way to the great city.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE REFORMATION.-XLVII. SPREAD OF LIGHT AND KNOWLEDGE.

*

PETRARCH'S long life had been devoted to the attempt to restore the taste for ancient learning, and he did much to introduce to the notice, even of his own age, the Latin Classics. He, too, was the first to point out to his time that the Greek language and literature were worthy of the attention of the learned. And though it is true that the faint rudiments of Greek learning, encouraged by him, and which Boccacio had sedulously sought to plant, soon withered and expired, the succeeding generation being content with the improvement of Latin eloquence and the study of the Latin Classics, yet that is rather to be attributed to the want of the means of pursuing the study of Greek, than to the absence of the desire. This is proven by the welcome given to Bessarion and Chrysolaras, and other isolated Greeks, who had taught in Italy, previously to the Fall of Constantinople, as also by the ready audience given to Gemisthus Pletho, and his signal success in reviving the Platonic philosophy. In fact, the intellectual flame lighted by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio, in the fourteenth century, had never died out; so when, on the Fall of Constantinople, the means of studying Greek, and of becoming acquainted with the Greek literature were furnished, they were eagerly seized, and all Italy was soon alive to the value of the new learning, always excepting, of course, the professors and bigoted supporters of the old scholastic system.

Petrarch deserves honourable mention, also, as having been the first to set the example of collecting and collating ancient classical MSS., and although, as a matter of course, he was unable to do much in this respect for Greek antiquity, he succeeded in correcting the text of several of the

Gibbon. Decline and Fall, chap. lxvi,

Latin Classics. The record of the difficulties which Petrarch encountered in doing this, throws a light upon the real relation of the labours of the monkish transcribers to literature. It is a statement which Church historians and orthodox writers, in general, delight in making, that dark and benighted as the Christianity of the Middle Ages was, it yet was in various ways the means of preserving for after ages the learning of antiquity, and one of those means most generally insisted on, is the labours of the monks in the transcription of old MSS.* And yet Berington tells us, and his testimony as a Roman Catholic may be considered satisfactory, that in the time of Petrarch "the libraries of Italy, and therefore of Europe, had "little to show besides some works of the fathers, of ancient and modern theologians, of ecclesiastical and civil jurisprudence, of medicine, astrology, "and philosophy, and even these in no abundance. The names of the "classical writers were barely retained; their productions, and the times in "which they lived were miserably confounded, and the authenticity of authors "not unfrequently disregarded." We are, therefore, justified in saying that not only was mankind led into the darkness of barbarism and ignorance by the Christianity of the Middle Ages, but even the miserable amount of credit which has been generally assumed to be due to it for preserving some relics of ancient learning, cannot be claimed for it.

Cosmo de' Medici's love of learning led him to follow the example of Petrarch, in the collection of ancient MSS., while his great wealth and extensive commercial relations, combined with the events of his time, gave him peculiar opportunities and facilities in this matter. His agents and correspondents were directed by him to search for and procure at any cost, all MSS. of the works of antiquity within their reach. At the sack of Constantinople the Byzantine libraries were scattered in the general confusion; 120,000 MSS. are said to have disappeared. Inasmuch, however, as these were mostly sold by the ignorant Turkish soldiery at a ridiculously small price, there is no reason to suppose they were lost to the world, and the fact that Cosmo and other collectors succeeded in gathering together so large a quantity of valuable MSS., may be supposed to be in some measure accounted for by the dispersion of the literary treasures of Constantinople. Cosmo's labours in this respect resulted in the foundation of the celebrated Laurentian Library at Florence; while the numbers of MSS. which found their way into Italy may be judged by the fact, that Nicolo Niccoli, a private citizen of Florence, collected no less than 800 volumes of Greek, Roman, and Oriental authors.

Nicholas V., Pope though he was, claims honourable remembrance in connection with the intellectual movement of the fifteenth century, which was to lead, combined with other causes, to the great rebellion against the Papacy in the succeeding age. His efforts in aid of learning, and those of Leo X., who also helped to provide the weapons which were directed against himself, led to the remark of Lord Bolingbroke, that the charm which had bound mankind for so many ages was broken by the magicians themselves. Nicholas V., whose civil name was Tomaso Calandrino, rose by his own abilities from the lower ranks of society; and in his earlier career was aided by the liberal patronage of Cosmo, who lived to see him ascend the Pontifical throne, and to rejoice at the opportunities thus gained for prosecuting their common object of aiding the restoration of learning in Italy. Had the inSce, for instance, Waddington's Hist. Church, chap. xvii. Gibbon. Decline and Fall, chap. lxviii.

† Literary Hist. Mid. Ages, book vi.