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THE MAIDEN'S STORY.

IMMEDIATELY after I had announced to Mr. Jordan the death of the widowed mother, I received a second letter from him, desiring me to send, without delay, the orphan and its nurse to his family; but as the weather was cold and inclement, I begged to defer its removal until I could accompany it myself early in the following spring. In the mean time both were placed in security and comfort in the house of our Christian Rector, where I saw the child daily, for I now became a constant inmate in the good man's family.

It was about the middle of April that I set out with my charge for Nottinghamshire; and when I delivered the child into the hands of its relatives, no words can speak the satisfaction I derived from the interview. Mother, father, and daughter, each traced in the lineaments of the face something which brought the son and

brother to their remembrance, and they received it with the most heart-felt gratification; and it was to me each succeeding day a source of increasing joy to observe that their love of the child became continually stronger and stronger as he grew in age, and won upon

affections.

their

The circumstance, which occasioned the necessity of this journey, brought me again into the society of Eloise, who received me with the same expressive tenderness as she had shown when I last parted from her: her spirits were now reviving, and there was a smiling cheerfulness on her countenance, which communicated itself imperceptibly to all around her. But her manner and the alteration of her mind in one particular struck me forcibly. On the Sunday after my arrival, when the Jordans were preparing to go to their chapel, they intended, as usual, to leave Eloise to her own private devotions and pursuits; for upon no occasion had I, either in her mother's lifetime or afterwards, known her to frequent any public place of worship: before, however, we separated, Miss Jordan asked me how I meant to dispose of myself. I answered her, by

saying that it was my intention to attend the parish church both morning and afternoon. "Then," said Eloise, "if such be your intention, perhaps you will permit me to put myself under your escort, and do the same." This surprised me no less than it gave me pleasure. We, therefore, both attended; but upon our returning from the afternoon-service, we found that the family of our kind host had gone from their chapel to call at the house of a friend in the neighbourhood, and we agreed to walk a short distance for the chance of falling in with them on their way home. After some time, however, we discovered that we advanced beyond the place where we had expected to meet them having been so engaged and absorbed in the earnest discussion of a very important subject, we had taken no notice of the distance. For, upon leaving the church, Eloise had enquired of me what I thought of the services and the manner in which they had that day been done.

"Of the sermons," said I, "both were good, though different in their style, and different, also, in the manner of the delivery of them,—a variation caused by the difference of the two preachers we

have heard: one earnest and impassioned, the other mild, plaintive, and pathetic; the doctrines illustrated by both were, in my estimation, unexceptionable; for you must know that my sentiments on the doctrines of Scripture now fully accord with those of the established church.”

"But what are your opinions with respect to the Liturgy?" she asked.

“That Liturgy," I replied, "I have consi dered well. In the first place, I am persuaded that the ministerial authority of the clergy of the establishment rests on the firmest and surest foundation; inasmuch as, by the imposition of hands, they derive it in an uninterrupted and, as it appears to me, an indisputable succession, through the Church of Rome, from the apostles themselves. Indeed, I know of no single historical fact supported by more accumulated evidence than this: for the early ecclesiastical writers have asserted, and, I doubt not, truly, that every particular church existing in their day traced back the series of their spiritual governors to the same source, and that, in each of them, the ordinances, instituted in the beginning, were preserved by regular tradition and descent in undiminished force. With respect

to the clergy, themselves, of the present day, I am satisfied, that the body, in general, is well fitted by education, manners, and feeling, for the profession in which they are engaged. With the sectaries this is different. I will readily admit that, on the whole, they are men who devote themselves to spiritual concerns, and that they are zealous and sincere in their intentions; but yet I cannot consider them to be well suited, either by previous habits or education, to the discharge of the sacred functions of teachers of religion. With the lower orders of these, and especially the Ranters and other Antinomians, this is notoriously the case; and they accordingly endeavour to supply the defect of all those qualifications, which the wiser and better part of mankind deem necessary, by the boldness of their claims to inspiration, by which, in their own estimation, as well as in that of their deluded followers, they are raised above the level even of extraordinary men, and forsaking the plain ground of soberness and truth, take their flight into the pathless regions of the wildest fanaticism; making it their boast that they neither rely upon, nor need, the aid of what

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