CHAPTER XI.

Wherever in the world I am,
In whatsoe'er estate,

I have a fellowship with hearts
To keep and cultivate;

And a work of lowly love to do,

For the Lord on whom I wait.

I ask thee for the daily strength
To none that ask denied;

And a mind to blend with outward life,

While keeping at thy side,
Content to fill a little space,

If thou be glorified.

WARREN.

AT the further corner of St. Stephen's parish stands a row of small dirty cottages. In a tiny farmhouse on an adjacent piece of land, the Athertons' milkman dwelt. There was something mysterious about the poverty of this family, which Willie had in vain endeavoured to fathom. He knew that Henry Stevens had a thriving business, that one or more of the market stalls was furnished by him with vegetables. Everything seemed to prosper with him, his cows were the finest and most

healthy in the environs of the town, his commodious poultry-yard and strong chicken the envy of • his squalid neighbours. In addition to these blessings, Henry Stevens possessed the greatest treasure a poor man can boast-a thrifty, industrious wife. And yet, where all should have been bright and happy, there were unmistakeable signs of poverty and misery-misery borne so nobly and so secretly, that for several years its origin was unfathomable even by the confidential friend of the milkman's wife. Willie happening one day to enter the cottage at a time when he was least expected, discovered the truth of the painful mystery. Mrs. Stevens sat before the kitchen fire, rocking a cradle with her foot, and nestling in her arms an elder child. Both were asleep, or in a comatose state, for their mother's tears fell unheeded on their cheeks. For a moment Willie hesitated to enter the half-closed door; the deep anguish of the poor woman, arising as it did from a secreted source of misery, appeared too sacred to interrupt. In his character of consoler, Willie might have decided to enter the cottage, had not his detection rendered all thoughts of retreat impossible. The room on which the door opened was scrupulously clean and well kept. The freshly sanded floor, the polished fire-irons, the patchwork-cushioned chairs, were witnesses of the industry of the female inhabitants of the little farmhouse. It was some minutes before Mrs. Stevens could do more than motion Willie to a seat; the more she endeavoured

to restrain her tears, the quicker and faster they fell. Willie saw and honoured the efforts the poor woman made to control her feelings. Without addressing her, he shook his watch chain in the awakened baby's eyes, and allowed her tiny fingers to chink his seals together.

"Oh, Hester, Hester! you must not take such a liberty," Mrs. Stevens whispered through her sobs.

Willie looked up from the laughing child to her mother.

"What ails you this afternoon?" he said, in his gentlest and most soothing tones; "what makes you so low-spirited? I fancied that you were always like this child of yours is at the present minute, sunshine.""

Oh, the unutterable charm of a sweet voice which flows from a kind, sympathizing heart! It has a greater, a more universally acknowledged claim than mere outward beauty; in sorrow, its great power is felt with an irresistible force. The words Mrs. Stevens heard were not empty sounds-they proceeded from a Christian sympathy which could weep with the distressed, as well as rejoice with the more happy. Here was a man who, like his Master of old, did not fear to take upon himself the sorrows of others.

Into Willie's ear Mrs. Stevens poured the longconcealed tale of her grief. It was much such a story as a clergyman is often compelled to hear from the English peasant's wife: life-long misery,

nobly borne.
If we wish to study a martyr's
heroism, we need not always pore over the stories
of the Albigenses or of the early reformers of our
Church. We need not go to Chateaubriand, or
turn over the pages of the Roman Calendar; if we
look at home in our own immediate spheres, or
turn to the poor by whom we are surrounded, we
shall often find heroism as great and noble in the
modern palace or cottage, as that which supported
a St. Jansinerias to torture, or Latimer and Ridley
to the stake. These have been held forth, and
justly, to the world's admiring gaze; they have
been worshipped and wept over, while the martyrs
who daily die around us sink to their graves un-
heeded and unknown.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

The account of the sorrows to which Mrs. Stevens had bent on the afternoon of Willie's visit was much as follows. In early life she had been an only daughter, and Mr. Stevens by his marriage with her had secured what his poor neighbours looked upon as a little fortune-namely, the house and farm in which they still resided. Soon after their union, Mrs. Stevens discovered what she had

been too blinded by affection to notice before— that her husband possessed a most frightful temper, and thoroughly atheistical opinions. In her own simple words, while the friends assembled at her wedding were congratulating her on the event, her heart misgave her as she heard her husband sneer at holy things, and felt that she was unequally yoked with an unbeliever. Through long years they had struggled on together, and with comparatively few quarrels. Mrs. Stevens had always remembered that there must be two to disagree ere strife ensues. He had thrown away great part of their weekly earnings, had neglected the Sabbath, had ill-used her, had struck her children. Yet wicked and hardened as his heart must have been before he could have behaved so badly to the woman who depended upon him, there must have been some sparks of tenderness or shame left in him, for he permitted her to bring up her girls to a holy, useful life, and even for their mother's sake had hushed in their presence the profane jests which he loved. One little one had been called to a happier home, and for a time Mr. Stevens' heart appeared touched by the loss of his child. But soon he returned to his old associates and the new public-house, while his conduct at home proved but too plainly that God's smiting-rod had hardened his stubborn heart. His had not been a godly sorrow. Satan had taken advantage of a moment in which his gripe seemed weakening, to re-fetter his prisoner. Mr. Stevens' malicious temper was