MARKING THE JUBILEE. SIR,-Your correspondent S. T. M., in speaking of the Mission work in the diocese of Winchester, says, "Now however, at length, after ten years the Bishop of Winchester seems disposed to deal effectually with Portsea and Gosport." I think he can hardly be informed of the fact that in his first Dio. cesan Congress, now seven years ago, Bishop Harold Browne brought forward the "Spiritual Destitution of Portsmouth, Southampton, and Aldershot," and attempts at mission work began from that time. When a canonry was at his disposal, he appointed the Rev. Ernest Wilberforce (now Bishop of Newcastle) for the express purpose of organising mission work, and a staff of clergy and laymen were asked to volunteer to hold mission services where needful. It was then hoped that the funds of the Wilberforce Memorial Mission might be applied to these needs, but law decided that this could not be done, and the Canon receiving a Crown appointment, the Bishop had no power of filling up his post. The attempt at an organised mission with a Canon at its head was thus frustrated, but in the mean time every endeavour was made to fill such livings as fell vacant in Portsmouth and Portsea with zealous men. It is at least five years since one of these began his work with the Baptism on one Sunday of upwards of ninety of his school children, and a large number of adults shortly after, and in spite of obstructions of old habit, much vigorous work has been going on for several years past, all promoted to the utmost by the Bishop. Of late the Mission work supported by the Winchester College Scholars has been transferred to Portsmouth, under Mr. Linklater, and much may be hoped from it; but it is hardly just to speak as if the Bishop of Winchester had not spent much care and thought on this peculiarly difficult portion of his diocese; or as if much earnest self-devoted Church mission work had not long been going on in at least five parishes there which I could name.-Yours, &c., C. M. Y. AN URGENT CASE. SIR,-I beg to thank you for your kindness in inserting my appeal on be half of Miss Y- in your valuable magazine. I regret to say that I have received no help for her as yet, but I feel very hopeful, for I am sure there must be among your readers many kind people who, if they realised the sad needs of Miss Y―, the patience with which she has borne her long, trying illness, the suffering she still undergoes from her head, and her great anxiety to undertake some employment as soon as she is fitted for it, would gladly give something, if even it were only a little, to so sad and deserving a case.-Yours, &c., M. DUNNINGTON-JEFFERSON. Queries. A NEW EFFORT TO HELP THE FALLEN. SIR, Will you allow me to bring before those of your readers who are interested in Rescue work, a plan that we have for opening a Home for young Dressmakers who are anxious to regain their character? In this they will carry on their own business, superintended by two experienced dressmakers. Those who do already know something of the work will, after the first two months, receive some low wages. During the six months that they are with us, they will have a careful religious teaching, and we shall try afterwards to place them in houses of business where we can be certain that they are carefully looked after. I appeal to your readers, 1. For funds to start and to maintain the work. (Cheques to be made payable to M. Worsley.) 2. For orders in dressmaking. I shall be glad to give further particulars to any interested in the work, which I may add is heartily approved by the Rev. A. Brinckman, All Saints, Margaret Street.-Yours, &c., MADELEINE WORSLEY, 296, Vauxhall Bridge Road. THE HAVEN WHERE THEY WOULD BE. Friar Laurence.-"So smile the heavens upon this holy act, Romeo and Juliet, Act ii., Scene 6. ARTHUR really remained with them a week, waiting for Captain Lawson to get over the excitement, the fatigue, of his arrival. Even then he did not like to leave the little party; but knew only too well how ill his own home and outer works could get on without either himself or Aunt Elizabeth. "Dulcibella is longing to come to us," said Amy. sure we can spare you now." "Oh! I am Yes, the landlady is a handy old body. But I must leave Will in doctor's hands if I really go away." “Oh, yes! if it will make you easier," answered Amabel, quite happily. "And I must come down to you, at any rate, by a return-ticket from a Saturday to a Tuesday, during November. I should like it to be whilst Dulcibella is with you." "Or, perhaps, you will bring her? She says to-day that she and George have decided that they must meet in Queen Anne's Gardens and settle Dorothea's future. The poor child is still bent on taking up my work." "She might as well be bent on flying," interposed Arthur, with some scorn. "And, at any rate, now she is well and strong again, they feel that she ought not to be longer upon George Saville's hands." "Foolish girl! I begin to think with Kitty, never was a girl of eighteen both such a knave and fool!" "Oh, don't, Arthur! we know nothing of her real motives. I think, at eighteen, I, too, should have been afraid to marry a man more than twice my age.' "Well, waiting a year won't do much towards mending that discrepancy: and she knew it from the very first, or might have known it. There must be a peerage, somewhere, in that house; though, I own, I never saw one!" "Don't let our own George be hard upon her-" "I don't know but that I should be harder myself! Why, even foolish little Isa was a wife, and a very good wife, too, at Dora's age.” "But you must all be good to her, for my sake," persisted Amabel, softly; "because I am so happy, and I want all others to be happy too. Of course I grieved for poor Mark Saville-but somehow, now, I can't grieve long about anything-GOD has been so good to me." So Arthur went away, and at the end of a fortnight did return with Dulcibella. He made no inquiry; but at once tacitly gathered that there had been no more real advance made, during his absence, than during the first week. But, of course it was November; and there had been rough days, and cold days, and blustering days—and evidently, no one had yet begun to share his own growing apprehension that nothing but broken and declining health remained in store for the once strong and hardy sailor. Dulcibella had heard so much of his being so very ill, so very thin, so exceedingly altered, that she immediately congratulated him on looking so much better than she had expected. "But Drake won't yet give me permission to travel, to report myself, in person, to the Admiralty," and he smiled. "Well, they've already tried, and honourably acquitted,' John Wilson, let them be therewith content," cried Dulcibella; "and if you do not look so ill as I had feared, Amabel looks far younger and better than I had ever thought she could look again.-Falmouth suits her beyond a doubt." "And Dorothea? what has become of Dorothea ?" he asked, after a fond glance at his own golden-haired sister of the seven; "I am afraid you have not brought her as we all agreed in hoping." "No-no," and Dulcibella grew grave again," she is really gone to Kennington. The Mother' was most kind-she really would much rather not have had her. What she desired, was a much older and more experienced helper, and one already at least a lay associate, and accustomed to their work: nor did she think the life, the neighbourhood-the Home itself-suitable to a young, impulsive girl, fresh from a life of luxury and freedom. But when she saw how entirely poor Dora's heart was set upon this Home and work—and on no other -she consented with such sweet, good grace, and such a motherly embrace, that I do hope poor Dolly will there find the mother-discipline, and love no woman on earth has ever yet been able to replace to her. Canon Grant the best of any one whom she yet has come across. "And George? Is he content ?" "Well, he expects her to run away at the end of a week! and write a sensational letter to the Daily Telegraph,'-if not hold a meeting in Exeter Hall-to expose the tyrannies and papistical practices of socalled Protestant Sisterhoods." "I don't think we call ourselves Protestant, but Catholic," said Amy, quietly. "And I think that George having said this, and before her-and more than half in earnest-will have its uses. Poor child! she always begins so bravely, and then so soon tires! and is so ready to lay all the blame of her own fickleness on the unreasonableness of those around her,—that it is as well, perhaps, she should have been thus both forewarned and armed against herself." "Yes, desire to prove George wrong will go far to make her, at least, keep the unexpected désagréments of her new surroundings to herself," said Arthur; "but, for my own part, I'd as soon have left the poor child in a prison! Now come out, Dulcie, for a blow by moonlight whilst our tea is getting ready." "A very little laughing and talking is too much for him," he added, as they turned out into the street. "I begin to think they'll be here all the winter, and find Drake does too!" Then," answered Dulcibella, they had better be married at once." Bravo, Dulcie!-brave woman, where I have, the last fortnight, been a faltering man. Trusting Aunt Elizabeth might think of it— or—" "Oh, no! it would shock her old-world sense of decorum. Indeed, I spoke rather hastily myself.” "But never spoke truer ! That man doesn't get on, Dulcie—” Oh, but you are always so impatient! One knows how very, very long, it takes any one to get over such a long strain, such terrible privations-" “Also that few really ever do. And that Amy will never feel half married unless it be in a church; besides the thousand other difficulties any alternative would entail ! Let them be married whilst he can still get to S. Justin's,—some fine warm morning—” "Do Dulcibella was silent; but he felt her clinging to his arm. you mean you think that he will die? never even get to us at Hereford ?" she asked hoarsely. "It looks uncommonly like it. Drake (I tell you in the strictest confidence,) thinks so too. But, of course, to breathe a word of such a danger to either Will or Amabel would be to help to bring about the very sorrow that we fear for them—and it is far too early to form any true judgment. But I can't bear to see them wasting the time that is certainly theirs. Happy spendthrifts! as if an eternity was all before them when to choose." 66 Oh, I am sure he is better, must be better-when I look back to the first letters-" Still, why should they delay ? and winter itself won't make him better. The twenty-first is Amy's birthday-let them be married then." "The real work lies with you, Arthur; you must propose it to him." "And I will-to-morrow-whilst you are all at church; if he have had a good night." "Oh, can't he be left? can't you be with us ?" “Not at the mid-day service—I am going to the earlier at eight,” he added, after a moment's doubt as to whether he should own so much; "Lawson's never down, or up, whichever you choose to call it, till quite ten." |