I should be occupying too much space were I to multiply these interesting extracts, and would beg the readers of THE CHURCHMAN to peruse for themselves the Society's Report1 for the present year; it shows very clearly how the work is permeating all classes, from the humblest boatman, or bargeman, to the officers in command of our stately ocean steamers, plying to all parts of the world.

The war in Egypt, too, has given occasion for special activity, the Mission Staff having been authorized by the Admiralty to visit every transport conveying troops from the Thames, and to proceed in the vessels from the docks to Gravesend. By this means these devoted workers have had ample opportunity for conversation with the men, besides presenting each soldier with a copy of the New Testament, and books or tracts. In this way upwards of 18,000 Testaments and 25,000 tracts have been distributed, additional provision being made on board the hospital ships.

In conclusion, I would refer to the most recent addition to the sphere of the Society's operations-the North Sea fisheries. Comparatively few persons know even the locality from which many thousands of tons are annually drawn to supply both the metropolitan and provincial fish markets, or realize what a multitude of persons are engaged from year's end to year's end in the terribly hazardous deep-sea trawling. The writer of a very excellent article in the Daily Telegraph remarks:

I once wrote in this journal an account of a voyage in a smack to the North Sea. One such journey is enough for a lifetime, and the recollection of it makes me here declare-and I am sure there is not a sailor living who will contradict me-that of all the several forms of seafaring life there is absolutely none comparable in severity, exposure, hardship, and stern peril to that of the smacksman. His vessel is a small one; his cabin a little darksome hole; his working hours are full of harsh toil; he has to give battle to the wildest weather, to struggle on for bread through storm and snow and frost, through the long blackness of the howling winter's night, through the grey wilderness of a foaming ocean swept by winds as pitiless as the hand of death. No legislation can alter these conditions of his life. Philanthropy will have its cod and sole and turbot. The fish must

be caught, but caught in such a manner that those who shoot their trawls for them catch other things besides a wild roughness of bearing, a defiance of civilized instincts, a sense of outlawed and neglected life that brings with it a fixed conviction of social immunity.

Thirty-seventh Report of the Thames Church Mission Society, 31, New Bridge Street, Ludgate Circus, E.C., 1882. May I venture to suggest to the clerical readers of the CHURCHMAN that congregational collections on behalf of the Mission would be most gratefully acknowledged? At present we receive offertories from only a few churches.

"I'm a fisherman myself, Sir," a man once said to me; "and I'll allow that there are many well-mannered, sober, steady men among us; but, taking us all round, you'll not find a coarser set of human beings in the world; and, if you want to know the reason, you've only got to look at yonder smack, heading away into the North Sea, where, maybe, she'll be heaving and tossing about for weeks, with ne'er a proper influence in the shape of books or company for the men to come at."

To these poor fellows, then, the Thames Church Mission are now sending out "the Word of Life," and most gratefully have the missionaries been received. The "Short Blue" fleet, the largest fishing fleet in the North Sea, belonging to Messrs. Hewett & Co., had over twenty years ago its rendezvous at Barking, and at that time the agents of the Mission laboured regularly amongst the crews. On the introduction of steam fish carriers the fleet migrated to Gorleston, as more convenient to the fishing grounds, and from that time the work of this Society ceased to reach the fishermen. Now, however, in a remarkable and clearly providential way, God has led to the resumption of this labour, and has provided a trim little smack, the Ensign, to be used as a Mission vessel in connection with the "Short Blue" fleet. Under the command of a godly fisherman, who is not only honorary agent of the Thames Church Mission, but also of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Church of England Temperance Society, and the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, this smack is now cruising with the fleet, affording opportunity for regular Mission work. The Ensign carries a lending library (who will volunteer to increase the number of volumes?), a harmonium, kindly given by a gentleman whose sympathies had been aroused by the published accounts of this interesting effort-and, by no means least important, a medicine chest, "A Thank-offering" from a dear Christian lady, on her recovery from a very dangerous illness. Some cases of barbarous cruelty to smack apprentices, too painful for quotation, have lately appeared in the newspapers; and can anything, I need scarcely ask, be so likely to prove an efficacious remedy, or preventive, as the spiritual and philanthropic work now so happily inaugurated-prayer for the influence of the Holy Spirit, the diffusion of Scriptural knowledge through the distribution of copies of the Word of God, and the affectionate appeals of the Missionaries ?

There are many ways in which the Society's work for God. can be materially assisted; but beyond all other means which the readers of THE CHURCHMAN in their kindness may adopt, I plead for that of which this closing extract so touchingly tells :Amongst the many vessels boarded was the steamer, where I held a most interesting service; twenty hearers were present. A

the close, one of the sailors said to me, "Did you feel much of the Lord's presence on Sunday? My reason for asking is this: whilst at Hamburg on Sunday, a sailor came into this forecastle and invited all us chaps on board of a Guernsey brig to a prayer-meeting. Two men with myself went on board, and entered into the brig's cabin, where there were about fourteen sailors collected together. The master of the brig (who was the preacher) said, 'Those of us who will, may offer up prayer. Let us earnestly beseech the Lord to abundantly bless the labours of that excellent Society the Thames Church Mission, for there are some of us here have to thank God that ever it was instituted."

We greatly value the help of prayer.

FRANCIS MAUDE (Capt. R.N.).

ART II.-LONGFELLOW.1

WE lost in the early months of the present year one of the

truest, and purest, and sweetest poets of this century. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died on the 24th of March, "the roaring moon of daffodil and crocus," and his death cast a shadow on many a home on both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed in all countries where the English language is spoken. Wherever his poems had reached-and where had they not?—a sincere sorrow was felt by all who could estimate sincerity and dignity, simplicity and goodness; and even little ones mourned for the gentle poet who had given a voice to their hopes and fears, and who showed how much he loved them in his beautiful poem of "The Children's Hour." The inhabitants of Cambridge, near Boston, which had been his home for some years, were first apprised of the poet's death by the tolling of his age-seventyfive years-upon the fire-alarm bell; and long before the sun went down the tidings of a great loss had been carried far and wide. In a sonnet which appeared in the Spectator since his death, he is justly styled

The bard

Whose sweet songs, more than aught beside,
Have bound two worlds together;

and England, equally with America, has sorrowed over the loss

1 "Ultima Thule." By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Second Edition. London: George Routledge & Sons.

1880.

"In the Harbour." By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. London: George Routledge & Sons. 1882.

of a noble man and poet whose gracious presence has passed away from earth.

It is pleasant, when thinking on the high character and eminent gifts of Longfellow, to remember his descent from the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth, Massachusetts; five of his ancestors being among the passengers in the first memorable voyage of the Mayflower. The great-grandfather of the poet was Stephen Longfellow, who was born at Newbury, in 1685; and it is interesting to know, in view of the popular poem of "The Village Blacksmith," that he was the blacksmith of the village, and also an ensign in the militia of the town. On his mother's side the poet was a descendant of John Alden, who had also been a passenger in the Mayflower, and she was also connected with that Priscilla Mullen, whose significant answer: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John ?" has been preserved in the well-known poem of "The Courtship of Miles Standish."

Longfellow entered Bowdoin College in his fourteenth year, and graduated in 1825. He early developed great literary taste, read all the great masters of song, of whatever age or nation, and had a cordial and catholic appreciation of their genius. Several of his poems were written during his college career, and among them "The Hymn of the Moravian Nuns," "The Spirit of Poetry," and "Sunrise on the Hills." From these we not only gather his love of Nature, but find that love expressed in language musical, simple and sincere. We give a few lines from "The Spirit of Poetry"

And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill

The world; and in these wayward days of youth,

My busy fancy oft embodies it,

As a bright image of the light and beauty

That dwells in Nature: of the heavenly forms

We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues

That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets.

We discover a sentiment very similar in the closing verse of "Sunrise on the Hills" :

If thou art worn and hard beset

With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget;

If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep

Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! no tears

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

After taking his degree, Longfellow entered his father's office that he might study law; but being offered the Chair of Modern Languages in Bowdoin College, in 1828, with leave of absence for travel and study, he left America for the continent of Europe.

He visited France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Remaining some time at the University of Gottingen, and returning through England, he entered on the duties of his professorship in 1829. In 1831 he married Miss Mary Storer Potter, daughter of the Hon. Barrett Potter, of Portland, who died at Rotterdam, in 1835, during a tour with her husband in the northern countries of Europe. She was a woman of great beauty and accomplishments, lovely alike in person and character; and it is her memory that he has enshrined in the touching little poem called "The Footsteps of the Angels."

And with them the Being Beauteous,

Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me

With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.

O, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,

If I but remember only,

Such as these have lived and died!

This is poetry of the heart, tender and peaceful; regretful, yet hopeful; yearning, yet resigned.

Longfellow's residence in Europe was devoted to work as well as to the pleasures of foreign travel; and he so mastered all the principal modern languages as to make himself familiar with the greatest works in all. In" Outre-Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea," he has left the records of a tour in Europe, and in it the reader finds a fresh and true description of the soil and scenery, the habits and feelings and modes of life of the places he visited, and the people whom he saw. The whole is imbued with the colours of the scenes which passed under his poet eye, and is redolent of the warm and romantic atmosphere of France, and Italy, and Spain. His records of Nature and Art, as seen in those historic countries of the Old World, alike charm and instruct, as he lingers over what is most characteristic in the traditions and genius, the literature and art of the country that for a season was his home.

In 1839 he published "Hyperion," a romance full of fancy and delicate humour, and charged throughout with poetical feeling;