the centre of attraction to thousands of travellers; but Grace, preserving her natural modesty and simplicity, pursued her former quiet domestic duties as quietly as if nothing had happened. She had many advantageous offers of marriage, but declined them all, saying she would not leave her parents while they lived. But God did not leave her to them three years after the event which identified her name with courage and heroism of the highest order: she died of consumption.

ALL night the storm had raged, nor ceased, nor paused,

When, as day broke, the maid, through misty air, Espies far off a wreck, amid the surf,

Beating on one of those disastrous isles-
Half of a wreck; half-no more; the rest
Had vanished, swallowed up with all that there
Had for the common safety striven in vain,

Or thither thronged for refuge. With quick glance,
Daughter and sire through optic glass discern
Clinging about the remnant of this ship

Creatures, how precious in the maiden's sight,
For whom, belike, the old man grieves still more
Than for their fellow-sufferers, engulfed

Where every parting agony is hushed,

And hope and fear mix not in open strife.

2. "But courage, father! let us out to sca-
A few may yet be saved." The daughter's words,
Her earnest tone and look beaming with faith,
Dispels the father's doubts:

Together they put forth, father and child!

Each grasps an oar, and struggling on they go-
Rivals in effort; and a like intent

Here to elude and there surmount, they watch
The billows lengthening, mutually crossed
And shattered, and regathering their might

As if the tumult, by the Almighty's will,
Were in the conscious sea roused and prolonged,
That woman's fortitude-so tried, so proved-
May brighten more and more!

3.

True to the mark,

They stem the current of that perilous gorge,

Their arms still strengthening with the strengthening heart,
Though danger, as the wreck is neared, becomes
More imminent. Not unseen do they approach;
And rapture with varieties of fear

Incessantly conflicting, thrills the frames
Of those who, in that dauntless energy,
Foretaste deliverance; but the least perturbed
Can scarcely trust his eyes, when he perceives
That of the pair-tossed on the waves to bring
Hope to the hopeless, to the dying life-
One is a woman, a poor earthly sister;
Or, be the visitant other than she seems,
A guardian spirit, sent from pitying Heaven,
In woman's shape.

4.

But why prolong the tale,
Casting meek words amid a host of thoughts
Armed to repel them? Every hazard faced,
And difficulty mastered, with resolve

That no one breathing should be left to perish,
This last remainder of the crew are all
Placed in the little boat, then o'er the deep
Are safely borne, landed upon the beach,
And in fulfilment of God's mercy, lodged
Within the sheltering lighthouse.

5.

Shout, ye waves,

Send forth a song of triumph. Waves and windo
Exult in this deliverance wrought through faith

In Him whose providence your rage hath served !
Ye screaming sea-mews, in the concert join!

And would that some immortal voice-a voice
Fully attuned to all that gratitude

Breathes out from floor or couch, through pallid lips
Of the survivors to the clouds might beat-
Blended with praise of that parental love,
Beneath whose watchful eye the maiden grew
Pious and pure; modest, and yet so brave;
Though young, so wise; though weak, so resolute-
Might carry to the clouds and to the stars,
Yea, to celestial choirs, Grace Darling's name!

WORDSWORTH.

23. THE CHURCH.

HERE is not, and there never was, on this earth, a work

THERE

of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilization. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Slavian amphitheatre.

2. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series from the Pope who crowned Napoleon, in the nineteenth century, to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigor.

3. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farther

ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin; and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of Missouri and Cape Horn; countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe.

4. The members of her community are certainly not fewer than one hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all the other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching.

5. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain-before the Frank had passed the Rhine-when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antiochwhen idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.

MACAULAY.

24. THE CHURCH-(CONTINUED.)

S it not strange that in the year 1799 even sagacious ob servers should have thought that at length the hour of the Church of Rome had come? An infidel power ascendant-the Pope dying in captivity-the most illustrious prelates of France living in a foreign country on Protestant alms-the noblest edifices which the munificence of former ages had con

secrated to the worship of God turned into temples of victory, or into banqueting-houses for political socities, or into Theophilanthropic chapels-such signs might well be supposed to indicate the approaching end of that long domination.

2. But the end was not yet. Again doomed to death, the milk-white hind was fated not to die. Even before the funeral rites had been performed over the ashes of Pius the Sixth, a great reaction had commenced, which, after the lapse of more than forty years, appears to be still in progress. Anarchy had its day. A new order of things rose out of confusion-new dynasties, new laws, new titles; and amidst them emerged the ancient religion. The Arabs had a fable that the great pyramid was built by the antediluvian kings, and alone of all the works of men, bore the weight of the flood.

3. Such was the fall of the Papacy. It had been buried under the great inundation, but its deep foundations had remained unshaken; and when the waters abated, it appeared alone amidst the ruins of a world which had passed away. The republic of Holland was gone, and the empire of Germany, and the Great Council of Venice, and the old Helvetian League, and the House of Bourbon, and the Parliaments and aristocracy of France.

4. Europe was full of young creations-a French empire, a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only the territorial limits and political institutions. The distribution of property, the composition and spirit of society, had, through great part of Catholic Eu rope, undergone a complete change. But the unchangeable Church was still there. MACAULAY.

25. THE CRUSADERS APPROACH JERUSALEM.

THE purple morning left her crimson bed,

And donned her robes of pure vermilion hue;
Her amber locks she crowned with roses red,
In Eden's flowery gardens gathered new;

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