When the priest's knife is bare.

A hush was on the waves and on the air,
And with a gurgling sigh that rent apart

The swollen planks, the vessel struck the foam,
And, eddying with a whistling whirlpool, broke
To little fragments of its native oak,

And huger fragments black with harbour loam.
And all around the dying wretches lay,
Choked with the waters, blinded with the spray :
Here little children, torn from tender nests
Where mother's milk was white with dewy rests,
And naked mothers bleeding bloody breath,
And clasping, in the agony of death,
Dead babies to their breasts.

Meantime the man and woman, firmly lashed
To a dark fragment of the hull, were dashed
Through dark sea-ruts, and suddenly were lifted
Upon the waters as they boiled and splashed
High o'er the reef that grimly shone between ;
And, passing slowly o'er, were slowly drifted
Through foam-roof'd passages of emerald green.
Alone they floated on in a half-dream,
With flying waters wet,

They knew not whither; and the great waves met
Hugely above them in a shadowy gleam

Of green and shadowy purple splasht with light,
With intervals of night.

The imminent chasms boiled, and death seemed nigh,

When hugely in the distance there arose

Dark lines of ragged rocks, with foamy snows

Of the torn ocean, and the gulls did fly
Around about with screaming shriek and cry.

The woman said: "The waves whereon we hie
Toward the rugged rocks that yonder lie
Will crush us on them soon, and we shall die!"
Whereat he answered, "Let us die in love-
Not disunited, Dear, but breast to breast,
As close as these black waves will let us rest

To one another; and the heaven above

Shall take our wedded souls and make them blest !"
The woman twined about him limb in limb,

With

eyes that utter gladness rendered dim,

And murmured-"Death is better! Death is best!

VOL. III.

I

And hand in hand, as suppliants, let us go
To God and crave His final mercy, lest
Our souls have sinned against the high behest
Which made us happy lovers long ago."

And panting closelier, heart to heart, too weak
To utter all the peace their hearts would speak,
They floated onward in a blissful vision

Of that sweet time Elysian

When joy was with them, and their doubts and fears

Were white as virgin tears—

Till, with the quiet bliss within the brain,

And with the bodily pain,

They fell into a sleep of peaceful breath,

As little ones, whom gladness overpowers,
Are fascinated on a bed of flowers

By the wise serpent Death!

In a half-dream they lay;

And strange weird visions for their half-closed eyes
Were woven in the many-coloured spray

And in the fitful skies;

And closelier, closelier, they clung in calm—
Souls mingled like the singer and the psalm—

And murmured such sweet names as lovers prize.

Was it the sun that, passing from behind
A cloud, then forth in rich apparel came,

And with a wand of flame

Wove a swift spell that hushed the gusty wind,
And smiled upon their sleep?

The waves received the sunshine, and the deep
Lifted the man and woman in its hands,
Bearing them o'er the rugged rocks asleep,
And laid them smiling on the further sands.
Breathless they wakened in a foamy shower,
And clomb together to the safer strands,
United by a heavenly voice of power—
The Mercy of that hour.

WILLIAMS BUCHANAN.

"Sermons in Stones."

A FEW years ago I was travelling in the south of England. My journey was a business one; and I had almost completed it, when I was unexpectedly detained by some alteration in my arrangements, and so lost my train. The place where this occurred is a very small town, or perhaps more correctly a large village, that but for the railway which has been cut through it would be very much like many other villages-picturesque possibly, and certainly of very little interest to any but those living in it. As it is, however, a tolerably large hotel has sprung up by the railwaystation; and the bustle of railway life has given to one end of it an air of business, contrasting somewhat curiously with the appearance of the rest of the village, where the long low cottages, each with something like a garden-farm, crowned with a small hayrick, attached, look as if nothing about them had been changed for at least fifty years. Even the dress of the women has a quaint old-fashioned look in this part; the short clinging skirts and thick white caps having a curious effect when seen at the distance of only a quarter of a mile from the small bonnets and full-flounced dresses of the smart maid-servants of the hotel, who set the fashions of the immediate neighbourhood.

There is a pretty church at the old end of the village, its square, redbrick tower almost covered with one of those creeping-plants that are green in spring and early summer, but change slowly into golden brown and burning crimson as autumn comes on. I had once spent three hours in this village, and thought I had seen every thing in it that could interest a stranger; and so was not a little annoyed when I discovered that the next train for London did not leave till six o'clock in the evening, there being but two in the course of the day. I made this discovery at about eleven in the forenoon, and was very much concerned to know how I should pass the intervening hours.

An officious waiter at the hotel, who had forced the full knowledge of this annoying detention upon me by asking what I "would please to order for dinner, and at what time, sir?" and who seemed instinctively to understand my embarrassment, ran off glibly, as though it had been the bill of fare for dinner, a list of all that was entertaining and interesting in the neighbourhood; beginning with "Fine echo, sir," and ending with "church, churchyard, sir.”

I smiled somewhat scornfully at the echo. It had no attraction for a middle-aged man, though I could very well remember a time,-which must have been twenty years ago, though at that moment it did not seem nearly so long,-when I had sought out an echo, and spoken words of endearment to it, that I might hear them repeated in a sweet sighing voice, which it pleased me to think must be like the tone of a voice I

knew and loved, if only I could induce it to speak tender words to me. And this made me think how that sweet voice had long been hushed upon earth, and I had found another, whose music had made the hushed voice only a pleasant-scarcely a sad-memory to me; and this train of thought decided me to go once again, perhaps a little sentimentally, to the old church.

It was late in the month of September, and the creeper upon the church-tower was burning gloriously golden and crimson in the mid-day sun. I walked a little time aimlessly in the churchyard, thinking, as I had not done for long, of the dear little lost love of my boyhood, the memory of whose grave had for years made all graves sacred and sorrowful to me. Then I began to read the inscriptions upon the gravestones, and I must confess that my mood changed somewhat abruptly. I read common-places of regret and of affection expressed in the very poorest rhythmical jingle, or in verses of Scripture curiously altered from the original text. I could scarcely forbear laughing at some of the alterations; and seeing a very old stone partly overgrown with moss, I stooped down to try to clear the inscription, thinking it possible I might there find something quainter and more curious than any I had yet seen. In old worn letters I read that "This stone covereth the body of Miranda, who died in her youth and beauty." The age and date I could not decipher, they were so much worn; but lower down upon the stone were two lines, which I made out thus:

"I am o'erwhelmed that Death, that tyrant grim,
Should think on me, who never thought on him."

And below this were two figures rudely cut: one of Death, which seemed as if it might have been copied from one of the engravings in "The Dance of Death;" and the other of a lady sinking "o'erwhelmed" to the ground. (As I did not copy the inscription at the time, and have given it from memory, I have not attempted to preserve the original spelling, which was quaint enough.)

If I had been almost moved to laughter by the curiously distorted and misapplied Scripture, I was more nearly moved to tears by the pathetic power of these lines; and as I turned slowly away, I seemed to see "Miranda in her youth and beauty" suddenly "o'erwhelmed" at sight of her grim and unexpected visitor; and I tried to recall the old ballad of "Death and the Ladye," which I had once read. As I walked among the graves, absorbed in thought, I struck my foot against a stone, newer and rising higher than most in its neighbourhood, and fell. As I rose, an old woman-whom I had previously noticed as being the only other person in the churchyard, and whose dress was observable as something between the quaint fashion of the old end of the village and the new fashion of the railway part-came towards me, and asked kindly if I were hurt. I had struck my ancle, and, all tenderness and solemn thought put to flight by the pain, I replied that I was, and bestowed a few hearty invectives upon the stone which had been the cause of my fall.

To my surprise, the old woman said sternly,

"Don't curse the grave, sir; there was curse enough before that stone was laid."

I felt a little confused by her reproof, and turned to read the inscription in order to hide that I was so. It ran thus:

66

Sacred to the Memory of
MABEL,

Only Daughter of RICHARD BEVAN,

Who died July 20th, 184—,

Aged 19 years.

Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children.”

I was interested in a moment. "Did you know Mabel Bevan?" I asked.

The old woman answered, readily enough, "Surely I did, sir; I nursed her, and her mother before her."

"And will you tell me," I went on, "who put that singular inscription upon her gravestone, and why it was chosen?"

"It was put there by her father, sir; but why it was put there, is a long story, though none knows it better than myself."

"Did she live here?" I asked.

"She lived at the hall there," replied the old woman, pointing to a large white house, standing in its own grounds, about a mile from the church.

I said that I should like to hear the story, if she would tell it to me; and she replied that if I would go with her to her cottage, which stood close to the churchyard gate, she would do so.

So I followed her to the cottage; and she unlocked the door, and showing me into a clean little room, offered me a seat. She left me for a moment, returning without her bonnet and cloak; and then, sitting down in a large old rocking-chair opposite to me, began to speak very slowly, and rocking herself gently the while.

"You've a kindly look with you, sir; and maybe have daughters of your own at home; and so I'll tell you how it came about in this case that the sins of the father were visited upon the children; for she wasn't the only one to suffer, though it fell heaviest upon her-as heavy as death.

"Not to make the story too long, sir, I will only say that I was her nurse from the time she was born till she needed a nurse no longer; and then I was her faithful friend and servant till the day I laid her in her coffin, poor lamb! You wouldn't care to hear about her pretty baby-ways, though the memory of them is very dear to me. I loved her like as if she had been my own child; but we see how our love can't save them we love from trouble. Mine helped to lay her in her grave, though I meant for the best.

"My mistress (that was my poor lamb's mother) met with Mr. Bevan when she was gone to London on a visit. He had plenty of money,