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    If it does , ( and the power of thinking so , and of hoping so , is given us by the same Beneficence , ) he knows that a tflne will come , when he shall be beheld again . To bear the same anguish as ourselves , is therefore not in his power . But he can pity us still : he knows the struggles that we have still to endure ; he looks on his mortal friends with immortal ki&elness ; on these dear relations ; on these weak and beloved children ; and whatsoever a spirit can feel , in the place of tears , that assuredly he feels , blessing-us with an angel ' s countenance . "Let us pacif y ourselves in the hope of rejoining him : let us become patient in it : let us rejoice in it ; let us earn , if we may so speak , the right of the re-union by all the thoughts which he would desire us at this moment to entertain , by all the duties which he would wish us , now and ever , to perform . That we are not vessels broken by the way , let these our endeavours , and even these our sorrows , show to us ; for surely sorrow , if it be loving , will be recompensed , and good endeavour is our share in the great task of serving the divine energy , and extending happiness to others . Let us show , before we leave this earth , that we are deserving of a heaven of heavens , that is to say , a heaven Avith those whom we have loved , by having extended , as far as lies in our power , a heaven upon earth ; and may our sorrows do for us what our virtues have left undone !" IMMORTALITY . V " ^ . * o es this soul within me , this spirit of thought , and love ; and infinite desire , dissolve as well as the body ? Has Nature , who quenches our bodily thirst , who rests our weariness , and perpetually encourages us to endeavour onwards , prepared no food for this appetite of immortality ?" PRAYEE . " But for the most part , we should pray rather in aspiration than petition , rather by hoping than requesting ; in which spirit also we may breathe a devout wish for a blessing on others , upon occasions when it might be presumptuous to beg it . "But let no one disgrace his belief in a Divine Being , either with thinking to gain by praise what his endeavours or his troubles should obtain for him ; or by assuming even the right to praise , when his worship has never been anything but that of a worldling or a slave . "To praise even an earthly father in order to gain some object by the praise , is disgraceful in children > and dishonouring towards himself . " What is to be thought of it , wlien the father is God ? " God is not to be supposed to delight in praise and glorification , like a satrap . To-praise is to upraise ; and who can upraise the highest ? To glorify is to surround with pomp and lustre ; and what can do that like his works 1 1 ' The praise which God requires from creatures no greater than ourselves , is to love one another : to delight ourselves in his works ; to advance in knowledge ; mid to thauk him , when we are moved to do so , from the bottom of our hearts-. " Thank wheneveryour heart is joyful , and the occasion not mean : —not as children who are taught to do it , in good manners , for every little thin ?; much less for meat and chink in particular , unless when you can give them to the poor , or when you yourself have failed in spirit for need of them ; but chiefly for things spiritual mid noble ; for the good and beauty of his works ; for the happiness of your friend : *; for the advancements of your fellow-creatures . " TEAKS AND LAUGHTER . " God made both tears and laughter , and both for kind purposes . For as laughter enables mirth and surprises to bi-cathe freely , ho tears enable ' sorrow to vent itself patently . Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and -madness- and kujghtor is or . o of the vciy privileges of reason , being confined to the human species . Tlicso extracts , taken from various marlccd passages , will show , better than any description , what is the nature and spirit of the book . It is a book winch cannot bo read even as n book ( and not accepting it as a ritual ) without humanizing and enlarging the reader ' s mind . Leigh Hunt in the fine concluding- passage of the preface , assures us that— ' "Partially as it has yet been put in action , and in a very small circle , it has done goou to man , woman , and child . Infirmity of purpose has found help in it thought has dated advancement from it : parents have happily be < nm with it be- loved memories of the dead have endeared it—have in the eyes ofWection coiise- crated it : : ind it any one should suppose that I say tlma much of it out of any earthly considerate ., apart from the welfare of those for whom it j . s intended he knows littles cither of life or death , compared with that experience of i 6 v and of sorrow , winch lias impelled mo to give it to the world . " I All we can say is , that a noble and accomplished woman was listening to her husband h reading of tho book when wo called one evening , and that her eyes were fail of teai \ s . ' b

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    AILJKFO 1 U ) . Ailicford ^ A Family History . By ( he Author of John J ) raijton . 3 Vols Prieo i $ l , s \ Cxi . ' n , i ' t > i i .. II urat and Elaokelt John Jh' ftytini— . '/ lonfley ' s Railway JAbrar }/ . Price \ a . n ( i , With great nalural powers a stylo of unusual grace and beauty , a keen and tender sympathy with nil I he manifold nobilities and infirmities ' oi our nature , the author of John Draijlou wins from his reader peculiar regard , and even from Km critic a tenderness of ciiHtigalion , Hprininu / r from H / M « lIAtlT Hill Iwill -dllfllt «) l * kS * -S * 'B « » A /» V Illlirv-l vi « i . Jm _ . n . _ _ * 1 r _ «^ «^ mi j MKuiaiitLi fTijiauM iHu

    nwnwM wu . : » n oecaHions liad botlitoprai . se this writer ( Miiphafciwilly and to condemn with regret ; we fancied we were dealing with a clergyman , and now that ; wo understand the Author to bo a lady , wo have only the most technical objections to make . ' Her new novel , Aific / hrd , has kept uh fascinated . over i !; n pages . It has ' but one fault in our eyes , a fault in Art very common in novels , and mainly owing , we believe , to the inexorable necessities of Ilireo volumes It is properly a novel in two volume * ,--Hie third is like the fifth net , of one of . K . nowlos ' s comrdioH , a mere dallying with the catastrophe , instead of allowing her creation to stand before , us in i ( ,, s own . proportions the authoress hn « followed tlio fashion , juul padded out . to reach the conventional Htandard .

    Alter noting this one fault , which was Avorth noting , for it avMI seriouslv affect ( lie f > e » or : i , l impression produced by tho book , let , tin mil attention to tho charming humanity moving through these pages , and to the really religious tone , unostentatious yet abiding , nianilcsticd Johh in ( Scripture quotations than in sympathy with whatever is true , affectionate , and holy . . Let us also note tho musical and poetical , as well as picturesque stylo and the cany Uint . incln . eB 8 of the characterization . Tlioy aro Scotch people uu

    of tliem ; the husk of Scottish harshness is not made to conceal the kernel of Scottish , humanity . The cautious , timid Andrew , the cold and wise Mary Burnet , the active tongued Mrs . Cockburn , ' the wild Jamie , the excellent Mother , and that capital incidental sketch , of the grumbling Father , are one and all portraits , touched with , a very delicate and skilful hand . Nothing can be better than the truthful way in which the grand and visionary " sybil adapts - herself . to the prosaic realities of her domestic life , and while showing the courage and sagacity of an . ideal housewife to endure and to contrive , there is shining throug h it all the passionate and poetic nature , which having made its poems out of vision , now makes a poem out of life . Equally admirable is the unforced way in which . Willie Mitchell , the narrator , is depicted as a speculative do-nothmo 1 kind and ineffectual , always " put upon" by others , always pushed aside by the rushing current of life , and leit moaning- on its banks , helpless but not untaught . . '

    We shall not mar the reader ' s zest by even hinting at the course taken by this simple and interesting story ; but by way of an extract easily separated from the context , and not a bad specimen of the author ^ descriptive powers , we will find room for the following : —

    GEEMAN PICTUEE . "Only a very short time after , my sole preparation for my new beginning consisting in an introduction , supplied me by my Jew friend , to the Commandant of Wurtzburg-, I took my place in the Schnellpost , and set out for the old ecclesiastical city . The ScJmeUjyost was not by any means so schnell as it professed to be but with our horses jingling in their loose harness , and our postillion , glorious in azure coat and silver lace , we made no small commotion as we dashed through the half-awakened villages in the cold , early daylight of October . The heavens had been weeping as we rattled out of the stony streets of Frankfort , and now , though a faint sunlight began to flutter about the sky , the green , silent country roads and way-side cottages looked at first drenched and sodden , full of the morning rain . But as we made progress , the atmosphere lightened , and now the brown tobacco leaves , hung up upon the cottage walls , began to flutter faintly on the rising breeze , and to shake from them their heavy burden of rain-drops ; and what was damp before , grew dewy and sparkling under the idsing light , and the day was full once more in the clear enfranchised heavens .

    '' The faint dull stir of this far inland country life began , and under the way-side trees , heavy with their cloud of small , brown , russet apples , a decent peasant of Bavaria , with long black coat , ar id fiat , silver buttons , now and then paused to look up at us , sheltering his eyes with his hand . lire mi ght be a Lutheran village Dominiis of the ^ Reformation times , if we took his appearance forour sole guide might have sat . it mild Melanchton ' s feet , or cheered the brave young -Hessian Philip in his ardour for the faith ; but he is only a father of the hamlet yonder , a man of to-day after the antique fashion which to-day wears in Bavaria , and will soon be plodding over the Frankfort road with InV meek cow harnessed to Ms rough wooden cart—no steed of other mettle procurable to his poverty —carrying the produce of his home-acre to the market we have left behind .

    1 i < i ' *' ] J J "And now , up a hundred little , tantalizing , eminences , which we never see , but only f'jcl , as our vehicle creeps at a -snail ' s pace up the ascending side to reward our long-suffering with r . two-minutes' gallop down—trees in a long succession thicken round us , iMid withdrawing somewhat sullenly from the desecrating public row ! , which breaks their calm , the relics of the great Spcssart forest stretch away in half-cleared glades and crowded knolls on either hand . Pine trees in rank and file , a ragged army , with not a rood of underwood for miles to reconcile tie umbrage on their heads with the luxuriant soil in which their feet are planted ; but long- pale glimmers of sky instead , flying along behind them , and bringing out the rigid individuality of every separate trunk in strong and high relief . Stout old oaks , too , gnarled and knotty , and pretty shy withdrawing beeches , brave in the l-uaBet ribbons of the waning year , like village maidens dressed for an autumn fe . stival . Along the grassy edges of the road , good-humoured and unenvioyaa

    « v o tl ii I li cl £ Xi , file of stumpy acacias , hanging down their long graceful leaves in a rounded ball , very like a clownish shock of hair , keep the way , not without a half-comio seriBe of their contrast , uniform and trim , to their free natural brethren behind . Something like the strong suppressed excitement which attends a . youth ' s first journey into tho world , is with me now , loss fresh and leas delighted , but more eager—for I have a strange certainty that I go into some new and brighter development of life . The road interests mo somewhat , but the road is tedious , and I am often inclined to spring down , liko tlio impetuous Frenchman , and push the slumbrous vehicle , which I almost fancy a sturdy pedestrian mi ght outstrip , from behind . But still the hours pans on an we pass , tho cheerful morning light glides round , and by-and-b ye throws itself aslant over tho . se peaceful fields , and the far slojoea of the retreating forest , and at last our long , day ' s journey ia concluding , in tho mint of coming night .

    "Just before tho sunset , as tho light grew languid , weary with its day ' s labour done , 1 . came first in sight of Wurtzburg . The sunbeams had ascended highor than tho dim and shadowed Maine , which , travelling a longer road than avc , had crossed our path more than once on hi . s way to Frankfort and the Rhine . But ho calm and placid lay the little river , playing softly with a tiny ferry-boat , that you could not have suspected him of ho long a journey , nor believed that , ever ho footsore and wonry , his quiet tide could hold its courao so far . On his eastern bank low vinen , trimly luxuriant , climbed upward rank by rank , till they readied to the long level sunbeams straying over tho hill tops , and brightened into smiles of success and pleasure under the lingering ray . Opposite those mild Franconian hills , no higher than a river ' s l > racn might be at home , ro . se a loftier uniinenco , bearing on it natural platform , half-way up itis ancient , tho donjon of the citadol ,

    and overHluuIowiiigwit . il an air of natural protection the grey calm town below . And flashing here and there in a , gilded vane , striking a , long golden line through streets which open to the wonl ,, besotting , high chureli towers and p innacles with a , haze of glory , which penetrated every crevice , and brought out dark and distinct nome richly fretted morsels of ( , h « earvon work of old , tho sun threw his yellow light on \ Vurtzhurg on Wurtzburg , with its calm fornaken palace , with the quiet half-holiday trMIic in its BtreetH , with tho old remembrances of ecclesiastical pomp und wealth which dwell witliin it , like tho pale binho }> n onits bridge—dead flo far . 'is evil , ho far ; w oppression or exaction , or haughty power may go—hut living i » a dreamy , shadowy grace , ha ! f-ero .-i , ted out of tho glory of old Art-half out of tho common yearning of Nature , for links and kindly tioH to tho doad , among whom we , too , to-morrow imifit be content , ( ,, > dwell . "

    Tlio now edilion oC John Dnnjtov , which Mr . BcvnMoy Jwh placed among tho attnid-. biiH of Ih ' h . Railway Library , ml la for only a lino from «« to way tliat . il > in printed in bold raihvay-readabio typo , and is as attractive » flUiJlingHvvoiili as Uj . o Htntioii-stall can prosori !; .

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    1026 THE LEADER . [ Saturday

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1853, page 1026, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2009/page/18/