worked, and beyond her strength, to earn a maintenance and put by something for her boy; and then he took a fever and died. That was the last drop in the cup, and she could bear up

no more.

'A great longing came upon her to see me again and ask my forgiveness. She knew not if I were alive or dead; but one evening, as I was watching from that window, I saw a weary figure coming along the road. I was at the door and down to the gate before she could undo the latch, for my heart told me it was her. I brought her in, ma'am, and set her down in the big chair by the hearth, and we cried togethershe and I-for ever so long; whether for joy or sorrow we didn't know; but, oh, ma'am, she was sorely changed! I could see plain enough there was death in her face, and she knew it too. She rallied for a bit and tried to keep about, but it was no good; she soon took to her bed never to leave it again. Everything was done that could be, but she just faded away, and now she is gone, come and gone.

'Before she died, she made me get the village girls to come, that she might speak to them. I didn't want to do it; I thought it would be too much for her; but she begged so hard I could not refuse her. "Father," she said, "I want to warn them! If I had stayed at home as you bid me, and not cared for finery and admiration, I should never have been over-persuaded to do as I did."'

'And did the girls come?' I asked, remembering, as I put the question, that grave look on little Elsie's face.

'Aye, ma'am, indeed they did! and sure I am they will never forget it as long as they live. She told them enough of her own story to be a warning to them,―plain and strong, and yet not a word against her husband. I sometimes think, ma'am, love can never die; and sure, she loved him and was true to him even to the last, though he did treat her so cruel. Well, ma'am, she begged them never to go to those fairs alone with their young companions. She saw enough of it that day four years ago to learn what

dangers it led them into,-how it encouraged them in dress and vanity, and got them into idle company, which they would surely repent of some day. Poor maids! they did cry and sob when she asked them to follow her to the grave. They begged her not to leave them, and promised they would never forget her. She is to be buried on the fair-day, ma'am, and they have all promised to come.

'Would you please to go up and see my Birdie?' continued the old man, looking wistfully at me as he spoke; she only seems as if she was asleep like.'

I followed the stricken father up into the chamber of death, and truly it was a scene never to be forgotten. The sun was just setting, and the red sunbeams were lighting up the room. The latticed casement stood open, partly shaded by the half-drawn curtain, and fringed with the glowing leaves of a Virginian creeper that had twined around it. On the little white bed facing the window, lay the still form of her who had been so loved and longed for. Flowers in her hands, flowers at her feet, flowers all round her-she did indeed seem only to sleep; and on her lips there rested such a smile as might have been hers in baby days, when she learnt to lisp her prayers at her mother's knee. It was a girlish face still, and yet for all that, and in spite of the wondrous smile, it was old and careword beyond her years.

'She looks as if she were seeing her baby again; don't she, ma'am?' said the old man, and the tears streamned down his cheeks as he lifted the covering to show me the tiny shoes that Birdie had asked might be buried with her,the only relic she possessed of the child she had so dearly loved.

At the foot of the bed knelt a figure in prayer. It was James Gordon; and as he rose and passed me, I could not help noticing that the shadow had passed away from his face, and that, though grave, it was full of light and peace. He stopped, and answering, as it were, to my thought, he said,

'Yes, ma'am, I am happy now; she is safe

with her Saviour, and I feel as if she were given back to me.'

He left the room, and as I stood and gazed upon the fair young form, I thought how beautiful earthly love could be when purified of self so as to reflect the love divine!

Poor Birdie! deserted wife and childless mother! What a life of care and bitter sorrow had been crowded into those four years! Sad, indeed, that she should thus have been deceived by the counterfeit of selfish passion, when the pure gold of a true and faithful love was lying at her feet. But it is often so. We choose according to our own wills, and God, in His mercy, does not leave us, but makes even the sufferings we have brought upon ourselves to work together for our good.

From all that her father told me, and much that I heard afterwards-too sacred to repeatI learnt that Birdie did indeed 'die happy,' and that the terrible sorrows of her life, and, above all, the loss of her child, had brought her very near to her Heavenly, as well as to her earthly, Father.

Before I left, the old man showed me some verses which had been copied for her by her one friend, the lady who had been her stay and comfort in her loneliness; and he told me that when our good Elmslie clergyman used to come, to read and pray with her before she died, she would always beg him to say these verses to her, or to hear her say them to him, because she loved them so.

They were as follows:

Thou sweet beloved will of God,

My anchor-ground, my fortress-hill,

The spirit's silent, fair abode,

In Thee I hide me and am still.

O God, who willest good alone,

Lead Thou the way; Thou guidest best. A silent child I follow on,

And trusting, lean upon Thy breast.
God's will doth make the bitter sweet,
And all is good when it is done;
Unless God's will do hallow it,
The glory of all joy is gone.

Ill that God blesses is our good,
And unblest good is ill;

And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will.

When I got home that evening, Elsie Gray was waiting to speak to me: her heart was so full, that now I knew all, she could not help pouring it out to me. Once or twice I had warned her gently as to her love of dress and admiration; but now she had had a better lesson than any words of mine.

'Please, ma'am,' she began, we shall none of us ever forget what Birdie said to us. She told us how she had cared about finery and being told she was pretty; and oh, ma'am ! what do you think she showed us? Her own old bonnet that she wore that day at the fair four years ago. It was such a poor little battered thing, ma'am, when she brought it out; and she said that was just like what her life had been-all faded and crushed-but she had kept it as a remembrance for old sake's sake; and now she showed it to us as a warning. And then, ma'am, she spoke so beautiful to us about many things, and aboutbeing married, ma'am' and Elsie hesitated and looked shy. Then she went on: 'You know, ma'am, every one laughs at us girls about courting and being married; and no one ever talks to us about it as Birdie did. She said that love and marriage should be pure and holy things, and that we should never give our love to any but a good man, for that no one else would make us happy, and no other love would have God's blessing. She said that marriage was the most solemn step in a woman's life, and never to undertake it without prayer, and begged us-oh, so earnestly, ma'am !-to be good girls in our homes, and mind our parents, and to take warning by her; and she told us how in her troubles she had learned to love prayer, and that we could never, never be safe without it. And oh, ma'am ! she did look so lovely, with such a light on her face! And, indeed, I will try to be different, for I know I've often been vain and foolish: but I never thought of it like that before.'

Poor little Elsie ! No, indeed; how few ever speak of love as it should be, till at last it has come to be thought of as a poor, low, selfish thing, the pastime of an hour-not the glory and joy of a life.

It was touching to see those girls' faces as they followed Birdie to her grave in the peaceful churchyard. On the cross that marks her last resting-place on earth, are inscribed, at her own request, her name and age, 'Elizabeth, wife of Nathaniel Hammond, aged 22;' and underneath, the words, 'I will arise and go to my Father.'

A Martyr Bishop.

By the Author of The Home of Fiesole,' 'Our Valley,' &c.
'Radiant with ardour divine,
Beacons of light ye appear,
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.'

N these days when we hear so much of the luxury and idleness of English youth, it is a great thing to see men trained in all the culture and refinement of our public schools and universities go out into distant lands to lead hard and lonely lives, and die far away from home and friends. Such a man was John Coleridge Patteson, the first Bishop of Melanesia. All fair and tender influences blessed the home where he was born on the 1st of April, 1827. His father, Judge Patteson, was a singularly upright and noble character, and no household was ever happier or more united than that over which he and his admirable wife presided. At the age of ten their eldest son, Coley, as he was fondly called in the home circle, was sent to Eton as the pupil of his uncle Edward Coleridge. While there he received the first impressions that were to influence his whole life, from a sermon preached in Eton Chapel by the newly-consecrated Bishop of New Zealand, George Selwyn. The Bishop was intimate with the boy's parents, and when he

took leave of them, said to his mother, half in jest, half in earnest,—

'Lady Patteson, will you give me Coley?'

She started, but did not say no; and when the boy himself told her of his longing to go with the Bishop, replied, that if the wish lasted when he grew up, he should have her consent. In the following year the mother he had loved so fondly, died-an event which sank deeply into the heart of the boy, and made him treasure up her words with increased affection.

After an honourable career at Eton and Oxford, he took orders and became curate at Alfington, a village close to his own Devonshire home. A most pleasant future seemed to lie before the young man, when, in 1854, a visit from Bishop Selwyn revived his early wish for mission work, and he told his father of his desire to accompany the Bishop. It was a hard struggle for Sir John to part from so beloved a child, but, like a true Christian father, once he saw his son's mind was made up, he never hesitated.

'Mind,' he said to the Bishop, 'I give him wholly, not with any thought of seeing him again. I will not have him thinking he must come home again to see me.'

And so with the prayers and blessings of his family, Patteson embarked at Southampton with the Bishop. His uncle, Edward Coleridge, who parted with him on board, wrote to his father,

'I never saw a hand set on the plough with more firmness, yet entire modesty, or with an eye and heart less turned backwards on the world behind. I know that you do not in any way repine at what you have allowed him to do; and I feel sure that ere long you will see cause to bless God not only for having given you such a son, but also for having put it into his heart so to devote himself to that particular work in the Great Vineyard.'

During the next four years the young missionary worked under Bishop Selwyn, spending the summer at Auckland and the winter on board the Mission-ship, the Southern Cross, cruising among the coral islands of Melanesia.

were visible results enough on every side to fill his heart with thankfulness. On every side new openings for Mission-stations were to be seen, new recruits came from England to join in the work, and a new Southern Cross Mission-ship was, by the kindness of Miss Yonge, Mr. Keble, and other friends, sent out to New Zealand in the spring of 1863. His Melanesian scholars, whose numbers daily increased, were still his greatest happiness.

'To have Christians about me to whom I can speak with a certainty of being understood; to feel that we are all bound together in the blessed communion of the Body of Christ; to know that angels on high are rejoicing and evil spirits being chased away; that all Melanesia is experiencing, as it were, the first shock of a mighty earthquake; that God, who foresees the end, may, in His merciful Providence, be calling even these very children to bear His message to thousands of heathen-is it not too much?'

A disaster which occurred during the cruise of the Southern Cross, in 1864, threw a temporary gloom over the Mission, and caused Bishop Patteson great sorrow. In an attempt to visit the islanders of the Santa Cruz group, where he was especially anxious to gain a footing, the Mission party was attacked by the natives, and two Norfolk Islanders, for whom the Bishop had the greatest affection, were mortally wounded by poisoned arrows. Both died of the terrible tetanus, or lock-jaw, too often caused by these wounds; and the Bishop wept for them as if they had been his own children.

Bishop Selwyn's appointment to the see of Lichfield, and consequent departure, was another trial; and the removal of the head-quarters of the Mission to Norfolk Island, although a great advantage to the work in Melanesia, seemed to isolate Patteson more than ever. But as long as the Mission prospered he had no regrets, and the end of 1869 saw the new station firmly established, the Melanesian College in working order, with an efficient staff of teachers, and a flourishing Christian colony formed at Mota,

under the superintendence of a native deaconGeorge Sarawia.

In 1870 Bishop Patteson was attacked by severe illness, which obliged him to seek advice and rest at Auckland, from the effects of which he never wholly recovered. During his convalescence he began to be much distressed by the illegal labour traffic which ships from Fiji and Queensland carried on among the Melanesian Islands, and which presented a serious hindrance to his work. Natives were decoyed on board by various means, sometimes even the Bishop's name was used, or a figure in a black coat with open book placed on deck; and, once the deluded islanders had entered the ship, they were thrust under the hatches and carried off, all who made attempts to rescue their friends being fired upon. Patteson stood up nobly in defence of the natives who were swept away until some islands were almost depopulated, and he exerted himself to the utmost to obtain the suppression of this horrible practice. Little did he know that he himself was to fall a victim to its consequences.

In April, 1871, he started on his last voyage in the Southern Cross, and after spending seven weeks at Mota sailed for the Santa Cruz group, praying that this year God might grant a bless ing on the work there: 'that if it be His Will, and if it be the appointed time, He may enable us in His own way to begin some little work among these very wild, but vigorous, energetic islanders.' So he writes on September 16th, off Unkapu, one of the Santa Cruz islands, in a letter which he left unfinished. Labour-ships had been seen cruising about, and, what only became known afterwards, five men had been stolen from Unkapu itself.

On the 20th of September, a day of glowing sunshine, four canoes were seen hovering about the Southern Cross, and on the invitation of two of the natives the Bishop entered one of these and landed on the beach. Every evening he had been preaching to his scholars on the Acts. He spoke as far as to the seventh chapter,' writes one of them; and he had spoken ad