after she had got over the first grief, when Pierre was dead and she was alone; some day, some day! As he hurried down to join the crowd before the house, these words, with their intense signification, their sweet encouragement, their temptation, rang in his ears again and again, bringing up a vision of Nannette, Nannette with her bright eyes and winning smile, of Nannette alone and sad, yielding "some day" to the lover who had waited so patiently for her. In the general confusion and excitement he passed unnoticed; all eyes were riveted on the firelit windows, and on the half-suffocated men who were being lowered through the smoke into the arms of mothers, sisters, wives. There was something grand in the scene, terrible as it was; the great merciless crimson arms that were flung out, burning like blood-red rubies, the showers of gleaming, scorching fireflakes, the roar, and crackling, and now and then the crash of falling beam or rafter. It seemed useless now to attempt anything more; the old woman who kept the house, the young sailors whose home it was, and Gaspard's sister were all saved, there was no sign of another human being in the house, and the excitement began to calm a little. "Is Gaspard Lefevre safe?” André ventured to inquire. "Of course. No such luck for you," was the mocking answer; but hardly were the words spoken when Nannette's figure rushed through the crowd, and there rose a bitter wailing cry. Gaspard, O, Gaspard! he is forgotten. Will no one save him ?" No one came forward, it was too late now, they said, it would only bring two deaths instead of one, were anybody to attempt his rescue. He had been forgotten, and by now was probably "If it were not for Gaspard!" and André looked with a strange, eager smile at Nannette; her face was convulsed with misery, her little hands were wrung together, and great sobs shook her from head to foot. Some overpowering impulse made him elbow his way to her side, and speak to her. "Nannette, is your love for him so great ?" His voice sounded far away and dreamy, his face was white and set, only his eyes were burning with the strange excitement that seemed to have come over him. "I love him," she cried, "ah, no one knows how much.” He made no reply, but raised his arm above his head, and moved his lips as though in prayer, then without a word he dashed forward into the fire, and was lost to sight in the smoke and glare. After that no one quite knew what happened, until André appeared at a window, bearing Gaspard in his arms; amidst an almost dead silence he tied a strong rope round him, and lowered him to those who were waiting breathlessly below; then, too late, André Grênet, the criminal, was recognised as a hero, and as he turned his dying eyes for the last time on Nannette, he knew that his honour was redeemed at last. He had lived, bearing the sin of his brother like a hero, and like a hero he had died to save the life of his rival, Gaspard Lefevre. No wonder that Nannette Lefevre speaks of him now with grateful love, as the bravest man she has ever known. Though his cross on earth was heavy, he rose by it "to the stars," for it is written that "he that loseth his life shall find it." PONE LUCTUM, MAGDALENA. (ANON.) LAY aside thy sorrow, Mary, Take thee mirth and laughter, Mary, In the glory of the light; Who the gates of death hath riven; Clap thy hands, be joyful, Mary, CHRIST the LORD hath left the tomb; Ended is the sad scene, Mary, Back death's vanquisher hath come; Dying, thou didst sore bewail Him; Rising o'er thee, smile and hail Him; "This identification of Mary Magdalene and 'the woman that was a sinner,' (S. Luke vii. 37,) runs through all the theology of the middle ages."-Trench. Raise thine eyes in wonder, Mary, To the dead once more alive; Live! thy light's new-kindled, Mary, Death's fell power is swept away; W. R. W. ABOUT SOME OF OUR SACRED POETS. WORDSWORTH. FAME, that is to say fame that lives in the mouths (not the hearts) of men is but a mere "bubble reputation." A generation has its favourite singer, its popular actor, its wisest philosopher, its leading politician, its incomparable painter, and its greatest of poets, and their names are noised about until a new generation springs up, when, though if they have been true and honest doers of their work, their memorial may be said to live after them, their works and their doctrines, their aims and their heart-cries are laid by on the shelf to make room for the broader lights of a newer generation. More than thirty years have passed away since William Wordsworth was laid to rest by the side of his only daughter in the beautiful churchyard of Grasmere. His body buried in GoD's earth that he loved so well, his fame buried deep in the heart of England, who never had a worthier son. And yet when we have said this, our remark above still applies, for Wordsworth cannot be said at the present time to be a popular poet. He is read, he is admired by those who reading our literature take his works in their natural sequence with the other great writers, but he is most emphatically neglected by the reading youth of our present generation. We will not say we are worse than our forefathers, we will not be pessimists, but the characteristic of our present elder nineteenth-century mind is restlessness and change. The philosophy of the "Excursion" is too definite for us, so to speak, to swallow. But there comes a time to all of us, it is to be hoped to all of us, when the fire, the wild straw-flames of youth, with its eager cravings and its careless doubts, with its earnest desires and castle-dreams, burns itself out, or is extinguished, perchance suddenly and painfully, by a higher hand, and the ashes are left to smoulder feebly, it may be, but still steadfastly and cheerfully, and gathering in greater power of heat and reflection from a brighter light day by day, and it is then that we open our hearts to the voice of one who can tell us how he has passed through the purifying furnace, who can guide us with a faithful voice, who can explain to us the meaning of the things that lie around us, who can take us up the Mount, show us the earth, and in the earth, and through the earth bring us to the feet of Him Who is therein. We know well enough the outline facts of the life of this man. first attempts at gaining the ear of a ridiculing audience were perhaps quite worthy of failure, as often from the puerility of his early plots and language it was hard to tell whether the poet was speaking the truth or simply being absurd. But the mind grew with the man and enabled him to bear up against the dark years of obscurity and apparent failure, while the world was slowly turning its listless ears to the voice of the new teacher. Yes, perhaps of all words "teacher" is best for this poet, "spiritual teacher." His We must not take up his works for light careless amusement reading or even simply for the gratification we may expect to find in perusing true poetry. We must open our hearts to learn, and we shall find no vain sophistries, but pure emotions, great yet simple thoughts, we shall feel our hearts beating with a true manly heart, we shall find our imagination "lofty and refined," guided by the sublimity of a lofty and refined imagination, and our whole souls and bodies will be lightened with a grander aim and more glorious future, when we are firmly convinced of the one great truth of all his teaching, that the whole universe is as a shell from which the ear of faith can hear mysterious murmurings of the Deity. When we have read and felt what the struggle must have been with him in those years of ridicule and labour, we can understand the full meaning of his encomium of "Imagination :" ""Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower Of faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind." It has often seemed to the writer a great pity that there has been no full life and letters of Wordsworth ever published, though the very fact of these being hid from the inquisitive gaze of mere gossip-seekers is but another proof to us of the retiring simple-hearted modesty of this great man. There are of course the usual memoirs and commentaries with the incidents and principal events of his life, and also abundance of information is to be gathered about him from the writings of his friends and contemporaries, and what more is wanted to show us the growth and development of his own mind than he has given us in the "Excursion ?" But still not having the private personal memorials, we cannot arrive at the groundwork of the changes and tumblings and tossings of his inmost spirit, rushing down like a mountain stream among the boulders of doubt and disbelief, flashing through the dark gleaming passes, blown by the passing winds and tempests-the fiery ideas of the French Revolution, and the overpowering philosophy of the German disbelievers-till at length it arrived in a gently sloping plain, deepening and deepening at every meadow, giving forth its true song to the world and the Maker of the world of nature, utterly careless of the febrile attempts of rottening bark or crumbling bank to stay its onward progress, taking to itself a thousand other streams and rivulets, and purifying them in its own purity steadily, and growing broader and deeper, more steadily still journeying towards the limitless valleys of the ocean of love, perfectly satisfied and content in the working out of its own great endeavour-to add to all thoughts and objects "The gleam, The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration and the poet's dream." The life of William Wordsworth, if it teaches us nothing else, will teach us this, "That life is not as idle ore, "But iron dug from central gloom, "To shape and use." Influenced we presume by the lives and works of the poets who lived at the end of the latter, and the beginning of this century, men and |