not a little increased by the fact of his having with him a large package of somewhat mysterious appearance, which proved to be a harp, with which he was travelling to the next town. As he stripped off the baize cover, and shook the hissing snow from it, into the fire, his companions looked on in awe-struck wonderment, and ventured a few sage remarks as to its weight, size, and cost. On this last item they were growing particularly eloquent, when one of them shrewdly conjectured, that the owner could play upon it. The harpist struck a few notes, but the damp had put it out of tune, and he consequently declined a further performance. From the conversation which followed I learned that he was on his way to the ball of which I had heard something at Curtis's; and that he had come down from the neighbourhood of London for the occasion, at the suggestion of his old patron the Reverend Mr. Glosenfane.

I at once recognised this name as belonging to the mysterious personage I had met with at the farm; and had now, of course, little doubt that he was a clergyman. Anxious, however, to understand if such were the case, I put the question outright, and was answered in the affirmative by our musician, who voluntered the farther information, that he was a rare one for balls and such things; but he did not know much harm of him, neither. He was, however, at terrible odds, he added, with the ladies at the great house before he left Greenhills and came to this part of the world, about some schools they had built there, and his strange doings at the church. He had heard say he was one of Doctor Pusey's sort.

"You don't say so?" interrupted one of the company-a hale looking man in a fustian jacket, long gaiters, and red waiscoat.

All eyes were at once turned upon the questioner, as if the surprise he had expressed was a sufficient guarantee that he was deeply versed in all the mysteries of puseyism. "May be," said one of them, after a brief pause-may be you 'll tell us what this puseyism is. I've heard a good deal about it, but I never heard, as I know of, what it is, exactly,"

"Then I'll tell you," said another of the company; "leastwise, as far as I know, and that's not very much: but, if I can understand it, it's just this-its just playing at Popery,' as the Papishes themselves say. You've heard of those people, a long

while ago-Pharisees, I think they called them-that wanted to keep the key of heaven: they wouldn't go in themselves; and those that wanted to, they hindered. Well; they were Puseyites as far as I can find out-spiritual lawyers, like, who said, 'Whatever you do, be sure you do it through us.' When you goes to church, you goes to hear the sermon, I reckon? But it ain't so with the gen'lmen, as follows these Puseyites. No, nor the prayers neither. As they say themselves, the holy sacrifice of the altar—that's the great idea-the altar, rather than the pulpit, is the central pint o' worship.' And this, I should say, means that you don't go to hear or understand; but to see and wonder, just the same as you might do at a play, or a lor' mayor's show.”

“I hear it takes, though, uncommonly?" said the man in the fustian jacket.

"Takes! and so does soldiering;" replied the original speaker. "Takes! why, every thing takes of that kind. Look at the colors and the music, and all the shew about it; and it isn't any great wonder it takes. But if you were run through with a bayonet, or had your house robbed. and burned down, and your wife and little ones lying with their throats cut, among the black, smoking ruins; I reckon it wouldn't take much then? But, howsoever, Puseyism don't do this: it is not quite so bad as fighting neither.

"I wouldn't say that," remarked an elderly, respectablelooking personage, whom I had not noticed before: "This Puseyism, in my opinion, is rather the worst of the two. Like war, it is Murder made Pretty : but, then, every one knows that if you fight, you must take your chance of being killed. Now, they don't know, or they don't think this, in the other case. The people as follow it, as the Bible says, 'go like an ox to the slaughter, or a fool to the correction of the stocks-they know not that the dead are there: and that her guests are in the depths of hell.""

Come, come!" said the man with the harp, a little disconcerted by this homely and unwelcome reference to Scripture, "you're getting rather too bad. May be, we'd better say no more about it just now. Tell ye what those that want to see what it ís, won't have far to go, now the parson I was speaking of, has

come hereabouts. Better, go and see for yourselves."

"Ay, so we will,” said one.

"So we will," said another.

"And so we will," said the third.

Whether they did or not, we shall hear presently.

(To be continued.)

H. R. E.

THE CHRISTIAN'S "PERSPECTIVE GLASS."

"THE office of the Holy Spirit, as defined by the Bible, is not to make known to us any truths which are not contained in the Bible, but to make clear to our understandings the truths which are contained in it. He opens our understandings to understand the Scriptures. The word of God is called the sword of the Spirit. It is the instrument by which the Spirit worketh. He does not tell us anything that is out of the record; but all that is within it he sends home with clearness and effect upon the mind. He does not make us wise above that which is written; but he makes us wise up to that which is written.

"When a telescope is directed to some distant landscape, it enables us to see what could not otherwise be seen; but it does not enable us to see anything which has not a real existence in the prospect before us. It does not present to the eye any delusive imagery,—neither is that a fanciful and fictitious scene, which it throws open to our contemplation. The natural eye saw nothing but blue land stretching along the distant horizon. By the aid of the glass, there burst upon it a charming variety of fields and woods, and spire and villages. Yet who would say, that the glass added one feature to this assemblage? It discovers nothing to us which is not there, nor out of that portion of the book of nature which we are employed in contemplating, does it bring into view a single character which is not previously inscribed upon it.

"And so of the Spirit. He does not add a single truth or a single character to the book of revelation. He enables the spiritual man, indeed, to see what the natural man cannot see; but the spectacle which he lays open is uniform and immutable. It is the word of God, which is ever the same;-and he, whom the Spirit of God has enabled to look to the Bible with a clear

and affecting discernment, sees no phantom passing before him, but, amid all the visionary extravagance with which he is charged, can, for every one article of faith, and every one duty of his practice, make his triumphant appeal to the law and to the testimony."-Chalmers.

SUNDAY IN THE HIGHLANDS.

[Described in a letter to a Niece.]

MY DEAR FANNY:-I thank you very much for all the letters you have written to me during your continental tour. That I have not answered them has been owing to various causes; principally to my not knowing exactly where to direct to you, at the time when it would have been most convenient to me to write, and as I knew that all matters of family interest were communicated to you by others, I felt the less anxious to do so.

Now, however, I have not any longer an excuse, for you ask me to write to you upon a subject which always calls forth a ready response from my pen. You complain that while you have written letter after letter conveying an account of the various scenes through which you have passed, I "have absolutely told you nothing about our wanderings in the Highlands except that they were delightful-which may mean anything."

Your last letter, in particular, conveys so melancholy a picture of a continental Sunday, that I think I cannot do better than give you, by way of contrast, some account of a Sunday in the Highlands.

I

I am thankful to find that your feelings on this subject have not become blunted by your protracted residence abroad. must confess I had my fears for you and your dear sister, when first you left this country, that you might gradually conform your standard of thought,—not of action, (for that, the watchful care of your parents would prevent) to the level of those around you. But I rejoice to find that you feel with unshaken force, that the Bible is meant for every place as well as for every time, and that in keeping the commandments of God, in this respect, there is great reward, not only hereafter, but even at the time.

Those who have ever lingered for any length of time among the Highlands, cannot fail to have contrasted the manner in which the weekly day of rest is there observed, with the outward neglect and

desecration which accompany its return, not only in the more southern parts of the island, but in the more densely thronged portions of Scotland itself. To the Highlanders, the fourth commandment is indeed no dead letter; and it is impossible while dwelling among them, and witnessing their solemn observance of what Jehovah has declared to be a sign between his people and Himself, not to feel that there is no region upon earth, where, outwardly at least, God is more honored.

The Highland parishes are of great extent; and it may be supposed that churches are but thinly scattered, in districts, where an ordinary question is not, "How many sheep will an acre feed?" but "How many acres will be required to feed a sheep?"

Steady and regular attendance at church by the dwellers in the remote parts of a parish, is therefore a matter of absolute selfdenial; it requires the sacrifice of rest on the only interval from bodily toil, and involves a walk over mountain and moor, which would give a London tourist something to talk of for the rest of his life; and this not once or twice, but it is encountered Sunday after Sunday, with unflinching punctuality, and is indeed looked upon as much a matter of course as the rising and setting of the sun.

An old man was on one occasion pointed out to us whose weekly walk to and from church occupied no less than nine hours; and the greater part of this was over ground where no road existed, and where, in winter, his steps had to be guided by a lantern which he carried for the purpose.

Do not for a moment suppose that I mean to intimate that all who do a right thing, necessarily do it from a right motive. Human nature is the same mingled web in every clime, and even where good customs so extensively prevail, it might startle us not a little to lift the veil, and observe the workings of the various springs of action by which even a Highland congregation is assembled. With some, the desire to see and be seen, is no doubt predominant. Others enjoy the gossiping rendezvous in "the auld Kirkyard." With others, the force of early habit is all powerful; while a superstitious feeling of danger in neglect of, unaccompanied by any serious hope of benefit from, attendance, no doubt sways many minds.