wasted to skeletons before they died, were committed to the earth, to be torn thence by bursting bombs, and re-interred by the living spectres who had scarcely strength for the work, though they had strength to bid defiance to the combined forces of France and Rome, swarming around the walls of that tiny fortress-that gem of the Protestant world! Over the graves of the victims, over the ashes of the deliverers, over a spot more sacred to Protestantism than any in these lands --there the insult was offered, the wrong inflicted, the honour of our church and name trampled under foot. I wait to see whether indeed it is to thus passed over: but it cannot be uncle; and would that you, and the Protestant men of England, would raise your voices on behalf of those whose fathers shed their life-blood for us, and in a tone, the more effectual for being calmly resolute, declare throughout the land that it SHALL NOT be.'

6

Pretty well for a waverer,' said my uncle, smiling, while his cheek glowed with animated sympathy; ‘I perceive that you and I shall not quarrel yet.

And now, before we part, let me advise you to commend to the best attention of all your readers, the recent letter of the famous John McHale, calling himself archbishop of Tuam. It is astonishing to see how, with a few strokes of the pen, he has annihilated all the doings, all the sayings, and all the hopes of those who have so laboriously established, so zealously supported the National Education Board for Ireland. In truth, it is an invaluable document -a precious morceau!'

-

THE

CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE.

APRIL, 1838.

CHAPTERS ON FLOWERS.

THERE was once a feeling in the Church of England that seems to have faded into a remembrance of the past, rather than to be a thing of present existence. I allude to the veneration in which the chief pastors of the flock were held, when, casting off the iniquitous mystery of darkness that had shrouded them in the imaginary sanctity, and armed them with the real terrors of a perverted and polluted pre-eminence, the bishops of the Reformation stood forth, arrayed in the garments of holiness, and walking in the light of an unveiled gospel. The brightest burst of sudden spring, over a naked and storm-wrecked landscape, scarcely typifies that revival. The wildernesses and solitary places of our land were made glad because of them: the blighted desert of Antichrist rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. The soft APRIL, 1838.

U

notes of the dove were heard, breathing peace and tenderness, where the coiled serpent alone had hissed, and the ravening lion had roared after his prey. Then it was that an offering was made to the Lord, even the offering of the heart willingly yielded to Him, and a pure incense of praises with understanding' supplanted the impure smoke of a debased, carnal service. Then it was that the good bishops threw open the doors of their habitations, not to close them again on the secret conclave of priestly underplotters, assembled to devise plans for rivetting ancient fetters and forging new ones for the flock, but to invite their brethren to mutual encouragement in their work of faith and labour of love-to strengthen the weak, comfort the persecuted, exhort the unruly, and confirm the wavering. Not to dazzle the laity with a display of pomp and pride abhorrent to the spirit of the gospel, but to nourish the bodies of the poor with the meat that perisheth, and to supply their souls with that which nourisheth unto everlasting life. Then the bishop, robed in his gown, with the flat-crowned doctor's cap on his head, and the long beard imparting additional dignity to his aspect, moved in meekness and gravity along the lofty hall, seeing that his humble guests were properly cared for, and waiting to bestow the ghostly counsel that, severally or together, they desired to receive at his hands.

Such was the spectacle displayed, when a Ridley, a Hooper, a Latimer, or a Cranmer presided. Their light shone before men with a pure and mellow lustre, illuminating and warming wheresoever it fell; until, blending with the short-lived blaze of martyrdom, it was swallowed up in the glory that endureth ever

lastingly. Then, he that desired the office of a bishop, desired really a good work; and little indeed could the dross of filthy lucre, or the glitter of external pomp, or the grasp of ecclesiastical power, weigh with men who saw beyond that vista the dungeon and the stake.

These times of fiery trial are past; the manners of that age have given place to others as dissimilar from them as are the present abodes and employments of our prelates from those of their early predecessors; but, blessed be God! the same spirit remains, and he sometimes bestows the heart of our primitive bishops on those who occupy their high places in the church. Often, in very early years, have I wandered among the relics of former days, in an episcopal residence where one of the fiercest and most savage persecutors of Mary's reign rioted in the blood of the Lord's innocent sheep; and as I marked the rich foliage, the thousand brilliant flowers, that flung their graceful veil over broken ruins, rendering that most lovely which was formerly most sternly obdurate and harsh, I traced the more glorious transformation of the episcopal office-or rather its restoration to that which God designed it to be.

There was a ruined porch in that garden which seemed to have belonged to a tower of great strength. Iron gates had enclosed it; massive bars had crossed and recrossed the narrow, pointed windows, and from its detached position, within the impregnable enclosure of a double wall, flanked by defensive towers, I never doubted its character of a prison. All, however, was then. so changed as to render it a beautiful ornament to the grounds. No bolt remained the old grey stone that had bidden defiance

to time, looked forth between the clusters of ivy and woodbine, and other climbing plants, while the gayest profusion of yellow wall-flower, variegated lichens, and long tufts of that most graceful and touching emblem of mortality, the flower of grass,' waved lightly on its broken summit. Roses and jonquils concealed its base; the interior was gravelled; rustic seats were placed around; and the dark prison-house of merciless Rome had become a beauteous summer bower under the mild hand of Christian culture.

And from among that cluster of flowers I select the China-rose, the most simple, unostentatious, and enduring of its numerous family: the first, in spring, to open its pale, elegant petals to the early sunbeam— the last to quail beneath the winter's blast. I select it, not in connexion with the antique ruin that my childhood loved, but with one whose task it was to preside, first in the spot consecrated by the pastoral charge of the blessed Hooper, and brightened by the fires of his martyrdom; and subsequently where God was glorified in the deaths of several martyrs, Robert Glover, Joyce Lewes, and others whose names are in the book of life. Yes, it was upon a half-opened China-rose that my tears first fell, when, on the second of April, 1836, I first learned the removal to his Master's mansion of that dear servant of Christ, Henry Ryder, Bishop of Gloucester first, then of Lichfield and Coventry.

Few, very few indeed, if there be even one, among those who read these pages, will fail to recognize a name dear to their hearts in that which I have mentioned. Bishop Ryder possessed, beyond most men, the love and veneration of God's people. There was that in his character, in his manners, in his very