ful vale of this fair kingdom. Closed are the doors of the church, but opened are those of thousands and tens of thousands of dwellings to receive friends and kindred. And around the pleasant tea-table, happy groups are gathering in each other's houses, freed from the clinging, pressing, enslaving cares of the six days; and sweetly, and full of renewing strength to the heart does the evening there roll away. And does it not roll as sweetly where, by many a cottagedoor, the aged grandfather and grandmother sit with two generations about them, and bask in another glorious Sabbath sunset? And is it not sweet where friends stroll through the delicious fields, in high or cheerful talk; along the green lane, or broom-engoldened hill-side; or down into the woodland valley, where the waters run clear and chimingly, amid the dipping grass and the brooklime; and the yellow beams of the descending sun glance serenely amongst the trees? And is it not sweet, where, on some sequestered stile, sit two happy lovers, or where they stray along some twilight path, and the woodbine and the wild-rose are drooping their flowery boughs over them, while earth and heaven, supremely lovely in themselves, take new and divine hues from their own passionate spirits; and youth and truth are theirs: the present is theirs in love, the future is theirs in high confidence all that makes glorious the life of angels is theirs for the time? Yes! all through the breadth of this great land,—through its cities, its villages, its fair fields, its liberated millions are walking in the eye of heaven, drinking in its sublime calm, refreshed by its gales, soothed by the peaceful beauty of the earth. There is a pause of profound, holy tranquillity,

in which twilight drops down upon innumerable roofs, and prayers ascend from countless hearths in city and in field, on heath and mountain,-and then, 'tis gone; and the Sabbath is ended.

But blessings, and ten thousand blessings be upon that day; and let myriads of thanks stream up to the throne of God, for this divine and regenerating gift to man. As I have sate in some flowery dale, with the sweetness of May around me, on a week-day, I have thought of all the millions of immortal creatures toiling for their daily life in factories and shops, amid the whirl of machinery and the greedy cravings of mercantile gain, and suddenly this golden interval of time has lain before me in all its brightness,-a time, and a perpetually recurring time, in which the iron grasp of earthly tyranny is loosed, and Peace, Faith, and Freedom, the angels of God, come down and walk once more amongst men!

Ten thousand blessings on this day, the friend of man and beast. The bigot would rob it of its healthful freedom, on the one hand, and coop man up in his work-a-day dungeons, and cause him to walk with downcast eyes and demure steps; and the libertine would desecrate all its sober decorum on the other. God, and the sound heart and sterling sense of Englishmen, preserve it from both these evils! Let us still avoid Puritan rigidity, and French dissipation. Let our children and our servants, and those who toil for us in vaults, and shops, and factories, between the intervals of solemn worship have freedom to walk in the face of heaven and the beauty of earth, for in the great temple of nature stand together, Health and Piety. For myself, I speak from experience, it has

always been my delight to go out on a Sunday, and like Isaac, meditate in the fields, and, especially, in the sweet tranquillity and amid the gathering shadows of evening; and never in temple or in closet, did more hallowed influences fall upon my heart. With the twilight and the hush of earth, a tenderness has stolen upon me; a desire for everything pure and holy; a love for every creature on which God has stamped the wonder of his handiwork; but especially for every child of humanity; and then have I been made to feel that there is no Oratory like that which has heaven itself for its roof, and no teaching like the teaching of the SPIRIT which created, and still overshadows the world with its infinite wings.

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CHAPTER XIV.

CHEAP PLEASURES OF COUNTRY LIFE.

To the real lover of the country there needs no great events, no exciting circumstances to effect his happiness. The freshness of the country and the profoundness of its quiet, are to him full of happiness. The whole round of the seasons, the passage of every day, the still walk amongst fields and woods, and by running waters, are to him sources of perpetual pleasures. When "the winter is over and gone," he sees with joy the increased light amongst the breaking clouds and dispersing fogs; he feels with delight the milder temperature; he passes by, and observes the first bursting from the warm southern banks of green, luxuriant plants,-the arum, the mercury, the crisp chervil, the wrinkled leaves of the primrose, the blossomed branch of the apricot and peach on the sunny walls of the cottage, and the almond in the garden and shrubbery, like a tree of rosy sunshine, ere a leaf is yet seen; these things he sees with a feeling that has more true delight in it than ever was known to city drawing-room or palace. To me, the most ordinary

walk in the country is, and always has been a luxury. I remember what joy these things gave me when a boy, and now they give me again a boy's heart. I remember the enjoyment I experienced when an old sportsman used to take his gun on his arm on a Saturday afternoon, when my village school made holiday, and led me up long lanes between high mossy banks, where the little runnels come rushing and chiming along, between high, over-hanging hedges; and through wide, still, shady woods; and across fields deep with greenest grass, and bright with sunshine, and all the glory of spring; and everywhere pointed out to me the nests of birds, each built in its peculiar situation; the robin and the yellow-hammer on the bank; blackbirds and throstles in the hedges, or under the roots of some old tree overhanging a stream, or set amongst the boughs of the young fir-trees in the plantations. I remember how I used to delight in the depth of rich grass and flowery weeds in the open fields and along the sunshiny hedges; in the hedges themselves, all clad in their young leaves, sprinkled with glittering morning dews, and perhaps waving with the utmost prodigality of hawthorn bloom. I remember too, with what earnest delight I used to gaze on the bushes of the wild-rose briar, and admire the singular beauty of its finely-cut and emeraldgreen leaves, amongst which the whitethroat framed its gauzy nest. All this I remember: and while I think of it, I seem to hear the lark singing in the clear air above me, as he used to do, with a

Joy we never can come near:

and I now see more clearly what it was that produced such an effect upon me. It was that beauty, that