some trace, either in monastic ruins, churches, castles, or mansions. As to buildings of less pretension, the twisted chimney-stacks, always quaint and sometimes elaborate, which are characteristic of the older farmsteads, and the circular pigeon-cotes which stand in many of the farmyards, often of considerable antiquity, deserve a passing notice.

To what has been said concerning the South Saxons and their customs a word may be added upon the frequency of small holdings of land, tenanted by a class of working farmers little higher in the social scale than agricultural labourers. These farms seem to be almost self-contained, the tenant and his family consuming the produce instead of depending upon its sale, and probably obtaining whatever else they need by barter rather than purchase. In such a cycle of bad seasons as has visited the south of England of late, these men suffer less severely than their neighbours, who occupy twenty times the acreage and a relatively higher position; any privation which they undergo arising from inferiority of food, not diminution of income. The native peasantry (so far as discontinuous although frequent observations entitle one to form an opinion) are endowed with not a little shrewdness, which a superficial manner of rustic simplicity often hides or discredits. The pride which a Sussex labourer takes in his capacity for work, and his disparagement of men of the Shires,' are amusing traits in his character. Evidences of the quickened perceptions and sharpened faculties which the hereditary pursuit of contraband trade would be likely to engender are said to be still apparent among the inhabitants of the seaboard, although the practice of smuggling has long since been given up.

These outlines must suffice to portray the salient features of this attractive county. There is one characteristic, indeed, that eludes description, and must be apprehended by the imagination of each observer for himself, namely, the vivid contrast which is perpetually recurring between the conditions of the present and the memorials of the past. All English counties exhibit this in a measure, but in few if any is it so strongly marked and frequently repeated as in Sussex. Nowhere do the grass-grown earthworks and mouldering fortresses which recall successive ages of warfare, the deserted shrines and convents which speak of a creed outworn' and of energies run to waste, lie in closer contiguity to the evidences of pastoral quiet, agricultural activity, and social recreation which illustrate the rural life of modern England.

To-day a land of peace! A flock of sheep

Feeds in the fosse. The cloister-arches hide
Behind a timbered grange. The ivied keep
O'erlooks a village whither townsmen flee

For change of toil to climb the steep hill-side,
Or restful idlesse by the unresting sea.

HENRY G. HEWLETT.

ENGLISH SISTERHOODS.

I BEGAN to think that I had a mission,' Cardinal Newman tells us, when writing of himself, as he was in the spring of 1833. To his servant, who asked what ailed him, he could only reply, 'I have a work to do in England.' 'I was aching to get home,' he writes, 'yet for want of a vessel I was kept at Palermo for three weeks.' Then, after describing various delays on his journey, he continues:'At last I got off again, and did not stop, night or day, till I reached England, and my mother's house. This was on the Tuesday. The following Sunday, July 14, Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University pulpit. It was published under the title of Nation al Apostasy. I have ever considered and kept the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833.'

Half a century has passed since then, and whatever opinion may be held as to the principles and outcome of that movement, none will probably deny that it has been amongst the most remarkable in the Christian history of this country, and that it has been fruitful of grave results. Of the poet whom Cardinal Newman calls the real author of the movement, it has been said that he sang of primitive faith and devotion, of an order and obedience which scarce existed in England save in his own inward vision; and even as he sang, the ruined walls of his Zion rose in fresh strength and beauty, her stones laid with fair colours, and her foundations with sapphires.' Mr. Keble himself attributed the preparation of men's minds for the "Oxford movement' to Sir Walter Scott. In a review of Lockhart's Life of Scott in 1838 he writes:-1

Whatever of good feeling and salutary prejudice exists in favour of ancient institutions, and in particular the sort of rally which this kingdom has witnessed during the last three years, not to say the continuance of the struggle at all through the storm of the preceding-is it not in good measure attributable to the chivalrous tone which his writings have diffused over the studies and tastes of those who are now in the prime of manhood? His rod, like that of a beneficent enchanter, has touched and guarded hundreds, both men and women, who would else have been reforming enthusiasts. Considering the cold, supercilious tone of our age, and the great temptations to utilitarian views, we doubt whether a more remarkable instance ever occurred of the reasonableness of the acute saying, 'Give me the making of the ballads of a country, and I will give you the making of its laws.'

In the British Critic.

The generation to which Mr. Keble belonged has nearly passed away; other and quite different currents of feeling have set in, and the 'philosophy' of which George Eliot was the popular exponent has found large acceptance amongst thoughtful people. Probably the majority of clever young men' now at Oxford look back with something of contempt upon the faith and enthusiasm kindled fifty years ago by the recluse of Littlemore. But there is one question which it cannot be without interest to consider: namely, what has been the result, as to practical work, of that faith. It is not necessary to attempt to estimate the probable influence upon human thought and life of those who do not accept it. Was Dr. Newman right in his instinct and prevision that he had a work to do in England'?

It would probably be difficult to drive for two hours through most parts of England without coming upon tokens of that work in some church, or school, or almshouse, or hospital, or orphanage, or the like, built and maintained by those who came, more or less, under the influence of a little knot of Oxford men. Their genius summoned to its service architecture, music, poetry, and painting; awakening them, giving to them fresh aim and scope, and leaving its mark upon them even when they threw off any special subservience to the new school.

The whole subject of the practical outcome of the movement is worthy of consideration, but it would fill a large volume, and would need most careful research into facts, and into their cause and relative importance. All that is proposed in this paper is to give a short account of one kind of work in England, that of women living in community, which has in a very remarkable manner been the fruit of principles taught fifty years ago. For it is not too much to say that it would be impossible for that work to take root, or continue to grow, except in and through those principles.

In Easter Week, 1845, a small house in Park Village was opened to receive a few women desiring to live together under a certain religious rule, and to devote themselves to charitable works. The house is about five minutes' walk north of Christ Church, Albany Street, Regent's Park, and was taken for the purpose described by Edward Bouverie Pusey, who gave to every detail connected with the institution his most anxious care and superintendence, and who was assisted in the undertaking by the late Rev. W. Upton Richards, the late Rev. W. Dodsworth, and Lord John Manners. He had long believed that such companies of devoted women as he desired to see established in England would be powerful instruments against the ignorance, poverty, and vice of our large cities-against misery of which the sorrow and the horror had entered into his very soul.

To him and to his first band of workers belongs the honour of

restoring such communities in England, of bringing the poor and their best friends together, while opening to women a possibility of development for dispositions and longings which had hitherto languished. All the long train of sufferers who for the last thirtyeight years have found in 'Sisters' their guardian angels may lay the flower of gratitude upon his grave. One of his earliest workers still lives, the oldest 'Sister' in the English Church, continuing her patient, unchanged life of labour for others in. the Convalescent Hospital near Ascot. She can remember Miss Sellon coming to Park Village, a girl from her father's house, to see what a 'Sisterhood' was like. Miss Sellon had a considerable fortune of her own, and determined not to join the community at Park Village, but to form another, of which she should herself be Superior, for work amongst the poor at Devonport, where she received a warm welcome from Dr. Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter. A few years later there was, however, a serious difference of opinion between them, as to some of the rules of her house, and the Bishop ceased to be its Visitor.

Meanwhile, very shortly after Miss Sellon began her work, another community of Sisters was formed at Clewer under circumstances which seemed, humanly speaking, to be due to the merest chance. A poor widow woman lived in the village of Clewer, working in the district under the clergy, and always on the watch for anyone who needed help, especially moral help. She found two poor girls, living together in a wretched house in the very worst outskirt of Windsor, who asked to be sent to a penitentiary. Mrs. Tennant, the widow of a clergyman, then living at Clewer, at once offered to lodge them, and as many more as could be brought, in her own home. This was in June 1849.

The day following (writes the venerable Warden of the Clewer House of Mercy) four others were received. As the tidings of what was being done spread, others begged for admittance. Two came from the town, and rang at the gate; another came in from a neighbouring village. Within three months eighteen had been admitted. Our first intention was only to house those women for a while, till they could be transferred to a London Penitentiary. But as the numbers increased, and they became fondly attached to their benefactress, the idea arose of forming an institution, to be carried on in the same spirit in which the work had been begun, by women devoting themselves for the love of God, as Mrs. Tennant had done.

We laid the whole matter before a large meeting, privately convened, on the 5th of October, 1849, at Dr. Hawtrey's, then Head Master of Eton, when a warm and unanimous feeling was expressed in favour of the design. All the Church authorities connected with the place, the Bishop, the Archdeacon of Berks, the Dean of Windsor, the Provost of Eton, a large body of the parochial clergy, and many laymen of note, heartily encouraged us to proceed. Thus supported, we resolved upon the undertaking.

Mrs. Tennant laboured on with wonderful self-devotion. For seven months she had no other helper but a sempstress, who chanced to be employed in the house, and who stayed on labouring most earnestly for about six months. One

The Rev. Canon Carter.

or two neighbours would occasionally come in and give what aid they could. It is scarcely possible to conceive the intense toil, mental and bodily, which was undergone by Mrs. Tennant during this period, in reducing to order, and combining together, so many inmates, wholly undisciplined. The work of a settled and organised community had to be done, and that at a sudden call, almost by a single individual. To her, now numbered among the faithful dead, the utmost respect and gratitude must be ever due from all to whom the Church Penitentiary cause is dear.

She was obliged to give up her charge in 1851, when a little estate of fifteen acres had been secured for the charity, upon which now stand the spacious buildings and grand church belonging to the Clewer Sisterhood; and for about a year and a half the burden of work was taken up by Miss Cozens, who, though advanced in years, gave herself to the charge with unusual energy and devotedness. But her health failed, and she was succeeded by an Irish lady, the Hon. Mrs. Charles Monsell, who became the real foundress of the community. She had recently become a widow, and was soon joined by other ladies desiring to live together under rule and to devote themselves for life to the work at Clewer.

Thus three separate communities of women had been formed for the first time in England since the Reformation. Would experience show that such societies were but a vain experiment, or would they live, flourish, and increase, becoming both to friends and gainsayers a notable fact, and powerful instruments for good or for ill? The history of these three first societies can be briefly told.

Dr. Pusey's Sisterhood, as the first may be called, after its removal to St. Saviour's, Osnaburgh Street, built for its reception, continued to labour amongst the poor of London, and, in 1854, contributed its contingent to the band of nurses who, under Miss Nightingale, went to our military hospitals at Scutari. Amongst them, the Superior herself went. She had made herself greatly beloved by all under her charge; but on her return to England at the close of the Crimean War, her community became incorporated with that of Miss Sellon, after ten years of separate existence, during which it had opened out the path which others were to pursue with larger apparent results.

The Devonport Society, as Miss Sellon's foundation is called, has never been a large one; but its members have distinguished themselves during outbreaks of cholera and small-pox in Plymouth and in London. About twenty Sisters now belong to the Society; the mother house is at Plymouth, where the Sisters are chiefly occupied in the education of poor girls. They have also a house in Bethnal Green, where they work amongst the poor; and a convalescent hospital near Ascot, on a property of forty acres of heath and pine-wood, which, from its nearness to London and the excellence of the air, is capable of becoming the finest convalescent home in England. The present Superior, who succeeded on Miss