fisherman, though apparently insensible had overheard the man's account. She raised herself convulsively. "Show me the man!" she said. "Let me go to him-let me speak to him." The sailor who had been speaking, turned to a group close by, and pointed out a tall man with light brown moustache and whiskers. The poor lady with tears streaming down her face, staggered towards Beverley. On seeing her coming, Beverley stared at her wildly for a moment; then he rushed to Lindsay, and seizing his arm, gasped out the words, "Lindsay, Lindsay! what does this mean? There's another of them! That's Helen, Lindsay-my wife, Helen. What's she doing here?" The recognition appeared to be mutual; but the presence of a greater excitement prevented the wife from being overpowered by this. She approached Beverley and stood facing him. He cowered before her, as if her gaze scorched him. "Oh, Walter!" she cried; "do you know what you've done? You let her drown before your eyes! It was May, Walter! your own child, May !" The effect of this announcement upon Beverley was terrific. His face became a ghastly white; he threw up his arms above his head, and leaped up from the ground, uttering at the same time a shrill scream like the cry of an animal in mortal agony; and then fell at his wife's feet moaning. The lady was carried away fainting. Presently a medical man, a visitor at Upper Fishpool, pushed aside the crowd that was gathered round the prostrate form of Beverley, and, raising him up, looking into his face "Has he been drinking lately ?" he asked of Lindsay. "Yes!" "Hard ?" "Fearfully." "I thought so. Are you any relation of his ?" "No." "Well, he was suffering from incipient delirium tremens, and this last shock has driven him mad." "Mad!" cried several voices. "Yes; he is mad I tell you, and must be put in confinement at once." (To be continued.) Gan' him instruct in every good behest- In which, when him she well instructed hath, From thence to heaven she teacheth him the ready path." FAERIE QUEENE. "THE great feature of public worship in the primitive Church and the pivot of its services, at once became the partaking of the Holy Communion;" so wrote the late Professor Blunt in his able sketch of the apostolical system of teaching and polity through which the early Church obtained lasting stability. It was a subject he loved to dwell upon, so keenly did he feel its importance; and, again, in his "Parish Priest," in nearly the same words, he points out, in his chapter on "Rubrics and Canons," that the practice of the primitive church (and consequently of our own, as he proves throughout) "appears to have considered the Holy Communion as the great feature of public worship -the centre about which it all revolved." Thanks to the exertions of this writer and of others of the same depth of thought and earnestness of purpose, this doctrine has regained its original importance from the oblivion into which it had fallen in most of our country parishes. Some of us can look back to that time of lax and apathetic observance, when the Holy Communion was rarely administered oftener than the obligatory three times a year, and when the attempt to carry into practice the real doctrine of our Church by more frequent communions would have been followed by idle and sneering comments. There are few of the better educated and earnest minded of the present day who do not understand that frequent and collective participation Lord's Supper can alone form the principal bond of union between the Divine Head of the Church and its members. Consequently, they receive with thankfulness the monthly or more frequent communions as a proof of an advancement in religion, or rather a restoration of the spirit of the primitive Church, where every baptized member never thought of absenting himself, and where clergy and laity alike "continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers." True, it is but the beginning, where much still remains to be done. Our small congregations on the Communion Sunday itself-the empty seats which testify to the few VOL. I.-NO. IV. FF who stay that more than half the number present have rushed out, though entreated publicly and privately by their clergyman to remain— all show how much we need to rejoice with fear and trembling. How little we ought to plume ourselves on being a religious people, when such a scene may be constantly witnessed in any one of our parishes. It is good for us to look back, that we may perceive that the dawn has indeed risen, but only with the understanding that it is to encourage us to strive, each in our different stations, by example and precept, to instil the teaching of our Church into all classes alike. Perhaps nowhere do we more feel this want of primitive fellowship and communion than in a country parish; for nowhere else can we become so intimately acquainted with every family, the number of its members, their circumstances and characters, or be so sure that we do not judge harshly when, as year after year rolls by, and finds their seats empty at the Lord's Supper, we decide that the spirit of the Church to which they profess to belong, has never penetrated either their hearts or their intellects. In the country parish, you know (though often you would give much to avoid finding it out) "how neighbour So-and-so, who was cut through, like, by the Parson's sermon, could get no sleep-not he-for thinking of his sins;" yet, instead of consulting his own clergyman, or even visiting the church again where he had received so much good, he had chosen to attend the afternoon's prayer-meeting at the Dissenting chapel with all his family, and had been led on from extravagance to extravagance in his excited state of mind, until he held forth in prayer in his turn. Probably, for the future, if he does not secede altogether, he will yet wander from church to chapel, and from chapel to church-part of his family with him at one place, and the rest at the other until all hopes of making them understand the Church meaning of fellowship, and communion, and of the benefits received, are in vain. What the parents profess, the children will in time adopt; not that they will go to chapel because of "father," or to church because of "mother." It would indeed be more hopeful if they could understand even this bond of union; but they will, as a matter of course, hold their parents' lax opinions as to the ordinances of religion. Nor will they be encouraged by home-example to attend to Holy Communion after their confirmation. Few are the families where husband and wife receive together; fewer still where they are accompanied by any of their grown-up children. How can you expect that even your own large class of grown-up girls, formed, as we have described in former numbers, under your own eye, and influenced by many months' unwearied teaching and private prayer, should rise at once superior to all around them in their obedi ence to their Church, and in their appreciation of the duty of adhering |