such charming results. The most delicate tints of pink, orange, and flesh colour, fading off in the petal into lovely fringes of colour, such as would move Mrs. to despair. "We had a weary and dusty ride to this old town, a city near which the Gauls made a long resistance of Cæsar, a resistance which had almost proved successful and changed the course of western civilisation, and where, too, the first crusade was decided on by the council of Clermont. The city is worthy of such memories. It is built of lava, which gives a peculiar severity to the interior of the Cathedral. Another church is a perfect specimen of the Romanesque of Auvergne. Fragments of Gothic and Renaissance are also found in the walls of the houses. The peasantry of the district are a finelooking set of people; they are, I believe, well-conducted and prosperous. "Yesterday we ascended the Puy de Dôme, a mountain between 4,000 and 5,000 feet high, the mountain on which Pascal, who was a native of Clermont, demonstrated the weight of air. (This talk is a little guide-booky, but I always think of this in connection with the Puy de Dôme.) On the summit of the mountain, in digging the foundations for an observatory, they laid bare remains of a Roman temple, and the excavations which have been carried on have revealed what must have been a really noble building, large, massive and severe, built of the old lava of the mountain. You look down from the summit of the hill on two craters of volcanoes of a much more recent period, and all around you are lava currents overgrown with vines and chestnuts, and peaks which are the summits of extinct volcanoes. "We went to-day into a little 'Temple Evangelique,' and had a very simple service conducted by a plain, earnest man. There was a good congregation, largely of men; six English were present, or perhaps eight, including ourselves. "At Fontainebleau, Mr. Arthur Arnold, the Liberal candidate elect for Salford, came into the hotel the night we left. He was on his way to Aix-les-Bains with his wife, Mrs. Garrett Anderson's successor, I think, on the London School Board. She is a great sufferer from rheumatism. Mrs. Mackennal recommended your hotel at Aix to their notice. "Here we have fallen in with a Mr. Zincke, an Englishman whose name I know. He is an earnest advocate of the Continental, as opposed to the English, system of landed property, and intends spending all next week in the cottage of some peasant proprietor down here to learn what the peasant life of Auvergne is like. He is generally a well-informed man and especially so in history and political economy, and we have greatly enjoyed his society. Alas! he, too, is a sufferer, his left hand disabled by gout. "We shall be at Le Peage, Haute Loire, on Monday next, and shall be glad, if you can spare time, to hear from you at the poste restante. My wife joins me in kindest regards to you and Mrs. Haworth. Remember me also to the other deacons." “HOTEL DES MINISTRES, Rue de l'UniversitÉ, PARIS, "17th September, 1878. "... We have had a capital tour in a very interesting district of country. The whole region is volcanic, and the elevation of the craters above the plateau is sometimes striking. The plateau itself is very high, and the scooping out of the villages is more striking still. You look over miles of plateau, then comes a valley, and beyond more plateau of the same height, appearing almost as if you could throw a plank across from the one to the other. Here and there a rock of basalt rises in the midst of the valley or scooped out plain, and what is remarkable, this rock will sometimes have the level of the plateau. "The cities of the South in which we stayed, Clermont Ferrand and Le Puy, were charming. The free life and clear sky and fresh air and beautiful panorama of surrounding mountains never lost their delightfulness. "Mont Dore-les-Bains, where we were for a week, is high among the mountains; the valley a sort of miniature Engadine, with no glaciers and no snow, but glorious woods and a fresh green pasture everywhere except on the bare rocks. "I gathered a few plants, not for my herbarium, however, but for the garden; the pinks and saxifrages were the most profuse in species; there was a beautiful anemone, stout in the cup like Sulphurea, only white, of which I brought both seeds and rhizomes, and there was also a great profusion of Gentiana verna. "We reached Paris on Saturday, and were fortunate to get in at this hotel; we had made previous application to only four. The exhibition is very striking in its general arrangements, surpassing anything I have seen before, and full of matters of the greatest interest. The general view of the whole from the Trocadéro Palace across the Seine to the exhibition building proper, taking in the houses and the gardens and the broad walks filled with people, is both gay and beautiful. We shall not be able to do the exhibition, but both to-day and to-morrow I hope we shall visit it again... " To Mr. Baines. "BOWDON, 3rd May, 1878. "On my way from Edinburgh last week, I had the opportunity of reading Cox's book, 'Salvator Mundi,' and as you hinted, when you gave it me, that you would like my opinion of it, I am writing you a few lines. "I enjoyed the book exceedingly, and think it a valuable contribution to the discussion of the subject. The critical part of the book is well done. He may be at fault in too lightly estimating the value of a different critical judgment from his own, but substantially I think his judgment is the right one. A fair and accurate translation of the New Testament would produce on English readers a wholly different impression from what they now receive; the blind horror with which they read of hell and torment would give place to a wholesome fear of the just judgment of God. "The two chapters on the 'Aeons' I specially enjoyed. You will see in my sermon on 'The Unchanging Christ,' in 'Christ's Healing Touch,' a reference to the doctrine. I have shrunk from the affirmation that this is the uniform cosmological system of the writers even of the New Testament, fearing that it was a little too philosophical to be a common system of thought, but Cox's book has done much to dispel that fear in me. If it were established that the doctrine of the Aeons is a scriptural doctrine (I mean an integral part of Scripture and not a fancy of some of its authors), there would be a new and powerful argument on behalf of the authority of Scripture. . . ." "BOWDON, 5th August, 1879. "Would it not be possible for you to go with me to Germany this year? I start on the 25th for Dresden, leaving D. on Monday, Sept. 1st, by way of Saxon Switzerland for Prague; then on to Nuremberg and Frankfort, down the Rhine to Antwerp about Sept. Ioth, and on home. I have been taking for granted you might have other arrangements, but not hearing of them, it has occurred to me you might be able to join me." |