o'clock with the words in my ear, 'Get up and take something out of your purse to Madame Paulus, at Neünchingen.' I demurred, never having heard that she was in need of money; but the same impression repeated itself upon my mind continually, and each time in a more lively manner: until at last, in despair of getting any peace, I yielded. So I come begging you to accept this sum, although I do not know whether you want it or not." With grateful joy, Beaté took the little packet of coin, and after our visitor had gone, came down triumphantly holding it in her hands, whilst she cried, "Now, mother, rise! Our distress is over. God has sent a widow from Koruthal to bring you this help!"

CHAPTER IX. THE RENT.

It is well known that the human heart is something like a stringed instrument, with a wonderful variety of chords: some deep, harsh, and powerful; others quite tremulous and delicate. In the feminine temperament, the latter are occasionally developed to an extent almost incredible and quite unattainable to the other sex. One of these tender chords in my mother's disposition was that of gratitude. If a way of showing her warm appreciation of any act of kindness could be possibly devised, no pains or exertion in carrying it out were taken into account. Thus, when I first went to school, we had a cousin, who, on finding that I could not be lodged in the preceptor's house, took me into his own, and always treated me with the greatest kindness. Some years after, he became a candidate for a civil post, and begged us to use our influence on his behalf. Straightway, our mother left all her own work, and, starting out, called on all the voters of the neighbourhood, not resting until they promised their support to our friend, and, in consequence of these vigorous exertions, he gained the appointment. The delicacy of our mother's gratitude was peculiarly manifested towards our kind aunt, who at the cost of much self-denial had made room for our party in her house. The trifling rent due for our rooms was rigorously put by and paid to the day, for our relative, as we well knew, had only enough property to render her barely independent.

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Once more our vacation came round, and we were all united at home. This time food was forthcoming, but, on the other hand, the approaching rent-day ever weighed heavily on our family purse-light as ever-and on my poor mother's mind. Each day she grew more heavy-hearted, often saying that the money must be paid in time, for she knew our aunt depended on it. The term had actually arrived, when she gathered us round her one morning, saying, Come, let us ask God to step into our midst, and take this matter into his own hands." She then uttered this prayer: "Faithful Saviour! Thou knowest this is the rent-day. Once, when thou didst need tribute money, a fish out of the sea was sent to bring it. Wilt thou let me remain in debt for my rent? I cannot believe it, for in the great ocean of thy creation there are still many thousand fishes who might bring the money I need. Wherefore, I beg thee not to leave me in perplexity, but come and help!"

We gathered round, listening, and felt strangely moved, especially we students from the University, whose heads were full of the immu

tability of Nature's laws, and the impossibility of any deviation from its rules, with many similar wise notions.

"God's clock goes slowly, but correctly," says the proverb, and we were about to discover this truth. We separated; our mother and the girls busied themselves about the house, while we boys gathered in a confidential chat, all the while entertaining a sort of secret curiosity as to whether any results would follow that prayer. As the morning hours slipped by, we almost decided to give up our watch. Shortly before noon, however, we were roused by a knock which heralded the entrance of the village pastor, a former friend of our father's, for whose sake he had always taken a hearty interest in our welfare. To our surprise, he had on his clerical robes. "Ah," said he, in answer to our enquiring looks, "I will soon tell you why I come thus. On my way to the prayer-meeting at church, I was met by the postman, bearing a packet from the Dean at Leonberg. I opened it on entering the vestry, and found a note, directing that the enclosed grant of money should be placed in the hands of Madame Paulus, being adjudged her from a charitable fund."

The pastor went on to say, that he could not tell through whose influence the grant had been accorded, having himself played no part in the matter. "But," he added, "as I knew the gift would be welcome, I could not help running in with it on my way home, so as to share your joy." At this moment our mother entered the room, and the good man asked whether she could say how that grant was adjudged to her. "I forwarded a petition, sir," she replied; "not to the dean, however, or indeed to any man at all, but to him whose cabinet of exchange is established on high." The kind pastor was visibly moved, and, as for us, the tears stood in our eyes, and we all confessed that we had to-day gained a lesson worth many hundreds of our university lectures.

CHAPTER X.-AT SCHOOL, AND "GOING HOME!"

Time passed quickly. Of our mother's eldest sons, one had now become doctor at Koruthal, and taken her and our sisters to live with him. Another assumed the direction of a chemical establishment at the same place, and a third had gone as tutor into Switzerland, where a proposal was made that he should undertake the superintendence of a seminary for boys at Koruthal. This offer was accepted, as it presented a prospect of allowing the whole family to take part in the work, and thus accomplish a worthy task. My mother, especially, consented with joy to the plan, as she had always taken peculiar interest in training the young.

After vainly waiting several months for pupils, the number of boys suddenly multiplied to such an extent that our house became too small to hold them, whilst insuperable difficulties seemed to stand in the way of building another. Just at this juncture, when our way seemed hedged up on every side, a call reached us to found a similar institution near Ludwigsburg. We agreed, and were able to enter our new home with eighty pupils in three months. The numbers shortly increased to more than a hundred. Over all these boys our mother watched with lively interest. Almost every evening she might be found in one or

other of the school-rooms, playing chess with the lads, or relating some story with a graphic power that drew crowds around her. On these occasions she sat among them, surrounded by the smallest ones, the remainder ranging themselves in an outer circle, while those who could not see her would climb on chairs and tables, so that any one entering the room, at first perceived only a towering throng of boys, and it required minute inspection before the mother could be discovered buried in their midst. She also often attended at their out-door games and exercises, where her presence was hailed with delight. Frequently, she undertook walking tours of several days, on which she was accompanied by ten or twelve of the pupils, and those accounted themselves highly favoured who were allowed to join her party, for her spirits were so gay and mirthful that she imparted interest and life to all her surroundings. The whole school called her mother, and such indeed she proved in tender love to all, both in good days and bad. Thus life passed on for several years, and so it happened that, one peculiarly cold winter, the boys conceived the idea of building a snow fortress, which was to be assaulted and stormed. The day for this display had arrived, and the school was divided into two parties, the defenders and besiegers. The latter were to be declared victorious, so soon as they should have placed their flag upon the high tower crowning the white edifice. Our mother, who took an active interest in these arrangements, espoused the cause of the assailants, whom she furnished with snowballs, cheering them to press on bravely and sturdily, never pausing till their colours waved from the summit. "See," she cried, "that is just how it is with us! Each human heart is a fortress, which has been taken possession of by enemies-low, unworthy passions and vices; the grand point is for us to struggle without ceasing, till the flag of a better purpose a new life-waves from the citadel.”

The struggle was a lengthy one that day, and untiringly she furnished the snowy weapons of warfare, until at length the end was gained; the besiegers made good their position, and planted their triumphal standard aloft, when loud shouts of victory rent the air, and seemed as if they would never cease.

But, our good mother had been in the cold too long, and the consequence was a violent chill, which developed into feverish symptoms the next day. She attached no importance to this indisposition, and, on being asked by our doctor whether she expected to recover, merrily answered him in the Latin words, "Spero quod," "I hope so." When left alone with her children, she added, "This is sent to try your faith. If you pray earnestly and believingly, I shall soon be well." We did all we could, but the illness continued to gain ground, and caused us fresh anxiety every day. In the course of the fourth night she cried suddenly, "Children, you must pray earnestly-much more earnestly. Kneel down together, and ask God's help." This we did in loud tones, but she exclaimed, "You do not understand." And raising herself, she folded her trembling hands, and said: "Lord, thou knowest that I have not finished a great deal of the work which was begun on my knees there, in the corner by the stove; therefore, I beg that my life may be somewhat lengthened. Once, when thy servant Joshua could not complete his day's work, thou didst, at his prayer, stop the course of

sun and moon, those great heavenly bodies: so it must be only an easy thing for thee to make my small body healthy and strong again, and give me time for what remains for me to do!" The words were hardly out of her lips, when she sank into a calm, deep slumber. We had long vainly hoped for this, and could not but trust that it might prove a favourable crisis in the malady, and that her prayer had been answered in peace. But, upon awakening the next morning, after several hours of quiet rest, she uttered the words, "Glory already! Children, it is ordered otherwise than we thought: I am going home! Come, we will once more celebrate the feast of our Saviour's dying love together."

We did so, and, afterwards, each of our number received her farewell kiss. Then she sank into the weakness of death, and slowly but gently the bands of earth were unloosed, and in unbroken, heavenly peace, her spirit passed away from this lower life. Our feelings, as we watched her entrance into glory, may be expressed in the words :

"It is not exile, rest on high;

It is not sadness, peace from strife;

To fall asleep is not to die:

To dwell with Christ is better life."

CONCLUSION.

So closes the story of the life-work of one of the holiest, most energetic, and most faithful of women, whose ruling characteristic was self-forgetting devotedness and fervent love. To her we may truly apply the words of Solomon, the wise King: "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." Need we wonder to be told that her children and her children's children rise up and call her blessed?

The little country in South Germany which gave her birth, though numbering but a million of people in her day, has sent out a large proportion of that noble army of foreign evangelists whose deeds of undying fame have rendered our age memorable. The peasants, who drank in spiritual life from such men as her father, have given their hardy bodies and strong powerful minds, after due preparation, to go forth to many a dark region, there to sow broadcast the seed of that living word which had taken root among them, in the retirement of their secluded villages; and many a humble mother's heart in that primitive country has bounded with joy at the report of victories won for Jesus by her son, in the far-off field of his toil and conflict.

The children of Madame Paulus have all lived lives of Christian activity and usefulness, and the institution founded by them at the Salon, Ludwigsburg, and still carried on by members of the same family, receives large numbers of pupils from all parts of Europe and the missionary field, who there enjoy the privileges of a simple and thorough Christian education. In carrying on this blessed and successful work, we may truly declare that one and all of the descendants of Madame Paulus prove the truth of her happy creed :

"He that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about." "Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart."

Advanced Thinkers.

BY THE EDITOR.

OME animals make up for their natural weakness by their activity

sumption goes a long way with many, and, when pretensions are vociferously made and incessantly intruded, they always secure a measure of belief. Men who affect to be of dignified rank, and superior family, and who, therefore, hold their heads high above the canaille, manage to secure a measure of homage from those who cannot see beneath the surface. There has by degrees risen up in this country a coterie, more than ordinarily pretentious, whose favourite cant is made up of such terms as these: "liberal views," "men of high culture," "persons of enlarged minds and cultivated intellects," "bonds of dogmatism and the slavery of creeds," "modern thought," and so on. That these gentlemen are not so thoroughly educated as they fancy themselves to be, is clear from their incessant boasts of their culture; that they are not free, is shrewdly guessed from their loud brags of liberty; and that they are not liberal, but intolerant to the last degree, is evident, from their superciliousness towards those poor simpletons who abide by the old faith. Jews in old times called Gentiles dogs, and Mahometans cursed unbelievers roundly; but we question whether any men, in any age, have manifested such contempt of others as is constantly evinced towards the orthodox by the modern school of "cultured intellects." Let half a word of protest be uttered by a man who believes firmly in something, and holds by a defined doctrine,and the thunders of liberality bellow forth against the bigot. Steeped up to their very throats in that bigotry for liberality, which, of all others, is the most ferocious form of intolerance, they sneer with the contempt of affected learning at the idiots who contend for "a narrow Puritanism," and express a patronising hope that the benighted adherents of "a half-enlightened creed" may learn more of "that charity which thinketh no evil." To contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints is to them an offence against the enlightenment of the nineteenth century; but, to vamp old, worn-out heresies, and pass them off for deep thinking, is to secure a high position among minds "emancipated from the fetters of traditional beliefs."

Manliness and moral courage are the attributes in which they consider themselves to excel, and they are constantly asserting that hundreds of ministers see with them, but dare not enunciate their views, and so continue to preach one thing and believe another. It may be so here and there, and the more is the cause for sorrow; but we are not sure of the statement, for the accusers themselves may, after all, fancy that they see in others what is really in themselves. The glass in their own houses should forbid their throwing stones. If they were straightforward themselves, they might call others to account; but, in too many cases, their own policy savours of the serpent in a very high degree. The charge could not be fairly brought against all, but it can be proven against many, that they have fought the battles of liberality,