Women's rights finds its best satisfaction here; for here is need of all the grace, the tact, the self-sacrifice of woman, and here is her reward. Happy are those Churches which enjoy the hearty service of their sons and of their daughters; where the gentler gifts and graces of the one set themselves to the sterner qualities of the other, "Like perfect music unto noble words." Phoebe, then, is about to sail for Rome, and she is to be commended to the care and kindness of the brethren there. She will arrive a stranger in the mighty metropolis, in much need of prompt assistance and advice. Hospitality, in all its branches, was a sacred duty in those perilous days. Paul asks that all necessary attentions may be bestowed on this sister from afar; and it is of interest to notice in what terms he writes. He puts his request in a very practical form. The errand is a business one, connected either with commerce, or, as has been thought more likely, with law. It may have been a lawsuit in one of the Imperial courts. A foreigner, like Phoebe, would be at a terrible disadvantage there. She would be unacquainted with the forms of procedure. She might readily become a victim to the wiles of some acute but unprincipled practitioner. Bribery might be used against her, or intimidation might be tried. Paul feels deeply for his Christian friend cast into that vortex of Roman life. "Assist her," is his entreaty to the brethren there. Stand by her in her need. Make her cause your own. Counsel her as to the wisest procedure to adopt. Be at her side when the cause comes on. Throw over her the shield of your superior local knowledge and influence, and see that she is not wronged. It will be a brotherly duty, and it may lead to a prosperous result. Would that our sentiments of Christian friendship were more readily reduced to this form of practical assistance. It is comparatively easy to give alms, and kind words, and prayers. What is often most wanted is a little trouble; a careful consideration of the case, and an endeavour to meet it in the most effectual way. Here, for instance, is a man in want of a situation; can we not procure one for him? There is a sick woman, suffering hopelessly because she has no proper medical attention; can we not provide it? Here some young man is beginning business, or entering on a profession; how much would a little sound advice be worth to him? Or, here again, is a widow left to fight her way through life with her young children, and her natural counsellor gone from her side; what would she give for the fatherly guidance of some Christian man, with experience of the world, who will act a kinsman's part to her in her perplexities? "I commend unto you" these, and such as these, "that ye assist them in whatever business they have need of you." Consider also the mutual character which is to distinguish our Christian friendship. What had Phoebe ever done for the brethren 21 Rome? Nothing. Why then should they be summoned to her side? Because of what she had been to others "a succourer of many, and of myself also." She had stood by Paul in his need, and by many a sick-bed, and in many a poor home, in her own town of Cenchrea. The obligation passes on to all Christians. All are her debtors. She has helped others; now let her be helped in turn. The cup of cold water is to go round from hand to hand. To-day you have to give it; to-morrow you may have to receive it. To your door comes some fainting brother, seeking counsel or comfort. Do not refuse him; your own turn will soon come. Or perhaps your turn has come, and it is you who thirst for sympathy and stand in need of help. Take freely what your friends offer; you will have ample opportunity to repay it. For there is a freemasonry about Christian kindness which we should never fail to recognise; and our Lord's words should have an echo from the lips of every one of His servants, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto them, ye did it unto me." And those words remind us how all our attentions to one another are to spring from one common allegiance to Him. "Receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints." There ought to be a certain characteristic warmth and unction in Christian kindness, distinguishing it from all other. How should we welcome our Lord, if He Himself landed on our shores and came to our house-doors and sought our hospitality, or desired our aid. So are we to receive and succour one another. So let Phoebe be welcomed, with like fervour and alacrity. For the Lord appears in His servant, and the servant is to be looked at in his Lord; and the kindness of the Roman brethren to their sister from afar would not miss of its abundant recompense in the approval of a good conscience and the assurance of a Saviour's regard. MADAME KENT AND HER TRIAL. PICTURE to yourself, reader, a is moss that has taken its time to quaint old house standing embow-grow. ered in green, in the middle of a No more respectable mansion straggling old garden, and that in the heart of a sleepy town in the south. The atmosphere, brooding over everything, is the atmosphere of dreams. There is an air of infinite leisure about everything and everybody. The tide, as it gently laps against the pebbly beach, utters its soft protest concerning the folly of haste. The grass and the dandelion-stars in the busiest streets tell that here, at least, has never come the mad ambition of commerce, and the moss on the eaves of the houses stands in all the aristocratic and well-satisfied town, than the one to which you and I are going to see Madame Kent. It is, or rather was, built of brick, with stone facings, but it was not of the bright ver milion kind that stares you out of countenance with its aggressive newness. These bricks were not bright red, set off with white lines, and making a show of smartness. Time, that tones everything down, had softened the original vermilion to a dingy, coppery tint, and every where that ivy could creep over it, he had found the silence and grimivy had crept. The narrow-paned ness of his old home insupportable, windows were festooned with it, and and had gladly gone away from his its close crowding leaves made an frigid and statuesque sister, and her archway over the front door, and a state and ceremony, to the sunny bower of the latticed porch, which little nest of a home, where his was further shaded and sweetened wife, all dimples, and smiles, and the summer long by a succession sweetness, and his baby daughter, of flowering vines and climbing Julie, were waiting for him. When roses. You stepped inside, and you the former asked him if he intended found yourself in a square hall, returning to A to live, or if from the centre of which the stair- aunt Cornelia did not want to see way wound, with broad, low steps, Julie, he had told her simply that and carved, oaken balusters, to he believed they would all be the passage above. On one side happier if they remained apart. So of the hall was the dining-room, the years had gone by, seven of wainscoted in oak, and darkly them. Madame Kent, waited on by panelled, and on the other the par- servants who had grown grey in lour, a room of ample size and the household, lived her life after a stately furnishing. The Kents were | noiseless and orderly fashion. She people of family. They had por- went to church three times every traits, and relics, and old china, Sunday, she gave food and clothing and silver that had been handed to the poor, and she duly had her down from remote ancestors. They Bible and books of devotional were people of pedigree and posi- poetry in the morning, and her tion, and all the tradition of their favourite Jeremy Taylor and Baxold-time greatness and dignity had ter or Doddridge in the afternoon. descended as a precious inheritance The swallows and the robins came to the last of the family, Madame | spring after spring to build in the Kent. She bore the matronly title branches of the apple and plum by courtesy, for she had never trees in the garden; the sweetmarried, though her hand had been scented violets sent out their subtle sought, in the days of her beautiful breath from lovely nooks, and the girlhood,by the most elegible gentle- lilies bloomed at Easter, in the men in the country round. Her whiteness of stainless purity. Occaonly brother had deeply offended sionally visitors came to call, and their father by an imprudent mar- once in a while Madame Kent gave riage, and Cornelia had striven to a dinner party, at which the magisconsole him by devoting herself to trate and the county member, the his declining years with the loyalty doctor, and the minister were sure to of her life. The brother had made be present, with a judicious sprinka love-match, pure and simple-a ling of elegant dames and sprightly thing unheard of in the records of demoiselles. It was considered an the Kents-and had gone away with honour to be asked to Madame his wife, a pretty little girl, with no Kent's, so exclusive and so clearly dower but her face and her happy defined were her notions of society; temper, to a northern town, from and as her savoir-faire was perfect, whence, at intervals that gradually and her hospitality generous, people grew longer and longer, his sister generally had a pleasant, if a someheard from him. At the father's death what formal, time at her house. and the division of the estate, Theodore had come home for a very brief period, but had not brought his wife or their child with him. In fact, But who can count upon anything remaining established in this world of change? The laws of the Medes and Persians were not more immutably fixed than the laws of of others. She treated Julie at Madame's household economy, and first with unlimited indulgence her plan of life was arranged to her a different thing, by-the-bye, from complete and entire satisfaction, tenderness; then, as the little girl when in a moment there came developed traits of character that a revolution, and Madame Kent's were not attractive, and showed trouble began. herself, on occasions, wilful, hottempered, and disobedient, her aunt alternated toleration with spasms of severity, and dealt out scoldings and sugar-plums in about equal amounts and with equal discretion. The railway-train that connected A with the rest of the world, arrived each evening at six, and its coming was the event of the day to the younger part of the population. The usual groups of men and boys were standing idly about, waiting for the excitement of the incoming train, when one pleasant March evening, there came-not the train, but the news of an accident a few miles above. Who should have been in the wrecked train but Theodore Kent, his wife and child, on their way to surprise Madame by a visit. The father and mother were fatally injured, and lived but a short time after being brought home; and Julie, ten years old, spoiled, and a Kent, was left to the care of her aunt. At first the child's grief and loneliness were excessive, and she was so woe-begone in look and manner, that all her aunt's sympathies were awakened in her behalf. She ate no more than a bird, she cried herself to sleep at nights, and she sat still for hours, a little statue of wretchedness. But God is merciful; even to older hearts He gives surcease of grief when the first strain of its passionate despair is over; and the sorrows of children are like summer showers, violent, but soon past. In a month Julie Kent was only sad now and then, and in three months she was as merry and as thoughtless as ever she had been in her life, A child was an enigma to Madame, she did not take to children naturally, as some women do. Not hers was the motherheart that makes some who have never held their own to their bosoms yet yearn with almost maternal fondness over the children One day at luncheon Madame said to Julie, who came in late, "My dear, I thought I told you to be in your seat every day when the meals are brought in." "I wasn't here, auntie," said Julie. "I was playing with my doll in the garden when Peter rang the bell." "But you should have come directly." "Oh, I was right in the middle of something important, aunt Cornelia, and I couldn't leave it. What difference does it make? "It makes the difference between being prompt and tardy, child, that's all; see that it doesn't happen again. Next time you are late I shall punish you." Next time came the very next day: Miss Julie sauntered in when lunch was nearly over. Madame rose from her chair, put a piece of dry bread on a plate, and filled a goblet with water, then led her niece to her own dressing-room and turned the key on her, leaving the refreshments conveniently on a table. She meant to return in an hour, and if she found the culprit penitent, intended to take her out to ride; but friends came in unexpectedly, and she was detained longer than she had thought to be. The clock was striking four when she went to her room, took the key from her pocket, and, softly unlocking the door, entered the apartment. The sight that met her eyes was enough to have shocked the sensibilities of any fastidious and parti cular maiden lady. Standing before the glass, in an attitude that she at once recognised as peculiarly her own, was Julie; and the contents of drawers, boxes, and baskets, were strewn over the floor, and about the bed, in a promiscuous and heterogeneous heap. The young lady herself was arrayed in Madame's very best black brocade, that she only wore on days of special state; upon the brown and tumbled curls rested Madame's last new cap, a rich affair-all flowers and lace; and over the little figure was gracefully disposed a camel's hair shawl. "Julie Kent ! exclaimed the lady. "Can I believe my own eyes?" The little girl had been so absorbed in her occupation that she had not heard her aunt's entrance. Turning at the sound of her voice, she saw Madame Kent standing as if rooted by some fascination to the spot. She was frightened at her own audacity, which had proceeded from a reckless spirit of mischief rather than from wanton naughtiness, and she stammered out, "Oh, auntie, I didn't mean to. Please forgive me." "It is my opinion, Julie," said Madame, "that you are the worst child that ever lived. I shall get a governess for you to-morrow. You are the trial of my life." Julia had begun to disrobe in natural trepidation, while, like Marius surveying the ruins of Carthage, her aunt looked at the desecration of her most treasured finery. "Whatever could have possessed you, child?" she said at length, slowly; "I am at a loss to understand. How did you dare to open my drawers, and look into my boxes, and masquerade here in my best сар, when you were sent into the room as a punishment, too? Children didn't do such things when I was young. In my opinion, a little girl who would put on her aunt's clothes in such a fashion as this would not hesitate to do anything else steal, for all I know," said Madame, the enormity of Julie's offence taking effect upon her mind, and giving emphasis to her tones. Julie, who had been carefully taking off what she had so daringly put on, turned at this with eyes flashing. Her penitence seemed to have vanished, and she said,— "You know I wouldn't steal, aunt Cornelia. My mother never brought me up to do anything so dreadful as that." “All the bringing up you've ever had, Julie, hasn't amounted to much, judging by your behaviour. You are no credit to anybody. Go out of my sight, and don't come near me again, till I send for you. Oh, you naughty child!" Julie left the room, but not without a parting shot. "I will go away, aunt Cornelia, where you'll never see me any more. But I wouldn't have been so naughty if it hadn't been for you; you know you don't love me, and that's why I've been such a trial." Madame Kent paid very little attention to this speech. All she said, as Julie stood in the doorway,was, "I told you to leave my presence, child. If you don't go at once, I'll call Chloe to carry you." This threat capped the climax of Julie's indignation, and she went with an air of childish dignity, quite equal to Madame Kent's own, down the broad staircase, and out into the garden. In the meantime, the lady, whose anger rose as she proceeded, disdaining to call her maid to her assistance to restore her room and her bureau to their ordinary state of neatness and repose, soliloquised irefully, "Little minx, if she were not an orphan, I certainly should be very severe with her. I believe I have been weakly indulgent. If a child ought not to be punished for such work as this, then she never ought to be punished at all." |