harmony with its teachings. These propositions were all declared by a Papal bull to be "heretical."

The Recluses held it to be their sacred duty to defend doctrines in accordance with the teachings of St. Cyran, and the "great Arnauld," Angélique's youngest brother, wrote voluminously on the subject, but by far the best work on the controversy was the “Provincial Letters."

For some time the nuns took no part in the matter; indeed, ignorant as they were of what was passing outside the convent, it is doubtful whether many of them had heard of the fierce struggle between the Jesuits and Jansenists. The former were, however, the more powerful party, and procured a decree, ordering the dispersion of the Reclases and the breaking-up of the convent schools. The nuns were daily anticipating their own banishment, when a remarkable incident completely turned the tide of popular feeling. This was the miracle of the Holy Thorn. A valuable relic, said to contain a thorn from the crown of our Lord, had been sent to Port Royal, for the inspection and adoration of the faithful. In the convent school was a child named Margaret Perier, who had suffered three and a-half years from a disease of the eye, and was about to undergo an operation. As the children passed in procession before the relic, Sister Flavie touched Margaret's eye with the Holy Thorn. The same evening the child remarked that it had ceased to pain her, and the next morning, upon examination, the eye was found to be perfectly healthy. The story was noised abroad, and the Jesuits at once suspected a trick. Competent physicians were sent to examine the child, and confirmed the genuineness of the care. A great thanksgiving service was held, when the Holy Thorn and Margaret Perier were exhibited to admiring crowds. We cannot stay to discass the so-called miracle, but the results were very important to Port Royal. Every one regarded it as a Divine interposition in their favour. The Recluses were allowed to return, the schools were reopened, and for three years there was great peace in the Convent.

Then the storm which had so long been gathering burst on the peaceful community. A decree was issued that all priests, nuns, and schoolmasters should sign a formulary of submission to the Pope's condemnation of the five propositions. The Recluses, determined not to sign the hateful document, dispersed, and went into hiding. The schools were broken up in 1660. Angélique felt that her place was in Paris, and took a sorrowful leave of Port Royal des Champs, knowing that it was for the last time. In Paris she saw, with a heavy heart, the children of the schools and the novices depart, until at last she said, "Fathers, sisters, disciples, children—all are gone. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Not

much longer was Angélique to wait in loneliness: for three months she suffered in pain of body and darkness of soul; but there was light at eventide, and with the name of Jesus on her lips she passed away, August 6th, 1661.

After her death, by the advice of their friends, most of the nuns signed the formulary, after appending a protest; but even then the hand of persecution was not stayed. Fifty years later the few nuns who remained in Port Royal-all of them feeble old women were rudely dispersed, and banished to other convents, and so the last traces of Angélique's life-work were obliterated. In thể words of her eloquent biographer, Frances Martin, to whom I am indebted for the materials of this sketch, "Angélique Arnauld is nothing more than a name, but a name which those who have known it once can never forget, Her influence survives, though not her work. Her heroism may kindle our hearts, though we search in vain for any traces of that Port Royal des Champs she loved so well, of the church in which she worshipped, and the chapter-house in which she spoke.

"The Roman Catholic Church has rejected her, and yet the truth remains that she is of the order of the saints, and all the saints are of her order."

THE ANGEL'S MESSAGE.

BY LUCY WARDEN BEARNE.

SOLEMNLY, solemnly tolled the bells,
While the night was still and clear;
They echoed aloud in the forest dells,
And over the frozen mere.

Oh, sad was the sound of those solemn bells,
Which rang for the dying year!

Within my room I sat alone to listen,

While at my side the fire burned red and low;
Outside, bright moonbeams softly fell and glistened
With silvery radiance on a world of snow.
And as I hearkened to the bells' low pealing,
A vision, or a dream, most passing fair,
Came, o'er my drowsy senses softly stealing,
Like a bright mirage, transient and rare.

In that brief hour of strange and vivid dreaming,
I stood upon a moor with snow-drifts white,
And all around a wondrous light was beaming,
Clear as the sun, but far more rarely bright.

And looking up, I suddenly discovered
A shining angel standing at my side;
While strains of heavenly music softly hovered
Above around me, o'er the moorland wide.
No fear oppressed my heart, as bending lowly,
Forgetful of all earthly times and things,
I gazed upon the angel's face of glory,
And the pure radiance of her stainless wings;
Until upon the cold air softly falling,

Sweeter than earthly sounds can ever be,
I heard a clear voice gently, sweetly calling,
"Rise, sister, for my errand is to thee."
And when I looked the shining one was holding,
With steady grasp, two scrolls before my eyes,
Which, slowly in her upraised hands unfolding,
Revealed strange things which filled me with surprise.
For on one scroll, which in the night-breeze fluttered,
I read a written record, true and clear,

Of past events, and words which I had uttered,
While passing through this swiftly dying year.
Sadly I read of work too oft neglected,

Of precious moments wasted, one by one;
With bitter self-upbraiding I reflected
On all the duties I had left undone.

But on the second scroll of pure white pages
No word was penned, and not a line was traced;

No chronicle was there of vanished ages,

No blot or stain the spotless sheet defaced.

Again the Angel spoke: "Oh, gaze no longer
On the sad story that is written here;

But seek for grace and faith to make thee stronger,
To fill with nobler things the new, bright year.

"For on this solemn night my Master sends me

To give to thee an earnest message here,

That thou shalt fill this new, pure scroll He lends thee With faithful records through the coming year

"Of all the earnest work and faithful duty

Which He, in love, shall give thee to fulfil; Of hours of pain, or days of joy and beauty, Which will be sent to thee as God shalt will. "And this remember: What is once recorded

Upon this scroll remains from age to age; One chance alone to mortals is afforded

Of filling, well or ill, this spotless page.

"No hand has power to blot a single story

Of good or ill which thou shalt here record; Then see that with bright tale of joy and glory These pages may be well and wisely stored;

"Of willing service, which thy hand shalt render
To the great Master whom we love and fear;
Then that good Friend, who is so wise and tender,
Will guide and bless thee through His glad new year."
The Angel fled, the heavenly radiance faded,
And o'er the snowy moor dark shadows stole,
As, kneeling there, I prayed I might be aided
To fill aright my new and stainless scroll.
Merrily, merrily, chimed the bells,
And I woke with a start to hear,

As they echoed aloud in the forest dells,
And over the frozen mere.

Oh, sweet was the sound of the merry bells
That rang for the glad New Year!

EAST ANGLIAN RECOLLECTIONS.
(Concluding Article.)

BY J. EWING RITCHIE.

ABBO FLORIANCIS, who flourished in the year A.D. 910, describes East Anglia as "very noble, and particularly because of its being watered on all sides. On the south and east it is encompassed on the ocean, on the north by the moisture of large and wet fens which, arising almost in the heart of the island, because of the evenness of the ground for a hundred miles and more, descend in great rivers into the sea. On the west the province is joyned to the rest of the island, and, therefore, may be entered (by land), but lest it should be frequented with the frequent incursions of the enemy it is fortifyed with an earthern rampire like a high wall, and with a ditch. The inner parts of it is a pretty rich soil, made exceeding pleasant by gardens and groves, rendered agreeable by its convenience for hunting, famous for pasturage, and abounding with sheep and all sorts of cattle. not insist upon its rivers full of fish, considering that a tongue as it were of the sea itself licks it on one side and on the other side the large fens make a prodigious number of lakes two or three miles over. These fens accommodate great numbers of monks with their desired retirement and solitude, with which, being enclosed, they have no occasion for the privacy of a wilderness." Before the monks came the place was held by the Iceni-a stout and valiant people, as Tacitus describes them. In the time of the

Heptarchy, King Uffa was their lord and master. In later times Suffolk, when explored by Camden, was celebrated for its cheeses, which, to the great advantage of the inhabitants, were bought up through all England, Day, in Germany also, with France and Spain, as Pantaleon Medicus has told us, who scruples not to set them against those of Placentia both in colour and taste. To the Norfolk people, it must be admitted, Camden gives the palm. The goodness of the soil of that county, he argues, "may be gathered from hence, that the inhabitants are of a bright, clear complexion, not to mention their sharpness of wit and admirable quickness in the study of our common law. So that it is at present, and always has been, reputed the common nursery of lawyers, and even amongst the common people you shall meet with a great many who (as one expresses it), if they have no just quarrel, are able to raise it out of the very quirks and niceties of the law." In our time it is rather the fashion to run down the East Anglians, yet that they have done their duty to their county no one can deny. "They say we are Norfolk fales," said a waiter at a Norfolk Hotel, to me, a little while ago; "but I aint ashamed of my county for all that." Why should he be, the reader naturally asks?

For instance, let us take one Norfolk family. In Westminster Abbey, near the monument to Wilberforce, is one to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, who was buried in the ruined chancel of the little church at Oberstrand, near Northrepps, "a droll, irregular, unconventional-looking place," as Cardinal Fox calls it, where he loved at all times to live, and where he retired to die. The family from which Sir Thomas descended resided, about the middle of the sixteenth century, at Sudbury, in Suffolk. It was while at Earlham that he made his debut as a public speaker at one of the earlier public meetings of the Norfolk Bible Society. In the winter of 1817 he went over to France with some of the Gurneys and the Rev. Francis Cuningham, who was anxious to establish a Bible Society in Paris. He was also anxious to inquire into the way in which the gaols at Antwerp and Ghent were conducted. On his return he examined minutely into the state of the London gaols, and, to use his own expression, his inquiries developed a system of folly and wicked. ness which surpassed belief. In the following year he published a work entitled, "An Inquiry whether Crime be Produced or Prevented by our Present System of Penal Discipline," which ran through six editions, and tended powerfully to create a proper public feeling on the subject. In 1819 we find him in Parliament seconding Sir James Mackintosh in his efforts to promote a reform of our criminal law-then the most sanguinary in Europe. One of his earliest efforts was to get the House to abolish the