where she was well received by the Emperor, and remained some time. The news of her enemy's invasion hastened her departure. It was 1813, however, before she arrived in London. Her reception was immense. All the fashion and all the celebrities of the day crowded to visit her. Her residence was at No. 30, Argyle Place, Regent Street. Accustomed to the freer society of Paris, and not understanding English exclusiveness, her assemblies were more numerous than select. Lord Byron said that her table reminded him of the grave, because there all distinctions are levelled. Peers, dandies, the most eminent literati and Grub Street scribblers, were equally to be found there. It was at this time that 'De l'Allemagne' was at length given to the world. It is the finest of all her works, and as in his earlier essays Carlyle first fully revealed the German genius to England, so did she perform the same office for France. The book, however, attained a European perusal, and as such anticipated the labours of the English author.

Upon the Restoration she returned to that darling Paris for which she was ever sighing. Her salons were more brilliant than ever. Wellington, Chateaubriand, Humboldt, Blucher, Sismondi, Constant, Lafayette, Guizot, the two Schlegels, Canova, Madame Récamier, and large numbers of old friends from England, among others, Madame D'Arblay, were constantly seen there. The news of the escape from Elba scattered all these brilliant spirits to the four winds, and Madame de Staël once more retired to Coppet. But soon afterwards M. Rocca's health obliged her to go into Italy. There she remained until 1816, in which year she once more returned to Switzerland. About this time Byron hired a house near Geneva, and was her constant guest. "Madame de Staël," he wrote, "has made Coppet as agreeable to me as kindness and pleasant society can make a place." Writing of her after her death the great poet says:

"All those whom the charm of involuntary wit and of easy hospitality attracted within the friendly circle of Coppet should rescue from oblivion those virtues which, although they are said to love the shade, are in fact more frequently chilled than excited by the domestic cares of private life. Some one should be found to portray the unaffected graces with which she adorned those dear relationships. Some one should be found not to celebrate but to describe the amiable mistress of an open mansion, the centre of a society ever varied and always pleased, the creator of which, divested of the ambition and the arts of public rivalry, shone forth only to give fresh animation to those about her. The mother tenderly affectionate and tenderly beloved, the friend unboundedly generous, but still esteemed, the charitable patroness of all distresses, cannot be forgotten by those whom she cherished, and protected, and fed. Her loss will be mourned the most where she was known the best, and to the sorrows of very many friends and more dependents may be offered the disinterested regret of a stranger, who amidst the sublime scenes of Lake Leman received his chief satisfaction from contemplating the engaging qualities of the incomparable 'Corinne.'"

Her last literary productions were among her finest,-her Réflexions sur la Révolution Française,' and her Dix Années d'Exil.' In the latter she gives some striking pictures of Russia, Poland, and the different countries through which she passed on her way to England.

6

In 1817 she was seized with a violent fever, to which she ultimately succumbed. The day before her death she read a portion of Byron's Manfred,' and marked some of the finest passages. Upon her sick-bed none of her great or good qualities abandoned her. To the last she was patient and devout, and her intellect undimmed. "I have always been the same," she said when she was dying; "lively and sad, I have loved God, my father, and liberty."

Her husband survived her only a few months. The loss of his noble and brilliant partner proved too much for a constitution already shattered by disease.

To enter into an analysis of her books comes not within the scope of this paper, and it would not probably interest the general reader. Her character, which was frank to a fault, is revealed in her life. By her children she was loved with an ardour that almost equalled her own filial devotion. All her affections, we are told, partook of the nature of love, whether they were friendship, or filial or maternal love. Although she had a considerable amount of vanity, and loved to talk of her talents and successes, she had no particle of envy, jealousy, or rancour in her nature. In friendship she was as ardent as she was constant. But she had a curious habit of analysing the characters of those with whom she was intimate, even in their presence. "I cannot help it," she would say. "If I were on my way to the scaffold I should be dissecting the characters of the friends who were to suffer with me." She also formed her judgments very quickly, and seldom changed them. She said very wisely, "A man may be known in an hour, or in ten years; no intermediate impressions are to be relied upon." She judged herself, however, as strictly as she did others, and was the most severe upon her own faults. She always had a profound sense of religion, and although perhaps during the more brilliant period of her life she inclined a little towards philosophism, her latter years were characterised by a sincerely Christian piety.

The Ideal of a National Church.

I.

WORSHIP.

If there is to be a National Church at all, it is plainly desirable that it should include, if not the entire nation, then as large a part of the nation as possible. As it is not now possible to force people into conformity with the National Church, the only remaining way of getting people to conform to it is by attracting them to it: that is, by making things about the Church such as people will like, and will be pleased with. I purpose to point out in this and some following short chapters certain points in which National Churches have hitherto failed to make themselves as pleasant as they might be to as great a number of people as possible. I do not pretend to any special knowledge of church history; that is not in the least necessary for my purpose. I shall build on no facts but such as everybody knows. No good, therefore, will follow from some small-minded, well-informed person laying himself on my track to catch me tripping in little details, and then to show me up with the air of a man who has answered me. Such treatment will be merely irrelevant: or, to use the language of such actual life as I know, will have nothing to do with the matter.

Associating chiefly with ignorant blockheads, in a remote rural place, possibly I may have formed too humble an idea of the general intelligence of the human race; and thus, in what is to be said, may fire too low. Most of those I usually meet know almost nothing, and are incapable of understanding anything that is said to them. Knowing exceedingly little myself, and possessing very limited faculties, I have yet to come downstairs a good way in speaking to them. And thus a bad habit of intellectual condescension is formed, which may break out where it ought not.

Let us first think of worship.

Public worship is esteemed as a necessary part of the organisation of all Christian communities. People meet together in buildings appointed for the purpose at least on Sundays, and join in a certain ritual. We put the Church of Rome out of our view, as far too big, and too confirmed in its own way of doing things, to be in the least degree affected by anything here written. And looking at the Protestant communions of Britain, it may be said that their public worship consists of prayer, praise, reading Scripture, and preaching with the occasional celebration of sacramental solemnities of a special character.

In England the prayers are provided by authority, and read by the officiating priest from a printed book. In Scotland the officiating priest invents or compiles his own prayers, and the congregation can never be sure what is coming. In England the worship is in part antiphonal: the people respond to the petitions said by the clergyman. In Scotland the people listen to or join in the prayers in silence: not even Amen is audibly said. As for praise, the main difference is that in England the singing has instrumental accompaniment; in Scotland, generally, not so. For the reading of the lessons and the preaching, things are much alike in both countries. There are differences, further, in the way in which the clergy on either side of the Tweed are dressed out. And in England, the officiating priest does part of the service in one place; then moves a few feet off and does another part; turning about, likewise, in several directions: all this for no reason known to the mass of the congregation. In Scotland, the architect fixes on a point where the clergyman can be seen, and whence he can be heard; and proceeding to that point, he does the entire service, with no change of attitude beyond standing up and sitting down. Very keen likes and dislikes exist in the mind of many people as to the various points of difference in these ways of conducting public worship.

Now it seems to me that those who have arranged the methods of public worship in National Churches, have fallen into error by selecting or devising and enforcing that one form of worship which was in their judgment the best; ignoring the inevitable difference there must always be between the likings of the vulgar and the cultivated in such matters; not to mention the likings of exceptional classes as well as individuals. Thus in England the worship of the National Church has been proved by long trial to repel the poor, and even the lower middle class; while in Scotland the worship of the National Church has been proved by centuries of trial to repel the more cultivated. In Cornwall, in Wales, in large parts of Yorkshire, in cathedral churches everywhere, the Church persists in providing a worship which the masses will not accept; and thus in driving them out of the Church to get what they want, which ought to be provided for them within the Church. The Anglican Church virtually says to the poor, "You ought to like this, because it is the best in the opinion of those most qualified to judge." It is as though you persisted in thrusting Mozart's music on people who are educated only up to the mark of appreciating a negro melody. But a thing is not good unless it is good to you. And if you be so ignorant and uncultivated that you cannot enjoy or even discover the inexpressible beauty of the Liturgy, nor join with pleasure in choral worship under the sublime vault of this cathedral or that, it will serve no purpose to try to thrust the thing upon you. Now, why should not the National Church recognise the great varieties

of taste that exist in the nation; and provide or permit an equal variety in its public worship ?-providing Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster with their grand service for such as like it; and the flat-roofed brick meeting-house too with its howling preacher for the numbers who crowd to it, and who can enjoy its rude prayers and exhortations? All religious feeling should be permitted to find its expression within the pale of the Church; and the religious feeling of all kinds of people, the rudest and humblest as well as the most cultivated. Why not recognise the fact that a very stupid man, who cannot at all see the difficulties which surround many theological topics to the view of persons with more insight, is eminently fitted to please and profit many congregations; and so seek to cultivate a large order of very stupid men, self-confident, loud-voiced, fluent of speech and empty of thought? Why not recognise the fact that a gentleman is less fitted to reach certain classes than a man drawn from their own order; and thus have hewers of wood and drawers of water within the Church rather than outside it? One Sunday afternoon, being in a little cathedral City, I went to the cathedral; one of the noblest in England, with a truly grand service, most carefully and reverently performed. There was hardly any congregation in the magnificent place. Coming out of the church, and passing through a dirty by-street, I saw a large crowd pouring out of the very seediest little conventicle I ever beheld. So there were Christian people in that little city that May Sunday, ready to go to church if they were interested in what was done there, yet who plainly were not at all attracted or interested by the worship of the minster. Why were these poor people driven out of the Church of England to get what they wanted? Why does not the Church of England provide for them as well as for their betters? I do not know what sect that little meeting-house belonged to; but I am bold to say that the crowd of people who attended it went there simply because the worship in it pleased them, and not in the least because they had any fault to find with the doctrine or government of their National Church. There seems to be no good reason for a hard and fast uniformity of worship within the Church. Plain buildings, without organs, with a service permitting the utmost liberty of extemporaneous prayer, which, though rude and irreverent and abhorrent to a cultivated taste, can yet adapt itself to the present wants and feelings of poor people as no Liturgy ever can, ought to be part of the equipment of the Church of England. No principle is involved in the matter. It is a mere matter of expediency. But the expediency is very obvious and urgent. Are you, lest you permit a worship beneath the aesthetic sensibilities of the best educated, to drive scores of thousands of zealous Christians into schism? The aesthetic folk need never go to the plain conventicles; so they will not be offended. And the difference is immense,