Silken raiment and silver dish,

And all that a maiden's heart could wish :
And the only price for so rare a thing,
A marriage of love-without the ring.
And when-too broken, too forlorn
To fling him his offer back in scorn,
She meekly said that it could not be,
And pleaded-not for herself, but me—
Craving one golden piece-no more-
To save my age from the workhouse-door,
He only patted her cheek, and smiled,
And called her a naughty, wayward child :
He must have his prize if he paid his fee;
If she could be cruel, why, so could he.
Then he kissed her hand, and left her there,
Moaning aloud in dull despair.

So weeks passed over our woful plight;
Shivering day and burning night;
Sounds in the ears, confused and loud,
And meaningless visions in endless crowd.
And deeper and deeper the shadow fell-
The shadow blacker to me than Hell-
And ever I'd pray, as I darkly sat,
"Not the workhouse, O God! not that!"

Late one night my girl returned,

With pale, pale cheeks, and eyes that burned.
I was fainting and light of head-
Never that day a taste of bread.

I stared before me, dazed and dumb:
How could I bear it? The end had come.
She took my hand; she kissed my cheek;
Her tears fell fast, but she did not speak.
I saw the great sobs shake her frame,
But I only muttered, "Oh,, the shame!
The workhouse, Jeanie! the workhouse
now!"

She stooped, and softly kissed my brow,
And I felt her face as an angel's face,
Till she quietly turned, and left the place.

When Jeanie walks the street to-night,
The honest women to left and right
Will part her a lane, and foot the dirt,
Rather than touch her shameful skirt.

But I know, whenever the Trump is blown,
And the nations gather before the Throne,
With conquering martyrs and virgins bright
She'll follow the Lamb, and walk in white.

FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE.

[The author trusts that no reader will be unreasonable enough to identify his opinion or feeling with that of the poor old woman whose story he tells. What good does he expect this poem to do? Well-though poetry need show no such raison d'être-this: he hopes that it may induce some few people to think a little, and more or less to realize the horrible pressure of circumstances that brings a woman's purity and her holiest love into deadly conflict, and that makes a mother regard her daughter's shame as martyrdom and consecration.]

CONSERVATIVE DISESTABLISHMENT.

RELIGIOUS equality is the pivot on which modern

politics have turned. In 1880 the Nonconformists, whose position had been raised, and whose influence had been indefinitely augmented by the Board Schools, rallied to Mr. Gladstone, as the exponent of that principle in Ireland, in the hope that it might be extended to England. The Nonconformist vote has possibly lost weight, owing to the enfranchisement of the working classes in the shires, who, if they are not Churchmen, for the most part are equally indifferent to the cult of the Chapel. These new voters, however, though not religionists, have no affection whatever for the parson, and would certainly vote for disestablishment. proletariat, as a whole, whose major premiss is a fair field and no favour in every domain of life, would be the first to assert that axiom in respect of religion; besides which, not very discriminating intellects imagine that the clergy are paid for doing nothing at all.

The

In fine, disestablishment must come-perchance, as the Conservatives affirm, as a bane; perchance as a blessing to Anglicanism. What we have to face is this, that Christians of various denominations, including a section of the Church, object to the perpetuation of sixteenth-century ideas on doctrine and ritual. The satire, too, of the many religions and one sauce holds true, and men not in communion with the Church as by law established feel a grievance at the status of disadvantage held by their sects. Moreover, this feeling is intensified by the fact of the aristocracy and upper classes being mostly either Anglican or Roman. The wealthy manufacturer or tradesman girds at the attitude adopted by men whose purse is not always on a par with their social position, the former being unequal to support the latter, towards their religious brotherhood, and they have registered a resolve that these social superiorities shall, in the future, pay for their own creed. The friction between Church and Dissent may not be very Christian, but it is pre-eminently human, and the latter has a perfect right to ask for equality, while its power to enforce that appeal has become absolute. Thoughtful minds must regret the relegation of a vast religious organisation, comprehensive yet cohesive, to the rank of a sect; yet after the consensus of Nonconformists in favour of this same religious revolution, there can be no question of

delaying it; indeed, in the interest of Anglicanism it would be preferable to any such intolerable state interference as that imposed by Mr. Acland or Mr. Albert Grey. The problem to be solved is not disestablishment, but its method; and this concerns others than Anglicans. Nonconformists may buy religious equality too dear. Doubtless the spectacle of the Church levelled down would be supremely gratifying to those who have smarted so long under what they have, rightly or wrongly, deemed the superbity of that religious organisation. But this voluptuous satisfaction can be arrived at without dealing an ugly blow at Christianity itself.

To put the issue baldly: The Christian religion in England is handsomely endowed, but unluckily we are not all agreed as to what that abstraction is. During the centuries when this vast bulk of endowment was aggregated unanimity prevailed; but since the Reformation confusion has been worse confounded. To the Ultramontane, Christianity is the religion of Mary; to the Anglican, that of Jesus; to the Calvinist, of the Holy Spirit; to the Unitarian, of God the Father. Moreover, these creeds are hardly reconcileable. Their genus is merged in their differentia if not in their accidents. The late Mr. Robert Aitken tried to harmonise Catholicity and Evangelicalism, and so far as theory went his attempt was successful. But practically the eirenicon of Aitken was as unfruitful as that of Pusey in a different direction. He hoped-and his aspiration was a noble one-to fuse Methodism with Anglicanism, on the basis of the acceptance of the leading tenet of the former by the latter, and the submission of the latter to the authority of the former. He was at once an ardent nominalist and an ardent realist, while he believed that both principles were so good as to be separable solely by mental confusion. The failure of Aitken can only be termed tell-tale as regards the question of disestablishment. It proves fatally that antagonism exists, and must continue to exist. That being so, the preference of the State for one phase of Christian thought and practice may be styled a truly benevolent injustice. The Church of England, as by law established, can no longer hold her status of privilege against the pitiless logic of the sects.

The sects, however, for the most part, are earnestly Christian. When we find the Salvation Army complimenting the Roman priesthood on the purer morality which is the direct result of their system,-when we find a colossal apostolic figure like that of Aitken pointing to Methodism as the exponent of vital religion, we cannot despair of Christianity as inculcated by teachers apart from Anglicanism. At one time it was the fashion to put the Roman Church

out of court, as the murderer of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer; and Puritanism equally as the butcher of Charles the First and Laud. But these trees, since the dark days that followed the Reformation, have not borne evil fruit. The fraternity of Wesley and Whitfield, the Church of Newman and Faber, are at least as entitled to respect as the too Erastian Church of England, with its jobbed preferment and cruel neglect of such men as Keble, Aitken, Maurice, and F. W. Robertson. In appealing to religious organizations not in communion with the Church of England one may feel safe of one's ground. These Churches, or sects, have a zeal for Christianity, and their aspirations are too exalted to permit them, with their eyes open, to strike a blow at the religion of the Cross, simply for the sake of envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness. True, the Nonconformists generally have benefited largely by the School Board system, and may imagine that they would benefit further by the Free School system, both of which are non-religious. They have not yet begun to distrust a curriculum of education which eliminates religious instruction, nor will they, until brought face to face with aggressive Agnosticism; nevertheless, although they have hitherto sided with Free-thought, it is possible that they may pause before handing over to the State a huge endowment, every penny of which was given to God.

The precedent of the Irish Church disestablishment is assumed to be the only possible alternative. In that instance the endowment of the Church was swept into the coffers of the State, and the House of Commons declined so much as to consider the plan suggested of levelling up, i.e., of dividing, on the basis of numbers, the revenue of the Church between Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians. Although justice and policy alike demanded it, the representatives of English and Scotch constituencies quailed before the idea of endowing the Roman priesthood; and thus God's revenues were secularised, and Ireland has been since then neither more tranquil, more religious, nor more loyal, but rather the reverse. Popular bigotry swindled, not the Roman hierarchy, but God Himself; and having sown the wind we have reaped the whirlwind. When, therefore, the precedent of the Irish robbery is quoted, the retort of those who profess and call themselves Christian ought to be, that it is one to be avoided. We must believe or disbelieve in a Special Providence; but if the former, then to ignore its operation would be illogical. The disestablishment of the Irish Church may or may not have been "a sop to assassins"; it may have been not only justifiable but obli