change alternately into the forms of men and serpents, each biting the other into this change—

"Ivy ne'er clasped

A doddered oak, as round the other's limbs
The hideous monster intertwined his own;
Then, as they both had been of burning wax,
Each melted into other." 1

Read the story of the three transformations for yourself (Cantos xxiv., xxv.), and then note the main point of all, that the spirit of such theft is especially indicated by its intense and direct manner of blasphemy :—

"I did not mark,

Through all the gloomy circle of the abyss,
Spirit that swelled so proudly 'gainst its God,
Not him who headlong fell from Thebes." 2

The soul is Vanni Fucci's, who rifled the sacristy of St. James of Pistoja, and charged Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege, whereupon the latter suffered death. For in those days, death was still the reward of sacrilege by the Law of State; whereas, while I write this Fors, I receive notice of the conjunction of the sacred and profane civic powers of London to de-consecrate, and restore to the definitely pronounced "unholy" spaces of this world, the church of All-Hallows, wherein Milton was christened.

A Bishop was there to read, as it were, the Lord's Prayer backwards, or at least address it to the Devil instead of to God, to pray that over this portion of British Metropolitan territory His Kingdom might again come."

1 [Inferno (Cary's translation), xxv. 51-55.]

2 Ibid. (Cary's translation), xxv. 12-15. Cary has "circles" and "his" God.] In 1876 the parish of All Hallows, Bread Street, was united with that of St. Mary-le-Bow, and the church itself was pulled down at the end of 1877. On the east side of Bread Street, marking the spot formerly occupied by the church, a bust of Milton has been let into the wall, with an inscription recording that he was there baptized. The ceremony of deconsecration was performed by Bishop Claughton, and reported in the Times of October 20, 1876. "A momentary sensation was caused," says the report, "by a man in the congregation at the foot of the church declaring in a loud voice that he protested against the proceedings." The Times of subsequent days makes no mention of any arrest.]

10. A notable sign of the times,-completed, in the mythical detail of it, by the defiance of the sacred name of the Church, and the desecration of good men's graves, lest, perchance, the St. Ursulas of other lands should ever come on pilgrimage, rejoicing, over the sea, hopeful to see such holy graves among the sights of London.

Infinitely ridiculous, such travelling as St. Ursula's, you think, to see dead bodies, forsooth, and ask, with every poor, bewildered Campagna peasant, "Dov'è San Paolo?"1 Not at all such the object of modern English and American Tourists!-nay, sagacious Mr. Spurgeon came home from his foreign tour, and who more proud than he to have scorned, in a rational manner, all relics and old bones ?? I have some notes by me, ready for February,' concerning the unrejoicing manner of travel adopted by the sagacious modern tourist, and his objects of contemplation, for due comparison with St. Ursula's; but must to-day bring her lesson close home to your own thoughts.

11. Look back to §§ 5 and 16 of the Fors of January for this year. The first tells you, what this last sign of Church desecration now confirms, that you are in the midst of men who, if there be truth in Christianity at all, must be punished for their open defiance of Heaven by the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit, and the triumph of the Evil One. And you are told in the last paragraph that by the service of God only you can recover the presence of the Holy Ghost of Life and Health-the Comforter.

This vaguely and imperfectly, during the last six years,

* My friend Mr. W. C. Sillar rose in the church, and protested, in the name of God, against the proceedings. He was taken into custody as disorderly, the press charitably suggested, only drunk ;—and was, I believe, discharged without fine or imprisonment, for we live in liberal days.

1 [See Letter 43, § 13 (p. 119).]

[See, for instance, My Run to Ñaples and Pompeii, a lecture by C. H. Spurgeon on Tuesday, January 28, 1873.]

[When the time came, however, other topics intervened. The notes in question are now printed in Appendix 18 (Vol. XXIX. p. 574).]

[Letter 61 (above, pp. 488-489, 501-502).]

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proclaimed to you, as it was granted me-in this coming seventh year I trust to make more simply manifest;1 and to show you how every earthly good and possession will be given you, if you seek first the Kingdom of God and His Justice. If, in the assurance of Faith, you can ask and strive that such kingdom may be with you, though it is not meat and drink, but Justice, Peace, and Joy in the Holy Ghost,-if, in the first terms I put to you for oath,* you will do good work, whether you live or die, and so lie down at night, whether hungry or weary, at least in peace of heart and surety of honour;-then, you shall rejoice, in your native land, and on your nursing sea, in all fulness of temporal possession;-then, for you the earth shall bring forth her increase, and for you the floods clap their hands; -throughout your sacred pilgrimage, strangers here and sojourners with God, yet His word shall be with you,-" the land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is Mine," and after your numbered days of happy loyalty, you shall go to rejoice in His Fatherland, and with His people.

5

* Compare Letter 46, § 8, to end, observing especially the sentence out of 2nd Esdras, "before they were sealed that have gathered Faith for a Treasure" [§ 9]."

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE

12. (I.) AFFAIRS of the Company.

There is no occasion to put our small account again in print till the end of the year: we are not more than ten pounds ahead, since last month.1

I certainly would not have believed, six years ago, that I had so few friends who had any trust in me; or that the British public would have entirely declined to promote such an object as the purchase of land for national freehold.

Next year I shall urge the operatives whom any words of mine may reach, to begin some organization with a view to this object among themselves. They have already combined to build co-operative mills; they would find common land a more secure investment.

I am very anxious to support, with a view to the determination of a standard of material in dress, the wool manufacture among the old-fashioned cottagers of the Isle of Man; and I shall be especially grateful to any readers of Fors who will communicate with Mr. Egbert Rydings (Laxey, Isle of Man) on this subject. In the island itself, Mr. Rydings tells me, the stuffs are now little worn by the better classes, because they "wear too long,”—a fault which I hope there may be yet found English housewives who will forgive. At all events, I mean the square yard of Laxey homespun of a given weight, to be one of the standards of value in St. George's currency.2

The cheque of £25, sent to Mr. Rydings for the encouragement of some of the older and feebler workers, is the only expenditure, beyond those for fittings slowly proceeded with in our museum at Sheffield, to which I shall have to call attention at the year's end.

13. (II.) Affairs of the Master.

Though my readers, by this time, will scarcely be disposed to believe it, I really can keep accounts, if I set myself to do so: and even greatly enjoy keeping them, when I do them the first thing after my Exodus or Plato every morning; and keep them to the uttermost farthing. I have examples of such in past diaries; one, in particular, great in its exhibition of the prices of jargonel and Queen Louise pears at Abbeville. And my days always go best when they are thus begun, as far as pleasant feeling and general prosperity of work are concerned. But there is a great deal of work, and especially such as I am now set on, which does not admit of accounts in the morning; but imperatively requires the fastening down forthwith of what first comes into one's mind after waking. Then the accounts get put off; tangle their thread-(so the Fates always instantly then ordain)-in some eightpenny matter, and without Edipus to help on the right hand and Ariadne on the left, there's no bringing them right 1 [See above, p. 749.]

2 For Mr. Rydings and the Laxey homespuns, see above, p. 585, and Vol. XXX.] The diary of 1868.]

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again. With due invocation to both, I think I have got my own accounts, for the past year, stated clearly below.

In the first column are the receipts for each month; in the second, the expenditure; in the third, the balance, which is to be tested by adding the previous balance to the receipts in the first column, and deducting the expenditure from the sum.

The months named are those in which the number of Fors was published in which the reader will find the detailed statements: a grotesque double mistake, in March, first in the addition and then in the subtraction, concludes in a total error of threepence; the real balance being £225, 5s. 6d. instead of £225, 5s. 9d. I find no error in the following accounts beyond the inheritance of this excessive threepence (in October, p. 334,2 the entry under September 1 is misprinted 10 for 15; but the sum is right), until the confusion caused by my having given the banker's balance in September, which includes several receipts and disbursements not in my own accounts, but to be printed in the final yearly estimate in Fors of next February. My own estimate, happily less than theirs, brings my balance for last month to £784, 8s.; taking up which result, the present month's accounts are as follows:

1 [These balances should be £319, 14s. and £670, 9s. 4d.: see the author's correction, Letter 74, § 18 (Vol. XXIX. p. 50).]

2 [Letter 70, § 16 (p. 729).]

[See above, pp. 583, 729.]

XXVIII.

3 c