declared that an emperor in his purple is not to be compared with a saint in his dungeon, and that if a man were offered the whole round world and all that it contains, he would be a madman to buy it with his soul.

(2.) Because it is evangelical, for it is one thing to receive news, another to be offered good news. No generation has ever been told so much new truth as ours, and we ought to be grateful for every word; but it must be confessed that much of our recent knowledge has not been cheerful. It is very useful in its way to expound the law of heredity, and to rub into the conscience that whatsoever a man sows is unborn children will reap, that he may take heed to his ways and walk godly. It is also good for every one of us to remember that character is a slow growth, but when it is once formed the man is at its mercy, so that each man is becoming what he has made himself, for surely the knowledge of this principle of life will make us very careful about every thought and action. And we may as well understand that human society has been wrought into its present shape by forces whose play we can trace in the past and whose power in the future we can anticipate, if it were only that we may adjust our common life to those forces. But all this information casts down rather than lifts up. What we all long for - -as we realise the grip of the inexorable laws of nature-is some new power which will undo the evil that has been wrought, recast character and regenerate society. This is the deepest desire in many a heart that is not especially religious or earnest, and the Gospel is the answer. It meets the heredity of Adam with the grace of Christ; it replaces the character of the old man with the likeness of the new; it introduces another leaven into society by the Incarnation of our Lord. The Gospel is the cure for that pessimism that makes a man despair first of himself and then of the race, and it is therefore a message in which to-day all reasonable men should rejoice, of which Christians may well boast.

(3.) It is ethical, and that not only because the Evangel produces good living but also because the Evangel is saturated with the idea of righteous

but let us who live in an age of morbid sentimentality forgive them. They believed with all their strength in these two august ideas a righteous God and a righteous man. One wing of thought insists that God is a synonym for power, and another wing that God is a synonym for goodness; but every reasonable being desires to be assured that the power and goodness are rooted in righteousness. It is not enough to point to the fat pastures of the plain to convince me of God; I want also the fire and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah: nor enough to point to the provision made for my needs; I want also the judgments that blast my sins. No person lives, however wicked or indifferent, who has not a vital interest in the righteousness of God. Who is to gain if God be unrighteous-making no distinction between good and bad? Neither the good whom He does not justify, nor the bad whom He does not condemn. It were better to be dammed by a righteous God than accepted by an unrighteous, for in the former case we should have a salutary hell, in the latter we should have no heaven worth the taking. Imagine what any country would be where justice was not administered; imagine what the spiritual order would be if righteousness be not the foundation of the Divine throne. It would mean that I, with at least some conscience within me, would be better than a conscienceless God. Had the Evangel only insisted on the unchangeability and majesty of the Divine justice, it had done well by us all.

And it is worthy of a true Gospel to insist on the dignity of man as well as of God. It were a poor proceeding for the prodigal to hide behind the crest of the hill till the shadows had fallen, and then to steal into his father's house by some back door, to live in hiding, a son of whom the household was ashamed, to whom no neighbour would allude. This were a degrading home-coming for the penitent sinner, a return that would mean another departure. No, that is not the way of the Evangel. The Eternal has made the far country an inward hell of self-reproach and moral misery, that we may learn to hate it because it is so loathsome; He has made His fellowship a heaven of austere holiness and high ends, that we may seek it because it is so lovely. There will be no disgrace in the return, for the penitent will come by the King's highway of righteousness, no disgrace in the welcome, for the mighty angels will go out to meet him, putting on him a new robe and shoes on his feet. The Father will receive his son at the high gate of the kingdom of heaven, and in face of the whole spiritual universe, and so in this matter of salvation a self-respecting God and a self-respecting man will meet in peace and righteousness.

SNOO

NOW was long in coming, in the months which followed our delightful Scottish holiday, but it fell all one night and day early in January, ceaselessly, softly, persistently; covering our leafless garden in St. John's Wood with a white shroud, deadening the sound of the vehicles that passed along our road, and causing us to reiterate in a somewhat meaningless fashion, that "winter had come at last." My sisters and I with Aunt Hester were sitting in our drawing-room just after luncheon, round a glorious fire. We were, I regret to state, more or less lazy, with the exception of our visitor, whose fingers rarely ceased working for the poor. The firelight glanced from the knitting-needles as they flew between her slender fingers.

I sat idly watching her serene face. It was always restful to have her presence with us, and her visit had lent pleasure to our Christmas and New Year.

"What can be more enjoyable," remarked Mabel at length, stretching the tip of her shoe towards the fender," than to sit at ease, and mentally contemplate the misfortunes of other people!"

"Oh, my dear child!" cried Aunt Hester, who never understood the mildest little joke, "surely that is a very sad speech for you to make."

"Were you thinking of the milkman out in the snow?" I inquired, as a distant wail announced the approach of that functionary.

"No, I was thinking of Aunt Hester and you, going out to dinner on the top of that hill. We shall bask in the warmth here, while you go shivering up to dress, and take that enormous drive, and get home some time in the small hours more dead than alive-if indeed you ever get home at all, and are not snowed up in a drift by the way."

This speech emboldened me to make a proposal that had for some time been hovering on my lips:

"Aunt Hester, do you really think we can go, in this snow? The roads will be very heavy. Shall we not wire, saying the weather prevents us? I am sure the Vivians would understand."

"I do not think the weather does prevent us, my love," said Aunt Hester, laying down her knitting and contemplating the blurred garden view. "The brougham to-night is to be my affair." (Our maiden household kept no carriage.) "We are to have a pair of horses, and I have especially begged that they may be roughed, rested, and well fed, so there will be no cruelty involved. The snowfall has not been in any way an extraordinary one."

י !

"I suppose the fact is that I want an excuse! I confessed. "I never can like formal dinner

1 It is due to the writer of this paper to say that it was written, and named, before some recent utterances which have attracted attention to the subject.-ED. S. H.

parties, and I am sure, from the length of the invitation, this is to be a very large one indeed. We should hardly be missed.”

"I think girls often do not care for dinner parties," said Aunt Hester, "but think of our hostess, my dear; and of the disappointment it would be were her guests to throw her over at the last moment. Then the Vivians are so kind and charming, one never fails to enjoy their society. It would be a very ungracious return for their good-will, to stay away unless we were absolutely compelled to do so."

I knew she was right, and at the appointed hour I dressed and started forth into the snowy night with the best grace I could muster. Dr. Vivian and his wife were old friends of ours, but his practice now lay on and about the top of a hill in a Surrey suburb, and by reason of the distance, we met but seldom.

Oh, the apparently interminable length of that drive! On and on we went; through the lights and stir of London, then into comparative quiet and darkness; up and up we slowly climbed, with the snow ever wavering down outside, and adhering to our window panes, until even Aunt Hester's gentle attempts at cheery conversation lapsed into silence. It was some little consolation to remember that Mr. and Mrs. Wynne Beauchamp were also bidden to this festivity, and when we at length were admitted into the warmth and comfort of Dr. Vivian's house, Mrs. Beauchamp's furry cloak met my joyful gaze in the ante-room. It was the sole garment visible, beside my own and Aunt Hester's, and yet we were only just in time to save our reputation for good manners. What could be the meaning of this?

In the drawing-room, instead of a brilliant throng, were four people, Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp, Dr. and Mrs. Vivian. Anxiety sat enthroned upon the brow of our hostess, ordinarily a bright vivacious little woman, and I noticed one or two orange envelopes on the mantelpiece.

"It is so good of you to come," she cried, "I am afraid the weather must really be very dreadful, for do you know, nearly all our guests have disappointed us. I suppose the long drive from town was found impossible yet you took it," she added as an after-thought.

"Every one has wired, I think," observed Dr. Vivian with chagrin-" excepting Mr. Scrymgeour."

after some further waiting for the absent guest, escorted Mrs. Beauchamp into the dining-room, Mr. Beauchamp brought Aunt Hester, and I followed with our hostess. The scene reminded me of one of M. Du Maurier's pictures. Here was a long table glittering with glass and silver, radiant with flowers; a superfluity of servants recalled Lord Beaconsfield's "tumult of obstructive dependants," while four guests were dotted along a surface destined for twelve at the very least.

We all determined, I think, to make the best of it, and, in a few moments conversation was "going" more briskly and far more merrily than I ever remembered it to have gone in the occasional dinner parties of my experience. Mrs. Vivian forgave her defaulting guests, and, having the precious gift of humour (so often denied to women!) turned the whole affair into a cheerful jest. Mr. Beauchamp told anecdotes; we indulged in funny reminiscences of our Scotch holiday, and, in short found the general conversation far more exhilarating than if we had each been shut up to one interlocutor. We did not miss the Philosopher, and I for one had forgotten all about him when a loud ring proclaimed an arrival, and his familiar form burst into the room.

He was evidently divided between pleasure at seeing us again and wrath at something or other, we could not quite tell what. I thought it was discomposure at his own extreme lateness; but when dinner was over and the three gentlemen, after an unusually brief interval, had joined the ladies, he broke out to an audience consisting of Aunt Hester, Mrs. Beauchamp, and myself. "Well, upon my word! of all the remote, forsaken, outof-the-way suburbs, I think this Hill is about the worst. I started from my hotel at half-past six, supposing the distance to be reasonable

"Did you drive?" asked Aunt Hester, innocently.

"Drive? No, Madam. What is the Metropolitan Railway for? I had to go to Victoriathere I had to change; then I found I had to wait half an hour then I came to what (judging by the name) ought to have been the nearest station, but was not; then I blundered about in the snow, lost my way, and lost my temper. Live in the country, if you like: but how any mortal can live in the suburbs, especially a Surrey suburb, passes my comprehension!"

"Dr. Vivian has bought a practice here," I mildly suggested. "If people are so misguided as to live in this part of the world I suppose you would not deny them medical aid!"

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Well, I don't know; it would serve them right," responded the Philosopher, slightly mollified. "Here comes an appeal for it, at all events, and the success of this entertainment is to be further jeopardised by out host's disappearance."

I felt inclined to tell him that, so far as we were concerned, the "entertainment" had been hitherto most enjoyable, and that he had only himself to blame for coming so late; but Mrs. Vivian interrupted us at the moment.

"This really is the last straw!'" she said. "Tom has been called out! What shall I do to

"Oh, my dear Madam!" cried the Philosopher, who hated drawing-room music, "pray do not apologise. If you will let us make a circle round the fire and quarrel, as we did in the Highlands, we shall enjoy ourselves thoroughly, I can assure you." He beamed on Mrs. Vivian with restored equanimity.

I felt privately rather dismayed at the prospect of talking to order, but our hostess gladly hailed the suggestion. Fresh logs were thrown on the fire, and we were soon drawn round them in a semicircle, gazing into their burning heart for an inspiration, or shielding our faces with fans.

"Now let us have one of the delightful discussions I have heard so much about," said Mrs. Vivian encouragingly.

"After the festive season, I am afraid we are in a somewhat frivolous vein!" observed Mr. Beauchamp. But Mr. Scrymgeour was equal to the occasion.

6

"I think an excellent subject lies ready to our hand," he proclaimed. "Let us discuss suburbanity' in all its bearings."

"Suburbanity-what is that?" asked Aunt Hester wonderingly. "I know what urbanity means, but I have never heard this expression."

"If 'urbanity' means the polish gained by those .who associate in cities, sub-urbanity may be supposed to mean a slighter polish, or veneer only," I suggested.

"It may, Miss Nancy," replied the Philosopher, "but as it is not really a word at all, I do not know that we need enter into the meaning it would have, if coined for common use."

"Is it not rather too personal?" asked Mrs. Beauchamp. I felt hot and cold, and wished I had not spoken of derivations even lightly.

But our hostess laughed.

"If by suburbanity you mean the characteristics of suburban life, I think it is a capital subject to talk about, and I can assure you I have no personal feeling in the matter, as I live here, not from choice, but from the necessities of my husband's profession."

"Just so," observed Mr. Scrymgeour approvingly, "and as the wife of a doctor you will know more about the features of the life than any one else could. Even the outlook of a local clergyman's wife is partial, but you know all manner of people, 'see life steadily and see it whole' like Sophocles.

"But surely some of us live in suburbs too,” I suggested.

"All suburbs are not equally suburban," remarked Mr. Beauchamp. "Kensington is not as Clapham; Clapham is not as Croydon, and so on. The nearer one gets to town, the more do suburban features vanish; while if one gets too far away, the country-town characteristics reappear. I think this suburb, just outside the four mile radius, is at a very good distance for presenting the salient features of suburban life. We lived for many years in just such another suburb, so we can see if our experience tallies with Mrs. Vivian's."

He looked at our hostess's bright face, and waited for her to speak.

"Well, if you ask me," she said, "I am very much struck by the benevolent scorn with which we dwellers in the suburbs are regarded en masse. 'Distinctly suburban' has come to be a term of reproach. To say that dress, manners, social entertainments, views of life, are 'suburban,' is to stamp them at once. And I think it is a little too bad!"

We thought so too, as we looked at her graceful dress and sparkling eyes, and remembered the faultless arrangement of the table. I thought she might have instanced the way in which her dinner party had been treated, and remembered with a blush that I too had wished to be one of the offenders.

"It is too bad!" cried Mrs. Beauchamp, "and I have noticed that dwellers in London have the most exaggerated idea of the distance of a suburb like this, for instance. According to their views the suburbs are 'out of it' in every possible way." "There is a good deal of impertinent ignorance in the way the suburbs are spoken of," said Mr. Beauchamp. "Many a painter or poet has sprung from the London suburbs, or chosen them for a home. Browning and Ruskin, for example, were nurtured not far away from here, and Ruskin has somewhere an eloquent passage on the beauty of the surroundings of a Surrey suburb."

"Just look at this neighbourhood in spring," he continued, as no one spoke, and Mr. Scrymgeour glared through his spectacles as though he were collecting himself for an outburst. "What can be more lovely than the boughs of almond blossom against the cold clear blue of the sky or the red brick of an old house, in the faint spring sunshine? Then comes the glory of the laburnum, 'dropping wells of fire,' the profuse sweetness of the lilac, white and purple; then the waxen candles of the chestnut held on high, and the white and pink hawthorn. The roads about here are simply enchanting in their beauty from February to June. And in the autumn too, the foliage, the variegated creepers, are exquisite beyond description."

"One can see all that elsewhere," the Philosopher objected.

"Yes, but the point of it here, it strikes me, is that all this beauty is collected as the decoration of single homes," returned Mr. Beauchamp. "It is not put into parks, or common gardens, but the houses stand (as they do in many another suburb), each embowered in this choice loveliness; the wealth of foliage and flower treasured round each dwelling-house. It seems, if I can put it clearly, to imply an amount of tender love and care for the home as an individual possession, which one can never get in town, and which must exert a very strong influence on character. The children brought up among such surroundings, and with a garden to play in, must surely be very different in character and taste from those herded at the top of a tall London house, and taken only for formal walks."

"You are talking like an artist!" broke out the Philsopher excitedly, "and you naturally look at the question from an artist's point of view, but have you ever thought what all this wealth of

foliage round the house symbolises? Have you, by chance, Emerson's 'Society and Solitude'?" he demanded abruptly of our hostess.

Certainly we both read Emerson," she replied. The volume was brought, and Mr. Scrymgeour hurriedly selected a passage, describing the man who loved solitude: "When he bought a house the first thing he did was to plant trees. He could not enough conceal himself. Set a hedge here; set oaks there, trees behind trees; above all set evergreens, for they will keep a secret all the year round."

"There!" he exclaimed, laying the book down. "That is what your leafy suburban gardens mean! You can get these almond trees, and what not, in the country (and pay less rent!); in town you can look at the parks if you want foliage, but here you combine the disadvantages of both London and the country! You (I don't mean Mrs. Vivian personally, of course!) are like Mahomet's coffin hanging between heaven and earth. Smart London will have none of you; the country rejoices in its rural peace and friendly community of interests in a way you cannot do!"

"That last is, I think, the chief thing that can be alleged against suburban life," said Dr. Vivian, who had come in during the Philosopher's exordium and listened with amusement. "There is too often no community of interests. There is no one centre, therefore no possibility of a general social feeling; no esprit de c rps."

"Exactly so!" cried the Philosopher, delighted to find some one to take his part, "I live near a country town, and in spite of disadvantages, there does exist a kind of corporate life unlike that of a suburb. Every one knows his neighbour's business, and who he is. In a suburb you may live next door to some one who would in every way prove a congenial friend, and never know him. Then there is no local affection; nobody, I will be bound, cares for this Hill as a place, or is proud of it, as denizens are of their provincial town. No, it is only a neighbourhood' with no neighbourliness about it."

"Gently, gently!" observed Dr. Vivian, "I did not say, or mean that. On the contrary, I think there is a great deal of kind and neighbourly feeling, which expresses itself in the constant attempt to establish centres for meeting together. There may not be one centre, but there are centres, religious, philanthropic, educational or recreative. And so far as my experience goes, the noted men in each suburb do their best to promote a local interest."

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Only they are rather apt to move away to Hyde Park or Belgravia," Mrs. Vivian put in, as a parenthesis.

"The whole thing reminds me of the solar system," persisted Mr. Scrymgeour; "Society with a capital S has a centre-the Court-and revolves round it in a series of concentric rings, each one farther from the centre, but still with a raison d'etre, socially speaking. Stars from one orbit often pass into the next, and so on. But suburban society has no such common centre; it is like a number of wandering stars, each flying off at a tangent. Therefore I say 'If you want