"And that's what they call enjoying nature, eh?” exclaims the head of the family. "Couldn't they leave their street-rows behind them?"

However, they stroll on in the regulation path, and after a while, just as they were about to demolish some bread-and-butter, Falb gets the better of the Hamburg meteorologists; out bursts the storm, and down comes the rain. A general panic ensues; everybody runs, rushes, flies, in the streaming torrents, and in thunder and lightning, to the railway-station.

In half-an-hour they are there, and so is the train. "Guard, where is there room?" cries the mother. "Farther up!"

But farther up it is all full. Up and down the train again they go. Not a seat to be had. A whistle sounds and off goes the train.

"An hour to wait now. But, thank God, the storm is over," patiently exclaims Elizabeth. But the crowd pours in, all wanting to get home, drenched as they are. "Didn't I tell you so?" says the mother mutteringly. Oh, yes, you prophesied it, you unlucky one," replied her husband crossly.

66

But just at that moment Fritz calls out, "The train's coming," and then the rush. The whole mass of drenched people storm the carriages; people are pushed, crushed, shoved, and dragged. A cry bursts from Elizabeth's lips as a piece of her dress goes in the scramble; but on they are carried, Fritz ahead.

"Here, father!" he cries. He has secured some places, and in they scramble. "Bravo!" says Fritz, "we've won." And they settle down, hoping soon to be in Berlin. Away goes the train, but its pace soon tells them it is a stopping train-halting at every little station, where crowds of Sunday pleasure-seekers are waiting to get back to their homes.

At last they are in Berlin. No chance of a seat in a tramcar, and silently and sullenly they have to tramp through the long close streets. Dead tired, hungry, and worn out, they get home at last, and then out break the lamentations.

"Oh, my new summer dress!" cry the women. "Positively the last time-never again!" say the

men.

"And that's what they call Sunday pleasure, is it?" exclaimed all.

This is a faithful picture of a Berlin summer Sunday, which might be varied only by the omission of the thunder-storm; and it is written by no Sabbatical fanatic, but by a Berliner; and who that knows Europe will not recognise in it a picture of Sunday as it frequently is in the great cities and small towns of the continent? Contrast this with the type of Sunday enjoyed by a large mass of our English people in all our towns, and even by a goodly number in our mighty capital.

The awaking in the morning with no pressure or thought of compelling toil; the calm hour or two of rest over perhaps some thoughtful book, before going with wife and children to God's house, where the mind is lifted from earthly thought, and constrained to dwell upon the highest qualities of man's nature; and where the prayers teach man that strength comes for labour and for care from quietude and calm, and from a power beyond the might of man. The preacher

may not be eloquent, may even be, in some rare case, one whose life belies his teaching, yet this message of the higher life has an influence and sustaining power which are of great social value, regarded even on the lowest ground. Then may come the meeting of friends, and the walk home to the mid-day meal, the rest during the afternoon, if not some active religious or philanthropic work, or perhaps a chat with neighbours or a quiet stroll.

The soft calm of an English country Sunday, when all labour is hushed, and men and animals have ceased their toil, lies round most of our provincial towns. Perhaps the city dweller passes into some country church, and looks around on the less eager faces of the field-workers, whose life is more calmly lived. When "church is out the neighbours stand in groups around the little God's acre, and talk over their local gossip; and as the town-dweller passes away, back over the fields towards the city walls, the old bells ring out from the village tower, and seem to add in the still air a message to his mind, that love, and gentleness, and peace out-value all greed, and care, and power.

And should the Englishman be far from country lanes or quiet fields still he can always obtain books that will lend him true enjoyment, books full of interest, yet soul-ennobling; for, thanks to cheap issues and free libraries, the company of the most thoughtful and inspiring writers can be obtained by the poorest; or his home may echo with music, intermingled with which shall be holy thoughts of man's great destiny.

After such a Sunday the man awakes to the work-a-day week renewed and refreshed, whereas abroad, as a Continental lady expressed it, "every one is ill and tired out of a Monday"-überspannt the Germans say, that is, overdone.

I am speaking of the English Sunday not theoretically or ideally, but as it is actually kept by thousands still in many places. That there are other aspects of the day we all know. No one would venture to say that our English practice is beyond improvement; but as the cry for rest grows stronger on the Continent, we do well to heed it.

Our workers, our artisans, and our clerks, all now leave their work at mid-day on Saturdays, and many of our handworkers finish their work at five o'clock on every week-day; thus, unlike the continental worker, the most have time for amusement, for excursions, picture galleries, games, and joviality, leaving to them the Sabbath as a day of calm thought and rest.

The English Sunday largely accounts for the amount of work an Englishman is able to get through, be he head-worker or hand-worker, and the longer we retain a quiet English Sunday, so much the longer will England retain her supremacy in the world, and-what is of more importanceso much the happier will her people be.

Apart from all religious questions, this is a view which I commend to my countrymen, as one who has seen much of the Continent.

JAMES BAKER,

Author of "Bohemian Pictures," etc.

T is through hop-gardens and over rich, undulating fields that we reach the ancient ecclesiastical city of Canterbury.

If we arrive there by train from Waterloo, we are, on leaving the station, rather tempted to turn to the left, attracted by the picturesque frontage and fine ironwork of the old "Falstaff Inn" (which with quaint mingling of new with old is now the headquarters of a cycling club!) and still more by the noble West Gate, beyond which we know lie Cathedral, Close, Castle and College. To our right there seems little but a dwindling half suburban street, albeit its houses are ancient and quaint, and full of suggestion for modern domestic architecture.

SIR THOMAS MORE AND ERASMUS.

If we resist this temptation, however, we are rewarded whether our tastes be-antiquarian, artistic or humanist. Walking to the right down the wide straggling street, we presently reach an old mansion, now used as a brewery, and doubtless sadly fallen from its former estate, yet still boasting the fine archway under which one of the typical figures of English domestic history must have passed again and again, as glad bride, and as weeping mourner. This old house was once the home of Margaret Roper, the brave daughter of Sir Thomas More. There Margaret carried her father's head, of which she

had obtained possession some days after his execution, boldly declaring before the council which arraigned her for so doing, that she was "determined it should not be food for fishes." And in a leaden casket she seems to have kept it until her own death, about ten years afterwards. When she was laid in the Roper vault in St. Dunstan's Church, nearly opposite the home of her married life, her sacred relic was deposited in a niche in the church wall, where it was found during some alterations which were made in the year 1835.

Sir Thomas More himself had one of his homes in Canterbury, and the building formerly pointed out as such was demolished only within the last half century. Therefore, as we pass quaint St. Dunstan's amid its pleasant grove of trees, and turning to the left, follow the London Road, we may as we go muse on the genial More household, fit entourage for him who was descibed as "of admirable wisdom, integritie and innocencie, joined with most pleasant facilitie of wit." Erasmus, the scholar and theologian, himself a singularly homeless man, tells us that the mansion of Sir Thomas was 66 a school and an exercise of the Christian religion, wherein all its inhabitants, male and female, applied their leisure to liberal studies and profitable reading, although piety was their first care. No wrangling, no idle word was heard in it, every one did his duty with alacrity and not without a temperate cheerfulness."

Sir Thomas, enlightened and gentle, had not scrupled to give his daughter a learned education, which fitted her to be his companion and friend, and her history has proved that knowledge of Greek and Latin, and capacity for authorship, so far from detracting from dutifulness and devotion, may rather lend them strength and spirit, and lift them beyond the petty temptations of mere vanity or ambition. For there is a tradition in the Roper family that Margaret was eventually offered a ducal coronet, but that she refused it, lest it should seem like compromise and compensation for her revered father's judicial murder.

It

As we go along the pleasant road towards Harbledown, we may, if we choose, imagine ourselves in the company of Erasmus himself and his friend Dean Colet, the founder of St. Paul's school, London. For we know that they paid a visit to St. Nicholas hospital, which is the goal of our walk in this direction. This hospital was founded about 1084, by Lanfranc, the first Archbishop of Canterbury after the Norman Conquest. was originally intended for lepers, but has become a retreat for the aged. The almshouses themselves have been rebuilt and are quite modern. The church has been recently restored. The old gatehouse, however, seems to remain exactly as as it was, at least in the time (1510) when Erasmus wrote. "In the road to London, not far from Canterbury, is a way extremely hollow, as well as narrow and also steep, the banks being on each side so craggy, that there is no escaping nor can it be by any means avoided. On the left side of the road is an almshouse of some old men, one of whom runs out as soon as they perceive a horseman approaching, and after sprinkling him

with holy water offers him the upper leather of a shoe, bound with brass, in which a piece of glass is set like a gem. This is kissed, and money given him. I had rather have an almshouse of old men on such a road, than a troop of sturdy robbers."

This shoe was supposed to be a relic of Thomas À Becket and the superstition with which it was regarded seems to have evoked the ire of Colet, Erasmus' companion. Though both Colet and Erasmus held aloof from Cranmer and his party, repelled by their opportunist use of royal profligacy, and by the rapacity with which some of them made private appropriation of property hitherto held by the Church (at least nominally) for the benefit of the aged, the poor and the helpless, yet they were no whit behind the foremost reformers, in their hatred of priest craft and superstition, and of these no neighbourhood in England could show them more than Canterbury and its vicinage. For this little village was the last pausing place on the famous pilgrimage to the shrine of the murdered Archbishop.

Chaucer mentions Harbledown (under the nickname which its inequalities had earned) :

:

"Wete ye not wher stondeth a litel town Which that ycleped is Bob-up-and-down, Under the blee, in Canterbury way?"

This

And doubtless many a pilgrim, all bedizened with leaden "images of the saint," had quenched his thirst at the well, still pointed out, from which the Black Prince believed he derived much benefit in the days of failing health which preceded his early death. Just beyond the village too, we see Blean Wood, where, we are significantly told "the archbishop's gallows once stood." forest used to supply fuel to the now vanished nunnery of St. Sepulchre's, which had the privilege of fetching as much wood as one horse going twice a day could carry. In this nunnery Elizabeth Barton, "the Holy Maid of Kent," lived while she saw the "visions and uttered the "prophecies," which, testifying against the divorce and re-marriage of Henry VIII., speedily brought her to the scaffold, where, in her dying speech she described herself as a "a poor wench without any learning." Seen in the light of modern days, she seemed to have been an hysteric, open to influences surrounding her, and at the mercy of any stronger will which chose to play on such an instrument.

A REPENTANT MONARCH.

Having walked out to Harbledown in company with the cultured and moderate Erasmus, and the practical Dean of St. Paul's, we will return to Canterbury thinking rather of a man of far simpler mould a king who trod part of this way barefoot! It was at the Church of St. Nicholas that Henry II. dismounted from his horse, and it was at St. Dunstan's that he threw. aside his royal finery and his very shoes, and toiled towards the cathedral, a penitent filled with remorse for his complicity in the murder of Thomas à Becket.

Somehow one cannot help feeling sorry for Henry 11. Uneasy lay his head within his crown!