and if you can give Mr. Abberley to understand—as ladies," and he smiled, "can give gentlemen to understand that his attentions to you will be completely thrown away-for his sake I shall be glad, for it may save him from some future unhappiness. I should be very sorry if an end were put to all intercourse between the two families; at the same time, I am not desirous of seeing Mr. Abberley here on every possible occasion for which he can find any excuse for riding over. There, my dear child, that was all I had to say; not for your sake-but for his."

CHAPTER VIII.

Say me, who can, whether extreme
Hath harmed Religion more;

That old of them too liberal,

Or this of our's too poore?

And verily it is a fault,

And maimèd Learning's foe,

That Church possessions should amongst

The lay be shared soe.

If ever England will in ought

Prevent her own mishappe,

Against these shames (no terme too grosse),

Let England stop the gappe.

WARNER.

"ARE you riding to Ayton church?" asked Col. Abberley, as he met Sir John Morley a few days subsequently.

"Yes; I want to speak to Westley, the clerk of Will you accompany me?"

the works.

"With pleasure." And turning his horse's head in the same direction, he rode on with his friend. "I have been thinking much, Sir John," he said after a pause, "of what you were saying the other

day about the possession of Abbey lands. In my own circumstances, it could not but make a deep impression upon me, for if there be guilt in the alienation of church lands, I unfortunately, as you well know, share in it deeply."

"I really ought to apologize," said Sir John, "for the freedom with which I spoke to you on the subject. I was sure, however, that you would not give an unkind meaning to what I said, and a deep sense of the importance of the matter on which we were speaking led me on further than I had at first intended."

"Pray," replied Col. Abberley, "do not imagine that I could possibly impute to you any, beside the real, motive. And I will give you the best proof I can of this: for I am going to ask you to continue your remarks on the monastick system. I cannot at present bring myself to take your view of it; but I wish to hear the arguments which appear to you. most forcible in favour of it."

"In the first place," replied Sir John, "a system of such very great antiquity, and attested by the universal voice of the Church, must, arguing à priori, be good. Excepting in our own and daughter Churches, with perhaps the Indian, I do not think any other is without monasteries. In those Churches which are in communion with Rome, every one knows they are most numerous; but not less so in the various members of the Eastern Church. Russia, for example, abounds with them; so does the patri

archate of Constantinople; so do those of Alexandria and Jerusalem. Now when we see other branches of the Church supplied with a set of religious houses set apart for the peculiar service of GOD, we cannot but feel it an undesirable peculiarity that we alone should have none such."

"But," said Col. Abberley, "the vast numbers of men thus immured from the world might surely better have employed their time, and talents, and energies, in some way which might have rendered the most essential service to the Church, than, by a course of life useless to others, have striven after a fancied purity elsewhere unattainable."

"You do not look at religious houses, I think, in the proper light. We may look at them in four distinct points of view; and in each they present advantages unattainable by any other system. In the first place, we may consider them as establishments for the propagation of the truth in parts of the country where from physical or moral circumstances the parochial system is not sufficient. How many tracts of land, for instance, are there, where five or six cottages are scattered here and there on some vast and savage common, nominally belonging to a parish of which the church is three or four miles off! Sometimes, a cottage will be found a mile or two from any other habitation; and the poor inhabitants, in these cases, except that they have probably been baptized, and will probably be buried in their parish church, have no other connexion with it. Much of Cornwall is in

this condition; but perhaps the most remarkable instance was to be seen in the Forest of Dean. Here there were churches; but marriages could not be solemnized in them, on account of their being, in reality, only chapels of ease. The consequence was, that sooner than take the trouble of going ten or twelve miles to a church where they could be married, most of the wretched inhabitants were content to settle down without any marriage at all. Now, in cases like these, of what inestimable benefit would a stationary body of priests, and deacons, and laymen qualified to act as readers, be found! The distant hovels, to visit one of which would occupy the parish priest the best part of the day, when perhaps he has already more labour than any single man can perform, would be known and carefully visited from the monastery. They would, in health, be warned to an attendance on the Church's ordinances, and in sickness, receive Her last consolations as it is, they receive, too often, neither one nor the other."

"There is much in this," said Col. Abberley, "and one cannot but acknowledge that the void, left by the monasteries, has been in our own times worse supplied."

"Yes; instead of the old system, we see meetinghouses springing up in every direction, and the poor crowding them, because they are near, instead of encountering a weary journey and tempestuous weather, in attending their church. But these diffi