I will, as we walk in the cool shade of this sweet honeysuckle hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys which have And these possessed my soul since we two met together. thoughts shall be told you, that you also may join with me in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift for our happiness. And that our present happiness may appear to be the greater, and we the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me how many do even at this very time lie under the torment of diseases that we are free from. And every misery that I miss is a new mercy; and therefore let us be thankful. There have been, since we met, others that have met disasters of broken limbs; some have been blasted, others thunder-stricken; and we have been freed from these, and all those other miseries that threaten human nature: let us therefore rejoice and be thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are freed from the insupportable burthen of an accusing tormenting conscience; a misery that none can bear: and therefore let us praise Him for his preventing grace, and say, every misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay, let me tell you, there be many that have forty times our estate, that would give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us. I have a rich neighbor, who is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money, that he may still get more and more money; he is still drudging on, and says that Solomon says, The diligent hand maketh rich;" and it is true indeed: but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said, by a man of great observation, "That there may be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side them." And yet God deliver us from pinching poverty; and grant that, having a competency, we may be content and thankful. Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches: when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches, hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silk-worm, that when she seems to play, is, at the very same time, spinning her own bowels, and

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consumning herself; and this many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares, to keep what they have, probably, unconscionably got. Let us therefore be thankful for health and a competence; and, above all, for a quiet conscience.

Let me tell you that Diogenes walked on a day, with a friend to see a country fair; where he saw ribbons and looking-glasses, and nut-crackers, and fiddles, and hobby-horses, and many other gimcracks; and having observed them, and all the other finnimbruns that make a complete country fair, he said to his friend, Lord, how many things are there in this world of which Diogenes hath no need!" And truly it is so, or might be so, with very many who vex and toil themselves to get what they have no need of. Can any man charge God, that he hath not given him enough to make his life happy? No, doubtless; for nature is content with a little. And yet you shall hardly meet with a man that complains not of some want; though he, indeed, wants nothing but his will; it may be, nothing but his will of his poor neighbor, for not worshipping or not flattering him; and thus, when we might be happy and quiet, we create trouble to ourselves. I have heard of a man that was angry with himself because he was no taller; and of a woman that broke her lookingglass because it would not show her face to be as young and handsome as her next neighbor's was. And I know another to whom God hath given health and plenty; but a wife that nature hath made purse-proud; and must, because she was rich, and for no other virtue, sit in the highest pew in the church; which being denied her, she engaged her husband into a contention for it, and at last into a lawsuit with a dogged neighbor who was as rich as he, and had a wife as peevish and purse-proud as the other and this lawsuit begot higher oppositions, and actionable words, and more vexations and lawsuits; for you must remember that both were rich, and must therefore have their will. Well! this wilful purse-proud lawsuit lasted during the life of the first husband; after which his wife vexed, and chid, and chid, and vexed, till she also chid and vexed herself into her grave; and so the wealth of these poor rich people was curst into a punishment, because they wanted meek and thankful hearts; for those only can make us happy. I know a man that had health and

riches; and several houses, all beautiful and ready furnished; and would often trouble himself and family to be removing from one house to another and being asked by a friend why he removed so often from one house to another, replied, "It was to find content in some one of them." But his friend, knowing his temper, told him, if he would find content in any of his houses, he must leave himself behind him; for content will never dwell but in a meek and quiet soul. And this may appear if we read and consider what our Saviour says in St. Matthew's Gospel; for he there says, "Blessed be the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed be the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed be the pure in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And blessed be the meek, for they shall possess the earth." Not that the meek shall not also obtain mercy, and see God, and be comforted, and at last come to the kingdom of heaven; but in the meantime, he, and he only, possesses the earth, as he goes towards that kingdom of heaven, by being humble and cheerful, and content with what his good God has allotted him. He has no turbulent, repining, vexatious thoughts that he deserves better; nor is vexed when he sees others possessed of more honor or more riches than his wise God has allotted for his share: but he possesses what he has with a meek and contented quietness, such a quietness as makes his very dreams pleasing, both to God and himself.

Let not the blessings we receive daily from God make us not to value, or not praise Him, because they be common; let us not forget to praise Him, for the innocent mirth and pleasure we have met with since we met together. What would a blind man give to see the pleasant rivers, and meadows, and flowers, and fountains, that we have met with since we met together? I have been told, that if a man that was born blind could obtain to have his sight for but only one hour during his whole life, and should, at the first opening of his eyes, fix his sight upon the sun when it was in full glory, either at the rising or setting of it, he would be so transported and amazed, and would so admire the glory of it, that he would not willingly turn his eyes from that first ravishing object, to behold all the other various beauties this world could present to him. And this, and many other like blessings, we en

joy daily. And for most of them, because they be so common, most men forget to pay their praise, but let not us; because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him that made that sun and us, and still protects us, and gives us flowers, and showers, and stomachs, and meat, and content, and leisure to go aa-fishing.

My meaning was, and is, to plant that in your mind with which I labor to possess my own soul; that is a meek and thankful heart. And to that end I have showed you, that riches without them (meekness and thankfulness) do not make any man happy. But let me tell you, that riches with them remove many fears and cares. And therefore my advice is, that you endeavor to be honestly rich or contentedly poor: but be sure that your riches be justly got or you spoil all. For it is well said, "He that loses his conscience has nothing left that is worth keeping." Therefore be sure you look to that. And in the next place look to your health and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy; and therefore value it and be thankful for it. As for money, (which may be said to be the third blessing,) neglect it not; but note, that there is no necessity of being rich; for I told you, there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side them and if you have a competence, enjoy it with a meek, cheerful, thankful heart. I will tell you, Scholar, I have heard a grave divine say, that God has two dwellings one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart; which Almighty God grant to me, and to my honest Scholar.

104.-SISTERS OF CHARITY.

SOUTHEY.

[IN Mr. Southey's "Sir Thomas More," the following account of the Beguines of Belgium, and the Sisters of Charity, of France, is reprinted from the "London Medical Gazette," vol. 1.]

A few summers ago I passed through Flanders on my way to Germany, and at the hospital at Bruges saw some of the Beguines,

and heard the physician, with whom I was intimate, speak in strong terms of their services; he said, "There are no such nurses." I saw them in the wards attending on the sick, and in the chapel of the hospital on their knees washing the floor. They were obviously a superior class of women, and the contrast was striking between these menial offices and the respectability of their dress and appearance; but the Beguinage of Ghent is one of their principal establishments, and, spending a Sunday there, I went in the evening to vespers. It was twilight when I entered the chapel. It was dimly lighted by two or three tall tapers before the altar and a few candles at the remotest end of the building in the orchestra; but the body of the chapel was in deep gloom, filled from end to end with several hundred of these nuns seated in rows, in their dark dresses and white cowls, silent and motionless, excepting now and then when one of them started up, and stretching out her arms in the attitude of the crucifixion, stood in that posture many minutes, then sank, and disappeared among the crowd. The gloom of the chapel-the long line of these unearthly-looking figures, like so many corpses propped up in their grave-clothes-the dead silence of the building, once only interrupted by a few voices in the distant orchestra chanting vespers, was one of the most striking sights I ever beheld. To some readers the occasional attitude of the nuns may seem an absurd expression of fanaticism, but they are any thing but fanatics. Whoever is accustomed to the manners of continental nations, knows that they employ grimace in every thing. I much doubt whether, apart from the internal emotion of piety, the external expression of it is graceful in any one, save only in a little child in his night-shirt, on his knees saying his evening prayer.

The Beguinage, or residence of the Beguines at Ghent, is a little town of itself, adjoining the city, and inclosed from it. The transition from the crowded streets of Ghent to the silence and solitude of the Beguinage is very striking. The houses in which the Beguines reside are contiguous, each having its small garden, and on the door the name, not of the resident, but of the protecting saint of the house: these houses are ranged into streets. There is also the large church, which we visited, and a burialground, in which there are no monuments. There are upwards