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be stronger. But she could not tell him this: she did not know it herself. Her religion was something there, then, not here, now. She would give Mr. Simon a five-pound note for his scripture-reading amongst the poor, and the moment after refuse the request of her needlewoman from the same district who begged her to raise her wages from eighteenpence to two shillings a day. Religion-the bond between man and God-had nothing to do with the earnings of a sister, whose pale face told of "penury and pine," a sadder story even than that written upon the countenance of the invalid, for to labour in weakness, longing for rest, is harder than to endure a good deal of pain upon a sofa. Until we begin to learn that the only way to serve God in any real sense of the word, is to serve our neighbour, we may have knocked at the wicket-gate, but I doubt if we have got one foot across the threshold of the kingdom.

Add to this condition of mind a certain uncomfortable effect produced upon the mother by the son's constantly reminding her of the father

whom she had quite given up trying to love, and I think my reader will be a little nearer to the understanding of the relation, if such it could well be called, between the two. The eyes of both were as yet unopened to the poverty of their own condition. The mother especially said that she was "rich, and had need of nothing," when she was "wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." But she had a hard nature to begin with, and her pain occupied her all the more that she neither sought .nor accepted sympathy. And although she was none the less a time-server and a worldly-minded woman, that she decried worldliness and popery, and gave herself to the saving of her soul, yet the God who makes them loves even such people and knows all about them; and it is well for them that he is their judge and not we.

Let us now turn to another woman-Mrs. Morgenstern. I will tell you what she was like. She was a Jewess and like a Jewess. But there is as much difference between Jewesses as there is between Englishwomen. Is there any justice

in fixing upon the lowest as the type? How does the Scotchman like to have his nation represented by the man outside the tobaccoshop? or by the cantankerous logician and theologian so well known to some of us? There is a Jewess that flaunts in gorgeous raiment and unclean linen; and there is a Jewess noble as a queen, and pure as a daisy-fit to belong to that nation of which Mary the mother was born. Mrs. Morgenstern was of the latter class-tall, graceful, even majestic in the fashion of her form and carriage. Every feature was Jewish, and yet she might have been English, or Spanish, or German just as well. Her eyes were darkblack, I would say, if I

had ever seen black

eyes-and proud, yet with a dove-like veil over their fire. Sometimes there was even a trouble to be seen in them, as of a rainy mist amidst the glow of a southern sky. I never could be quite sure what this trouble meant. She was rich, therefore she had no necessity; she was not avaricious, and therefore she had no fear of dying in the workhouse. She had but one

child, therefore she was neither wearied with motherhood, nor a sufferer from suppressed maternity, moved by which divine impulse so many women take to poodles instead of orphans. Her child was healthy and active, and gave her no anxiety. That she loved her husband, no one who saw those eastern eyes rest upon him for a moment could doubt. What then could be the cause of that slight restlessness, that gauzy change, that pensive shadow? I think that there was more love in her yet than knew how to get out of her. She would look round sometimes-it was a peculiar movement-just as if some child had been pulling at her skirts. She had lost a child, but I do not think that was the cause. And whether it was or was not, I do believe that nothing but the love of God will satisfy the power of love in any woman's bosom. But did not Rebecca-they loved their old Jewish names, that family—did not Rebecca Morgenstern love God? Truly I think she did-but not enough to satisfy herself. And I venture to say more: I do not believe she could love him to the

degree necessary for her own peace till she recognised the humanity in him. But she was more under the influences emanating from the story of the humanity of God than she knew herself. At all events she was a most human and lovely lady, full of grace and truth, like Mary before she was a Christian; and it took a good while, namely all her son's life and longer, to make her one. Rebecca Morgenstern never became a Christian. But she loved children, whether they were Christians or not. And she loved the poor whether they were Christians or not; and, like Dorcas, made and caused to be made coats and garments for them. And, for my part, I know, if I had the choice, whether I would appear before the Master in the train of the unbelieving Mrs. Morgenstern or that of the believing Mrs. Worboise. And as to selfrighteousness, I think there is far less of that amongst those who regard the works of righteousness as the means of salvation, than amongst those by whom faith itself is degraded into a work of merit-a condition by fulfilling which

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