spoke truly many of those who had insulted her most grossly repented their ingratitude, and came to ask her forgiveness.

In consequence of the scarcity which prevailed, the funds of the general hospital become so low that the administrators resolved to expel all the women of dissolute lite it contained. The prospect of the vice and misery into which these poor creatures must inevitably fall again greatly distressed madame de Miramion. She proved to the administrators that the seven hundred women--there were no less-could be kept for forty thousand francs a-year. They granted the fact, but objected that they had not this sum: she immediately undertook to procure it. Madame de Maintenon gave her twenty-five thousand francs; she obtained several large sums from various noblemen; the rest she had to ask for in different quarters;-an ungracious task, which subjected her to cold looks and slights, which she felt keenly. "Indeed," she observed to the sister who accompanied her, 66 one must love God to do this." In less than a week she had obtained upwards of fifty thousand francs; a sum which sufficed to keep the women for two years; for, time being granted, some found husbands, others work or situations; and few ultimately remained in the hospital.

The last year of this noble life, filled with good deeds, had now come. Madame de Miramion, though i herself, went to comfort and assist a dying friend, the princess of Guise. She came home extremely fatigued, on the 18th of March, 1696, and fell ill the following morning. She submitted to the prescriptions of her medical attendants with docility, but without faith in their efficacy. She suffered acutely; but nothing could exceed the serenity of her last moments. She gathered around her the little sisterhood over which she had presided for so many years, and gave them her last advice. Scarcely had she concluded, when a sister belonging to a community of Paris, which she loved greatly, entered the room, and said abruptly: "Madame, our community would much like to have your heart when you are dead." Madame de Miramion smiled at the request, and pointing to the sisterhood around her, replied, "My heart belongs to my daughters." Her weakness increasing, the prayers of the dying were read to her. Her niece, who was then bending over her, heard her saving in a low tone: "My God, I accept death, and the destruction of this my body: be it reduced to dust, be it the food of the worm. And thou, my soul, go forth, and unite thyself to thy God." Two days more she lingered, then died on the 24th of March, 1696, in the sixty-seventh year of her age. No one wept around her death-bed; but the house was besieged by carriages and anxious crowds. When the tidings of her death reached the street, the people broke open the doors to see their benefactress once more. They found her lying on the bed, where she had expired without effort or convulsion; her eyes had closed of themselves; her features were serene. She remained thus for two days, exposed to public veneration.

Madame de Miranion had requested to be buried like a sister of St. Genovefa, and the wish was obeyed. Six poor men bore her coffin to the parish churchyard; thirty sisters carrying lighted tapers followed; then came eighty young girls from the

work-rooms she had established; followed by three hundred children educated by the Miramionnes; and the superior of the general hospital, accompanied by those women whom madame de Miramion had recently saved from misery and vice. Her own relatives closed the funeral train, which was followed by an immense crowd. The church where the last rites were performed was bare of drapery, and imperfectly lighted: the simplicity and poverty which she had ever loved in life accompanied her in death.

Thus lived, and passed away from life, a woman whom birth, beauty, and talents of no mean order would have fitted for a far more brilliant destiny in the eyes of the world, but a far lower one be fore God. She, too, might have shone in the polite circles of the Sévignés, the Coulanges, and the Cornuels; and who would have reproached her for the poor unassisted, for orphan children in ignorance, for abandoned women left to vice, for the sick allowed to die in the streets, whilst, surrounded by all the elegant comforts of a luxurious home, she discussed court scandal, or indulged in the seducing charm of refined and intellectual society? She chose another lot--not without effort; for by nature she was proud, wilful, attached to the refinements of social lite, and averse to the sight of poverty and disease. She subdued desire and conquered aversion, until she became what is here imperfectly recorded.

We have chiefly spoken of those good deeds which she planned and executed herself; but no task of charity was foreign to her mission. On the express request of the bishop of Angers, she once undertook to restore peace and order in a re ligious community; and, where all his pastoral authority had failed, her gentleness and conciliatory spirit succeeded. She took an active share in the establishment of the foundling asylum and of the general hospital. The association, directed by St. Vincent de Paul, had the highest respect for her character and talents; and no important resolution was ever taken without her approval. So great was the esteem in which she was held, that, when the superior of the general hospital was compelled, by the infirmities of her age, to relinquish her post in the year 1687, madame de Miramion was requested to instruct her successor in all the duties of her office; an arduous task, which she accepted and fulfilled in a manner that displayed her great administrative talents. But her chief characteristic, after all, was her ardent love of the poor: their welfare was ever uppermost in her thoughts: her property was a trust which she held for them. When her solicitor once informed her, with evident dismay, that she had sustained a heavy loss, "Do not pity me," she replied: "pity the poor."

The name of madame de Miramion does not often occur in contemporary works; but it is ever accompanied with praise. Madame de Sévigné records, in one of her letters, that she "honoured with her presence" Racine's tragedy of Esther, performed at St. Cyr. This was probably an act of deference to her munificent friend madame de Maintenon; with whom, as well as with the king, she possessed, according to St. Simon and Dangeau, unlimited influence. "The king," declares the latter, "never refused her anything." Her influence over the haughty madame de Montespan

had not been less great: it was madame de Miramion, the pious and the pure, who consoled the roval favourite for the loss of her lover, and finally induced her to leave the court. She was revered even by those who knew her little; and in the world she was little known. On learning her death, madame de Sévigne wrote off, in her graphic way: "The loss of madame de Miramion, that mother of the church, is a public loss."

The Miramionnes gave their name to the Quay of St. Bernard, where they resided until the revalution of 1793. They daily received and attended the poor, whom they also provided with valuable medicines, originally invented by madame de Miramion, and of which the receipts still exist. We have several times alluded to her administrative talents: the proof of them, as well as the highest praise they can receive, lies in the fact that the rules which she laid down, and the principles on which she proceeded, are the abknowledged models on which establishments similar to those she guided have since then been conducted in France.

THE INSPIRATION AND COMPREHENSIVENESS OF SCRIPTURE, AS OPPOSED TO ROMISH PRETENSION*.

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17). 1. No wonder the bible is an unsafe book for poor people to handle, according to self-seeking priests and impudent pretenders to infallibility. No wonder, moreover, that, where the pope allows the bible to be read, he pins the notes of his corrupt church to it, that the holy scriptures may be nothing, and the notes everything. It is indeed necessary to have some very strong notes, and such a wonderful belief in their authority as all real Roman-catholics have in the sayings of their church, to lessen the force of the words at

the head of this section.

2. First you find that the holy scripture is profitable for doctrine. Now, common sense points out that all Christians ought to be able from an infallible authority to get at true Christian doctrine. Every person of every degree is concerned in this; and thank God, through Christ, the humble Christian has nothing to do but to go to his bible in prayer for divine help, and doctrine he shall know. His bible is profitable to him for doctrine.

First of all, he shall learn this, that he is a sinner, fallen from God.

Secondly, that he must repent and believe in Christ the Son of God as his only Saviour, in whom his sins are all punished, for whose sake he is forgiven, and in whom he is made righteous; so that he may go to God as a child here, and after death be with him for ever.

Thirdly, that he must be a new and holy creatare, by the power of God the Holy Spirit upon his heart; and that this is the proof to himself and others that he is a child of God through Christ.

* From "An Address to the People upon the Bible and the Church;" by John David Hay Hill, esq., B.C.L. London: Wertheim and Macintosh. There are some good observations in this tract; but the author's style is somewhat homely.-ED.

Fourthly, he learns the Christian statement of a Trinity in unity. That God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, are three divine Persons, and still one mysterious yet true God, blessed for evermore.

Fifthly, he learns that our Lord Jesus Christ will come a second time to judge the world in righteousness.

Sixthly, he learns that it is necessary to believe that there are two ordinances to be observed by all Christians as commanded by Christ himself, namely, baptism and the supper of the Lord.

Seventhly, he learns that there is a resurrection of both the just and the unjust, when, after judgment before Christ, the wicked shall be cast into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, and the righteous shall go into life eternal.

All these things it is necessary for every Christian to believe; and all these things the scriptures teach; for they are profitable to his salvation.

3. The holy scripture is profitable "for reproof." Can any honest person in his senses read the bible, without acknowledging that from first to last it contains one continual reproof against every sin that it is possible for man to do, either by commission or omission, against God or man? Surely it must be the height of impudence to assert that there is need for any other reproof of wickedness than that in the holy volume. It is a complete witness against every sinner of every degree and kind, that God hates sin, and takes care to warn men against it.

4. Then the sacred volume is profitable "for correction." The history of the Jews alone is full of points by which any honest man may find himself corrected by their punishment for whatever sins he is in the habit of committing; and, if he will not take example by the recorded corrections of God's ancient people, where is he to go for fuller manifestations of the anger of God against

wickedness?

Here, however, I must just say that God's directions for avoiding his just judg ments do not exactly agree with those set forth by priestcraft and superstition; and hence the declarations as to the necessity of other guides than let go the bands of wickedness. The directions the scriptures. God says, Make you a clean heart, of superstition are: "Fast," mortify the flesh.

5. Then, lastly, "for instruction in righteousness.' What code of laws can presume to any sanctity or reasonableness, by the side of the ten commandments, and all the precepts of the bible, from one end to the other? But for the known facts of the case, one would utterly disbelieve that fallen man should have been so foolish, as well as wicked, to have added to the divine law of holiness proclaimed all through the Old Testament, and put in full practice by our blessed Saviour, whose history is written so simply in the pages of New Testament. But here again the heart is aimed at by the love of a fully-redeeming God; and the performance of the sacred duties of a Christian is grounded upon a motive, which, as a selfish priesthood cannot give, so it can get nothing by; therefore the commands of the church are brought in to help it.

dent claims of a pretended church authority are 6. But now mind you, my brethren, the impuwell accounted for, by the necessity of getting rid of the full force of the assertion of the apostle,

water, he humbly seeks the refreshing draught: "Give me to drink." The request was at once felt to be a condescension, and leads to the inquiry from the woman, "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" Does a Jew, proud and overbearing (as if she had added), now, for the first time surely, even in his straits, "have dealings with a Samaritan"?

The Samaritans sprang partly from that alien race of Assyrians which came into the place of the true Israel, when these were led captive by those early avengers of Israel's "sin"; and with these half-paganized children of the earth it could be no wonder that the pure blood of the Jewish nation might refuse to mingle. But now there was one standing before this woman, in majesty equal to his meekness, and one too great to be influenced by any mere human distinction. His generous errand was to accept humanity as such, without regard to name or map; and be, whose name and whose descent was not reckoned from any mere human origin, now forgets his name as Jew, and his wants as man: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him; and he would have given thee living water." We will consider, with prayer for a divine blessing on our meditation, first, the character of the person addressed, and, next, the words spoken, both in their particular and in their general application,

I. The woman, we observe, was, first, a Samaritan; in other words, a heathen, or, even worse in Jewish estimation, a heathen claiming Jewish privileges. "Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well .... ?" She claims a sort of patriarchal succession. And again: "Our fathers," she said to Jesus, "worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus, in reply, vindicates, it is true, the claim of Jerusalem to her just precedency in God's favour: "Ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews." Salvation can be sought only in God's appointed methods. Soon, however, the method was to be changed; Soon the wall between Jew and Samaritan was to be broken down, and all nations be invited to the obedience of faith and the worship of the spirit. Then is it to be neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem: "But the time is coming, and now is," Jesus speaks authoritatively, "when the true worshipper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him."

2. The woman was ignorant of spiritual things. She had grossly misunderstood the application of water, as a figure, to spiritual things; although the writings of the Old Testament, if she had properly studied them, would have given her that knowledge, even from the one prophetic invitation: "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Her simple reply to our Lord was this: "Lord, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw." And now, little understanding the true worship of the Father, which was to come in with the promised Messiah, she confesses, at last only, her present ignorance: "We know that when Messiah cometh he will teach all things."

3. She was, however, once more, what too often lies at the bottom of all our ignorance, real or pretended-she was a sinner; we may apprehend, a gross sinner. Go, call thy husband, and come hither,' were words sufficient to bring her sin to remembrance; and, with a look, no doubt corresponding to the words, he who knew what was in man pierced her soul. "I have no husband," was her half-hearted answer. "He whom thou now hast is not thy husband," was then the rejoinder, which at once aroused all her perceptions; and her reply, "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet," was perhaps the first word she had ever spoken from her heart; and very soon after, hearing those final words of the true Messiah, "I that speak unto thee. am he," we find her among her countrymen in Samaria, saying, "Come, see a man that told me all that ever I did: is not this the Christ?"

Here, then, was one of heathen extraction-one who was darkly ignorant alike of salvation and its Author, and one, moreover, immoral as well as irreligious, self-convicted, self-condemned, but one who, with all these downward tendencies, these traits of lost character, was no unfit object for notice and instruction from the Saviour of the world. He saw in her but one of such lost sheep as he was come from heaven to redeem, one such wanderer as it was a part of his office to conduct back to the true fold, one whose soul was precious in his sight. The circumstance of his own bodily fatigue, or want of refreshment, had been long since overlooked, not only when he said to his disciples bringing him food, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of," but even long before, when the sight of the welling water had suggested the similitude of the text and the pregnant words which follow: "Verily I say unto you, He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water