inscrutable ways of God: "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out."

This then was the cause of our delay; the Cashmere being lost, there was no other ship ready to take its place, and so we had to wait a month-a long month as it seemed to us-by which time arrangements had been made for another ship to take the round the Cashmere should have taken. As we

had been thus delayed, we thought it best from Zanzibar to take the most expeditious route home -that by Aden to London, rather than that by the Cape to Southampton, and thus the disappointment of the friendly "Voice from Southampton * in not meeting us after all his kind search, a disappoint ment which we assure him was mutual.

A pleasant sight it was, at noon, on the 3rd of September, to see the steam-ship Abyssinia of the British India Steam Navigation Company, sail into the harbour of Mojangà, and to know that our long delay at this port had at last come to an end. A few hours saw us all on board this very comfortable ship, and at daylight on the following morning we set sail on our nine weeks' voyage to England. We might have added words descriptive of our voyage and the places we saw-but again I remember that there is an Editor, who, even if he is kind, may also be stern. Suffice it then to say that, after seeing Mayotta, Johanna, Zanzibar, Aden, we passed up the Red Sea and through our Canal to Port Said; then by Messina, Palermo, Marsala, Algiers to Lisbon— which was our last port of call. This place we left on October 29th, and after a very favourable voyage over the Bay of Biscay and up the Channel, we cast anchor at Gravesend on Saturday evening, November 3rd.

Here letters and telegrams from kind friends and

* See Quarterly Examiner, No. XLIV., Tenth Month, 1877.

relations met us, and on the following morning three of those who saw us on board our ship at Gravesend in April, 1871, met us at the docks and gave us a warm welcome to Old England. I trust our hearts were filled with real gratitude to God, not only for the journeying mercies we had received, but also for the blessings of health and strength so largely given, which had enabled us to complete our term of six years, which was the time we had in view when we offered ourselves to the Friends' Foreign Mission Association for service in Madagascar. Except for a feeling of deep unworthiness, and of how much we had not done we might have done, there was nothing to cloud our happiness in once more setting foot upon England's shore; for

"Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand."

HENRY E. CLARK.

THE THOMPSONS OF COMPTON.

PART II.

In a previous chapter we brought the narrative sketch of the Thompson family to the period when, after an uninterrupted existence of eighty years, under Jonah and Thomas Thompson (father and son), the Friends' school at Compton was discontinued, in 1814. It would be beside our present purpose to compare the fruits of boarding school education in those days with the results attained in similar institutions of the present age. As far as examinations, book learning, and head knowledge are concerned, the average lad of this generation would doubtless surpass those of a former regimé, and Tottenham, York or Scarborough could look down with complacent satisfaction upon the inferior intellectual attainments of the boys at Compton, to whom "coaching" was an unknown force, and for whom the modern stimulants of certificates for science and art, matriculation examination, medals and degrees of all kinds, had existence neither in practice nor in theory. But whilst thus freely awarding the palm in these respects to modern schools, we hesitate in believing that the present system will produce better Christians, better members of the Society of Friends, better citizens, or men of truer dignity, sounder judgment, and more sterling integrity than the less scientific culture of that day.*

*Even the training at Meetings for Discipline-" dry," as we call them—was, we believe largely helpful in producing these superior results. The mixture of the grave and solid religious meetings with the innocent mirth of boyhood after they were over, presents to us a lively and pleasant picture. The cavalcade to Sherborne Meeting described in a former part, and which has been

But, apart from the closing of the school, it was not to be expected in the nature of things that so large a family, after reaching maturity, should maintain its phalanx unbroken through many succeeding years; yet those who have experienced the great happiness of a united family growing up together and living on under the same paternal roof will readily comprehend the remarkably strong attachment of each member of the Compton household, and the family griefs consequent on its gradual disruption.

The first inroad upon the domestic circle occurred on the marriage of the elder sister to the late W. C. Westlake. In the year following, the younger sister, Nancy, in the full bloom of life, health and beauty, died of fever, after a very short illness, at the age of twenty-two, and in 1818 the father and stepmother removed to Belair, in Cornwall. The four brothers,

thought a little overdrawn by some, is thus confirmed in a recent letter from an old scholar "The going to meeting was pretty

much as thou hast described it. The donkey carriage took six or eight boys; four of the eldest took it in turns to drive. I can well recollect the amusement we had if we could get out of sight of our master's carriage! I was one of the elder ones (having left the school about a year before it was given up) and I took my first lesson in driving in this way. Monthly Meetings were often held at Sherborne, and the old 'Traveller' coach generally passed there about the time we came out of meeting. It was our delight to harness the donkeys as quickly as possible, and start and have a race with the coach. If we were before them we generally kept so until we left the turnpike road; if behind we kept up with them and amused ourselves and the passengers of the coach by calling on them to make way for us to pass by."

Happy unsophistocated days! when cart and donkeys harnessed, as well as driven on the king's highway, by the sons of our wealthiest Friends gave as much, or perchance greater, unalloyed pleasure to our forefathers, as charioteers, than brougham or park phaeton with faultless Galloways, richly plated harness, sleek coachman, and silver-buttoned page to match, now afford to their highly-cultured descendants! Can we doubt which age would probably produce the largest percentage of orthodox and consistent Friends?

who were unmarried, still clung to the old place, and were engaged in the business of flax-spinning, for which branch of trade Dorsetshire was at that time celebrated.

But fresh and still greater changes awaited them. The business, which until 1826 had been a prosperous one, greatly suffered during the commercial crisis of that year, and finally had to be abandoned. And here came the test as to how far the quiet and practical homelife and country education which had so admirably fitted the brothers for usefulness in their native village would prove equally beneficial in a wider sphere, or for the bustling atmosphere of a seaport town. In neither instance were the Compton training or old pursuits destroyed, but all the benevolent tastes so early instilled renewed, and seemed healthily to expand by transplanting. Whilst the Bible Society and British School formed their first public labours at Compton it is a pleasant reflection that throughout the lives of each brother these two great objects were uppermost in their thoughts; and in the towns of Southampton, Fordingbridge, and Hitchin, where they afterwards settled, they were ever to the front in the former cause, and each had the satisfaction of seeing admirable British schools built and established in their own town, largely through their energy and earnestness of purpose; whilst the medical tastes of Edward also found ample development, as we shall presently show.

In the autumn of 1826 their brother Thomas, who had just commenced a fresh business at Bradford, in Dorsetshire, was attacked by virulent fever, and died after two or three days' illness. These accumulated troubles told heavily on the aged father, who had lost his second wife three years previously; yet, to use his own words, he seemed to be "divinely supported" under all the trials of his latter days. Many records remain which show the unselfishness of his character,