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A FOREST FUNERAL.

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given them a haggard look. But privation and poverty cannot exhaust that fund of kindness, frank and cheerful, which seems the peculiar dower of Eve's Teutonic daughters. Not that good-humour was a feminine monopoly. During all our sojourn no "brawls disturbed the street;" and, like other Germans, the men of Würtemberg gave us the impression of contentment without gaiety, and strength without bluster. Like most hard workers, they are honest; and, like most people who dwell apart, they are very neighbourly, and warmly interested in one another. Crime is less common than in England.

The parish church was full of people at an early service on the Sabbath morning; and the vigour of the psalmody and the general aspect of well-inclined attentiveness throughout the audience spoke well for the hearers. It was little of the sermon which we understood; but it appeared to be the utterance of a friendly and well-meaning pastor rather than of a master in Israel or an earnest evangelist.

The Sabbath afternoon was the usual time for funerals. About three or four o'clock the church-bell began, not to toll, but to ring as if for worship; and once and again we went out and joined the procession, which appeared to include the whole of the villagers. The minister in his gown and band walked first, and was followed by the older schoolchildren, with their teachers; and these sang a hymn along the road, in which the older people joined. When they reached the burying-ground the coffin-usually painted a light colour-was placed on the ground beside the grave, and the many hundreds who had attended drew up, the men on one side and the women on the other, whilst the pastor addressed them. The coffin was then lowered into the grave, sometimes among bitter lamentations, and after singing another hymn, the pastor pronounced the blessing, and the people went away.

The following imperfect translation may give some idea of the "funeral marches" of these simple foresters. It was sung as they were carrying an old man's coffin to the "Friedhof," or 66 Place of Peace," as the cemetery is touchingly styled. Quaint and homely, the original breathes a delightful spirit of resignation, and neighbourly kindness, and hope in Christ :

Neighbour, accept our parting song;

The road is short, the rest is long :

The Lord brought here, the Lord takes hence,-
This is no house of permanence.

On bread of mirth and bread of tears
The pilgrim fed these chequer'd years;
Now, landlord world, shut-to the door,
Thy guest is gone for evermore.

-Gone to a realm of sweet repose,
His comrades bless him as he goes:
Of toil and moil the day was full,
A good sleep now,—the night is cool.

Ye village bells, ring, softly ring,
And in the blessed Sabbath bring,
Which from this weary work-day tryst

Awaits God's folk through Jesus Christ.

And open wide, thou Gate of Peace,
And let this other journey cease,

Nor grudge a narrow couch, dear neighbours,
For slumbers won by life-long labours.

Beneath these sods how close ye lie!
But many a mansion's in yon sky:
Ev'n now, beneath the sapphire Throne,
Is his prepared through God's dear Son.

"I quickly come," that Saviour cries;
Yea, quickly come, this churchyard sighs:
Come, Jesus, come, we wait for thee,—
Thine now and ever let us be.

LETTERS FROM LONDON

TO FRIENDS FAR AWAY.

December 24, 1853.

DEAR FRIENDS,-When setting out for your present abodes, some of you requested that we would keep you informed on the subjects in which we used to feel a common interest. Gladly would we do so; but, as a supplement to shorter and more private epistles, we must beg your acceptance of this printed polygraph.

To England this has been a year of great prosperity. The revenue for twelve months, ending Oct. 10, 1853, was 52,077,1697.,- being an increase over the preceding year of 2,311,7521. And the exports of British and Irish produce and manufactures for the first ten months of the year amounted to 73,155,7551.,-being an increase of fourteen millions on the corresponding period of 1852. Owing to the unprecedented emigration, the surplus population has been so far reduced as to leave in many places a positive lack of labourers. Occasionally the sword had to be exchanged for the sickle; and in the south of England fields of corn were cut down by the soldiers. However, the strikes of colliers and cotton-spinners threaten to plunge the industrious classes again into misery; and, with war in the East and with cholera impending, it behoves us to rejoice with trembling.

Ericsson's caloric ship has not yet crossed the Atlantic ; but we hope it is coming. In the meanwhile, the expe

dition of the United States to Japan has been so far successful; and there is reason to hope that one of the most interesting yet unknown regions of the world may soon be effectually explored, and its commerce thrown open.

The problem of three centuries is solved, and the NorthWest passage is discovered. Captain M'Clure, in H.M.S. Investigator, has penetrated from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean; and now that the Magnetic Pole has been visited and the American Continent circumnavigated, there is no object to be served by any further Arctic expedition.

Last summer a meeting was held for the purpose of establishing in London a Mercantile Marine College. Many mercantile men have long felt the want of an institution where they might obtain some insight to commercial law, political economy, and other sciences bearing on trade and commerce; and where the future commanders of tradingvessels might pass through a suitable course of instruction. That a country with four millions and a half of tons of mercantile shipping-being more than the whole of Europe united,- should have no special provision for the education of its masters and captains, is one of those anomalies which, if once fully realised, can hardly fail to be rectified.

The Young Men's Christian Association holds on its way, numbering some six hundred members, but exerting a salutary influence on thousands. Its branches in different districts of London increase; and the Sabbath meetings for conversation and Scriptural instruction have proved a blessing to many. Never have its yearly Lectures made a more brilliant beginning; and few that heard them will forget Sir James Stephen's discourse, so wise and beautiful, or the thrilling appeals of Mr. Gough, the most wonderful extempore speaker to whom it has ever been our fortune to listen.

On the 8th of March the Bible Society commenced its Jubilee year, and a meeting was held at which speeches

MEMORABILIA OF 1853.

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worthy of the occasion were delivered by the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Earl of Carlisle, the Bishop of Winchester, Dr. Duff, and Mr. James. It has been resolved to signalise the year by raising a special fund to send a million of Testaments to China: for of the year now ending the great phenomenon is CHINA. The disruption of a planet could scarcely be more startling than the sudden up-waking of such an empire after a thousand years of slumber; and every Christian must pray that the political revolution may be only the precursor of a spiritual resurrection.

During the year France has lost its great astronomer, Arago, and its distinguished botanist, Auguste St.-Hilaire. British science has had to deplore the death of Pereira, famous for his acquirements in materia medica; and Strickland, the young and promising geologist. Sir Charles Napier is dead, the most brilliant and daring of British soldiers; and from the ranks of veteran authorship the gentle spirit of Amelia Opie has just passed away. Nor in the year's obituary can we forget Bishop Kaye of Lincoln, so refined a scholar and so learned in the Fathers; Dr. Wardlaw of Glasgow, whose work on the Socinian controversy made an end of that matter; and Dr. Gordon of Edinburgh, one of the loftiest intellects and holiest men in all the Scottish ministry.

In the book-world we have been electrified by no "Uncle Tom," nor any new volumes of Macaulay's England. But Merle d'Aubigné has published the fifth volume of his "Reformation," as romantic and as charming as the best of its predecessors; and in a "Monograph" on Wyclif, Dr. Vaughan has shown how compatible with antiquarian industry is a free, manly, and expansive spirit—a mind more than modern. Layard's new "Discoveries" teem with Scripture illustration, and if not so astounding, are more minute and more curious than his first researches. Sir Hudson Lowe's papers have at last appeared, and their "moral"

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