ing two homespun dresses for myself, and of their freedom. I told Maum Cely; but I one for Maum Celv. I have a pair of new think she imagined it a reproach, a piece leather shoes. They are the first leather of ingratitude on my part, to name it to her. shoes I have ever worn. I bought them too "No, Miss Mary, I not free - I not free large on purpose, but they hurt my feet I not gwyne for free, unless you gwine dreadfully. I have made a pair of home- turn me off when you git rich. No, Miss spun slippers, to wear in the house. I Mary, your own nigga will neber leff you. wanted a few towels very much, but we I not leff you. I won't leff you." could not get what could be done without. Mrs. Johnson took away her sheets, which we were using; but Maum Cely washed the silk skirt which I had worn coming from Columbia in the wagon, and with that and the covering which was wrapped around me in the mattresses when I was carried out from the fire, we do very well.

MAY 25.

My little Henry saw some boys shooting crackers in the street to-day; he was so delighted with them that he came to beg me for some, but I could not give him any. Ever since, he has joined to his little prayers every night and morning, "Oh, Good Papa, please give me a pack of crackers!"

One day he said to me, "Mamma, if Good Papa is good and loves us, why don't he give us money and give me crackers? Why does he not let us have corn bread and milk?"

My poor child! I did not know that he could remember anything else but priva

tions.

He is but four years old. I did not think he knew of anything else.

To hear my child speak thus renewed all my sorrow; yet I know that I have been often impatient too.

ers.

Mrs. Johnson is very angry about the rent, and makes us very uncomfortable here. She wishes Maum Cely to wash for her family for the rent of this room. I told her that Maum Cely was as free as I was, and that she must ask her. Maum Cely flatly refused, and told her that she had paid her the money and taken her receipt. That Massa Henry would pay when it was due again. "She did not know that white people wanted to be paid by two people. She thought they left that for the niggas.'

I heard the contest through the window. I could not help laughing. That witticism of Maum Cely's was in answer to Mrs. Johnson's having told me that she did not think that a lady of my position and family would consume the hard earnings of a poor widow, and not intend to pay.

JULY 12.

I actually dined out yesterday. Mrs. Allen came to see me and invited me to dine. I was to bring the children there early in the morning, and walk back late in the evening. As she lives on a large farm, she had everything much as was usual with her. She had for dinner a pair of roast fowls and a ham, nice loaf bread, and a variety of vegetables - all raised upon her own farm.

I was afraid the children would behave

MAY 28. Maum Cely brought me a quarter of a dollar in money, with great glee, last night, like little savages. I have no knives and and, rather than anything for myself, I forks, and they have been eating with their thought of my little boy's prayer for crack-fingers so long or with a spoon only. I was Yet I feared she might think that I wasted her earnings if I proposed to buy them. While I hesitated, she read my face, and said, "Miss Mary, if you want tea, or sugar, or what eber you want, you git it." I burst into tears of strangely mingled gratitude and sorrow, and told her about Henry's

prayer.

The next morning when he awoke the crackers lay upon his pillow, and were the first thing he saw upon awaking. He instantly clasped his little hands: "Thank you, Good Papa for the crackers." And all day I and he have been so happy!

also afraid that they would eat too much, having generally only the corn bread and milk. Often I have milk enough only for Edward. Mrs. Allen had a large apple dumpling for dessert, and this I did not allow them to touch. I was not intending to take any myself either, that they might not see me partake of what they could not have; but Mrs. Allen bid her youngest daughter take them both away until I had finished. She gave me a cup of tea also; how delightful and refreshing it seemed when I had not seen any for so long a time! I showed her my feet, on which the blisters have become such that I do not know what to do with them. The leather shoes, and coarse, country-made hose, which Henry thought would make me so comfortable, torture me so that I have kept on making rags and pieces of

the second bench, and, after examining him a two amongst the number turned to thank their moment, turn aside with a slight shudder, which deliverer, but the Zouave dismissed them bru I observed was neither of disgust nor dread, tally. 'Be off; don't stand shilly-shally. but a kind of involuntary recoil. He said ab- You are cured, ain't you? that's enoughruptly, pointing with his forefinger straight into now pietiez moi le camp!' In plain English, the face of the individual he addressed, 'I can Cut your stick, and be gone!'" Before leav do nothing for your disease; it is beyond my ing the room, I turned to look at the single pa power; go, and remember it is useless tient whose case Jacob had pronounced as beto return.' This was all; but the words acted ing beyond his power to cure- the man was upon the man like a magic spell. He shook paralyzed in both arms, and his neck twisted from head to foot, like the aspen-leaf, and tried all awry. It certainly was a hang-dog counte to gasp out a few words, but whether of prayer nance worse than any I ever beheld - and or expostulation it is impossible to say, for his the expression of rage and hate and fear, which tongue seemed paralyzed, and clung to the roof it conveyed, was unmistakable. His feet were of his mouth, while the Zouave turned aside paralyzed likewise and twined outwards. The with an indescribable expression of fear, certain-Zouave's father searched amongst the sticks ly indicative of a kind of intimidation. But this was soon shaken off, and he again passed before the line, uttering simply the words, Rise and walk! The sound which simultaneously burst from the assembly could find no fitting description in any language. It was a sort of moaning whine, a kind of infantile wailing, evidently produced by fear and doubt. One feeble old beggar woman, whose head had stopped its palsied shaking from the moment the Zouave Jacob had fixed his glittering eye upon her, was the one who gave expression to the feeling which had evidently taken possession of them all. Oh, how can I move without my crutches?' and having turned a yearning look towards the corner where these old friends and supporters were standing, with a host of others, she began to mumble and moan most piteously. But the Zouave looked for an instant down the line, with an ominous frown on his brow, as he found that not one of the patients had obeyed his orders. No pretension to the sacred character of a prophet, or inspired seer, was there, for he stamped with such rude violence on the floor that the casement shook again. He almost uttered an oath, but it was unfinished, as he once more uttered the command to rise and walk, so that others might be admitted in their place. Then came the most strange and mysterious moment of the whole ceremony. One by one did every individual seated upon those low wooden benches rise and stand erect.

No

and crutches left in the corner for those which belonged to the only cripple destined to remain so, and as he touched each one, looked with inquiring glance towards the unhappy wretch, who answered with an awkward jerk of his wry neck, until he seized upon a sort of wooden shelf or go-cart upon wheels, which the cripple had been used to push before him. A boy came in to help him from his seat, and as he disappeared supported by this aid, he uttered a poignant groan, which resounded through the place with the most weird and terrible effect imaginable. I subsequently inquired of the Zouave by what impression he was made aware of his inability to cure. He answered simply that in cases of this kind a veil seemed to fall before his eyes and impede his view of the patient.'

We need not say we do not ask our readers to believe one word of that most exWe know nothing traordinary statement. whatever of the correspondent of the Birmingham Journal, except that for years past he has been telling stories in that paper better than almost any one tells them; we do not know his name, and are wholly unable to decide whether he saw all this, or deliberately invented all this, or, as is most probable, pieced together all this from other men's stories, and then made himself words can describe the singular spectacle of the hero of the narrative. That remark fered by this fearing, hoping, doubting crowd, about the veil looks decidedly like an inas each one found himself standing firm upon vention, for it is Scotch, old Sotch, was the the legs which for years had ceased to do their mode adopted fifty years ago by the " seers office. Some laughed like foolish children, some of Skye to describe the modus operandi of remained wrapped in stolid wonder, while many their power of predicting death. Nor do burst into the most heartrending paroxysm of we care much to explain, or try to explain, weeping. It was then that the Zouave stretched the impression the Zouave has unquestionforth his arm and bade them pause. All was ably produced in Paris. Our own impreshushed and silent for a moment. The pause lasted for some time. I have been told that it sion is, we confess, a very strong one, that is always so, but have not been able to account he is not a fanatic at all, but an impostor, for its necessity; and then the door was thrown who gets up this drama as an advertiseopen, and the crippled and the paralyzed, the ment, with the view of creating an impres halt and lame of the hour before, walked from sion-highly profitable in Paris- that he that long, low, half darkened chamber, with can cure what quacks call "nervous dissomewhat timid gait, it may be, but with eases," but that is only a plausible guess. straightened limbs and measured steps, as though But the story irresistibly suggests the old query, what amount of evidence would

no ailment had ever reached thein.

One or

--

justify an intelligent human being in believ- upon the testimony of these six men, when ing the facts related of the Zouave? specially interested in investigation, refuse Clearly no statements from unknown news- absolutely to believe? And if so, upon paper correspondents would justify him, be- what grounds do they accept anything, or cause we have no sufficient proof that they build any scheme of scientific, antiquarian, are certain to tell the truth, or intelligent or judicial research? What is the limit, enough to detect falsehood. But how much short of a statement which contradicts evidence would do? Suppose, instead of itself, beyond which testimony has no value? an unknown gossip, a known man, say Mr. Is there no amount of testimony which W. H. Russell, had signed that wonderful would prove, prove to a demonstration, tale, would that have been sufficient? No; that the mere will of a Zouave named for any one individual might have been the Jacob could enable a paralyzed person to victim of an illusion. Well, but suppose a walk like a healthy man; and if so, how group of known men, say, to make the sup- much? or if not, what is our ground for position perfect, the Archbishop of Canter- believing a statement of a gradual cure of bury, Mr. Maurice, Lord Stanley, Mr. similar disease in any hospital in Great Lewes, Professor Huxley, and Sir Henry Britain? Upon the answer to those quesThompson the operator, we mean - had tions, upon the establishment, if it be posadded their signatures to the tale, would sible, of some distinct canon as to the value that have been sufficient? We believe of evidence, depends the whole utility of one-half the educated men in England inquiry into the more recondite phenomena would say immediately no, that no evidence of nature, and half the value at least of whatever could prove an occurrence, or modern theologic discussion. rather a series of occurrences, so nearly approaching the miraculous. And yet, if the testimony of many men morally incapable of lying, intellectually more competent to test the deception than any average doubter to test their statements, is not to be accepted, why do we believe anything? Most of us have no better proof that the Queen exists, for, after all, one's eyesight, if fairly considered, is by no means so complete a demonstration of any fact as the testimony of those six men would be. Their six eyesights are worth more than our one, on any rule of evidence worth discussion. There is no proof that we know of that the earth goes round the sun, except the testimony of a good many competent and honest persons that they have seen, or otherwise convinced themselves of, certain phenomena which can be explained only upon that theory. Jacob, as we say, seems to us a vulgar impostor, who has taken in the clever raconteur whose account we have quoted; but our contention is that if the six gentlemen named had seen the same incidents, and tested their reality, and sign-it, and acts on the

You are trying, we shall be told, to prove, on scientific grounds, the scientific value of an unscientific credulity. Well, well, well! never mind about names. Call it credulity or faith, superstition or conviction, the point remains the same. Is there, or is there not, a possible amount of human testimony which ought to produce certainty as to a particular event in a reasoning mind, which in truth, for all purposes of subsequent investigation or theory-building, makes it a fact, as much to be reckoned with as the appearance of an unexpected comet in an astronomer's calculations? We contend that there is, and must be, and have as yet seen no answer from the honestly sceptical side which does not involve the unscientific conclusion that there are facts not impossible in se, which yet are so unlikely that no amount of evidence would prove that they occurred. The unlikeliest thing we know of is that a grain of wheat should be buried, and then months afterwards shoot out sixty other grains he was a speculator, the genius who first tried that!

but still one believes belief. Why, if testi

ed the storyteller's statement, we should mony to the unlikely has a limit to its
either be bound to accept the facts-their force?
meaning is a different matter or to state

honestly that there are incidents so new,
so unusual, and so unlike any previous
experience, that evidence in regard to
them has no meaning or weight at all. ROMAN,
This is the point to which we want to
bring our opponents on this subject and
never can bring them. Is there any occur-
rence not involving directly or indirectly a
contradiction in terms which they would,

From The Fortnightly Review.

AND
SACRED MUSIC.

ANGLICAN,

PROTESTANT

A MAN must be singularly ill-informed or singularly unsympathetic who does not view the changes at present going on in the life of English society with a quite unusual

when we penetrate below the surface, in every one of the subjects which I have named we detect one universal tendency urging all alike in the same direction. Amidst an ever-increasing shattering of old beliefs, there is an ever-increasing desire for the attainment of some state in which conviction and practical life may attain a condition of permanence, as resting upon incontestable facts, and corresponding to what we call, in mechanics, a condition of "stable equilibrium," as distinguished from that "unstable equilibrium" with which past generations have often been so unaccountably satisfied.

degree of interest It is not that we have just now arrived at one of those periods of crisis which to a certain class of minds seem to be chronically imminent, but which in truth rarely occur, either in our individual histories or in the histories of nations. The special interest of our time lies in its being eminently a period of transition, not merely in one or two details of thought and activity, but in almost the whole range of opinion, belief, and practical action. This transition, too, has really been in progress for many years past, and it seems probable that many years have yet to come and go before the movements now at work shall have wrought their natural results, and we Ön first thoughts it may seem fanciful to are fairly lodged in the new state of things connect with these tendencies that increasto which we are tending. But yet, so far ing love for music in public worship which as can be judged, we shall soon arrive at a is so striking a phenomenon of the religious stage when these tendencies will exhibit movement of to-day. Yet the connection is themselves and their operations in a far real nevertheless. It is a result of the more striking aspect than any which they slowly advancing conviction that the regu have yet assumed, and will thus enable us lations of a series of acts which are to be to forecast the future with anticipations of performed by men and women should be a more trustworthy sort than those guesses based on a recognition of the facts of human which have been hitherto the utmost upon nature, and not on the traditions of thewhich a cautious mind would venture. In ological controversy and the blind bigotries the regions of politics, of social life, of trade of the past. If the movement is still chiefly and manufacture, of metaphysical and sci- confined to the Anglican and Dissenting entific speculation, and of religious belief, communities, it is because the Roman Catheverything is moving onwards to something olic clergy are always the slowest to look new and unknown; and everywhere signs actual facts in the face, and are absolutely are exhibited which show that the move- convinced that there is nothing to be learnt ment is as profound in its depth as it is ex- from Protestantism. They are, moreover, so tensive in its range. It is evident, more- penetrated with the tear that any hints they at least, so it appears to me that may borrow from Protestants may be rethe whole of these changes, in their vast garded as a confession of their own fallivariety and apparent unconnectedness, are bility, and as a sort of misprision of heresy, really due to one cause namely, the rec- that they close their eyes to the most obognition of the truth that all belief and all viously useful practices, if only they have action should be founded on observed facts, been originated by their detested rivals. and not upon the hypotheses of the past. In England, too, the presence of a powerful We may be still destined to be, to no Establishment, and of a vast body of insmail extent, the victims of our own pre- tensely anti-Roman Nonconformists, quickjudices or dreams; and there may be ens these prejudices to a degree little known grounds for imagining that the capacity for in such countries as France and Germany, scientific observation and correct reasoning and blinds the eyes of the Catholic authoriwill never be much more general than it is ties to the suicidal nature of various pracat this hour. Nor, again, is it to be expect- ties to which they cling, as if they were ed that intelligences at once versatile, cor- among the very essentials of the Christian rect, enlarged, and profound, will ever be religion. In the Church of England on the less rare than they are at this day, and contrary, the advance of enlightened ideas than they have been during the past. as to the office of music in religious worship Those who can thoroughly understand the has been wonderful, though as yet neither her leading facts and the principles of more clergy nor laity seem to have mastered the than one province of thought and knowledge principles involved in the subject. The progwill ever be the exceptions, even amongst ress that has been made has been solely of the most cultivated classes; so that there is that tentative, rule-of-thumb description too little hope that the bigotries and intoler- which is satisfactory only up to a certain ances from which scarcely any class of point. Were it not for their prejudices, inthinkers is now free will ever cease. Still, deed, they would study more carefully the

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