model of tasteful and elegant dress, and that unless I could procure exactly such a shawl, I should be quite unhappy; so, foolishly, I looked forward for the time when I should first put it on.

It was not quite so difficult to obtain as I had expected. I found plenty of similar shawls, from which I chose one that seemed even to excel all the others. My sister, quiet, simple, and firm in her taste, as in all else about her, had long since fixed on what hers was to be; much plainer, much darker, much less fashionable and uncommon looking, I thought, than mine; and in spite of all my remonstrance and persuasion she would not change her mind. Utterly unimpressed, to my surprise, she was with the evident superiority of mine. Indeed, she gave me various hints that she did not admire my choice, that she would advise me to have one the same as hers, and that I should probably be disappointed in it myself; but I would listen to no suggestions. The vision of the elegantly draped figure I had seen came back to my imagination, and I was determined.

We put them on together, I recollect, one clear, bright, summer day, when we happened both to be particularly anxious to be well and becomingly dressed. How very quiet! how very lady-like my sister's looked, as she fastened it on over her dark silk dress. Mine was certainly rather more showy beside it than I had expected, but that did not signify, I thought, it was so beautiful! So, I threw it round me, and turned to the mirror to see the effect of it. Was I satisfied now? Were my hopes of its beauty realized?

My sister stood beside me; oh, what a contrast! Where was my expected elegance? Where was the beauty that was to attract every eye? It was the old familiar figure that I saw reflected there, with all its often-lamented-over faults, the only change being that, by the peculiar style of my shawl, all these faults seemed magnified, even caricatured. Then the shawl itself! Distance had, indeed, "lent enchantment to the view." Its lightness, as I saw it now, was mere paltriness, its bright colours seemed only showy and glaring, its undefined attraction had vanished utterly, and I stood beside my sister, in her plain dress, feeling as if I were, in contrast to her, an example of, and a warning against what was unbecoming, untasteful, and in every way objectionable in dress.

My disappointment was great, for I have not exaggerated the extent to which I had set my heart on this shawl. I cannot tell now where the delusion lay, whether in the imagination of its beauty or of its want of beauty; I believe that both were exaggerated in my eyes, that I might the more plainly see, and the more easily learn the lesson that my disappointment was designed to teach.

For a minute or two I stood trying to persuade myself that I was wrong in thinking my shawl unsuitable and unlady-like. I was reluctant to acknowledge that I felt my taste at fault. It is part, I think, of a woman's nature to pride herself on having a true appreciation of the beautiful, and rather to despise those who want the sense; so I made no remark at first. But my eye would not get accustomed to it. No, the longer I looked, the more plainly I saw its faults, and at last, after giving utterance to a variety of impatient ejacula

tions and exclamations, betokening great dissatisfaction, I hastily threw it off, saying, in a decided and querulous voice, "There! anybody may have that piece of dress, for I never will put it on again. I never saw anything so frightful! I never was so disappointed in anything," and then, in an ostentatious and expressive manner, I proceeded to put on my old cloak.

My sister looked vexed. The pleasure of her shawl was gone; she seemed to feel as if it were not right that she should enjoy and be pleased with hers, as she was, while I was annoyed about mine. To exchange it for another, we knew, in the circumstances (it matters not why), was impossible, it must be worn; so she took it up, tried gently to persuade me to put it on again, and began kindly to point out its beauties. I yielded at last to her gentle, coaxing entreaties, and got ready, but, when we had got fairly out, and on our way, it was no better. The contrast between us seemed to me to become more and more marked the longer we were together. I began to feel positively uncomfortable, as if I must be an object of ridicule to every one in my gaudy, unsuitable colours, and by the time we returned home I had actually attained to a morbid idea that every one who passed looked wonderingly at my small figure in its gay and ill-chosen drapery. I crept close, I remember, to my sister, hoping to screen myself from the public gaze that haunted my imagination, but all was useless; it became to me like a dream; a painful nightmare, crushing and oppressing me, increasing every moment in its effects, till at last, feverish and nervous, I reached my room, where, with a feeling of inexpressible relief, I threw the shawl off, feeling as if, with it, I laid aside a weight that had been pressing me heavily.

All this my sister saw and knew, but with the exception of helping me now and then with a kind and cheerful word, she said very little. She never spoke as if she had any recollection that I was only feeling the consequence of my own imprudent choice; neither did she ridicule my being troubled about so slight a thing. SHE never would have allowed a like trifle to obtain such a place in her mind; but this did not prevent her from sympathizing with my trouble.

With an occasional disagreeable reminiscence of my annoyance that day, the time passed till again we had occasion to wear the shawls. This time also it happened that we were both anxious to look well in the eyes of some loving friends; and when I went to get ready, the remembrance of my former uncomfortable walk came back to me so strongly that I must confess, exaggerated as the term may seem, I actually shrank with pain at the thought of appearing again in the same guise.

However, feeling determined to get over such weakness I resolutely opened the drawer, where I expected to find my shawl. To my surprise it was gone, and in its place there lay another. I took it up, and as I looked at it with wonder, I recognised the plain and simple beauty of my sister's shawl.

I knew that sister well, and I needed no further explanation of the change; but I knew that she had disliked mine more than she had chosen to tell me, and I felt that I could not and would not accept the generous sacrifice.

While I stood with the shawl in my hand, thinking how I could best return it to her, without appearing to undervalue the kindness that prompted the act, she came herself into my room fully ready, and dressed in my despised shawl. I waited no longer, but going quickly up to her, I threw my arms round her, whispering warm thanks and loving words in her ear. Then I unloosed my hold, and began quietly to take out the large jet pin that fastened the shawl.

She caught my hand in hers, laughingly, exclaiming, "What's all this about; why are you undressing me, Lizzy?"

I answered nothing. I could not have spoken just then, but resolutely I went on with my work of disengaging the pin. Somehow, my hand shook, and my eyes were very dim. I had to stop for a moment. Annie seized the opportunity; and rapidly taking up the other shawl, she threw it over my shoulders, and in her own quick, graceful way, before I knew almost what she was doing, it was fastened round my throat.

Still I would not submit, but began rebelliously to unpin it. Then she took hold of my hand again, and a quiet, earnest, loving look, peculiar to herself and full of meaning, came into her soft grey eyes, as she said gently, and with a youthful, tremulous, beseeching voice, "Lizzy, dear, don't take this pleasure from me. I would like to do something every day to make some person happier -something to lighten the burden we all have to bear-and you know yourself, how easy it is for me to do this for you just now. Now, you won't say anything more about it; will you, dear?"

I knew that, when she looked and spoke thus, Annie meant all and much more than she said, and I felt that the selfishness now would be in continuing my resistance; so I only answered her with a warm pressure of my hand, and turned away to hide the tears that were fast filling my eyes.

Dear Annie! your wish has been fulfilled. This was one, and but a very light one, among the many heavy burdens you have lightened by your tender sympathy and help during all the years of your life. You have brought a ray of sunlight to many a crushed and darkened spirit. By your means has the true healing balm been poured into many a wounded heart.

When she spoke again it was in a lively tone, begging me not to pay her the poor compliment of turning my back on her, and insisting that I should look round and admire her in her stolen finery.

I turned, and when my eye lighted on her as she stood, I could hesitate no longer. Never in my eyes had my sister looked more graceful, than at that moment I saw her in the light of her loving, unselfish act. She wore the very shawl that I had thrown discontentedly aside,-every colour, every thread, every bit of tracery was the same; but how changed it seemed. The colours no longer looked bright and gaudy. They were subdued and pale beside the brilliance of the halo that my imagination cast around the wearer. Could it be otherwise? How its ultra fashion, its unsuitableness, its conspicuous showiness seemed to have vanished away in the light in which now I saw it -the badge-the outward symbol of her loving, unselfish spirit!

I could scarcely at first believe that it was really the same. In my eyes it now appeared without a fault. Yes; the high true beauty of the spirit of the wearer was all that I could see. It filled me; and all outward appendages, all that the eye of sense could see, became, for this moment (oh, that such moments would come oftener to us in this busy heart-distracting world!) dim, far off, and shadowy. And, as less and less distinct they became, and more and more they faded before the pure, the real beauty,-I learned the lesson, to teach me which, I doubt not, my disappointment and its remedy were sent. I learned fully, then, what I had often been told before, that beauty— the truest beauty, depends on no outward things; and that a self-sacrificing love like this, and a sensitive tenderness for even the lightest troubles of another, are what constitute a woman's best adornment; softening and casting into shadow all the roughness and the want of harmony that, when seen without this veil, our eyes cannot look upon but with recoil.

I never after that day could see my sister with this shawl, without seeing all its faults so shaded and hidden; and to all others, when I told its story (and it pleased me well to tell it, when I could unknown to her), it seemed an ornament more becoming and more graceful to the wearer, than ever could have been the rarest and most costly fabric. Could I regret then for her, that she had made the loving exchange? No; for never could I, or any other, have seen her with her own, as, day after day for many months, we saw her, when arrayed in my despised unfitting garment.

Trifling-too trifling to be worthy a moment's thought, to occupy any pen, or to attract a single reader-I doubt not will be the sentence pronounced by any who may chance to read this little sketch. But let it remain. We cannot eştimate the worth of a sacrifice, altogether by the VALUE of what is sacrificed; and besides-slight things-long forgotten details of the days that are past, come back to us at times, we know not why, bringing with them a thrill of tender recollection; more especially they often come, as this has come to me, with a strange vividness, during the declining years of a lonely life.

If it should help to teach one longing young heart where to look for the ideal beauty of which it has so often dreamed-to seek for it in no outward form, for what is there can never satisfy a nature feeling even the faintest aspiration after the spiritual-it shall have answered, beyond my expeetation, its appointed end.

If it should fail in this-still let me keep it, carefully and tenderly as I keep the little relic that brought it to my mind. Let it stand as a true record of one among the many sweet unselfish acts, by which my sister has thrown so much of sunshine into my life, and brightened so many of the days that, without her, must have been very dark and lonely. Let it stand, as a loving tribute to her who has been to me, during all my lifein joy and in sorrow-my friend, my support, my counsellor.

My beloved, my only sister, we have spent all the years of our lives together. When the time shall come, in death may we not be long divided.

And so the year laid her to sleep,

Her beauty half expressed;
Then slowly, slowly cleared the skies,
And smoothed the seas to rest,
And raised the fields of yellowing corn
Above her buried breast;

Till autumn counterfeited spring
With such a flush of flowers,
His fiery-tinctured garlands more
Than mocked the April bowers,
And airs as sweet as airs of June
Brought on the twilight hours.
O holy twilight, tender, calm!
O star above the sea!
O golden harvest, gathered in
With late solemnity,

And thankful joy for gifts nigh lost
Which yet so plenteous be ;-

Although the rain-cloud wraps the hill,
And sudden swoop the leaves,
And the year nears his sacred end,
No eye weeps-no heart grieves :
For the reaper came rejoicing,
Bringing in his sheaves.

PASTOR HARMS OF HERMANNSBURG.

IV. THE MISSIONARY AT WORK.

MISSION life is not without its adventure. Few episodes in the History of the Church surpass in interest the missions of the Middle Ages. The labours of Williams among the South Sea Islands have all the excitement and incident of a romance. The Central African Society appeals directly, and it is said not unsuccessfully, to the romantic element -the love of travel, the novelty of an unexplored country, the adventurous spirit of Englishmen, the chivalry of pursuing a noble aim through peril and personal daring. These are low motives enough compared with the sense of duty and the self-sacrifice of a Christian consecration; they must always maintain a very secondary place; but there are directions of missionary enterprise where they come at once into play, and where they find their proper use in sustaining and bracing the missionary under the shock of repeated disappointments. They take away from the hard, weary plainness of everyday routine; they supply fresh materials for thought; and the free wandering under foreign skies, the new conditions of life imposed by constant intercourse with savages, the hardships, hairbreadth escapes, adventures, strange sights, and the joyful feeling of being the first to see, go to compensate for the pleasures and intercourse and helps of that social life from which the missionary is excluded.

Now it will be confessed that the aim of the Hermannsburg Mission is sufficiently romantic, but nothing of romance can be attributed to the missionaries. Though there is a continued romance in their situation in Africa, in their progress, in the histories of their separate stations, they seem thoroughly unaware of it, and nothing can well be more matter of fact than their letters. They sailed from Germany as certain simple, homely

peasants, warmly attached to their native soil, not expecting anything but hard and faithful labour under untried and uncongenial circumstances. They felt keenly the parting, the isolation, the entire amount of sacrifice. There was no getting up of enthusiasm, there is not a trace of brilliant hopes, or pleasant pictures of travel. They have taken to them a definite purpose which they have resolved to carry out, and in their singleness of heart they see no more than that, and expect no more. They observe and write as frank, honest Christians who have strong attachments, strong faith, much natural shrewdness, and hearty common sense. Their letters are homely; like the cheery fireside talk with which they would beguile the winter evenings on the Heath. They are the letters of missionaries, but they are first of all the letters of peasant men. They describe everything just as they see it, without study or reticence, with genuine unconventional feeling. Homely, certainly they reproduce their woe at the seasickness with a ludicrous fidelity; tell how their clothes had got too small by the end of their voyage; detail their little blunders and exploits; discuss the relative strength of manures; enter with zest upon the cooking of sausages and their success in curing ham. Everything is novel, and their wonder is openly expressed; they lift up their hands in horror at a naked savage; they describe with a child's awe the roar of a lion; they keep their old standards of judgment; compare a Kaffir kraal with Hermannsburg, and a native crowd with the Altona gate of Hamburg on a Sunday afternoon. This is not the usual style of mission letters, and these are not the usual things we hear. Perhaps for that very reason they are all the more welcome; it is the little details that reproduce their life, the everyday work; we like to realize the missionary in his new world, and that is impossible if we never meet him but in his official character. And I think it will be interesting to have some details from the correspondence of these missionaries, to learn what kind of men they are, and how they are qualified for their undertaking.

how

Brother Schütze has been out in the woods hewing timber, and details his experiences on his return. "The trees reach no great height, and will not make longer rafters than of thirty feet, but they each give about four. And now, and where do these trees grow? Often just as if you thought of the roof of the Mission House, the bank rises up so steeply. At first, there was no little trouble to get at the trunk, for the thorns, thistles, underwood, and parasite plants that stretched up from the ground to the crown of the tree, formed an impenetrable barrier through which we had to cut our way with the axe. how is the tree to fall? Best, against the hill; for it must be dragged up. Then, pull hard, it must come down! We feel we can hold no longer, and cry to those above that it is bent on going downwards. Now, then, all together. So, 'all together! ho! hup!' It goes. But in a twinkling, all seven men lie on their backs and stretch their legs. The rope had broken. No wonder that now the tree plunged down with a frightful crash, and we saw how much better it could clear

And now,

an opening in the thicket than we with our axes. Now we had to hew down every bush that was in the way, and build stages for cutting up our tree. But that is far more easily told, than by our shoulders and hands it was brought to pass. Meanwhile, there was not a breath of air; we had to remove the beautiful shady trees in order to win room; at mid-day, the sun burned straight down upon our heads. Then there often rose a loud cry among us : Let us not build so large a house: when will all the wood be ready? But we always answered; it will be well when every one has his own room, for solitude is necessary to the Christian. When the wood was ready, we assembled all the brethren to draw it home. Over the steepest hills, which happily were not the longest, we managed thus: All the men placed themselves so that they had the rafters between their legs: then the word was given, "Wood away!" and so we went step by step till we got over. Over the longer hills we carried the rafters; eight men to each. This was all rough and dangerous work. To the Lord be praise and thanks, for He alone has given us joy in it and kept us from hurt, while we are only unprofitable servants. The greatest trial we had was from the African rains that lasted three days, and drove us under the waggon for shelter. When we saw that the water poured through, Kohls and I seized a woollen counterpane, and while the rain rushed down under our feet like a mountain torrent, we held it up like poor criminals for two hours. Our position was none of the pleasantest, and I believe the drill is not harder on a recruit than holding the counterpane was on us. During these wet days we could not once light a fire, or get coffee or anything warm. Verily, bush-life in Africa needs a good constitution; and we have had yet no opportunity of playing the gentleman and sitting in an arm-chair beside the stove."

The smith has his own story to relate. "Our bellows did not take kindly to their exposure on the sand at Mombaz. For when we came into Port Natal and had raised up our smithy in the open air, the bellows were sickly, and I had to patch them before they recovered their wind. . . Arrived here, the brethren would straightway plough, and came saying, Brother Smith, you must make a plough and harrow. So when the kitchen was half ready, we set up our anvil in it. We hammered in one corner, the cook cooked in the other, Schröder plastered the walls, and Meyer sat upon the roof and thatched. Though the thatcher seldom felt at ease about the smith's fire below him, everything went well till the roof was finished and the harrow and plough were ready; and after making a pair of fire-tongs for the cook, we intended removing. But the Lord would punish us for the folly of having a forge in a house with an unprotected straw roof. The roof caught fire. We snatched the bellows, but it was too late and we had to run out to avoid being burnt. When the fire was got under, the leather was partly burnt. What was to be done now? Without bellows we could not forge, and without forging we could have nothing ready. Three hours off there lived a farmer who had leather. But we had no money. Never mind, we said, we can pay in work. We hammered away from morning

66

till evening, and soon had earned more than £50. We have now a tolerable workshop with which the English Magistrate expresses himself well pleased. He also expresses his delight that we are all such diligent workers, and that we try to win over the Kaffirs to work. For the last two months we have had a black helping in the smithy. He is at least three inches taller than our mighty Schütze. He is the man to swing the great hammer! We use every opportunity to speak with him about spiritual things. One day I asked him to come and settle among us, with wife and child, that they might all be taught. He replied he was too stupid. I told him that was just the reason why he should learn, and that he might know the dear Saviour. A few days after he said, Sometimes his heart spoke to him, learn; and then sometimes it said no, he was too stupid; and he did not know what kind of strife that was." I explained it to him as well as I could. As yet he learns nothing, but is clever enough. He can strike the great hammer better than one of the brethren. The work is very various, waggons, axes, hatchets, spades, shovels, ploughs, harrows, and many a thing which I need not mention; and even horse-shoeing, at which the Kaffirs have greatly marvelled, for they had never seen before that horses needed shoes. You will perhaps think I have written too much of the black smithy. I had rather been silent, but the brethren said it was my duty. I commend myself to your prayers. I am often sorrowful and cast down by my sins, but I cling to Him who daily and richly forgives me, poor sinner, all my sins." Probably the reader will not be indisposed to add with Mr. Harms, "That is also a genuine missionary work," or even to go farther with him when he says that he "honours the artisan and labourer who follows his calling with fresh and joyful heart as a calling given him by God and for the glory of God, just as much as he honours the pastor in the pulpit and the justice in his court."

Their explorations in the interior brought the missionaries in contact with every phase of African life, and they observe with watchful and intelligent eyes. A station was to be erected near the most powerful chief of Natal, one Umpagadi. Four of the brethren went to examine the locality, and have an interview with the people. They wished a spot where they could conveniently build, where the ground was arable and would yield enough for their support, and where there were natives. For "we hold it our duty to spare expense, so that more missionaries may be sent. And besides, if the gospel is to flourish, the Kaffirs must work; for there will be no Christendom among them as long as their life is a mere lying out in the sun, and drinking sour beer." "We went over furze and hill, and the hills were long and steep. We had to make this journey without bread and meat. For you get nothing from the Kaffirs but kroik, as they call it a kind of sour beer made from maize, and here and there milk. When the night drew on, we chose a large hut, and asked permission to sleep. It was given with great and friendly readiness; milk and kroik and a roasted head of maize were set before each of us. We seized the maize, Kaffir fashion, with both hands, and ate out the