Otto Castellani came forward. Filling a glass with water he poured into it a few drops from the phial; the colour changed to a violet hue; adding more, it turned first to red, and finally to black.

५

"It is the celebrated poison of Jaffa," said the Florentine, the most subtle of all the poisons of the East."

"Who could have wished the death of Agnes?" said the king trembling violently.

There was silence.

At length Dammartin ventured to say, "Had she not an avowed enemy?"

"My son!" cried the king, burying his face in his hands. There was silence again.

At length Charles raised his haggard face. "By whom," said he, "was this placed within her reach? Who brought it from Jaffa ?"

"Who trades with the East ?" demanded one of the courtiers Charles trembled.

"Sire," said Antoinette de Maignelais, "one of my women tells me she heard the name of the assassin from the mouth o the victim."

Jeanne de Vendôme, Dame de Mortagne. I entreated her to tell me the name, but she dares not."

"She must speak," said the king.

Taking the phial in his hand he narrowly examined its contents murmuring, "Poison! The East! My son!"

CHAPTER XI.

THE Treasurer could no longer keep his secret. For months nay years, his chef d'œuvre had been concealed by a high scaffolding. It was well known, however, that the artisans employed on its erection and the artists by which it was decorated were Italian gentlemen.

The mystery was hidden from his family; they were forbidden even to allude to it.

Another direction to their thoughts was however given at this time by the arrival of Marguerite and Perette, who came to rejoin their husbands, bringing with them a group of lovely children. The whole family were once more reunited, with the exception of Jacques' twin sons, Jean and Henri, both Benedic

tine monks. Hugues le Loup was despatched to hasten their return, the inauguration of the new dwelling being arranged to take place in a few days.

*

An innumerable number of kinsfolk, friends, bourgeoisie of the town, and nobles of the country assembled on the appointed day. From early dawn a multitude hastened to the spot. During the night the surrounding palisades had been removed, but the covering still retained its place by means of ropes.

On a signal from Jacques Coeur it fell, revealing a noble palace of enormous size, its lofty walls flanked by towers, on one of which stood a female figure, clad in a coat of mail, and resting on a spear.

This was Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans, the presiding genius of the place.

At the entrance was a grand portico supported by stately columns, and surmounted by a statue of Charles VII. in complete armour. The walls of this marvellous palace were profusely covered with sculptured shells and hearts, the motto "A vaillants cœurs rien impossible" being conspicuous everywhere. A more minute detail of the exterior would weary the reader, we pass on to the interior. The grand entrance was closed. At a signal from Macée it was to be opened. She was to be the first to enter. So it was arranged by her husband. On the signal being given, the guests entered, and passed along endless corridors into spacious apartments, then, ascending the grand staircase, they reached story after story, and chamber after chamber. The chapel was next visited. Its beauty surpassed all previously seen. It was a gem of art, worthy of its sacred character.

The Treasurer ascended the stairs. Turning his head by chance, he perceived Hugues, who had just arrived covered with dust, and evidently greatly agitated.

"How now, you here, Hugues? What news?" cried his

THE QUALIFICATIONS OF A BISHOP.

BY THE RIGHT REV. R. H. CLARKSON, D.D., BISHOP OF
NEBRASKA, U.S. A.

THERE may be times in the Church's career, and in the lives of individual bishops (and there have been), when those who are called to bear the Church's standard or to lead her hosts must be

"Men of mighty bone and emprise,"

who must needs display the sterner and severer traits of the warrior and combatant. And God forbid that they should then be found wanting. But ordinarily, as men are, and as the world. is, in the conflicts of the Church, peacefulness and gentleness have victories more renowned and complete than those of warfare and strife. It is the lustre of lives like Leighton, and Ken, and Griswold, and White, and Burgess, and Bowman, et id omne genus," the men of peace and of gentleness, that has shed the highest glory upon the episcopate. Burnet wrote of the saintly Archbishop of Glasgow: "He had the most heavenly disposition, with the perfectest humility, I ever saw in man. . . In a free and frequent intercourse with him for above two and twenty years I never once saw him in any other temper than that which I wished to be in in the last moments of my life." Who will not say that the work of the Church for the souls of men is not, throughout, a life of leadership, far better done by the bishop, of whom such things can be written, than by the one of a different stamp, of whom it might be said that every adversary went down before him, and the pathway, from his consecration to his sepulchre, was strewn with the débris of strife?

As our blessed Lord never spoke bitterly, even to sinners, so gentleness and tenderness should be the means chiefly relied upon by His servants to reach and win the souls for whom He died. And especially to those who work with him and under him, his clergy, should this be the bishop's rule. With them,

of all men, affection should be his authority and gentleness his law-"His banner over them is love." He should know their cares and share their sacrifices, and strive to soothe their manifold sorrows. To his ready ear and large heart they should feel free to carry all their troubles; and from an unappreciating world, cold in its criticisms and remorseless in its misjudgments, they should always be able to turn with filial confidence to his fatherly sympathy. How wisely on this point wrote the judicious Hooker: "A bishop in whom there doth plainly appear the marks and tokens of a fatherly affection, what good might he not do?" How can that sublime passage in the Ordinal, that thrills every heart with its undertone of tenderness-"Be to the flock of Christ a shepherd, not a wolf; hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken, bring again the outcast, seek the lost "-ever be fulfilled in the life of any bishop who does not conduct himself in his holy office by this rule of St. Paul: "The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men"? But we cannot linger long upon this first clause of the text: nor need we, for it is so self-evident.

Not only must a bishop be peaceful and gentle, but St. Paul says that he must also be " apt to teach." He must have the knowledge and faculty fitted to instruct. The Church at whose altar he stands is an "ecclesia docens." It is not " by mystic rite or ceremony obscure" that souls are brought to Christ, but by the manifestation of the Truth, and by the power of the divine Word. The ambassador of God comes before the people, "not with sealed instructions, but with credentials and a mission as open as the day."

The bishop is not to be simply a respectable figure in a dignified and well-ordered pageant, or to be a mere mumbler of a routine ritual, but his duty is to awaken the conscience, to touch the soul, and to convince the intellect. Anything, therefore, that can make him able to press home to men's hearts the message of a crucified Saviour, or make him powerful to reason with men "of righteousness, temperance, and the judgment to come," he is bound to supply himself with, that he may be "apt to teach."

The Church in this very day and land, needs as much as ever she did, ripe scholarship and varied study in her ministry. The seeds of falsehood and of wrong are being sown by busy brains, and with brilliant dexterity, over the whole country from

end to end. It would seem as if Bishop Berkeley's famous lines should be made to read:

"Westward the course of Error makes its way.

Sin's blackest offspring lives to-day."

The most formidable shapes of unbelief stalk defiantly before the face of men. Every truth of God is assailed. Every hope of man is imperilled. No doctrine so dear to the consciousness of the believer or so clear upon the page of Scripture as to escape the profane touch of the blasphemer or impalement upon the shaft of the scorner. And because of all this men make light of religion,

"And souls are wandering far and wide,
And curses swarm on every side."

The heresies that Athanasius confronted at Alexandria and that Chrysostom assailed in Constantinople have reappeared in terrific distinctness in the public mind of to-day. And the bishop must, indeed, be "apt to teach" who can rightly lead the Lord's army against foes like these. He must recognise the drift of modern thought as being away from the verities of the old faith, and study and pray and learn how to make "the story of the cross once more attractive to dazed and bewildered men. He must be able to show, from what Christianity has done in the past for man, leading in all ages the culture and the progress of the race, how there can be no future for him without it, but desolation ignomy, and ruin. His constant travel through his diocese will be in the track of some flippant defamer, whose arguments against Christianity, though over and over answered and refuted, will yet seem to the uninstructed and the inconsiderate to be plausible and reasonable. He must, therefore, be "apt to teach," so that the full radiance of the truth that is supernatural may, if it please God, through his instrumentality, descend upon darkened counsels, and, perhaps, lead some perplexed souls up from the gloom of doubt to the clear sunlight of serene faith.

A powerful living writer has well described "the theological world of to-day as keenly and promptly sensitive. Religious literature gives evidence of wide-spread unsettlement; pulpits are moved to apology and defence; great, historical churches are agitated and alarmed. It seems as if old and fondly-cherished beliefs were slipping away from the grasp, as if accepted prin