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evidently popular here, for the thresholds of every cottage door seemed to testify to their familiarity with the water-cure for all uncleanness.

Mr. Collyer's old home stood first in the pictures. So, leaving the most of our party to breakfast at the Crescent Hotel, two of us, trusting to get our breakfast somewhere by the way, started out upon explorations. We first made our way to the parish church, All Saints, to examine a group of three old Saxon crosses that are supposed to have consecrated this cemetery, it may be more than a thousand years ago, to some vague ideas of the Trinity. These crosses are much broken, and the inscriptions on them, although unmistakably Runic, have never been deciphered. But from these creations, which are quite common in many parts of England, often occurring in threes, they are supposed to have some reference to the mystery of the Holy Trinity. In this cemetery, too, repose the ashes of Mr. Collyer's first wife, and child and several members of his family. According to directions which he had given me, I soon found their graves. They had an inexpressibly tender attraction. I felt that here, above the open graves of his beloved, had been learned some of those sad lessons that I had heard in a distant land translated into words of tender, almost divine comfort to the sorrowing and bereaved-once, the next Sunday after the battle of Gettysburg, to a great congregation where one not wearing the habiliments of mourning seemed an exception in the congregation. All the spirit of the place, here in the valley of the Wharfe, these surrounding hills, these wide desert moors, this sun, this old church and churchyard, with its mystically symbolic crosses, these graves — all these helped me better to understand the lessons of "Nature and Life," learned here, then wrought in the process of years into the living Scripture of prophecy and gospel we had so often heard in Unity Church, Chicago. The lessons in their learning had been interleaved with this beautiful nature, this dull-comprehending humanity, these wondrous ruins of a past age, with work, grief, death, despair; but now they are translated into a cheerful song, whose burden is:

I say to thee, do thou repeat

To the first man that thou shall meet

In lane, highway, or open street,

That he and me and all men move

Under a canopy of love,

As broad as the blue sky above;

That doubt and trouble, fear and pain,
And anguish these are shadows vain;
That death itself shall not remain.
And one thing further; let him know
That to believe these things are so,
This firm faith never to forego;
In spite of all that seems at strife
With blessing—all with cursing rife-
That this is blessing, this is life.

Thus God transmutes woe into weal, from darkness generates light, and from the night of our despair calls forth the morning of our hope.

Coming from the churchyard we sought our breakfast in a little cottage near the church, such as from his own descriptions I could suppose might have been Mr. Collyer's early home. The floor of the cottage was of stone, but worn into hollows and broken into many irregularities. But it was clean and cool from recent scouring. The furniture of the room into which I entered consisted of little more than a few chairs and a table. But the chairs, like the floor, had been scoured from every speck of dirt, and they were as guiltless of paint as the table was of varnish. The plates and cups where cheap to the last degree, but shiningly clean; the bread was white and sweet, the tea fresh and fragrant, and the butter and cream such as I think Scotland and Yorkshire alone can produce. Besides, I had meat to eat that morning which the cottagers knew not of, in presences that come to us sometimes in places solitary to others, bringing us angels' food. Going back to the hotel, we paused a moment near the door of the institution to which many of us heard Mr. Collyer refer as the place of his education the old blacksmith's shop. It is little changed, I imagine, since he graduated from it. Mr. Collyer, at a convention, once told a body of young ministers that he had often been exceedingly pained to read in the public journals allusions to his "genius." If he had any "genius," he said, it had come to him through hard study, begun in his very earliest years, and always continued. When a child, after the hard work of the day, he had always studied as long as his mother would let him have a candle, and when that was denied him, he had studied by firelight until he was sent to bed, placing always his book when he went to bed where he could get it at the first dawn of the morning, and thus secure to himself some study hours before the work hours began. While in his blacksmith's shop, he had arranged a shelf on which he could place his book and study or read while he blew the bellows. Thus was his "genius" learned and forged. The old shop, quite unchanged from what it was when he there worked and studied, and studied and worked from "weary chime to chime," was, like the old parsonage at Haworth, of far greater interest to me than Chotsworth and many other places.

At Ilkley I found several persons whose faces lighted up at the mention of Mr. Collyer's name, and who rejoiced to hear of their former townsman as a minister of such influence and a man doing so much good in our great land. But generally they seemed a dull set of people to live among, much like what the old Hebrews must have been to Moses.

At Bolton Bridge, on our way to the Priory, I called at the house of one of Mr. Collyer's old blacksmith friends, to deliver a letter which I bore from him, and to see a curious inscription still perfectly legible on a beam in the kitchen of their house, though it was inscribed there in the days of the old Abbey building, six or seven hundred years ago, perhaps The house stood then by the ferry of the river, and the inscription, in old English letters

bids who ever would go safely over the ferry offer here (by way of toll, it would seem) a prayer to the Holy Virgin for some soul. But alas! the piety of one age becomes the superstition of another. The toll of prayer is not very frequently paid now-a-days, I fear. Alas! too, a bridge has been built over the rushing Wharfe, and the ferry is no longer needed; and just as it has ever been, I think, since the chief butler in his deliverance and prosperity forgot Joseph in prison, has independence of once-needed favors begotten forgetfulness of the bestower, and men on safe bridges have but ungratefully remembered the dangerous ferries of ruder times.

The woman to whom Mr. Collyer's letter was addressed was not at home, but had gone where we were going, to the "Strid," to assist at a pic nic held there. But an old lady (her mother-in-law), received the letter and showed me the inscription. Her face lighted up at the mention of Mr. Collyer's name, and she pronounced many blessings on me for being the bearer of a letter and good news from him. "And are ye his friend, do ye say, and ye know him yerself? Bless ye!" she exclaimed. Rumors of his fame, and better, his great usefulness, had reached them; but they rejoiced in the confirmation of what they had before heard by one who had many times heard him preach. She urged me to stay to breakfast. She would make it in a minute, she said. I told her I had just breakfasted, but I could not decline a cake and a glass of milk, and she enjoined it upon me to seek at the "Strid" her daughter-in-law, to whom the letter was addressed. "She would be more delighted to see one who was the friend of Mr. Collyer in America." I did see her, and found his name as good a passport to her welcome as it had been to the mother's.

Returning to Leeds I spent the evening with Mr. Collyer's mother, who resides there, with her daughter and son-in-law. She is just the mother to have reared such a son as Mr. Collyer-kindly, benevolent, full of cheer and hope. In conversation, her beautiful blue eyes suddenly brim with that same brightness, and give prophecy by the same mirthful twinkle as his, of the thought that is working to expression and will soon come forth, clothed in a form of words nobody else would have thought of-beautiful, fresh and queer. Mrs. Collyer was delighted, but not surprised to hear her son's praises spoken, as a most efficient friend, advocate and helper of the poor of Chicago. "That's Robert," she said: "from a child he wo'd divide his last penny with a poor woman. He never could resist a plea for help while he had a penny," and she related several anecdotes of him in relation to these traits of his character, in a way so like story, as to amuse and most deeply interest us. received us with the most cordial hospitality. taking us through several of the best streets in places of interest to us. I have nowhere found more correct knowledge of American affairs than in this family, nor more enthusiasm on the right side of our political questions. Mr. S. also gave us many particulars about the state

her son's manner of telling a Her daughter and son-in law Mr. S. walked back with us, Leeds, and pointing out many

of the "Reform " question in England-the relative position of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, etc. These great commercial and manufacturing towns, like Leeds, are very seething pots of reform in England; but Leeds has not so often boiled over as have Manchester, Birmingham, and some other places. Mr. S. seemed to express the Leeds spirit, when he said, "We can afford to We know Reform on many questions must come, and these little delays and retrocessions don't at all effect the great question of enlarged privileges for the people of England."-Liberal Christian.

wait.

MRS. L. H. STONE.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

FROM THE GERMAN OF HERMAN GRIMM.

Translated for "THE FRIEND."

WHEN the collection of letters and conversations which were exchanged W between Humboldt and Varnhagen was published the impression it made was a profound one. The public, and that truly a public embracing all ranks, read with avidity the pages here opened to it.

Of this there can be no doubt, that of the confidential relations (for secrets they were not) thus thrown open to the gaze of the whole world, a misuse was made which nothing can possibly justify. Through it we have become accustomed to seeing opinions, characters, and even the most private circumstances, openly discussed in the most regardless manner. But this scarcely offends any longer. Everyone acknowledges the influence of momentary excitement. Those who feel themselves touched either answer the attack or ignore it. The whole world, however, quickly forgets what has thus been said, and no one would wish on that account to abrogate the freedom of the press. If the affair becomes too mischievous, the redress lies in the courts. But what is to be done, if the sharp utterances of a deceased statesman in the most private conversations with another statesman suddenly find themselves written down and printed?

Let us picture to ourselves a family widely scattered and living in the most perfect harmony. Bad temper, which gives vent to itself in irritating words, cannot keep away even from it. It lies in the nature of mankind, and breaks out everywhere. The recollection, however, vanishes with the outbreak, and in spite of the wickedest speech which has fallen here or there, the general unity and confidence remains. But now, let us suppose, it is suddenly discovered that there has been an unseen hand actively at work, just at the time when one or another has expressed himself most irritably toward a brother or sister, or even toward parents or children, and we meet with all

these things written down and printed. It would be impossible to invent a more effective weapon, were it designed at one stroke to break asunder the most secure circle. Forever after, each one would read again anew, in indelible writing, what the other had said of him, and confidence thenceforth would be destroyed.

Something similar happened on the publication of the letters and conversations of Humboldt. Varnhagen was still one of the few who outlived the olden times. To him Humboldt came now and then and gave himself up to the free expression of all that angered, troubled, and oppressed him. What stands written in his letters is in a less measure entangling; his verbal utterances, however, which were noted down when he left Varnhagen, contain that, which to many is intolerably offensive.

The distinction between written thoughts and verbal speech is this, that in the former case one is uniformly apt to say somewhat less than one thinks, but in the latter one is more than apt to say somewhat more than one has thought. This distinction is so powerful that, in reading, we are always forced to bear in mind that which, apart from the identical words used, the writer desires to communicate in the whole; or, in other words, we read between the lines. He who writes anything, himself reflects upon it, and calls for reflection; he who speaks anything, feels it only, and expects feeling in others-therefore he makes use of stronger accents. I can write to a man informing him that he does not suit my fancy in such a manner that any one might read from the sentence, that I designed calling him a miserable fellow; on the other hand, if I make use of the most severe verbal expressions, they go to show only that I, in some specified moment, with some definite purpose, suffered myself to use this or that word, which, the more severe it sounded, only served to give expression to the passion which governed me at the time. Such utterances are therefore true and false at the same time; and he who writes down a spoken word behind the back of the speaker, and sends it out into the world, commits a wrong act.

In like manner, when we see Humboldt's letters published without his commission, his words recorded without his knowledge, and likewise printed, then the blame of this action falls only on the shoulders of him who made them public; and surely no special verdict is requisite to this end, but the affair will right itself. There is a law of authorization and unauthorization known to every one. He who sins against this law receives his punishment by the very act of transgressing, and there is no appeal, since there exists neither plaintiff nor court of judgment. The open deed is its own accuser, and public sentiment the court of judgment.

Now that the book has lost the charm of novelty, it is perhaps admissible to make these remarks concerning its appearance. The severity of the first judgment has grown milder. We have become aware that the assaults which it contains upon characters who still remain among us have glided off from them as though they had never been made, an experience which

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