While I was thus thinking, from the great wards of the Home of Healing the prayer went up. The sinful, the sorely stricken, the ungodly, the ignorant of heavenly mercy, all the diseased of spirit who were gathered there in search of the soul's health, sang together: not as the morning-stars which shouted for joy, but like living hearts that cried for purity; yea, like hearts that so desired it, they would have broken for it, and blessed God.

"God is a Spirit. God is a Spirit. We would worship Him. We would worship Him in spirit. Yea, in spirit. And in truth."

My little boy was playing in the garden, decking himself with the strange and beautiful flowers which luxuriated in the spot. I remember that he had tall white lilies and scarlet passion flowers, or something like them, held above one shoulder, and floating like a banner in the bright, white air. He was absorbed in his sport, and had the sweet intentness of expression between the eyes that his mother used to wear. When the vesper anthems sounded out, the child stopped, and turned his nobly moulded head toward the unseen singers. A puzzled and afterward a saddened look clouded his countenance; he listened for a moment, and then walked slowly to me, trailing the white and scarlet flowers in the grass behind him as he came.

"Father, teach me how to sing! The other children do. I'm the only little boy I know that can't sing that nice song. Teach me it!" he demanded.

"Alas, my son!" I answered, "how can I teach you that which I myself know not?"

"I thought boys' fathers knew everything," objected the child, bending his brows severely on me.

A certain constraint, a something not unlike distrust, a subtle barrier which one could not define, but which one felt the more uncomfortably for this very reason, after this incident, seemed to arise in the child's consciousness between himself and me. As docile, as dutiful, as beautiful as ever, as loving and as lovable, yet the little fellow would at times withdraw from me and stand off; as if he looked on at me, and criticised me, and kept his criticism to himself. Verily the child was growing. He had become a separate soul. In a world of souls, what was mine—miserable, ignorant, half-developed, wholly unfit—what was mine to do with his? How was I to foster him?

When I came face to face with the problem of Boy's general education, this question pressed upon me bitterly. Looking abroad upon the people and their principles of life, the more I studied them, the more did I stand perplexed before them. I was in the centre of a vast Theocracy. Plainly, our community was but one of who knew how many?—governed by an unseen Being, upon laws of which I knew nothing. The service of this invisible Monarch vied only with the universal affection for Him. So far as I could understand the spiritual life at all, it seemed to be the highest possible development and expression of love. What these people did that was noble, pure, and fine, they did, not because they must, but because they would. They believed because they chose. They were devout because they wished to be. They were unselfish and true, and what below we should have called "unworldly," because it was the most natural thing in the world. They seemed so happy, they had such content in life, that I could have envied them from my soul.

How, now, was I to compass this national kind of happiness for my son? Misery I could bear; I was sick and sore with it, but I was used to it. My child must never suffer. Passed beyond the old system of suffering, why should he? Joy was his birthright in this blessed place.

How was I, being at discord from it, to bring my child into harmony with it? I was at odds, to start on, with the whole system of education. The letters, art, science, industry, of the country were of a sort that I knew not. They were consecrated to ends with which I was unfamiliar. They were pursued in a spirit incomprehensible to me. They were dedicated to the interests of a Being, Himself a stranger to me. Proficiency, superiority, were rated on a scale quite out of my experience. To be distinguished was to possess high spiritual traits. Deep at the root of every public custom, of every private deed, there hid the seed of one universal emotion,—the love of a living soul for the Being who had created it.

I, who knew not of this feeling, I, who was as a savage among this intelligence, who was no more than an object of charity at the hands of this community,—what had I to offer to my son?

A father's personal position? Loving influence? Power to push the little fellow to the front? A chance to endow him with every social opportunity, every educational privilege, such as it is a father's pride to enrich his child wherewith?

Nay, verily. An obscure man ignorant of the learning of the land, destitute of its wealth, unacquainted among its magnates, and without a share in its public interests—nothing was I; nothing had I; nothing could I hope to do, or be, for which my motherless boy should live to bless his father's name. Stung by such thoughts as these, which rankled the more in me the longer I cherished them, I betook myself to brooding and to solitary strolling in quiet places, where I could ponder on my situation undisturbed.

I was in great intellectual and spiritual stress, less for myself than for the child; not more for him, than because of his mother. What would Helen say?

How would she hold me to account for him? How should I meet her—if I ever saw her face again—to own myself scarcely other than a pauper in this spiritual kingdom; our child an untaught, unimportant little fellow, of no more consequence in this place than the gamins of the street before her door?

In these cold and solitary experiences which many a man has known before me, and many more will follow after me, the soul is like a skater, separated from his fellows upon a field of ice. Every movement that he makes seems to be bearing him farther from the society and the sympathy of his kind. Too benumbed, perhaps, to turn, he glides on, helpless as an ice-boat before the wind. Conscious of his mistake, of his danger, and knowing not how to retract the one or avoid the other, his helpless motions, seemingly guided by idleness, by madness, or by folly, lead him to the last place whither he would have led himself,—the weak spot in the ice.

Suddenly, he falls crashing, and sinks. Then lo! as he goes under, crying out that he is lost because no man is with him, hands are down-stretched, swimmers plunge, the crowd gathers, and it seems the whole world stoops to save him. The sympathy of his kind wanted nothing but a chance to reach him.

I cannot tell; no man can tell such things; I cannot explain how I came to do it, or even why I came to do it. But it was on this wise with me. Being alone one evening in a forest, at twilight, taking counsel with myself and pondering upon the mystery from which I could not gather light, these words came into my heart; and when I had cherished them in my heart for a certain time, I uttered them aloud:

"Thou great God! If there be a God. Reveal Thyself unto my immortal soul! If I have a soul immortal."



CHAPTER XV.

My little boy came flying to me one fair day; he cried out that he had news for me, that great things were going on in the town. A visitor was expected, whose promised arrival had set the whole place astir with joy. The child knew nothing of what or whom he spoke, but I gathered the impression that some distinguished guest was about to reach us, to whom the honours of the city would be extended. The matter did not interest me; I had so little in common with the people; and I was about to dismiss it idly, when Boy posed me by demanding that I should personally conduct him through the events of the gala day. He was unusually insistent about this; for he was a docile little fellow, who seldom urged his will uncomfortably against my own. But in this case I could not compromise with him, and half reluctantly I yielded. I had no sooner done so than an urgent message to the same effect reached me from my friend the surgeon.

"Go with the current to-day," he wrote; "it sets strongly. Question it not. Resist it not. Follow and be swept."

Immediately upon this some neighbours came hurriedly in, and spoke with me of the same matter eagerly. They pleaded with me on no account to miss the event of the day, upon whose specific nature they were somewhat reticent. They evinced the warmest possible interest in my personal relation to it; as people do who possess a happy secret that they wish, but may not feel at liberty, fully to share with another.

They were excited, and overflowed with happiness. Their very presence raised my spirits. I could not remember when I had received precisely this sort of attention from my neighbours; and it was, somehow, a comfort to me. I should not have supposed that I should value being made of consequence in this trifling way; yet it warmed my heart. I felt less desolate than usual, when I took the hand of my happy boy, and set forth.

The whole vicinity was aroused. Everybody moved in one direction, like "a current," as my friend had said. Shining, solemn, and joyous faces filled the streets and fields. The voices of the people were subdued and sweet. There was no laughter, only smiles, and gentle expectation, and low consulting together, and some there were who mused apart. The "sick of soul" were present with the happier folk: these first had a wistful look, as of those not certain of themselves or of their welcome; but I saw that they were tenderly regarded by the more fortunate. I myself was most gently treated; many persons spoke with me, and I heard expressions of pleasure at my presence. In the crowd, as we moved on, I began to recognize here and there a face; acquaintances, whom I had known in the lower life, became visible to me. Now and then, some one, hastening by, said:—

"Why, Doctor!" and then I would perceive some old patients; the look which only loving patients wear was on their faces, the old impulse of trust and gratitude; they would grasp me heartily by the hand; this touched me; I began to feel a stir of sympathy with the general excitement; I was glad that I had joined the people.

I pressed the hand of my little boy, who was running and leaping at my side. He looked confidingly up into my face, and asked me questions about the day's event; but these I could not answer.

"God knows, my child," I said. "Your father is not a learned man."

As we swept on, the crowd thickened visibly. The current from the city met streams from the fields, the hills, the forests; all the distance overflowed; the concourse began to become imposing. Here and there I observed still other faces that were not strange to me; flashes of recognition passed between us; some also of my own kin, dead years ago, I saw, far off, and I felt drawn to them. In the distance, not near enough to speak with her, shining and smiling, I thought that I perceived Mrs. Faith, once more. My boy threw kisses to her and laughed merrily; he was electric with the universal joy; he seemed to dance upon the air like a tuft of thistledown; to be "light-hearted" was to be light-bodied; the little fellow's frame seemed to exist only as the expression of his soul. I thought:—

"If he is properly educated in this place, what a spirit he will make!" I was amazed to see his capacity for happiness. I thought of his mother. I wished to be happy, too.

Now, as we moved on toward the plain, the sound of low chanting began to swell from the crowd. The strain gained in distinctness; power gathered on it; passion grew in it; prayer ascended from it. I could not help being moved by this billow of sweet sound. The forms and faces of the people melted together before my eyes; their outlines seemed to quiver in the flood of song; it was as if their manifold personalities blurred in the unity of their feeling; they seemed to me, as I regarded them, like the presence of one great, glad, loving human soul. This was their supplication. Thus arose the heavenly song:—

"Thou that takest away The sins of the world! Whosoever believeth Shall have life. Whosoever believeth on Thee Shall have eternal life. Thou that takest away The sins of the world! And givest—and givest Eternal life!"

"I cannot sing that pretty song," said my boy sadly. "There is nobody to teach me. Father, I wish you were a learned man!"

Now, this smote me to the heart, so that I would even have lifted my voice and sought to join the chant, for the child's sake, and to comfort him; but when I would have done so, behold, I could not lift my soul; it resisted me like a weight too heavy for my lips; for, in this land, song never rises higher than the level of the soul; there are fine laws governing this fact whose nature I may not explain, and could not at that time even understand, but of the fact itself I testify.

"Alas, alas, my son!" I said, "would God I were!"

Now suddenly, while I was conversing with my child, I perceived a stir among the people, as if they moved to greet some person who was advancing toward them. I looked in the direction whither all eyes were turned; but I saw nothing to account for the excitement. While I stood gazing and wondering, at one movement, as if it were by one heart-heat, the great throng bowed their heads. Some object, some Presence of which I could not catch a glimpse, had entered among them. Whispers ran from lip to lip. I heard men say that He was here, that He was there, that He was yonder, that He had passed them, that He touched them.

"He blesseth me!" they murmured.

"And me! And me!"

"Oh, even me!"

I heard low cries of delight and sobs of moving tenderness. I heard strange, wistful words from the disabled of soul who were among us,—pleadings for I knew not what, offered to I knew not whom. I heard words of sorrow and words of utter love, and I saw signs of shame, and looks of rapture, and attitudes of peace and eager hope. I saw men kneeling in reverence. I saw them prostrate in petition. I saw them as if they were clinging affectionately to hands that they kissed and wept upon. I saw them bowed as one bows before the act of benediction.

These things I perceived, but alas, I could perceive no more. What went I out, with the heavenly, happy people, for to see?

Naught, God help me, worse than naught; for mine eyes were holden.

Dark amid that spiritual vision, I stood stricken. Alone in all that blessedness, was I bereft?

Whom, for very rapture, did they melt to welcome? Whom greeted they, with that great wave of love, so annihilating to their consciousness of themselves that I knew when I beheld it, I had never seen the face of Love before?

Among them all, I stood alone—blind, blind. Them I saw, and their blessedness, till I was filled with such a sacred envy of it that I would have suffered some new misery to share it. But He who did move among them thus royally and thus benignly, who passed from each man to each man, like the highest longing and the dearest wish of his own heart, who was to them one knew not whether the more of Master or of chosen Friend,—Him, alas, I saw not. To me He was denied. No spiritual optic nerve in me announced His presence. I was blind,—I was blind.

Overcome by this discovery, I did not notice that my boy had loosened his hold upon my hand until his little fingers were quite disengaged from my clasp; and then, turning to speak to him, I found that he had slipped from me in the crowd. This was so great and the absorption so universal that no one noticed the mishap; and grateful, indeed, at that miserable moment, to be unobserved, I went in search of him.

Now, I did not find the child, though I sought long and patiently; and when I was beginning to feel perplexed, and to wonder what chance could have befallen him, I turned, and behold, while I had been searching, the throng had dispersed.

Night was coming on All the citizens were strolling to their homes. On street, and plain, and hill stirred the shadows of the departing people. They passed quietly. Every voice was hushed. All the world was as still as a heart is after prayer.

In the silent purple plain, only I was left alone. Moved by solitude, which is the soul's sincerity, I yielded myself to strange impulses, and turning to the spot, where He who was invisible had passed or seemed to pass, I sought to find upon the ground and in the dusk some chance imprint of His steps. To do this it was necessary for me to stoop; and while I was bowed, searching for some least sign of Him, in the dew and dark, I knew not what wave of shame and sorrow came upon me, but I fell upon my knees. There was no creature to hear me, and I spoke aloud, and said:—

"Thou departest from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" ...

"Lord," I said, "that I may receive my sight!"

I thought I had more to say than this, but when I had uttered these words no more did follow them. They seemed to fill my soul and flood it till it overflowed.

And when I had lifted up my eyes, the first sight which did meet them was the face of my own child. I saw at once that he was quite safe and happy. But I saw that he was not alone.

One towered above me, strange and dim, who held the little fellow in His arms. When I cried out to Him, He smiled. And He did give the child to me, and spoke with me.



CHAPTER XVI.

The natural step to knowledge is through faith. Even human science teaches as much as this. The faith of the scholar in the theoretic value of his facts precedes his intelligent use of them. Invention dreams before it does. Discovery believes before it finds. Creation imagines before it achieves.

Spiritual intelligence, when it came at last, to me, came with something of the jar of all abnormal processes. The wholesome movements of trust I had omitted from my soul's economy. The function of faith was a disused thing in me. Truth had to treat me as an undeveloped mind.

In the depth of my consciousness, I knew that, come what might, I had for ever lost the chance to be a symmetrical healthy human creature, whose spiritual faculties are exercised like his brain or muscle; who has lived upon the earth, and loved it, and gathered its wealth and sweetness and love of living into his being, as visible food whereby to create invisible stature; whose earthly experience has carried him on, as Nature carries growth—unconsciously, powerfully, perfectly, into a diviner life. For ever it must remain with me that I had missed the natural step.

If I say that the realization of knowledge was the first thing to teach me the value of faith, I shall be understood by those who may have read this narrative with any sort of sympathy to the present point; and, for the rest, some wiser, better man than I must write.

I do not address those who follow these pages as I myself should once have done. I do not hope to make myself intelligible to you, as I would to God I could! Personal misery is intelligible, and the shock of belated discovery. But the experience of another in matters of this kind has not a "scientific" character.

No one can know better than I how my story will be dismissed as something which is not "a fact."

In the times to be, it is my belief that there shall yet arise a soul, worthier of the sacred task than I to which shall be given the perilous and precious commission of interpreter between the visible life and the life invisible. On this soul high privilege will be bestowed, and awful opportunity. Through it the deaf shall hear, the dumb shall speak. The bereaved shall bless it, and the faint of heart shall lean on it, and those who know not God shall listen to it, and the power of God shall be upon it. But mine is not that soul.

Even as One who was above man did elect to experience the earthly lot of man to save him; so one who is a man among men may yet be permitted to use the heavenly lot in such wise as to comfort them. The first mission called for superhuman power. The second may need only human purity.

I now enter upon a turn in my narrative, where my vehicle of communication begins to fail me. Human language, as employed upon the earth, has served me to some extent to express those phases of celestial fact upon which I still looked with earth-blind eyes. With spiritual vision comes the immediate need of a spiritual vocabulary. Like most men of my temperament and training, I have been accustomed to some caution in the use of words. I know not any, which would be intelligible to the readers of this record, that can serve to express my experiences onward from this point.

"A man becomes terrestrialized as he grows older," said an unbeliever of our day, once, to me.

It is at least true that the terrestrial intellect celestializes by the hardest; and it remains obvious, as it was written, that the things which are prepared may not enter into the heart of man.

This is only another way of saying that my life from the solemn hour which I have recorded underwent revolutions too profound for me to desire to utter them, and that most of my experiences were of a nature which I lack the means to report. My story draws to a stop, as a cry of anguish comes to a hush of peace. What word is there to say?

There is, indeed, one. With lips that tremble and praise God, I add it.

At a period not immediately following the event which I have described, yet not so far beyond it that the time, as I recall it, seemed wearisome to me, I received a summons to go upon an errand to a distant place. It was the first time that I had been intrusted with any business of a wider nature than the care of my own affairs or the immediate offices of neighbourhood, and I was gratified thereby. I had, indeed, longed to be counted worthy to perform some special service at the will of Him who guided all our service, and had cherished in my secret heart some project of praying that I might be elected to a special task which had grown, from much musing, dear to me. I did most deeply desire to become worthy to wear the seal of a commission to the earth; but I had ceased to urge the selfish cry of my personal heart-break. I did not pray now for the precious right to visit my own home, nor weary the Will in which I had learned to confide with passionate demands for my beloved. I may rather say that I had come almost to feel that when I was worthy to see Helen I should be worthy of life eternal; and that I had dropped my love and my longing and my shame into the Hands of Infinite Love, and seen them close over these, as over a trust.

The special matter to which I refer was this: I desired to be permitted to visit human homes, and set myself, as well as I might, to the effort of cultivating their kindliness. I longed to cherish the sacred graces of human speech. I wished to emphasize the opportunity of those who love each other. I groaned within me, till I might teach the preciousness and the poignancy of words. It seemed to me that if I might but set the whole force of a man's experience and a spirit's power to make an irritable scene in loving homes held as degrading as a blow, that I could say what no man ever said before, and do what no spirit would ever do again.

If this be called an exaggerated view of a specific case, I can only say that every human life learns one lesson perfectly, and is qualified to teach that, and that alone, as no other can. This was mine.

When, therefore, I received the summons to which I have alluded, I inferred that the wish of my heart had been heard, and I set forth joyfully, expecting to be sent upon some service of the nature at which I have hinted. My soul was full of it, and I made haste to depart, putting no question in the way of my obedience. No information, indeed, was granted to me beyond the fact that I should follow a certain course until I came to its apparent end, and there await what should occur, and act as my heart prompted. The vagueness of this command stirred my curiosity a little, I confess; but that only added to the pleasure of the undertaking. It would be difficult to say how much relief I found in being occupied once again to some purpose, like a man. But it would be impossible to tell the solemn happiness I had in being counted fit humbly to fulfil the smallest trust placed in me by Him who was revealed, at this late, last moment, after all, to me, unworthy.

I set forth alone. The child was left behind me with a neighbour, for so I thought the way of wisdom in this matter. Following only the general directions which I had received, I found myself soon within the open country toward the region of the hills. As I advanced, the scenery became familiar to me, and I was not slow to recognize the path as the one which I myself had trodden on my first entrance to the city wherein of recent days I had found my home. I stopped to consider this fact, and to gather landmarks, gazing about me diligently and musing on my unknown course; for the ways divided before me as foot-paths do in fields, each looking like all and all like each. While I stood uncertain, and sensitively anxious to make no mistake, I heard the hit! hit! of light feet patting the grass behind me, and, turning, saw a little fellow coming like the morning wind across the plain. His bright hair blew straight before him, from his forehead. He ran sturdily. How beautiful he was!

He did not call me nor show the slightest fear lest he should fail to overtake me. Ha had already learned that love always overtakes the beloved in that blessed land.

"You forgot your little boy," he said reproachfully, and put his hand quietly within mine and walked on beside me, and forgot that he had been forgotten immediately, and looked upward at me radiantly.

Remembering the command to await what should occur, and do as my heart prompted, I accepted this accident as part of a purpose wiser than my own, and kissed the little fellow, and we travelled on together.

As we came into the hill country, our way grow wilder and more desolate. The last of the stray travellers whom we chanced to meet was now well behind us. In the wide spaces we were quite alone. Behind us, dim and distant, shimmering like an opal in a haze of fair half-tints, the city shone. On either side of us, the forest trees began to tread solemnly, like a vast procession which no man could number, keeping step to some inaudible march. Before us, the great crest of the mountains towered dark as death against the upper sky. As we drew near, the loneliness of these hills was to me as something of which I had never conceived before. Earth did not hold their likeness, and my heart had never held their meaning. I could almost have dreaded them, as we came nearer to them; but the deviation of the paths had long since ceased. In the desolate country which we were now crossing choice was removed from conduct. There was but one course for me to take; I took it unhesitatingly and without fear, which belongs wholly to the lower life.

As we advanced, the great mountain barrier rose high and higher before us, till it seemed to shut out the very sky from our sight, and to crush us apart from all the world—nay, from either world or any, I could have thought, so desolate and so awful was the spot. But when we had entered the shadow formed by the mighty range, and had accustomed our eyes to it for a time, I perceived, not far ahead of me, but in fact quite near and sudden to the view, a long, dark, sharp defile cut far into the heart of the hills. The place had an unpleasant look, and I stopped before it to regard it. It was so grim of aspect and so assured of outline, like a trap for travellers which had hung there from all eternity, that I liked it not, and would not that the child should enter till I had first inspected it. Therefore, I bade him sit and rest upon a bed of crimson mosses which grew at the feet of a great rock, and to remain until he saw me turn to him again; and with many cautions and the most minute directions for his obedience and his comfort, I left him, and advanced alone.

My way had now grown quite or almost dark. The light of heaven and earth alike seemed banished from the dreadful spot. As it narrowed, the footing grew uncertain and slippery, and the air dense and damp. I had to remind myself that I was now become a being for whom physical danger had ceased for ever.

"What a place," I thought, "for one less fortunate!"

As these words were in my mind, I lifted my eyes and looked, and saw that I was not alone in the dark defile. A figure was coming toward me, slight of build and delicate; yet it had a firm tread, and moved with well-nigh the balance of a spirit over the rough and giddy way. As I watched it, I saw that it was a woman. Uncertain for the moment what to do, I remembered the command.

"Await what shall occur, and do as thy heart prompteth." And therefore—for my heart prompted me, as a man's must, to be of service to the woman—I hastened, and advanced, and midway of the place I met her.

It was now perfectly dark. I could not see her face.

When I would have spoken with her, and given her good cheer, I could not find my voice. If she said aught to me, I could not hear her. But I gathered her hands, and held her, and led her on, and shielded her, and gave her such comfort as a man by strength and silence may give a woman when she has need of him; and as I supported her and aided her, I thought of my dear wife, and prayed God that there might be found some soul of fire and snow—since to me it was denied—to do as much as this for her in some hour of her unknown need.

But when I had led the woman out into the lighter space, and turned to look upon her, lo, it was none other. It was she herself. It was my wife. It was no man's beloved but my own....

So, then, crying,

"Helen!"

And "Forgive me, Helen!" till the dark place rang with her dear name, I bowed myself and sunk before her, and could not put forth my hand to touch her, for I thought of how we parted, and it seemed my heart would break.

But she said,

"Why, my dear Love! Oh, my poor Love! Did you think I would remember that?"

And I felt her sacred tears upon my face, and she crept to me—oh, not royally, not royally, like a wife who was wronged, but like the sweetest woman in the world, who clung to me because she could not help it, and would not if she could....

But when we turned our footsteps toward the light, and came out together, hand in hand, there was our little boy, at play upon the bed of crimson moss, and smiling like the face of joy eternal.

So his mother held out her arms, and the child ran into them. And when we came to ourselves, we blessed Almighty God.

Perceiving that inquiry will be raised touching the means by which I have been enabled to give this record to the living earth, I have this reply to make:

That is my secret. Let it remain such.



THE END.



THE FAMILY GIFT SERIES.

1 The Swiss Family Robinson. With 200 Engravings. 2 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Memoir. 100 Illusts. 3 Robinson Crusoe. Memoir and many Engravings. 4 Sandford and Merton. With 100 Engravings. 5 Famous Boys, and How they became Great Men. 6 Fifty Celebrated Women. With Portraits, &c. 7 The Gentlemen Adventurers. W. H. G. KINGSTON. 8 Evenings at Home. With many Illustrations. 9 The Adventures of Captain Hatteras. By JULES VERNE. With Coloured Plates. 10 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. By JULES VERNE. With Coloured Plates. 11 The Wonderful Travels. By the same. Col. Plates. 12 The Moon Voyage. JULES VERNE. Coloured Plates. 13 Getting On in the World. By W. MATHEWS, LL.D. 14 The Boy's Own Book of Manufactures and Industries of the World. With 365 Engravings. 15 Great Inventors: The Sources of their Usefulness, and the Results of their Efforts. With 109 Engravings. 16 The Marvels of Nature. With 400 Engravings. 17 The Boy's Own Sea Stories. With page Engravings. 18 Grimm's Fairy Tales. With many Illustrations. 19 Fifty Celebrated Men. With Portraits. 20 The Wonders of the World. With 123 Engravings. 21 Triumphs of Perseverance and Enterprise. Illust. 22 Keble's Christian Year. With page Engravings. 23 A Face Illumined. By E. P. ROE. 24 The Scottish Chiefs. By Miss JANE PORTER. 25 What Can She Do? By E. P. ROE. 26 Barriers Burned Away. By E. P. ROE. 27 Opening of a Chestnut Burr. By E. P. ROE. 28 Orange Blossoms. By T. S. ARTHUR. Illustrated. 29 Mary Bunyan. By S. R. FORD. 30 Margaret Catchpole. By Rev. R. COBBOLD. 31 Julamerk; or, The Converted Jewess. By Mrs. WEBB. 33 Amy and Hester; or, The Long Holidays. Illustrated. 34 Edwin and Mary; or, The Mother's Cabinet. Illustrated. 35 Wonders and Beauties of the Year. H. G. ADAMS. 36 Modern Society. By CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 37 Beatrice. By CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 38 Looking Heavenward: A Series of Tales and Sketches for the Young. With numerous Illustrations. 39 Life's Contrasts; or, The Four Homes. Illustrated. 40 Nature's Gifts, and How we Use Them. Illust. 41 Pilgrims Heavenward: Counsel and Encouragement. 42 Children's Hymns and Rhymes. Illustrated. 43 Preachers and Preaching, in Ancient and Modern Times. By Rev. HENRY CHRISTMAS. With Portraits. 44 Character and Culture. By the BISHOP OF DURHAM. 45 Popular Preachers: Their lives and their Works. 46 Boy's Handy Book of Games and Sports, Illust. 47 Boy's Handy Book of Natural History. Illust. 48 A Knight of the Nineteenth Century. E. P. ROE. 49 Near to Nature's Heart. By E. P. ROE. 50 A Day of Fate. By E. P. ROE. 51 Odd or Even? By Mrs. WHITNEY. 52 Gutenburg, and the Art of Printing. Illustrated. 53 Uncle Mark's Money; or, More Ways than One. 54 Without a Home. By E. P. ROE. 55 The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Illustrated. 56 Andersen's Popular Tales. Illustrated. 57 Andersen's Popular Stories. Illustrated. 58 Lion Hunting. By GERARD. Illust. by DORE and others. 59 The Backwoodsman. Ed. by Sir C. F. L. WRAXALL. 60 The Young Marooners. By F. R. GOULDING. Illust. 61 The Crusades and Crusaders. By J. G. EDGAR. Do. 62 Hunting Adventures in Forest and Field. Illust. 63 The Boy's Book of Modern Travel and Adventure. 64 Famous People and Famous Places. Illustrated. 65 Cheerful Homes; How to Get and Keep them. Author of "Buy your Own Cherries." &c. (Also Cheap Edition) 66 Helen. By MARIA EDGEWORTH. 67 Our Helen. By SOPHIE MAY. 68 The Little Ragamuffins of Outcast London. By the Author of "A Night in a Workhouse," &c. Illustrated. 69 Heaven's Messengers: A Series of Stirring Addresses. 70 From Log Cabin to White House: The Life of General GARFIELD. Illustrated.

WARD, LOCK & CO., London. Melbourne, and New York.

[Transcriber's note: The HTML version of this etext contains the publisher's catalog]

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