before, in his mother's counsels to himself--"to avoid nice distinctions
in public assemblies"--to exalt Christ and the work of the Spirit. "Here
you may give free scope to your souls," and "discourse without reserve,
as His Spirit gives you utterance." Well does her son call her "in her
measure and degree a preacher of righteousness."

So shines the bright light of Susanna Wesley all along the upbuilding of
that great Christian society which bears the name of her sons. Her
example must surely also be of special value at the present day, when,
alike in the Church and in the world, the place of woman rises in
importance, and the demand is for further opportunity of usefulness. For
the life of this gifted and saintly woman is characterised by a modesty
that is above criticism, and, at the same time, shows no lack of the
greatness of power and achievement in the work of the Lord.

JAMES CUNNINGHAM, M.A.

MRS. HEMANS.

Mrs. Hemans is fully entitled to a place in the ranks of Excellent
Women, not only on account of her personal character, but also on
account of the work she did--a work removed from the "stunning tide,"
but not the less effectual.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Hemans exerted a distinct influence and made
a distinct impression on the national character. She left the world
unmistakably better for her having lived in it. Many do not realise what
great abiding results flowed from her work. And one chief way in which
she was productive of so much good to her race was this: she raised the
standard of popular poetry, raised it at a time when it sadly needed
raising, to a higher level and tone. "Though she wrote so much and in an
age when Byron was the favourite poet of Englishmen, not a line left her
pen that indicated anything but a spotless and habitually lofty mind."
It was no mean achievement to establish the popularity of a poetry which
was by its purity a rebuke to much that had hitherto passed current and
received applause.

How well she succeeded in accomplishing the ends which, as we learn in
that beautiful piece of hers, "A Poet's Dying Hymn," she had set before
herself and others who gave expression to their thoughts in verse!

"And if Thy Spirit on Thy child hath shed
The gift, the vision of the unsealed eye,
To pierce the mist o'er life's deep meanings spread,
To reach the hidden fountain-urns that lie
Far in man's heart--if I have kept it free
And pu