of something over-wrought in our system? Would
it not be well for some if they tried, as Miss Wordsworth suggests, the
effect of keeping one Sunday in the week?

I do not wish to dwell on the unselfish side of the question--the moral
obligation of keeping to those forms of entertainment and games which give
as little trouble as possible to servants,--I am sure that needs no
enforcing on a generous mind.

Neither do I wish to discuss what employments are suitable for Sunday,
though I should like to draw your attention to a suggestion, in the Bishop
of Salisbury's Guild Manual, that Sunday letters should always, as a
matter of principle, have some Sunday element in them, and that we should
refrain from writing to people with whom we were not on this footing. How
often our Sunday letters only clear our writing-table, that it may be
freer for Monday's business!

Neither do I speak of our duty to God in the matter of worship, nor of the
definite rules as to church-going which each must make for herself, if her
religion is not to vary with every house she stays in; I do not speak of
the obligation binding on every member of the Church to conform to her
Church's regulations as to united worship. Every one of these points need
a chapter to itself, and I wish to keep to a single point which seems in
great danger of being neglected in this hurrying age, when there is such
terrible likelihood that we may "never once possess our souls before we
die."

It is not the duty of keeping Sunday on which I want to lay stress, but
the fact that we dare not, for our own safety's sake, neglect it. Our
moral thoughtfulness, our spiritual growth, the very existence of our
inner life, depends on our obtaining a sufficient supply of the air of
Heaven to keep our souls alive. To use Dean Church's words: "On the way in
which we spend our Sundays depends, for most of us, the depth, the
reality, the steadiness, of our spiritual life."

[Footnote 4: Methuen. 1_s. 6d._]

[Footnote 5: "Be silent to God, and let Him mould thee."--Ps. xxxvii. 7.]

Friendship and Love.

"The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair."

No word in our language has a nobler meaning than "friendship;" it is a
pity that none is more often abused. Every hasty intimacy formed by force
of circumstances--often merely by force of living next door--is dignified
with the title; but a deeper bond is needed to make a real friendship. "By