been dissatisfied with the admiration, which a poetic
education has woven into my nature, for chivalry and feudalism; but, on
a closer examination, I am convinced that there is a real and proper
foundation for it, and that, rightly understood, this poetic admiration
is not inconsistent with the spirit of Christ.

For, let us consider what it is we admire in these Douglases, for
instance, who, as represented by Scott, are perhaps as good exponents of
the idea as any. Was it their hardness, their cruelty, their hastiness
to take offence, their fondness for blood and murder? All these, by and
of themselves, are simply disgusting. What, then, do we admire? Their
courage, their fortitude, their scorn of lying and dissimulation, their
high sense of personal honor, which led them to feel themselves the
protectors of the weak, and to disdain to take advantage of unequal odds
against an enemy. If we read the book of Isaiah, we shall see that some
of the most striking representations of God appeal to the very same
principles of our nature.

The fact is, there can be no reliable character which has not its basis
in these strong qualities. The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of
the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the
rock flowers need rocks to grow on, or yonder ivy the rugged wall which
it embraces. When we are admiring these things, therefore, we are only
admiring some sparkles and glimmers of that which is divine, and so
coming nearer to Him in whom all fulness dwells.

After admiring at a distance, we strolled through the ruins themselves.
Do you remember, in the Lady of the Lake, where the exiled Douglas,
recalling to his daughter the images of his former splendor, says,--

"When Blantyre hymned, her holiest lays,
And Bothwell's walls flung back the praise"?

These lines came forcibly to my mind, when I saw the mouldering ruins of
Blantyre priory rising exactly opposite to the castle, on the other side
of the Clyde.

The banks of the River Clyde, where we walked, were thick set with
Portuguese laurel, which I have before mentioned as similar to our
rhododendron. I here noticed a fact with regard to the ivy which had
often puzzled me; and that is, the different shapes of its leaves in the
different stages of its growth. The young ivy has this leaf; but when it
has become more than a century old every trace and indentation melts
away, and it assumes this form, which I found afterwar