ymn by the school children
seemed in accordance with it. As usual my mind wandered during
the whole of the service, and though I knelt when others
knelt, and stood when they stood, and though my lips
mechanically repeated the responses, I never prayed except
when occasionally some words in the Liturgy or in the Bible
struck upon the secret feeling of my heart, and drew from it a
mental ejaculation, a passionate appeal to Heaven, which was
rather the cry of a wounded spirit than a direct address to
the God between whom and my soul I felt as if the link of
communion was broken. That day, however, little as I regularly
attended to the service it had a soothing effect upon me.
There was an old monument exactly opposite our seat, to which
my eyes were continually reverting. It was that of a knight
crusader and of his wife; their statues were lying side by
side, in that rigid repose which unites the appearance of
sleep and of death. There was peace in each line of those
sculptured figures--an intensity of repose, the more striking
from its association with some of the emblems of war. As I
looked upon them I longed to be resting too.

The clergyman was reading the morning lesson at that moment,
and these words attracted my attention, "And they all fell
seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest;
in the first days in the beginning of barley-harvest; and
Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it
for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest, until
water dropped upon them out of Heaven, and suffered neither
the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of
the field by night."

These words seemed to answer my thoughts; why I cannot tell,
perhaps no one but myself could understand what that
connection was, and yet it struck me so powerfully that I felt
as if a chink had suddenly opened, and given me a glimpse into
another world. There was quietness and confidence and
strength, in the midst of torture, agony, and despair. The
mother, who had lost all her sons, and that by an ignominious
death, sat upon the rock days and nights, and she spread
sackcloth upon it, and she slept not by night, and she rested
not by day, but drove away the birds of the air and the beasts
of the field, and verily she had her reward; their bones were
gathered together by the King's command, and they buried them
there. She had her meed, I might have mine at last; I could
weep and pray, fast by d