ecure his earthly happiness? He was to "find
his sons obedient, affectionate, attentive to his wishes, self-denying
and diligent," a goodly string forsooth of all the virtues most
convenient to parents; he was never to have to blush for the follies of
those "who owed him such a debt of gratitude," and "whose first duty it
was to study his happiness." How like maternal solicitude is this!
Solicitude for the most part lest the offspring should come to have
wishes and feelings of its own, which may occasion many difficulties,
fancied or real. It is this that is at the bottom of the whole mischief;
but whether this last proposition is granted or no, at any rate we
observe that Christina had a sufficiently keen appreciation of the duties
of children towards their parents, and felt the task of fulfilling them
adequately to be so difficult that she was very doubtful how far Ernest
and Joey would succeed in mastering it. It is plain in fact that her
supposed parting glance upon them was one of suspicion. But there was no
suspicion of Theobald; that he should have devoted his life to his
children--why this was such a mere platitude, as almost to go without
saying.

How, let me ask, was it possible that a child only a little past five
years old, trained in such an atmosphere of prayers and hymns and sums
and happy Sunday evenings--to say nothing of daily repeated beatings over
the said prayers and hymns, etc., about which our authoress is silent--how
was it possible that a lad so trained should grow up in any healthy or
vigorous development, even though in her own way his mother was
undoubtedly very fond of him, and sometimes told him stories? Can the
eye of any reader fail to detect the coming wrath of God as about to
descend upon the head of him who should be nurtured under the shadow of
such a letter as the foregoing?

I have often thought that the Church of Rome does wisely in not allowing
her priests to marry. Certainly it is a matter of common observation in
England that the sons of clergymen are frequently unsatisfactory. The
explanation is very simple, but is so often lost sight of that I may
perhaps be pardoned for giving it here.

The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Things must not
be done in him which are venial in the week-day classes. He is paid for
this business of leading a stricter life than other people. It is his
_raison d'etre_. If his parishioners feel that he does this, they