e Conservatory.
His compositions are mostly for instrumental performance, but he wrote
cantatas, motets, male choruses, and two oratorios, one on the
"Destruction of Jerusalem." Died May 10, 1855.

The Very Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, was an author
and scholar whom all sects of Christians delighted to honor. His
writings on the New Testament and his published researches in Palestine,
made him an authority in Biblical study, and his contributions to sacred
literature were looked for and welcomed as eagerly as a new hymn by
Bonar or a new poem by Tennyson. Dean Stanley was born in 1815, and died
July 18th, 1881.

THOMAS A KEMPIS.

Thomas a Kempis, sub-prior of the Convent of St. Agnes, was born at
Hamerkin, Holland, about the year 1380, and died at Zwoll, 1471. This
pious monk belonged to an order called the "Brethren of the Common Life"
founded by Gerard de Groote, and his fame rests entirely upon his one
book, the _Imitation of Christ_, which continues to be printed as a
religious classic, and is unsurpassed as a manual of private devotion.
His monastic life--as was true generally of the monastic life of the
middle ages--was not one of useless idleness. The Brethren taught school
and did mechanical work. Besides, before the invention of printing had
been perfected and brought into common service, the multiplication of
books was principally the work of monkish pens. Kempis spent his days
copying the Bible and good books--as well as in exercises of devotion
that promoted religious calm.

His idea of heaven, and the idea of his order, was expressed in that
clause of John's description of the City of God, Rev. 22:3, "_and His
servants shall serve Him_." Above all other heavenly joys that was his
favorite thought. We can well understand that the pious quietude wrought
in his mind and manners by his habit of life made him a saint in the
eyes of the people. The frontispiece of one edition of his _Imitatio
Christi_ pictures him as being addressed before the door of a convent
by a troubled pilgrim,--

"O where is peace?--for thou its paths hast trod,"

--and his answer completes the couplet,--

"In poverty, retirement, and with God."

Of all that is best in inward spiritual life, much can be learned from
this inspired Dutchman. He wrote no hymns, but in his old age he
composed a poem on "Heaven's Joys," which is sometimes called "Thomas a
Kempis' Hymn":

High the angel choirs are r