d
the silent teachings of the quiet meeting-house, where the brethren and
sisters, in simple garb of sober gray, are wont to assemble, and where
yet may still be seen the adopted sister Opie, resting in the autumn of
her days in the calm seclusion of the body of Friends, after a life spent
in scattering abroad in the world, germs of simple truth, pure morality,
and heart-religion, the fruits of the genius which has been her gift from
God. He shall visit Earlham Hall, the birthplace of that great "sister
of charity," Elizabeth Fry, and her brother, the philanthropist, Joseph
John Gurney, and beneath its avenues of chestnut, by the quiet waters of
its little lake, and the banks of bright anemones, that lay spread like a
rich carpet, in the early spring time, along its garden borders, inhale
sweet odours, and drink in refreshing draughts of pure unsullied poetry,
fresh from the fount of _nature_, and fragrant with the love that
breathes through all her teachings, the first child of the Great Parent
of good.

Hence he may trace his way back through the village hamlet, that gave a
home in his last years to the weary-hearted Hall, yielding a refuge and a
grave to the head bowed beneath the weight of a sorrow-burthened mitre;
and with hearts yet vibrating to the mournful cadences of woe, that swept
from his harp strings, forth upon the world from its saddened solitudes,
they may pass on to the garden of the Bishop's Palace, and the monuments
yet lingering there; ivy-clad ruins, meet emblems of harsh realities,
over which the hand of time has thrown the sheltering mantle of
forgiveness. And among the many chords touched by the hand of memory
here, where the shades of harsh bigotry and persecuting zeal vanish in
the gentle and softened light of Christian charity, breathed forth by the
spirits of later days, whose heart does not respond to the refined poetry
of the Charlotte Elizabeth, who has given such sweet paintings of this
familiar scene of her girlhood's years? Who can forget the song of the
Swedish Nightingale, as it thrilled through the evening air upon the
listening ears of the ravished, though untutored multitude? happy
associations of the enjoyments of working world life, and lay minstrels
of God's creation, to be blended with the grander, but scarce more
solemn, memories of the great heads among the labourers in the harvest
field of souls. Nor shall the poet forget to take a glimpse of the quiet
home, not far dist