Shirley

were distinctly audible by snatches: here is a quotation or two from different strains; for the singers passed jauntily from hymn to hymn and from tune to tune, with an ease and buoyancy all their own.
     
    »Oh! who can explain
    This struggle for life,
    This travail and pain,
    This trembling and strife?
    Plague, earthquake, and famine,
    And tumult and war,
    The wonderful coming
    Of Jesus declare!
     
    For every fight
    Is dreadful and loud, –
    The warrior's delight
    Is slaughter and blood;
    His foes overturning,
    Till all shall expire, –
    And this is with burning,
    And fuel, and fire!«
     
    Here followed an interval of clamorous prayer, accompanied by fearful groans. A shout of »I've found liberty!« »Doad o' Bill's has fun' liberty!« rung from the chapel, and out all the assembly broke again.
     
    »What a mercy is this!
    What a heaven of bliss!
    How unspeakably happy am I!
    Gather'd into the fold,
    With thy people enroll'd,
    With thy people to live and to die!
     
    Oh! the goodness of God
    In employing a clod
    His tribute of glory to raise;
    His standard to bear,
    And with triumph declare
    His unspeakable riches of grace!
     
    Oh, the fathomless love,
    That has deign'd to approve
    And prosper the work of my hands;
    With my pastoral crook,
    I went over the brook,
    And behold I am spread into bands!
     
    Who, I ask in amaze,
    Hath begotten me these?
    And inquire from what quarter they came;
    My full heart it replies,
    They are born from the skies,
    And gives glory to God and the Lamb!«
     
    The stanza which followed this, after another and longer interregnum of shouts, yells, ejaculations, frantic cries, agonized groans, seemed to cap the climax of noise and zeal.
     
    »Sleeping on the brink of sin,
    Tophet gaped to take us in;
    Mercy to our rescue flew, –
    Broke the snare, and brought us through.
     
    Here, as in a lion's den,
    Undevour'd we still remain;
    Pass secure the watery flood,
    Hanging on the arm of God.
     
    Here« –
     
    (Terrible, most distracting to the ear was the strained shout in which the last stanza was given).
     
    »Here we raise our voices higher,
    Shout in the refiner's fire;
    Clap our hands amidst the flame,
    Glory give to Jesus' name!«
     
    The roof of the chapel did
not
fly off; which speaks volumes in praise of its solid slating.
    But if Briar-chapel seemed alive, so also did Briarmains: though certainly the mansion appeared to enjoy a quieter phase of existence than the temple; some of its windows too were a-glow: the lower casements opened upon the lawn, curtains concealed the interior, and partly obscured the ray of the candles which lit it, but they did not entirely muffle the sound of voice and laughter. We are privileged to enter that front-door, and to penetrate to the domestic sanctum.
    It is not the presence of company which makes Mr. Yorke's habitation lively, for there is none within it save his own family, and they are assembled in that farthest room to the right, the back-parlour.
    This is the usual sitting-room of an evening. Those windows would be seen by daylight to be of brilliantly-stained glass – purple and amber the predominant hues, glittering round a gravely-tinted medallion in the centre of each, representing the suave head of William Shakspeare, and the serene one of John Milton. Some Canadian views hang on the walls – green forest and blue water-scenery – and in the midst of them blazes a night-eruption of Vesuvius; very ardently it glows, contrasted with the cool foam and azure of cataracts, and the dusky depths of woods.
    The fire illuminating this room, reader, is such as, if you be a southern, you do not often see burning on the hearth of a private apartment; it is a clear, hot, coal fire, heaped high in the ample chimney. Mr. Yorke
will
have such fires even in warm summer weather: he sits beside it with a book in his hand, a little round stand at his elbow supporting a candle – but he is not reading, he is watching his children. Opposite to him sits his lady – a personage whom I might describe minutely, but I feel no vocation to the task. I see her, though, very plainly before me: a large woman of the gravest aspect, care on her front and on her shoulders – but not overwhelming, inevitable care – rather the sort of voluntary, exemplary cloud and burden people ever carry who deem it their duty to be gloomy. Ah, well-a-day! Mrs. Yorke had that notion, and grave as Saturn she was, morning, noon, and night; and hard things she thought