expectation of a Hereafter. To such a dismissal three impulses contribute the weakening of the traditional argument for immortality from the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the disposition to regard man's spiritual faculties as functions of the transient physical organism, and the new object offered to moral enthusiasm in the progressive development of the race. No student of William Smith's writings need be told that he was very far from relinquishing the hope of a hereafter, and that he considered that there were sober intellectual grounds for cherishing that hope. Still, his philosophy seldom emphasizes the idea; is engaged more with the progress of the race than the future of the individual; and aims at a temper of thankful acquiescence in the present, without dwelling much on the possibilities of the personal future. It is an attitude which seems practicable to the thinker, absorbed in impersonal thought. It may seem practicable to those whose present is filled with happiness. But, confront it with the noblest human trait, under the one inevitable emergency, confront it with Love in the presence of Death, and it fails utterly. There can then be no indifference, no dismissal of the topic as unessential — it presses home upon the heart. So, where the Thinker

was content to pause, the Lover must press on. The woman-nature the feminine element, be it in man or woman here takes the lead. The masculine intellect may learn of the Ewigweibliche, may accept the final word of "Faust:"

"The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on.”

This woman's letters show how intensely and continuously she reverted to reading and to speculative inquiry on the great problem. But they show too how she was gaining life and strength and hope through other resources than those of the intellect. Light and Light and peace came slowly to her through love itself,

the one supreme

love, having at its heart the supreme hope; and that love for "others too" which welled irrepressibly within her. As her old nurse said of her as a child, "you can get so near to Miss Lucy," so always she gets near to everything she meets. For every friend, for every stranger in whom some trait attracts her eye, for every animal, and even for the mountain for Helvellyn or Snowdon or the Matterhorn-she has a regard in which for the moment her whole nature seems to concentrate itself; even in her written words about each beloved object, one feels a caress. When from these affections the conscious joy has been stricken out by her great grief, still there is always the impulse to help, to serve. It is by this perpetual loving touch with humanity and nature that her spirit is strengthened and restored. And no less strong than her affection is her fidelity to duty in its homeliest forms. She is as faithful in her economy, that least sentimental of the virtues, as in the most gracious and tender of personal ministries. The law of her life is the thorough, prompt, inevitable performance of the nearest duty. There is a curious contrast between her husband's habitual withdrawal from the shocks of actual existence, and all its cark and care, into the lonely, lovely world of his own thoughts, and her habit of coming always to close grip with the hard, visible present, and mastering it. It is by such daily battle, by such perpetual interweaval with other lives in sympathy and service, by the influences flowing in upon her from mountain and sunset, and by the one love blent with all, it is by these, more than by utmost strain of the questioning mind, that she rises toward the height where fear is left behind, and love, hope, and trust are all in all.

Touching and wonderful it is to see her life shaping itself to greater issues than she herself suspects, — issues which in her passionate concentration and idolatry she would sometimes even deny. In many of her letters the

cry rings again and again that she is dead, that life is over for her; yet even at that moment what intense life beats in her, and communicates its intensity to him who reads the words! Over and again she declares that she desires no interests, no friendships even, in which her husband had not had a part; yet what new interests do come in, blending always with the old, but drawing her into wider activities, and blessing others with her. Singular is it, in a nature so generous as hers, to see in the early, awful years of her bereavement how she draws the line between her personal interests and the interests of others; as when repeatedly she uses such expressions as this, in speaking of a great happiness that has come to dear friends: "But I can no more rejoice, except through sympathy, than I could see, were my eyes put out, the beauty I might yet like to have described." Yet, unconfessedly, unconsciously, her sense of the joys of others does gladden her personal life; does slowly, sweetly, restore to her more and more of tranquillity and happiness. And that to the last there mingles in her life a great sorrow, a great longing, an intense looking forward to something unattained, — who, be it reverently said, would wish it otherwise? It is these very yearnings that prompt and sustain the most sacred hope of mankind.

If her worship of her husband had in it as assuredly he would have told her some touch of idolatry; if her effort to wholly adopt and satisfy herself with his ways of thought was impracticable; yet most truly did her life derive guidance and impulse from what was deepest and most characteristic in him. It belonged to her rather than to him to develop into strength the hope of immortality. But by his influence she was perpetually reinforced in the qualities which are more vital even than the immortal hope the aspiration and effort toward a perfect rightness of character, and a trust which seeks to commit each personal wish to a holier will and larger

knowledge than ours.

More is it to the impetuous heart

to learn these lessons than to receive the certain assurance it craves; and these were the very lessons, fidelity, aspiration, trust, — which her husband embodied to her, and every hour impressed on her. These were what he really signified to her; this it was in him which won her love; this made her love sacramental, and drew her by its whole force ever nearer to God, and nearer to all God's

creatures.

To be faithful in darkness-that is the supreme test to which the human spirit is subjected. It came in early years to William Smith, when knowledge of God seemed lost. It came in later years to his wife, when parted from her husband. Each walks the path alone, unshaken in loyalty and in love. And upon the way of each we see a tender light brightening like the coming of the day.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

"HE RESTORETH MY SOUL."

To the Rev. Allan Menzies.

PATTERDALE, April 9, 1877.

MARY, Chin, and I came here last Tuesday, and I fancy that the change is doing Mary some good. Archie tells her that you were preaching at North Esk, and he would have gone to hear you but that he had promised to read to dear Mrs. S on Sunday mornings. That was my office during my Edinburgh stay. Some of the last sermons that we thus shared, and liked especially, were those of Mr. Service. My dear aged friend and I have much in common difficulties and perplexities enough, but, I think, a deepening trust and a keener desire for betterness. To me it appears that her fine, strong, sterling, generous nature is growing meeker and more spiritual, taking some ineffable grace and tenderness from the unspeakable sorrow, and the dim and timid hope which saves. How loving she is to me I cannot say, nor how many tears she shed over my departure. If you are in Edinburgh will you try to go and see her? I am sure she would like it. Archie's Sunday reading would seem very startling to some. It was Renan's article on Spinoza, which I had translated and Mrs. S wished to hear.

You cannot think how much time Mary and I spend, I will not say waste, in watching Chinchilla, who is most lovely after baths of red sand, very fine and cleansing, rubbing off all the town smoke, and making his dear little waistcoat and shirt-front purely white. Mary has been