pain, and with unclouded mind, though he was not able to communicate so easily what was passing in his mind. We prayed with him, and he appeared to join in it." Mr. Cowper, who writes thus, is, like Dean Stanley, said to be a broad churchman. He was under no temptation therefore to delude either himself or others as to the spiritual state of his departed relative. Alas! is it Evangelicalism alone that has become hollow and insincere? Such is the sad result, when a church sits as a queen, and says in her heart, "I shall see no sorrow."

I repeat by way of comment what some months ago I said elsewhere,-We are living in unrealities. Everywhere is heard the fierce assertion of an eternity of woe. Everywhere resounds the cry, Repent and believe, for out of the church (each giving his own explanation of that term) is no salvation. Everywhere is it proclaimed as a truth, and sometimes in scriptural words most grossly perverted from their meaning, "As the tree falleth so shall it lie." And yet everywhere is to be seen on the part of believers a contentedness in relation to the spiritual condition of their unconverted friends and relatives which gives the lie to all this profession, and which bases itself on-nothing. Everywhere on the part of sinners we may observe an indifference which tells, but too plainly, that they do not much believe in future retribution at all, and that they have a sort of notion that if they admit the force of the terrible denunciations flung at them every week from ten thousand pulpits, they may rest satisfied that most of what is said is mere noise,-oratorical exaggeration; a state of mind vague, indeed, but so comforting, that they have no wish to be further enlightened on the matter.

Is it necessary to say that this method of dealing with revealed truth is utterly fallacious; that it destroys faith; that it renders the Bible of little worth; that it is, morally and spiritually, far more dangerous to souls than the wildest universalism that ever was preached?

Is it unreasonable to affirm that the whole question at issue can be settled only by the Word and the Testimony of God, irrespective of any human inferences that may be drawn from the Divine statement? If Scripture really does announce the final and irremediable ruin of all the unregenerate, it is idle, and worse than idle, to make loopholes through which we can at once escape from theoretical difficulty and practical concern. If, on the other hand, Scripture makes no such announcement, but throws a light, however lim, on human destiny, it is as much our duty to search for that light, and when found to walk in it, as it is to believe on Christ to the salvation of our souls.

Holding, then, as I firmly do, that ordinary popular beliefs regarding hell are eminently dangerous, inasmuch as while ex

oterically orthodox, they admit of esoteric explanations which pacify the heart, in relation to those who are dear to us, however ungodly they may be ; which lull the occasional anxieties of the careless, and which reduce the denunciations of the Bible to little more than alarming threats, I am compelled to insist that the only escape from this peril is to be found in a fearless search throughout Scripture for its exact teachings, in order that, when found, "the law" thus made manifest may be "a light to our feet." Preachers may declaim for ever about the horrors of hell, and assert, as often and as loudly as they will, that all unrenewed persons will be for ever sustained in unutterable misery, but no one who realizes what words mean believes it truthfully, or believes it long. The preacher hopes it may not be quite so bad as it seems. The hearer knows that he does not accept the doctrine he enforces, in its bearing on his own wife and children, if they are among the unconverted. He has always some method, however carefully it may be concealed, by which a way of escape is provided, one day for the heathen, the next for the amiable, the day following for-he does not dare to say how many.

One commits his "dear brother" to the tomb, regenerate or unregenerate, saint or sinner, "in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life," and thanks God for having, in His great mercy, taken unto Himself' the soul of the departed; and another, refusing to do this, contents himself with announcing the threatenings of Scripture to all men generally, carefully avoiding, in so doing, their application to any man or set of men in particular, a system of delusion and deceit which would be scattered to the winds before a full and free declaration, issuing from the deepest conviction of the soul, of the certainty of retribution, whatever may be its character or extent.

Anything would be better than a state of things in which, as now, in regard to Future Retribution, almost everybody has a view of his own, the exoteric and the esoteric hopelessly conflicting. D.

OFF TO NORWAY.

CHAPTER II.

CHURCHES PALACE-THE

TOO EARLY RISING-CHRISTIANA.-THE FJORD-THE CITY—HOTEL

-SHOPS
TIONS FOR TRAVEL-RAILWAY.

GRUND-LOV-PREPARA

ACCORDING to promise, the mate called me early on Monday morning, and I was on deck soon after four; but the first glance at sea and sky and coast convinced me that, this time at least, I was no

gainer by early rising. The sea was black, from the depth of the water; there was nothing but a dull grey roof of cloud above; while the low rocky coast, two or three miles away on our larboard, was devoid of all interest whatever, except that arising from the dangers with which it was associated in the mind of the Norwegian pilot, who was never weary of dwelling on them to me. Those grey bare rocks fixed his little twinkling blue eyes as if by a power of evil fascination, and many a tale of shipwreck had he to tell. The thought seemed to be in his mind that, one day, it might be his fate too to learn by terrible experience their savage character, and he eyed them as one might a foe. Whoever knows what the deck of a ship is about six in the morning will readily understand my half-regret that I had denied myself the luxury of the delicious reverie in which it is so pleasant to indulge when, though sleep has begun to steal away, his soft, and warm, and dewy influence lingers, and the mind is not yet roused to its sentinel watch, but lets fancy, or any other airy sprite, come and go at will. For while all on board, except those whom duty had summoned, still snoozed snugly, there was I, with nothing to look at but a leaden sky, and a colourless sea, and an ugly coast, while the scrubby Norsk sailors were washing and flushing the decks. But I had formed such notions of the coast of Norway that I was reluctant to lose any of it by lazy indulgence.

However, by half-past nine or ten, it began to grow more attractive, and to somewhat pique imagination, and eventually I acknowledged that there was no room for disappointment. The Christiania Fjord is not more than some seventy miles of the hundred and eighty which is the distance between Christiansand and the capital, and it is not till you are fairly in the Fjord that anything like scenery can be said to begin, and then the varied interest grows till Christiania itself is discerned. After steaming up the narrowing arm of the sea, unable to keep the eye fixed on either coast in particular, because of the novel scenery and objects offering themselves on both sides;-sometimes seeming as if we were going, head on, like a wild bull, or battering-ram, right against some formidable, black, precipitous rock, but then, just in time, winding round it, to find similar rocky defiances again in front and rear, right and left alike, frowning fortresses, raised by nature to guard the rugged homes of the bold sea-kings; but finding, instead of their war-ships, high at prow and stern, with the one mast and single sail, the small craft of the country, shooting in and out laden with firewood for the city, or fishing vessels, or colliers from the North of England, or merchant vessels from different countries, on their peaceful and peopleuniting errand;-I say, after steaming up the Fjord for some three hours, "There's Christiania!" exclaimed one lady fondly,

to whom the name was grateful with all the associations of home.

The modern capital of Norway (for Throndhjem was the ancient one) can boast of as lovely a site as almost any city in Europe; and if you approach it, as I did, on a splendid summer day, you are not likely soon to forget the beauty that everywhere meets and fills the delighted eye. In the blue sky there was enough of fleecy summer cloud to vary its face, and to throw invaluable shadows on the broad smooth bay into which the Fjord expanded, and on the ever gently rising and cultivated ground beyond the city, and on the masses of forest on hill sides that everywhere abounded. The Fjord itself either branched out into other smaller arms, running up into the steep, rocky, and wooded land in various directions, or else broad rivers were emptying themselves into it. But all these waters stretching far and far away have their own peculiar charms. Christiania appears built along the irregular shores of the bay, the houses becoming more sparse in the suburbs, and giving way to villas, half-buried in woods; while the ground behind ever rises in all variety of lines, till the pale blue mountains in the extreme distance fade away in the horizon. The more important buildings are at once recognizable-the churches, the king's palace, and away to the left, beautifully situate on one among innumerable irregularly-rising grounds, with rock and wood behind, around, and below, is the Summer Palace. My Norsk acquaintance manifested much patriotic gratification at my hearty and unstinted praise, for they feel, and sometimes painfully, that their dear "Old Norway," when compared with most other European countries, must ever stand at great disadvantage in many things.

The water was deep up to the wooden quay* to which we made fast about one p.m., and which was crowded to the edge by hundreds of idlers, who had come to see what the "Bertha" had brought from England; and at first sight of whom I almost fancied I had a clue to those mysterious advertisements constantly seen in the Times for cast-off clothing of all sorts, for certainly almost every style of dress among us, in its faded fortunes, might be seen here. The custom-house officer was more than civil, only looking for form's sake at my opened bags; and so away to the Hotel du Nord, not five minutes walk from the quay. The German landlord, who fancied he could talk English, showed us rooms for choice, all of them large and lofty, and intended for use by day as well as night, combining drawing-room and bedroom in one. The floors were painted and uncarpeted, and besides

They are proceeding rapidly, however, with an excellent granite quay, which the city, with its increasing commerce, abundantly deserves.

the rooms being far more spacious than any in our hotels at home, contained two pieces of furniture which at once fix the eye of an Englishman, the high cast-iron German stove in one corner, and

(now for a periphrasis, lest the writer should shock the fine sense of propriety which characterizes us all in these days of infinite superiority to all that ever were before, when refinement rules our words, even if it does not rule our thoughts, and feelings, and actions, and it is vulgar to call a spade a spade)—that abominable something which perhaps never would have been seen if Sir Walter Raleigh had not naughtily introduced the custom which drew down the ire of that Royal Defender of something else than the Faith who laid the world under such mighty obligations by his "Counterblast to Tobacco." Soon descending to the Spise Salon, a young Englishman who had come over in the steamer and myself sat down to make our first essay of Norsk fare; and glad enough we were to find that the German waiter could speak very good English. Presently a gentleman joined us, who soon showed himself a genuine son of Britain. He had all that insular contempt for everything un-English, with which the Continentals charge us, and often with too much justice. He was a healthy, happy-looking mortal, to whom the "nature-life" seemed all-just the "good fellow" and the "nice fellow" to join at any hour in the merry-go-round chorus, "Jolly dogs are we." He was frank and unreserved, as your somewhat taciturn Englishman at home is abroad, when, alone, he encounters fellow-countrymen who are ready for all comers. He had been "doing the correct thing;" that is, he had been "getting over the ground as if travelling on a life and death errand, having come down from Throndhjem, a distance of upwards of four hundred miles, in little more than four days. And he now repeated to us, with a confident air which settled the question, that, for the most part, everything was "beastly, sir, perfectly beastly!" "Only see their pigs! only see them! that will be enough; you won't want to eat their pork." I inquired about the people, the scenery, &c. Of the former he of course knew nothing, and therefore they too were "a beastly lot;" but he condescended slightly to approve of a bit of the scenery here and there, some three or four stages south of Throndjhem. He was a genial fellow enough in his way, the picture of health, just the specimen of a Johnny Bull, junior, that Jean Crapaud loves to introduce on the French stage as a true representative of our bovine breed. How heartily I hoped that none of the Norwegian gentlemen sitting at the other long table, and evidently listening to us, understood English. Most probably a vain hope, for the Norwegians think very highly of England and the English, and learn our language as commonly as we learn French. In Christiania you can get on very well without any