on her work as an experiment, now, that its success was undoubted, were equally loud in their praises.

While in the hospital her original plan of a Protestant Sisterhood

assumed in her mind a more attainable form, and was shortly afterwards carried into execution. The first principles of the plan, however, remained the same, and they are those which have been so thoroughly tested, and so nobly advocated by our own Mrs. Sewell, Mrs. Bayly, Miss Marsh, and others, "personal intercourse with the poor, and the exhibition of a love towards them manifested in action and rooted in faith." It was Miss Sieveking's experience after many years' labour, and it is the experience of all who have thought over the subject carefully in the light of Scripture, that all higher kinds of benefit to the poor are connected with personal intercourse with them. Some one telling her of the establishment in the place of a Sewing or Dorcas' Society, she said, "I only hope that these sewing societies will not be looked upon as a substitute for visiting associations." The object of the association which she now formed was more frequent and regular visiting of the sick poor in their own dwellings, and a closer supervision of them than is possible for the general poor's board, with care to promote order and cleanliness, with whatever else may be helpful to them either in body or soul.

Miss Sieveking's labours form a deeply interesting chapter in the history of philanthropy, but our space forbids more than the briefest reference. Her Society was attended with the most blessed results. She at first found some difficulty in obtaining coadjutors, though she says, "I require nothing in

them but sound sense, a certain amount of bodily strength and knowledge of domestic matters-except love to the cause and a living principle of Christianity."

The members-13 in number, and all voluntary workers from private families, 6 married and 7 unmarried met for the first time at Amelia's home, in May, 1832. In a few years the number increased to 33 visiting members, besides other ladies who undertook on certain days of the week to cook for invalids. The public confidence in the work so increased that contributions of all kinds were forthcoming as soon as wanted. There grew out of the parent stem in Hamburg, several kindred efforts, a Children's Hospital, an Association for the care of discharged convicts, &c.; and similar associations on the model of Miss Sieveking's have been founded in many cities of Northern Germany, in Switzerland, in the Baltic provinces of Russia, in Sweden, Denmark, and Holland.

The labour to Miss Sieveking involved in this her undertaking, was very great, for not only did she preside over the weekly and monthly meetings of the Society, but herself took a large share of personal fatigue, drew up for publication its Annual Reports, and besides this carried on her private classes, mixed occasionally in general society, and ministered to the wants of her adopted mother, now very much of an invalid.

None but a woman of robust bodily constitution and elastic spirits, could have so long sustained the pressure; but in 1858 her health began to give way, her active employments were gradually and with great reluctance given up, and for

to be fed, no prisoners to be visited, no sick to be healed. But it does not follow that all those principles of character which shew themselves in these forms of well-doing on earth will lose their distinctiveness, or want suitable occasions of exercise, in heaven, and be lost, as it were, in a common or uniform principle of goodness. The great sufferer for Christ's sake and the great toiler in Christ's vineyard have much in common, but they have much that is peculiar to each, the fruit of their peculiar circumstances and training. They whose circumstances and calling on earth develop the gentler and tenderer affections and graces, and they whose circumstances and calling develop the bolder and sterner, have much in common, but they have much that is peculiar to each. Shall we suppose that heaven will perpetuate what is common to them, but not what is peculiar and special? Shall we not suppose rather that the Marthas and Marys of the Church on earth will be Marthas and Marys in the Church in heaven, freed indeed from all sin, but distinguished from one another by those forms of excellence which were acquired by their earthly training?

This consideration surrounds everything we do and everything we neglect to do with immense importance. It is a great fallacy to imagine that our entrance into heaven will put everything to rights. To this extent it will, that we can carry no sin with us within its holy gates. But beyond this we cannot hope that our transition from earth to heaven will put things to rights, and make it a matter of no permanent or eternal importance what defects or what excellencies we have had "earth The child who 18

learning to write is forming his hand, that which ultimately becomes as distinctive of him as his countenance, with every stroke of the pen he makes from the very first line onward till his writing is what it never ceases to be. The effect of any single letter he forms, or of any single copy he completes, may be imperceptible but it is real. And it is the repetition of that effect many times that produces the habit which no after effort can undo or destroy. So with our gait, by which we become as distinguishable from those who are walking by our side as we are by our faces. And so with the expression of the face itself. Much as it depends on what we call nature, it is modified and matured by the ten thousand impulses, passions, and emotions, which pass through us, or through which we pass in the course of years. In this respect we reap as we have sown.

We

So will it be with the character we shall take with us into heaven. are forming it now. Every godly thought we cherish, every holy affection we exercise, every labour of love we perform, is contributing its share towards making us what we shall be for ever. And who will say that the evil which mingles with our good is not contributing its share likewise, and that our neglects do not produce a final effect as well as our performances? Excluding, as we do, the idea that we can carry any sin, or sinful habit, or sinful propensity, with us into heaven, it may be nevertheless true that the good we carry with us would be very different but for the evil which was closely associated with it. So that every shortcoming, every neglect of duty, every envious, or uncharitable, or vindictive feeling that

WE are not sorry that Dr. Newman has been led to tell the story of his life. With the circumstances that have led him to tell it we do not intermeddle, but he has passed through such remarkable changes that we are glad to learn from himself how they took place. His early years were tinged by a religious imagination that has deeply coloured his later life; but it was not till his fifteenth year that he became the subject of deep religious convictions. At that period the teaching of a good man was the means, as he then believed, and still believes, of his conversion. "Of this conversion," he says, "I still am more certain than that I have hands or feet." That early teaching was of the school of Calvin, and his early creed was, to a large extent, of the Genevan type. About six years later, when about twenty-one, he entered upon a new phase of his religious life. At that time he came under Oxford influences, and ere long his simple early faith became distasteful to him.

He had found grace, but he wanted a Church, and his life from that time till he entered the Church of Rome might be roughly described as "The troubles of a soul that has

found grace, in finding a Church." At Oxford, his early Calvinism soon melted away. For two or three years he came much under the influence of Dr. Hawkins, the present Provost of Oriel.

From him he received the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. He also heard Dr. Hawkins preach his celebrated sermon on tradition, in

which he maintained that the sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it; and that to learn doctrine we must resort to the formularies of the Church. This view Dr. Newman at once accepted as most true and fruitful. One of its first fruits was the conviction that the Bible Society was radically wrong, and that he must withdraw from it. About the same time, a friend, in a walk round Christchurch-meadow, taught him the doctrine of Apostolical succession. Dr. Whately and he met at Oxford, and for a while Dr. Whately exercised considerable influence over him; but they were unlike, and were soon separated, not to meet again. Whately taught him to believe in the corporate existence of the Church, and to cherish those anti-Erastian views of Church polity which have been so marked a feature of the Tractarian movement.

Meanwhile, illness and bereavement fell upon Dr. Newman, and threw him back upon himself, and he was startled to find himself drifting towards religious indifference and liberalism. The shock turned the bent of his mind the other way, and identifying the two, or at least deeming them near neighbours, he made haste to escape from them as fast and as far as he could. While this inward change was taking place, a change was taking place in his circumstances and position that perhaps gave more decision to the inward change. Hitherto he had been little known, and had been reserved and hesitating, but now he