adorned with two church spires, a school house, and several rows of shade trees.

It is near sun down, and all alone in that little school house, seated at her desk, the pale but pretty school mistress is writing-writing as if she was making her will. The neighbors say she has been pining away for the last two years from some cause or other; but, a fig for their rumors, We are not bound to believe a word of it. She has recently buried a very dear friend; and then too she has been shut up all day with a gang of noisy children, and is fatigued. What school mistress would not be, pray?

A man passes by the windows, but she does not see him. He turns the corner and walks softly towards the door. It is no other than Philo Blynn, your humble narrator.

Having learned of Ellie's whereabouts since my arrival in America, I had determined to surprise her by suddenly discovering myself before she was aware I had returned, and accordingly, coming up one fine afternoon to this village where she was teaching, I not only succeeded in finding the school house, but walked to her very door and looked in and saw her just as I have described to you before she perceived me, or dreamed of my being within a thousand miles of her. After surveying the unsuspecting girl long enough to satisfy myself as to her identity, I crossed the threshold and called her by name.

She sprang to her feet in an instant, and her cheeks flushed as if with some sudden transport, but the surprise was too abrupt.

The blood ran back to her heart as quickly as it came, and left her as pale as before, Perceiving her weakness I threw my arms around her, and supported her to a seat where I had the satisfaction of seeing her soon revive, and smile that same inimitable smile that had so often in years gone by, thrilled me with a silent, mysterious happiness. I gave back that kiss of hers which I had carried with me through two grand divisions of the globe, and she at length spoke; yes, she grew eloquent. There was abundance to be said, and she knew how to say it so that we had no lack of words, as long as the interview lasted, to express what was in our minds, I assure you. We talked of—but no matter what we talked of. Poets and novelists have sung and said enough about lover's meetings to exhaust the subject. Let their

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-sighs be soft and smiles be sweet, And pulses musically beat,

40

And hands and lips and glances thrill

With meaning power,

And hearts converse when tongues are still," &c.

I have no wish to hazard my powers of description upon them. The twilight began to deepen, and the kine were heard lowing as they came from the pastures. The loaded humblebee went humming by with his "mellow, breezy bass," and the cazonette of a whippowil from a distant coppice, gave warning that it was time to go. I quitted the school-house with Louise and accompanied her to her residence. We were engaged.

Three months more had passed and holidays had come to all the schools. and

the early fruit was ripe, and the And what then? It was night,

"I had a dream which was not all a dream."

I thought I was present at a high festival in North Woodfield at the house of Col. Platte. There were jolly old uncles with gold-headed canes, and bustling aunts, and little romping nephews and nieces, and some half a dozen congratulating neighbors mingled in with father, mother, sisters and brothers, to promote the flow of soul and help one another feel glad. In the middle of the group there appeared a maiden dressed in white, leaning on the arm of a young man whom I knew, and a very venerable person with a snowy 'kerchief came towards that fair maiden in white, leaning on the arm of that young man whom I knew, and Then a mist gathered over my vision, and I heard a voice like the whisper of a harp breathing close to my ear, "Philo, dear, look at the sun rising." "Whose son?" I inquired drowsily, rubbing my eyes and turning over upon my pillow to see.

My dream was a precious certainty. I was a married man.

TOWNSEND PRIZE ESSAY.

The Fate of the Reformation in France:

ITS CAUSES AND EFFECTS.

BY WILLIAM C. WYMAN, BROOKLYN, N. Y.

THE Protestant Reformation, when fully developed, had two eras in the history of its aims. The Ideal of the first era was to dispossess the human mind of old errors, and to introduce in their stead a new principle of truth. The Ideal of the second era was to give unity of purpose and a permanence of character to that principle, by expanding it into a system.

The world will forsake old errors, when to the consciousness of a need of Reform is added the desire, strong and universal, that Reform should come. A Reformation will thus give utterance to the inmost yearnings

of the age.

To realize the Ideal of the second era, two conditions are requisite. The principle of truth, which a system may embody, cannot fail to prove acceptable wherever the need of it be felt. Yet the reforming power of that principle will greatly depend upon the character of the system which gives the truth its practical expression. To be successful then, so far as success depends upon itself, a system which purposes to reform a nation, must, in a measure, take its character from, and adapt its precepts to, the natural, healthy tone of the national mind. In a word, it will first obey the law of Adaptation, which has regard to the diversities of the moral universe, as well as of the physical.

And again, a system to succeed must know its own limits. It should strive with the single purpose of fulfilling its own peculiar mission. It should not be ambitious of speedily securing all reforms, but wait patiently for the future to develop all its consequences. The privilege of rearing such a system belongs to the great and wise Reformer.

It is a plain lesson of History, that the failure of the French Reformation may be justly regarded as the failure of a system. Not only does such an inference follow from the fact, that Calvin was the greatest system-builder of the age, but there exists a strong presumption that the form of the Reformation in France would naturally comply with the

preference of the national mind for the unity and harmony of a system. The principle of religious liberty entered France, then, as a system; as a system it fought and was conquered. Its failure may be traced to a disregard of the two conditions that were essential to its success. Calvinism failed in France because of a want of harmony between its own spirit and the habitual tone of the French mind, and because of the direct opposition of its doctrines to the character and condition of the French government.

As a man of intellect, Calvin was the first of Reformers, and eminently a French Reformer. Convinced that in the Scriptures alone could be found the source of divine truth, and in his own individual reason the only sure guide towards a knowledge of that truth, Calvin reared a system of belief, logical, symmetrical, harmonious. He went far beyond his great rival Luther in rejecting the mysteries of the Catholic Church. His aim was to vindicate the supremacy of reason in Divine revelation, as well as in the human understanding. Hence Calvinism sought the most radical reformation of the age.

It is plain that a system thus constructed would forcibly appeal to the keen, logical, discriminating mind of France. In no European nation has the reasoning faculty been clothed with mightier power than in France. No civilized country had been better fitted by nature to accept of the intellectual conclusions of Calvin than his native land. Thus the French Reformed Church always rested for its main support on the sympathies of the intelligent and educated classes. Hence sprang that deep, fervent conviction of the truth of their faith, which inspired the Protestants amid the severest persecution of modern times. Had this been all of Calvinism, the doctrines of the great Reformer would, for a season at least, have redeemed his native land.

Yet only for a season could such a dogmatism, while unqualified, endure. Logic has its worst of tyrannies; and when a nation, mentally disposed like France, is-serving such a despot, liberty will not long be waited for. While shrinking from conclusions to which Calvin had been logically led, France had but one more step to take ere the noble faith of her Reformer was wholly set aside. This reaction of the intellect was slow, but sure. Before two centuries had passed, the step was

taken.

But the spirit, which dwelt in this framework of logic, was decidedly at variance with the habitual tone of the French mind. The natural temperament of Calvin, confirmed by his profound views of human nature, and by his experience in life, gave to the practical part of his sys

tem a sternness and severity which the French nation, as a whole, could not long endure. The same austerity of morals was likewise in keeping with the logical character of the Reformation. As Calvin reasoned fearlessly in Theology, so did he reason sternly and fearlessly in Ethics. But his reasoning in Theology was that of a Frenchman, in Morality, that of a German.

His church discipline as well as his code of morals sought to purify and strengthen those elements of religious liberty already secured, and so seeking, they struck heavy blows at the existing abuses of the age. Calvin, whose mission it was to perfect the labor of others, to give unity and power to the new system of faith, strove earnestly for an immediate fruition of blessings that follow slowly yet surely from the fact of religious freedom. Hence the spirit of his Reformation was too grasping, too ambitious of a complete and immediate triumph, to be long the master of the national sympathies. The worship of Geneva was cold and unimpressive when contrasted with the gorgeous ceremonies of Rome. Novelty could not long repress the cravings, which the French have always shown, for representation and effect. Calvin's earnest desire for unity in the church imparted to his doctrines a degree of illiberality, which hindered not a little their general diffusion through the land. And though the records of the Reformed Church are adorned with innumerable examples of learning and genius united with the most profound piety, yet is it true that the great heart of France was scarcely touched by the simple, earnest, serious warnings uttered from Geneva. Hence partially resulted the apostasy of many of the Protestant military leaders, whose example, like that of Henry the Fourth, foreshadowed what the disciples of Calvin had still to suffer.

The principles of the Calvinistic Reformation were yet more decidedly at variance with the character and condition of the French government. Since the close of the fourteenth century Centralization had become the great fact in the history of France. Monarchy had finally triumphed over the nobles, the hierarchy, and the municipal towns; and when the Reformation was first introduced into France, it met with Centralization slowly yet steadily rising to its culmination in the despotism of Louis the Great. This change in the form of the government was not without its legitimate influence in moulding the political sentiments of society. The Reformation found the French people not merely subjected to a spiritual despotism, but willingly the slaves of a government that knew no law other than its own. France had not been severed like Germany into little, independent sovereignties, in some few of which the