country, by their courage, endurance and heroism, released themselves from the Spanish dominion under Philip the Second, the son of Charles the Fifth, this mighty emperor of the world, and achieved in the religion of liberty their political and religious freedom. This civil industry, this enterprise in great things and small, in their own land as well as beyond the ocean, this careful and at the same time pure and handsome well-to-do-ness, the joy and spiritedness of self-confidence, this totality of their own activity, serves to explain the contents of their works of art. But this material is no common stuff, nor to be approached with the supercilious air of those belonging to extra-polite society.* In this feeling of a noble nationality Rembrandt painted his celebrated Watch in Amsterdam, Van Eyck many of his portraits, Wouverman his cavalry scenes; and here belong also the rustic situations, frolics and comicalities."

Now let us hear what the English critic has to say in regard to the Dutch school :

"But the object of the great body of them is merely to display manual dexterities of one kind or another, and this effect on the public mind is so totally for evil, that though I do not deny the advantage an artist of real judgment may derive from the study of some of them, I conceive the best patronage that any monarch could possibly bestow upon the arts would be to collect the whole body of them into a grand gallery and burn it to the ground."

The fact is, Ruskin is a bundle of absurdities and inconsistencies. He has a cordial contempt for the German metaphysicians. If he had given a little patient attention to some of them, he might have been relieved from many of his faults. They assign to art its functions and limits in a manner which commends itself to all thinking men. They furnish the only fair standpoint from which to judge of the importance of the various spheres of art as well as of its individual productions. They would teach him

* No English could possibly bring out the expressiveness of Hegel's language: "Das ist aber kein gemeiner Stoff und Gehalt, zu dem man freilich nicht mit der Vornehmigkeit einer hohen Nase von Hof und Hoflichkeiten her aus guter Gesellschaft herankommen muss."

that the old Italian masters could defend themselves on good ground and say:"We feel called upon as artists to do one thing, and you exact of us another. If the task you would impose on us is the only legitimate one, we could accomplish it better by abandoning art, and entering upon some other vocation in which we could find resources and principles more adequate to the purpose. In throwing contempt upon us, you throw contempt upon art as such; and owing to the fact that you have a distorted conception of its mission, you destroy men's confidence in and regard for that important branch of human activity to which you have devoted your life, and which, according to the divine arrangement, has proved itself to be an essential and significant element and factor in the onward movement of history and civilization."

Barbara Fritchie and Her Pastor.

[Some of the younger readers of the GUARDIAN may not have seen Whittier's beautiful

ballad on Barbara Fritchie. For their benefit we will give it a place here, followed by a friendly comment of it by her spiritual adviser.]

Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand,
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,
Fair as the garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,-
Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,
Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
Up rose old Barbara Fritchie then,

Bowed with her four-score years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic window the staff she set
To show that one heart was loyal yet.

We were delighted; Barbara was not then a myth. We crowded fast the questions. Any doubt breathed upon the fact of Whittier's beautiful ballad, had been to us as a wrong done unto the race. We were now brought, as it were, into the very presence of Barbara herself, in the person of her pastor,

"Bravest of all in Frederick town," had she held

"The flag the men hauled down." We held our breath and waited answer. The clear kind eyes looked truthfully into our own. "She was equal to anything of the kind!" he said quietly; "and Frederick itself could not be more truthfully painted, than by those two lines of Whittier:

"The clustered spires of Frederick stand, Green walled by the hills of Maryland."

Singularly enough, the churches are all grouped together; within a stone's throw of each other. But Stonewall Jackson never could enter Frederick in that direction, or pass Dame Barbara's house in doing so-her home was upon the banks of Carroll Creek and West Patrick street. Directly opposite her house is the town spring, whose waters have bubbled up refreshingly during all the years of our bitter strife. Which

ever party held Frederick was sure to be represented by its soldiers at that spring's side. There during hot summer days, they would lounge and lie in the shade of Barbara's stoop. You can see it in the photographs of the home. that have been for sale everywhere. Barbara was lame for many years, and walked with a cane. If the boys in blue were there, old Barbara was very gracious; she would come down and lend her tumblers or her dipper, give biscuits or do anything to oblige; but she was very short indeed with the Confederates, and would drive them off her premises with a very majestic motion of her cane. They might occasionally threaten to shoot the old woman, but she had her way unharmed. The nieces who made the family, were very much annoyed, the Doctor said, at the notoriety Whittier's ballad had given to their aunt. It was no trifling matter in those troubled days, to be a marked character, when one morning the streets were lined with blue coats and their glittering steel, and by night fall, as if the earth had swallowed them, they were gone, and the Confederates had the town in full possession.

The likeness of Barbara Fritchie sold at some of the fairs, in Philadelphia, had been a great trial to them. They were anxious to suppress any more being taken; they were quiet folks themselves, and hated publicity. "Ay! yes," said the Doctor, tenderly, "I was Barbara Fritchie's pastor; for nearly thirty years I handed her the cup and the bread; at our communion service she always par took, as had been her life-long habit, standing, and afterwards was sure to shake hands cordially with her pastor."

My husband was seventh in descent from an ancestor who was whipped in Boston, for his allegiance to his religious opinion-upon the day that Mary Dyre was hung. Though intimate with many clergymen, he was bitterly opposed to any sacerdotal assumption; he did not like the man who thought he was necessary to any other man's salvation. He drew a very sharp distinction between the pastor and the priest. He came home one evening after our guest had retired. I was eager to tell him of the good man. "Ay! my dear," he said decidedly, “I lay my hands suddenly on no man.' fell back upon my intuitions.

"" I

"Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised,
Comes the saint unrecognized."

I was sure of the Doctor.

They met at the breakfast table, and they enjoyed each other's society for several days afterward; but my husband was not yet willing-to my very great disgust-to canonize our guest.

The last morning the Doctor was with us, he was to preach before Synod. He took his text from that precious prayer of our divine Master, for the oneness of His disciples-I think that it was the 21st verse of the 17th chapter of St. John. I did not hear him, but my husband did; he came home with his face beaming with pleasure-"The Doctor," he said, "has given us an excellent sermon, and the seal of his discipleship in his living recognition of the unity of all believers."

But I am telling you more of Barbara Fritchie's pastor thau of Barbara herself.

Barbara Haner was born, December 3, 1766, in Lancaster, Pa. Her parents removed to Frederick City, Md., when she was quite a child. On May 6th, 1806, she was married by Rev. Mr. Wagner, to John Casper Fritchie, also of Frederick; and she died, December 18, 1862, at the advanced age of 96 years and 15 days.

Barbara's house was torn down before I saw Frederick, to widen, I think, a mill run that Carroll Creek was to supply with water.

had been particularly annoyed this autumn, by a gentleman and lady from Ohio. They insisted upon the truth of every line of Whittier's ballad, begged a brick from the old fire-place-anything for a relic. In vain the quaint old ladies denied their Aunt Barbara's valor. Stonewall Jackson's army had never passed her door, nor had she ever defied rebel shot with her old, grey head. The strangers were indignant, and were overheard to say, as they walked out, that they could not believe one word these old women had said.

The Doctor took me to Barbara's grave; it is in the "God's acre," of the Reformed Church-a flat stone covers it-I gathered some grasses, and the Doctor scraped away the grass to read the record there, remarking as he did so, that he had not before noticed that Dame Barbara was some years her husband's senior; and the waters of Carroll Creek, in the diverted form of the mill race, still wash around her last resting place and that of her husband's, and many friends.

The strife was over when I saw Frederick City, and to me it is ever more as a vision of peace, but the Rebellion killed many that shot and shell had sparedand among its victims was Barbara Fritchie's pastor. He died in the March of 1873, of some disorganization of the heart, contracted during those exciting days.

Under lock and key, among my treasures, I have a small bottle of dark red

It is the remains of some given to the Doctor at a congregational party, by Barbara Fritchie, and made by her own hands.

When Barbara Fritchie's pastor died, he requested that some of this wine should be sent to us. It is sealed, and will descend, I hope, to generations when Barbara Fritchie will live in unquestioned heroism. For, was she not-as her pastor had said of her-equal to any emergency? A FRIEND

Of Barbara Fritchie's pastor. HUDSON, April 4th, 1879.

The God who loves the penitent sinner, hates his sins, and is determined that he shall hate them, and be separated from them: this is good news to a sin-sick soul.

Oh

ful?"

yes, mother. Wasn't she beauti

"DEAR GOD!--My sister wishes to have something to eat. Send me three Copeken, so that I can buy her some bread."

With this letter in hand, he hastened in search of a letter box. But he was too short, and could not reach up to put it in. Just as he was vainly trying to put it in, the pastor of the family passed along. He asked the boy what he was doing, who gave him his letter to read. Tears rolled down the good man's face, as he took the boy by the hand to go home with him. Out of his scanty purse he at once helped the needy family. On the following Sunday he took the two oldest children with him to church the smallest was still an infant. He preached on mercy, and told his people the above incident, as he pointed to the two children. At the close of the sermon he came down from the pulpit, and himself carried the basket through the congregation. The gathered gifts amounted to 1,500 rubles, equal to $1,125. In this way God answered the little boy's letter.

Trust in God.

MOTHER," said a little girl, "what did David mean when he said, 'Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust?'"

"Do you remember," said her mo

"She was a gentle, loving little thing, and her father was very kind to her. Do you remember what she said when they came to the narrow bridge over the brook ?"

"I don't like to think about that

bridge, mother; it makes me giddy. Don't you think it is very dangerous, just those two loose planks laid across, and no railing? If she had stepped a little on either side, she would have fallen into the water."

"Do you remember what she said?" asked the mother.

"Yes, mamma; she stopped a minute, as if afraid to go over, and then looked up into her father's face and asked him to take hold of her hand, and said, 'You will take hold of me, dear father; I don't feel afraid when you have hold of my hand.' And her father looked so lovingly upon her and took tight hold of her hand, as if she were very precious to him."

"Well, my child," said the mother, "I think David felt just like that little girl when he wrote these words you have asked me about."

"Was David going over a bridge, mother?"

"Not such a bridge as the one we saw in the woods; but he had come to some difficult place in his life-there was some trouble before him that made him afraid, and he looked up to God just as that little girl looked up to her father, and said, 'Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust.' It is just as if he had said, 'Please take care of me, my kind heavenly Father; I do not feel afraid when Thou art with me and taking hold of my hand.""—S. S. Visitor.