furnish forth the banquet of good things which it is the strong belief of Churchwomen of her school (and of Maria Edgeworth's) God intended His people to partake of in this world, the pecuniary return of her great literary venture was not closely looked to. This fact explains in part the high quality of her periodical.

To Aunt Judy belongs the honour of being a pioneer among magazines in the enlistment of readers in charitable causes. The magazine raised £200 for two cots at Great Ormonde Street Hospital for Children in 1868 and 1876, and as a memorial to Mrs. Gatty when the magazine was given up, another sum was raised and devoted to a similar object.

It was in 1884 that “Edna Lyall "—Ada Ellen Bayly -startled the religious world of England with We Two, which was, in some sort, a sequel to Donovan, a novel suggested to Miss Bayly at the time of the imprisonment of Charles Bradlaugh by a line in an evening paper stating that the prisoner had sent for his daughter. This "touch of nature" brought to the granddaughter of Robert Bayly, of Gray's Inn, Unitarian, and the daughter of one brought up an Unitarian, who joined the Church in manhood and whose son (" Edna's " brother) took orders, the conviction that the common humanity of atheists and Christians was altogether lost sight of by the ordinary religionist. And she set herself two tasks which she intended to fulfil by the means of two stories; one was to prove to orthodox Church people that the disbelief of the infidel was not necessarily a deliberate perversity and might be partly provoked by the illiberality of Christians; the other was to persuade agnostics they were only agnostics because they had taken offence at the inconsistencies of religionists, and had not troubled themselves to examine Christian evidences closely. These were high tasks and great ones. Miss Bayly was unable, for all her studiousness, her fancy and her good-will, to deal with her subjects with finality, but she undoubtedly accomplished much good by boldly facing the question and by giving to the feeble-hearted and to the not too independent

minded among young Churchmen and Churchwomen, for whom the jargons of raw scientists and crude philosophers had proved alluring, reasons for the faith that was in them and the inspiring assurance that a Churchwoman, stouter-hearted and more vigorous in thought than themselves, had no fear of "ologies" and "isms" prevailing to destroy her faith. Other books of "Edna Lyall's" that advanced the theses that a good life may be led by an opera-singer, that the Irish character is essentially lovable, that slander is a loathsome thing of rapid growth and other commendable propositions, were all read with avidity by a thirsty religious public that had grown to perceive the discrepancy between facts and fairy tales. Though the works of Miss Bayly were not literature in its abiding form, they were excellent and seasonable products of an active mentality, a true faith and an admirable industry. The feeling was kindly and the moral good. Any problematic mischief started by the presentation of agnostic arguments to minds that had hitherto never contemplated them, was more than counterbalanced by the assurances "Edna Lyall" offered of the vigour of her own faith and of the persistence of the power to draw devotion and to exact service that is ever inherent in the English Church. This latter-day exponent of "reasonable" religion had, without doubt, a compelling force in her. Like other literary Churchwomen," Edna Lyall's" endeavours at instruction were not confined to her writings. She practised what she preached, and was assiduous in Bibleclass teaching and other forms of Church work.

A host indeed are the Churchwomen who have turned their hands to literature, and various have been the effects and results of their works. The endeavour here has been to select the most distinctive. Behind each one mentioned, will be found a company of others working in the same vein but either displaying less talent, attaining to less repute, or having less definitely a Church influence. Mrs. Linnæus Banks, who wrote stories of virile provincial character, Mrs. Riddell, who had the power, rare in woman, of representing business life, and Emma Jane

Worboise, authoress of Husbands and Wives, were all emphatic Churchwomen and had all a large public. Mrs. Henry Wood, whose stories have been published in more languages and perhaps read by more readers than those of any other writer of her kind, was a Churchwoman of the old-fashioned Low school, although in East Lynne she gave to the novel-reading world their first heroine who was not quite irreproachable. The authoress of Lady Audley's Secret was a High Church woman, and made the influences of Church life and Church art play strong parts in her books. That Church ideals and Church interests have lost their popularity either with writers or with readers, is only to be believed by those who have circumscribed and faulty notions of what Church ideals and Church interests properly are. Yet we are greatly in need of a Churchwoman's novel that shall represent the old truths in the language of to-day.

Among the many younger Churchwomen of the day, writers are to be found of force and elegance, and a number of quite conspicuous journalists are Churchwomen. Among these editresses of Church papers and writers of "leaders" and articles in ordinary "dailies,' 99 66 weeklies," and "monthlies,' monthlies," are Miss Christabel Coleridge, Miss Ireland Blackbourne, Miss Frances Peard and "Esmé Stuart."

That devoted and moderate Churchwoman, the writer of Nellie's Memories-Rosa Nouchette Carey-still commands a public, and Churchwomen are still prolific in excellent books of instruction and entertainment for children. Mrs. Dearmer's Child's Life of Christ, and Lady Snagge's Simple Talks to Little Children, are both volumes greatly to be commended, and even a lover of contrarieties, like Marie Corelli, has seen enough of the parish priests of England to remark that they have the stuff of heroes in them, and to gratify her readers, the largest band of readers possessed by any novelist of the day, with her portrait-study of God's Good Man.

Many novels of the Churchwomen just enumerated,

are spoiled either by coarse sensationalism or by sickly sentimentality. But in none of them is to be found deliberate disloyalty to the Church of their authors and many have the definite aim of making the ceremonies and tenets of Anglicanism respected. So far, then, all is gain. But the way is open for a true literary creator among Churchwomen, to go farther still.

CHAPTER VIII

SWEET SINGERS

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS, THE HON. MRS. NORTON, LADY DUFFERIN, FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL, CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER, CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

IN Felicia Dorothea Hemans we have a genius and a life of equal poetry. No poem of the many pure and beautiful poems Mrs. Hemans wrote, was purer or more beautiful than her life. Yet she had her crosses and her trials. And the time she so diligently redeemed was short. Born in 1793, she lived only forty-two years. One of the most domestic of women, her writings throughout breathe a domesticity sublimated to a passion and to a creed. It is impossible to imagine Mrs. Hemans other than a Churchwoman and an Englishwoman. England was the home of her affections; the Church of England her spirit's home.

It is no easy matter to say which poem of Mrs. Hemans rendered the greatest service to the Church, or typified most completely her services as a Churchwoman-to her country. If to make pure, hopeful and heroic songs for the people, is to confer upon them greater boons than parliaments can bestow, Mrs. Hemans stands among the greatest of England's benefactors by virtue of Casabianca and The Better Land. And if to have converted one sinner from the error of his ways; to have recovered one despairing soul from the dark deep of atheism and to have led him to the Rock that is higher than we, is the accomplishment that marks out the saint from the sinner, then Mrs. Hemans deserves canonization in every Christian heart. The Sceptic, written upon the suggestion of Bishop Heber, led back to the gospel-faith and to the