And so I say again, my love,

The life that has been now is o'er ;
Give not thyself the pain, my love,
Of waiting on a low, lone shore,
A broken wave that comes no more.

But leave me still alone, my love;

Why didst thou give thine heart to me? Keep it : it is thine own, my love,

And turn thee quickly; turn and flee,
Lest death like mine lay hold on thee.

Yet could I give to thee, my love,

The heart that in those days was mine; Could I life's goblet see, my love, Remade, refilled with sparkling wine, Perchance thou might'st be mine—I thine.

IX.

I

OUR ECCLESIA.

NEVER saw Pelican more thoroughly alive than

during the few months of the autumn and winter which followed the Avondale period of his experience. In spite of his comical aversion to water, it had apparently acted upon him as the very wine of life. Not only was he stronger in body, but all his intellectual sensibilities and his spiritual sympathies seemed to have been quickened. A change-if the result of inevitable growth can be called a change-had for some time been creeping over him, and now its character became clearly defined. The pugnacity which had been so characteristic of him, and which had been fostered by a solitude seldom broken but by uncongenial invasions, had declined under the very influences which might have been expected to strengthen and confirm it. He was silenter than of old, and yet more impressive; his individuality seemed in a few months to have outgrown the ancient necessity for self-assertion. The Avondale campaigns had made him feel the bliss of rest, not from labour but from conflict. More clearly than ever, there arose in his mind the conception of truth as a vision to be beheld, rather than as a fortress to be taken by storm. A new humility seemed to possess him, and

where there had been strength there was now grace as well; or rather, should I not say, grace appeared as a sign that strength was being perfected? He had always been a good listener, but he had, in the past, listened with his hand upon his sword. He was, even in the old days, a boon companion at every intellectual banquet, but he came as a warrior not less than a feaster; and it might always be said that,

"He carved at the meal

With gloves of steel

And drank the red wine through the helmet barred."

Now all was changed. He talked with greater freshness and vivacity than ever; but the growth that had taken place was evidenced more clearly by his silence than by his speech. He had always been eager to learn, he was now eager to be taught; and there are those who know from their own experience that this is not a distinction without a difference. When he listened and no teaching came, he turned away quietly to seek for it elsewhere, and found what he wanted at last.

One of these turnings away resulted in the formation of an association which caused an amount of scandal in the neighbourhood quite disproportionate to its very quiet and unassuming character. It was composed of half a dozen men, nearly all young, who, being from different causes dissatisfied with the spiritual nutriment obtained from the authorized religious instructors at Brookfield,