It was my lot to be a sojourner in Shrewsbury on the Christmas-day of 18. The weather was open, and without frost; and the morning, which had commenced with clouds, had wept its mists away, and by noontide, sunlight poured in broad lines down upon the streets and sparkling pavé of the beautiful old town, where are to be seen, more than perhaps in any other place in the kingdom, the most delightfully quaint and ancient houses, rare specimens of the early English style, and withal so neat, and trim, and curious, that each in its peculiar structure, if it could be supposed capable of compression into miniature dimensions, and of being put under a glass bell, would grace the table of the most recherchê drawing-room as an ornament, or enrich the shelves of a museum as a curious specimen of obsolete home architecture. Around many of these old domiciles the winter sun, like a merry and hale old man, was shining warmly; while through the soft, gleaming, misty air the bells from the different churches were clashing and striking in sonorous and graceful confusion. Steeple after steeple awoke, and tower after tower spoke out, each sending forth its clanging summons, as if in harmonious and exciting rivalry with its neighbour. First the bells from St. Mary's began the descant, and were answered by the iron tongues of St. Julian's; and immediately after, with brazen voices, from ancient Aukman's, swinging their stern challenge to the wind; then, from a distance, more faintly and sweetly, arose upon the ear the Abbey chimes; while proudly crowning the river bank, St. Chad sent forth, unwearied, peal upon peal of loud and jubilant notes and lifesome tones, outleaping from their tower, like wild

-JOHN FRANCIS WALLER.

hawks issuing from captivity into the glad and "eager air," and rising, and floating, and falling, and succeeding each other, like tempest-tost waves breaking on the shore, and blending up, without one discord, in the sounding and elastic concert that seemed to pervade all space from sky to earth, to welcome in the happy day on which Christ was born.

And oh! how musical and sweet are these Salopian bells, ringing in the "delicate air" of that lovely pastoral and woodland shire, and along its conterminous counties, and onward and northward, from place to place, and up to ancient Oswestry, which takes its name from Northumbria's hapless king, Oswald, slaughtered here by heathen Penda, King of Mercia; and off to verdant Vale Crucis, amidst its wooded hills; and to romantic Chirk, and gentle Wrexham, where the princely old tower of the grand and many-windowed church, "The Pride of Wales," flings into the air from its exquisite bells a crash of metallic harmony most rich and clear, wakening up the echos, and filling with music all the soft valleys, where Gresford answers from her steeples in a ring of bells, the sweetest to be heard within the whole girth of merry England; and their silvery cadence, mingling with the deeper tones that break from Wrexham's tower, are borne onward in softer vibrations to the banks of Dee, or die, like the departing spirit of sound, in a faint and circling ripple, against the grey and castled walls of Chester.

And thus, upon that bright and happy festival, and in the quaint, and proud, and ancient town, after I had joined in the church services, I strolled down to the Quarry Walk, which stretches along "the gentle Severn's

sedgy banks," and again the bells, which had been resting during church hours, suddenly broke out, startling the ear of silence, and filling all the air, and coming hurrying across the fields, and floating over the "crisp waves" of the river, and reverberating amidst the denuded branches of the deaf and still old limes which sentinel the Walk, with such a life and exhilaration of sounding, shaking, bursting harmony, as to stir my blood to its fountain, and almost bring tears to my eyes.

And again, in the evening, as I sat in my solitary lodging, the bells once more leaped up into life, but as it seemed to me in a fainter strain, as if their joy were dulled by weariness; yet still as distinct in their articulation, and as melodious in their roll, and full of mellow sweetness-saluting the night. The full white moon, like

a silver Greek shield, lay on the bosom of the sky, and seemed to be looking down calmly, through the air, rent and agitated with sound, on the brave old town and circling hills. Then suddenly the bells ceased, music and motion, their last intonation died into silence, and they hung still as death in their cold tower-tomb; and their soul, which is sound, was suspended, and their sweetness lingered like an echo around my

heart.

And then I fell into a musing fit as to what the melody of these bells might be brought to teach, and how I could interpret their tongues into intelligent expression, and what was the actual sentence of distinct speech conveyed in their exulting octaves, and some sweet lines floated into the stream of my memory, suggestive and descrip

tive of the matter- they were from Waller's "Ravenscroft Hall:"___

"And then the brattle of the sweet-tongued bells,
Clanging and clashing pealed into the morn,
A joyous chime to welcome Christmas in.
The stranger started, for those jocund tones
Rang on his heart as old familiar sounds,
Calling to mind the times when, as a boy,
He loved to chaunt those solemn hymns of old
Which saints and holy fathers of the Church
Have left as precions gifts to later times.
It seemed as though sweet voices in the air
Gave utterance to his thoughts in strains like these—
"Oh te laudum millibus

Laudo, laudo, laudo; Tantis mirabilibus

Plaudo, plaudo, plaudo, Gloria sit gloria, Amanti memoria,

Domino in altis, Cui testimonia Dantur et preconia Cœlicis a psaltis."

And I thought of a curious Latin distich I had met in an old volume,* which, if my memory betray me not, runs thus

"Funera plango-Fulmina frango-Sabbata pangoExcito lentos-Dissipo ventos-Paco eruentos.”

Thus speak the bells, or rather one, on the part of the whole peal, detailing their beneficent uses to the church and mankind in general. The lines, which are monk-Latin, and savour of doggrel, may be rendered thus, though I am afraid they lose but little of their doggrel character by their transposition to the following rhymes:

"Dead bewailing-Thunder breaking—
Sabbath hailing-dull awaking:
Causing stormy winds to cease,
Calming cruel hearts to peace."

But this did not suit the spirit I was then in; nor a second couplet framed, it would appear, on the same principle of making the sound an echo to the sense, and running thus:

The true God adoring. The lost dead deploring.

So I determined to extract a sentence for myself, and compel their pealing changes to express a great and simple truth, and one consonant to this glorious festival; and Fancy aiding me

The pestilence chasing. The festivals gracing.

no doubt, I thought I could frame their language thus

A SAVIOUR IS BORN-CHRIST THE LORD.

And thus, having vocalised the bells to

my satisfaction, and bestowed upon them so blessed and annunciatory an expressiveness, I went back with great delight to their now parted music, and felt that they had been all the day preaching to my spirit through my sense, and tuning it, while they taught it, eloquently and well.

And then I found my thoughts essaying to consider the action of these bells in the light of a moral symbol. What large and loving invitations do they give with their clear, persuasive voices, calling through the wide-spread and unchartered air, sounding, irrespectively to all alike, as sweet and as impartial to one as to every one-just as God's sun and rain shines and streams indifferently on the evil and the good the just and the unjust. How catholic are they in their reverberations, as their reiterating changes go pealing up the lawn, and in through the doors and windows of the noble's castle, and thence, borne on the "invisible and creeping wind," pass on across his grounds, to visit, with as full a freight of harmony and song, some poor man's humble cottage which skirts the wood, charming the ear and cheering the heart of each and all alike in every rank of life-the lord and the labourer, the sovereign and his serf; and thus uniting and inviting all who belong to our common Christendom, to come to the house of prayer, to hear of God's great love to the wide, wide world, because that

A SAVIOUR IS BORN-CHRIST THE LORD.

Oh! large-hearted and liberal bells, how you express, in the outbreakings of your melody, the illimitable goodwill of Him whose earthly nativity you would celebrate! Your joyous peals are heart-music for the million; and Heaven's sweet love, that willeth not that any should die, is told forth through the sonorous symbol of your wide-sounding peals, which, in notes of varied tone and shifting power and of pathos, seem to plead chidingly with the dubious, to complain mournfully with the wayward, to startle the inert to life, to sympathise melodiously with the good, and to call and joyfully invite all souls, and sinners, and shades of the great human family, to the one prepared and happy home, over whose portal is written

A SAVIOUR IS BORN-CHRIST The lord.

And then, again, I called back my thoughts from the wide air where they were careering like eagles on the wind, with the vibrations of the bells, and brought them down to bear upon the OBJECT of all this loud and laudatory harmony. And here at once the great fact came in view-the great and majestic fact, which brought Heaven down to earth, and lifts earth to Heaven; which uncurtains the thoughts and the throne of God; which involves and affects the eternal future of all rational being, and will yet cause the material universe to thrill to her centre, and break forth into songs of gratulation. Yet all this majestic fact, and all the greatness of circumstance connected with it, is here narrowed down to the smallest possible point; for in the manger cradle of Bethlehem was Heaven's Glory curtained and contained; and the Day-spring of the world eclipsed, and the Bright and Morning Star of all intelligent and spiritual being suffered occultation. Here it was that Deity approximated to dust, that Eternity stooped to Time, that Infinity put on the trammels of Limitation, that Immortality was linked with the sufferings of Nature, and all that was loftiest in heaven became all that was most lowly on earth; for unto us this day A SAVIOUR IS BORN-CHRIST THE LORD.

And from this manger-cradle (my thoughts rapidly assuming a kind of visionary character) seemed to proceed rays of yellow golden light, which fell upon the forms gathered round, and associated with its history. I looked at them personally with a feeling produced by the individual interest each possessed; but I felt myself also regarding them as symbols or representatives of large and distinct classes among the great believing family of man-worshippers of "God manifest," and walkers in His ways. There I beheld the gentle Mother, the loveliest type of pure and exalted womanhood to be found in any historythe fountain of meek thoughts and heart-ponderings-the pattern of chastened and reverential love-the very glass and form of humble and unobtrusive holiness. And I beheld the angels stooping from heaven to earth to minister to their Maker as a man, and to wait upon their Creator as upon one created. And I saw the magi, star-led and spirit-taught, sons of

the Orient, and legendary kings at all events full of royal gifts, and therefore powerful, because wealth is powereminent, and learned, and wise. And I beheld Joseph, the babe's reputed father, with his sense of justice, and his spirit of obedience, faithful and forbearing; of kingly descent, highborn, but a mechanic, eating independent bread by the labour of his hands and the sweat of his brow-a noble artisan. And the shepherds, too, I saw bending over the infant form of the feeble one who was to become the Head and Pillar of their class-the Good Shepherd-the Great Shepherd -the Chief Shepherd, who lived, and died, and rose again, to serve and save the flock He loved. And as my fancy went on creating and moulding things old and new, my mind became concentred and was lost in them, and I thought that outward and customary objects had all dissolved and passed away, and that a broad circle, or radiant belt of light, filled all space, sweeping round and coextensive with the bounds of time-a shining zodiac, having its periphery graduated by centuries; and its radii were wide, and luminous paths, all tending and stretching in to one great and common centre, from whence the light went forth, and to which it returned, as earth's rivers flow and fall into the ocean from whence they derive so much of their fulness. And I saw that this grand centre contained two prominent objects, which were the manger and the cross-the alpha and the omega of His earthly humiliation who lay in the one, and died upon the other; but they were standing up in a glory from which streamed forth rays of a dazzling and intolerable brightness; and these outward and material ensigns of his birth and his death seemed inevitably to attract the regards of the parties who had gone up to Bethlehem, and who now seemed to occupy each a luminous path, as a representative of their own peculiar class. And I thought that the angels had their path as the work of His hands, the servants of His throne, the heralds of His birth, the administrators to His wants and weariness in the wilderness, His strengtheners in His passion, the watchmen at His tomb, the witnesses of His resurrection,

the companions of His ascension, His worshippers in glory, His winged and willing ministers to do His pleasure, hearkening to the voice of His mouth. And I thought that one of the luminous paths was occupied by the feminine body, of whom the Blessed Virgin, the mother of our Lord's humanity, was the type and head; and here were thousands of faithful and meek-hearted women, who had loved their Lord, and lived and died for His sake, sealing their faith by martyrdom, and writing a record of their truth in letters of blood on the stone-floor of their dungeon, or on the sand of the arena, or at the burning stake.

And some of the faithful ones I could recognise. There was meek-eyed Hannah, and Ruth with the ferven soul; and the deep-hearted one who said, "All is well," "All shall be well;" and she who was over-earnest in her household; and she who sat at our Lord's feet uplistening; and she who washed those feet with tears, commingling grief and love. And noble matrons were there, whose fame is written in ancient Church chronicle, and thousands of unrecorded ones, but whose names are with God on high; and many whose lot was cast in the fiery days of cruel persecution, martyrs from the Waldensian Valley, or the wild and heathery moors of Scotland.

And I thought that another of these broad paths of light was trodden by the rich, represented by one of the magi. There was he, the high father of the ancient people, opulent in flocks, and herds, and gold, and silver, but richer far in self-denying faith; and he who walked in the fields at noon among his servants, and got and gave the blessing; and he who came to Jesus by night; and he who went boldly in to the Roman governor for his Lord's body, and buried it in his own fresh tomb; and millions of the high and wealthy-born, occupying all periods of time, and clime of Christendom. one among that throng,* of modern days, a son of Britain, who, like the Master whom he loved, went about doing good, and broke the bars of many a prison-house, and made the captive's heart to sing, and now sleeps in Jesus, on a savage and far strand,

And

washed by the dull Euxine waves, and beside the freezing Dnieper.

And methought another of the radiant roads was occupied by the wise and learned. And this body was represented by a second of the magi. And here were the Prophets, and Evangelists, and Apostles; and the Christian fathers and confessors of the Gospel; and the stout Reformers, whose eloquence shook the Church, and electrified the world. And he was there,* that rarely gifted one, who, at the age of twenty-four, cast under his feet all the vast honours which successful science had in store for her brilliant son, that he might walk disentangled, serving God with the great heart and wondrous reason he had given him. And het whose glorious mind soared, like an archangel, among the stars on the wings of Science, yet sat at Revelation's footstool in the simplicity of a perfect faith. And het who, though stained deeply with the clay of earth, yet thought as no man ever thought, and wrote as no man ever wrote; and from the pinnacle of his surpassing intellect, which searched and mastered all knowledge, looked down into the manger cradle, and adored Incarnate Love, and, doubtless, was forgiven.

And I saw that another of these radiating paths was held by the powerful and the kingly class, represented by the third of the magi. And here I saw one with the likeness of a royal crown, in Saxon garb, and eminent in beauty, grace, and attractiveness. His sword was girded on his thigh-his bow was slung across his back-his ready pen was in his hand-his feet were on the necks of the cruel invaders of his country-and his Bible was in his heart. The dauntless soldier, the wise legislator, the scholar, the monarch, and the Christian-and Alfred was before me. And he was there, the monarch with the heavensent crown, whose hands slew the giant, and struck the harpstrings; and when fevered with the heat and thirst of battle, poured the sweet water of his native well upon the ground, because it had been procured at the risk of the life and the blood of his fellow

men.

Blaise Pascal. § Gustavus Adolphus.

uncon

And he was there, the champion of the truth, the asserter of the freedom of the mind, descending like a lion from the forests of the North. Dauntless of heart, swift of foot, stern of purpose, unswerving of principle; a great and majestic king, an quered soldier, a noble-hearted man, a friend, tender and true, a loving and faithful Christian. See him just before some of those dreadful battles which he fought for the liberties of Europe, and when victory ever sat like a star on his helm. See him and all his splendid army prostrate in prayer for Divine help, and then rising with the war-cry on their lips of "Immanuel, God with us," and precipitating themselves on the foe, who fled before the tempest of their battle like a driven leaf. And an aged and illustrious king was there, one whose hand could confer the proudest coronet in Europe, and over whose dominions the sun of heaven never went down; one whose armies marched but where victory met and embraced them, and whose fleet swept through the illimitable main as a queen and mistress. Yet, this man of power and dominion, this exalted monarch, where do we now behold him? He is kneeling on the green sod of his own royal forest, with the great oaks standing, as if in dumb amaze, around him; kneeling as a man and a Christian would kneel, beside one of the meanest of his subjects, a dying gipsy, whose last faint moments he is strengthening and sweetening by his tenderness and his teaching; and the prayer of the loftest in the land and the lowliest went up together to God in that hour through the still forest air.

And another of the dazzling paths was occupied by the vast throng who were employed in mechanical life, or wore the honoured name of artist; and of this class Joseph was the head and type. Amidst this crowd I saw the two artificer Jews whom God did call by name, and fill with knowledge in all manner of workmanship, and Paul the Apostle, a tent-maker, yet a friend of God's. I knew him by the light in his eyes, and the heaven on his brow. And one, in modern days