VOL. V.

Plain Words for Young Women.

BY THE RIGHT REV. W. WALSHAM HOW,
Bishop Suffragan of Bedford (for East London).

I.

N elderly bishop can't have much to say to young women that they would care to hear, you may very likely think, and perhaps it is true. At any rate a bishop who has to work in East London has quite enough to fill up his time without writing anything for the young readers of Friendly Leaves. That is certainly true. And yet, my dear young friends, I should like so much to help you, and to be able to say something, even if it is not very much, which you would care to hear, that I could not quite refuse when Mrs. Townsend asked me to write a few words for you now and then. Besides I got a little bit of encouragement the other night. I went to preach in a Mission-room in a poor parish down by the Thames, and, as I saw all the people were poor, and I had no smart bonnets or kid gloves before me, I tried of course to be as plain as I could. Well, I got a letter next day from the good curate there to tell me the people were very much astonished at my preaching, for they thought a bishop must use very long words and be very hard to understand! So I hope, as I made myself understood then, I may have the same good luck

No. 42.

now. By the way that reminds me of a story. A well-known and greatly respected London clergyman came one summer to take the duty in a quiet country village, near where I lived, for a few Sundays. A great many people. went to hear him, and one Sunday a certain squire coming out of church met one of his tenants, and said to him, 'Well, how do you like this new clergyman ?' 'Oh!' said the farmer, 'I don't think much of him, sir; why, I can understand him full as well as our own parson.' Plainly he thought, too, that a big man was bound to use big words. Now I think little words are as good as big ones, and a great deal better too, and I never call a potato an esculent tuber,' nor a spade a 'horticultural implement.' So we'll call potatoes potatoes, and spades spades, to begin with.

Now I wonder what you would like me to talk about best? I think we won't have a sermon, at any rate not this time. I won't promise to let you off altogether, but this time I am in a chatty mood, and would rather tell you about somebody I know. I am sure you would like to know about somebody. You like talking to one another about somebody, don't you? If I could listen to two of

you having a talk some day, ten to one I should find it was all about somebody. We do like talking and hearing about real living

somebodies. Things are not half as interesting as people. You see we ourselves are somebodies, and so we naturally take an interest in other somebodies. If dogs talk to each other, I'm quite sure they talk about that big mastiff in the neighbour's yard, or that snappish little terrier that goes about with the squire's coachman, or that ugly spotted dog that runs behind my lady's carriage. And if cats talk to each other, depend upon it they talk about old Mrs. Jenks' tabby and Tom from the public-house, who made such a noise on the housetop the other night. In the same way men and women talk about men and women. And, as you are young women, I am going to talk to you about a young woman.

The young woman I am going to talk about came, when I first heard of her, to be ladies'maid in a large house in my parish. At that time the butler and the housekeeper had quarrelled, and would not speak to each other. I don't know what it was all about; probably something very small, as is the way with most quarrels. However, the said butler and housekeeper were very good people in their way, only unhappily they both suffered from a little infirmity of temper. Well; our young friend could not stand this state of things at all. She said she could not really live in a house where things were so uncomfortable, and, having a temper herself which nobody could rub the wrong way (because it had no wrong way), and having that precious gift of tact (which means the power of doing things so as never to wound another's feelings), she told the two head servants they must really be friends again; and then, somehow or other, I don't pretend to know exactly how, she made them friends again. But that is not the best of it yet.,

And

Having once made them friends she persuaded them to come and take the Holy Communion together, and kneel side by side, and seal their friendship in that blessed bond of union. Then she turned her attention to others of the household. Like so many large households, this was one in which, although most of the servants came in their turn to church, hardly any appeared at the Lord's Holy Table. But, as you can imagine, this did not satisfy our young friend, and one by one she brought the younger servants with her to the blessed Sacrament, until the household was quite a pattern to the neighbourhood. then, to my great joy, she married the best young man in the parish, a true, upright, manly Christian, a constant Communicant, and, both as boy and man, a most worthy and efficient member of the parish choir. And now began a course of different work and influence. I could tell you of numberless good deeds done by this good woman, and all with her good husband's hearty sympathy. I could tell you of poor motherless children clothed and fed by her; of wretched homes brightened and sweetened by her; of drunkards, whom she has laboured and striven to reclaim and lift up from their miserable bondage. I hope she will never read what I am writing, for I do not think praise is good for any of us. But if she does, I know her well enough to be quite sure her first thought will be, 'Oh! I don't deserve all this!' But, dear young friends, I must risk this for your sakes. I want you to hear what a pure, single-hearted, Christian girl has been able to do by the grace of God, and to encourage you to imitate, where and when you can, this bright example. Do not say, 'I can do so little.' You cannot tell till you try. And, though you are weak and

full of imperfections, and quite unworthy to be used for God's high work, yet God can use what instruments He pleases, and you know that He does often choose the weak things of this world to confound the strong. So do not despair. Try, by God's grace and strength, to do some little good, if it be only by a pure and holy example. And say to yourselves, 'I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.'

The Footsteps of our Blessed Lord.

CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

By the Author of Thoughts on the Holy Communion, 'Thoughts for the Sick,' &c.

I.

MY, my child, what are you thinking about so deeply?' said Mrs.

Merton. 'You have not moved for the last quarter of an hour at least.' 'I am thinking about the Collect for the Second Sunday after Easter, mother.'

'Will you not tell me some of your thoughts?'

'Yes; I was going to ask you to explain my difficulties to me, as you always do so much better than any one else, mother dear. I was only getting my questions ready. I think I can tell you now. I love that Collect so much, and I think it sounds so beautiful, like lovely music, and I feel that I should like to use it every day of my life; but still I don't quite know what it means. We do not pray to God in it that He would make us like Jesus; we ask Him that we may ourselves try to "follow the blessed steps of His most holy life," and I don't know how we are to try.'

'Tell me what you mean a little more plainly before I say anything.'

'Well, I mean this. How can we,-how can I make my life like that of the blessed Lord Jesus, when it is, and always must be, so utterly different? He spent all His life in going about, in preaching to people, teaching people, healing the sick ones, doing wonderful miracles, staying out on the mountain all night praying, and then, at last, dying for us. And I have got to live a quiet, happy life here with you, just doing my own lessons every day, and helping you to teach the younger ones, and doing a very little for the dear people in the cottages, who love me as much as I love them. Oh, mother, one does not like to speak even of following in His footsteps.'

'Do you think, then, that sentence ought not to have been put in the Prayer-Book, Amy?'

Oh, no, mother. I know it is right, because the Lord Himself said, “I have left you an example that ye should do as I have done to you ;" and St. Peter wrote in almost the very words of the Collect: "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps."'

'I understand your difficulty quite plainly now, Amy, and I think every heart that loves our Lord must have felt the same, until they have thought about it, and prayed about it a great deal, and until He Himself has taught them. Shall we try together to find out how we in our own daily lives may follow those blessed footsteps, and perhaps we may be able to help each other?'

'Oh, mother, I could never help you.'

'Yes, indeed, my dear girl, you can and do help me constantly: your questions often. teach me something. Now just look at the

and to think about their concerns, I should get on better, and find it more of a home. It was worth trying anyhow, she said; for it did seem to her as if that place was more chosen for me than any other just now.

Chosen for me by God, I knew she meant; and I wondered whether it really could be true, as I had heard said in church, that God did care even for such as I, and would make a way for me in which I could follow Him. It was a beautiful, comforting thought; and now that I had Kate for my friend, I began to think that it really might be true, for I knew that it was God who had sent her to me, and had made her care for me when I was so lonely and lost.

So I made up my mind that I would go back and try; and when mistress heard it, she sent me another message. She wanted to know whether I could go anywhere for a night before coming back to her; she was willing, she said, to pay in reason for a decent lodging for me, but she didn't want a fever brought into her place, as it surely would be, if I came there straight out of the hospital. I knew well enough that nothing catching was allowed to be brought in; but mistress had her fancies like other people, and I thought it would be best not to go against them, if only I could hear of a place where I could have a bed.

'Come home with me,' said Kate (she was going out the very same day that I was); 'Mrs. Espin will never be against making you up a bed on the floor in my room for that night; and then, you know, we shall have such a nice time together.'

How glad I was now that mistress had sent the message! I only wished I had more decent clothes to go out in, but it was too late to send for my Sunday gown, and I had nothing but the things I was wearing when I ran round the corner and set my foot on that piece of orangepeel.

But when Kate and I got to Mrs. Espin's house, I forgot all about my clothes, in watching how they welcomed her. The little child that she had pulled from under the horse's feet was

looking out for her at an open door, and ran and scrambled up, legs and arms, anyhow, till it was clinging close round her neck.

'Me, now! me, now!' cried another little voice, that was one of Mrs. Espin's children; and out they all came, one after another more than I could count. Mary Jane had the baby, and so she could only kiss Kate, but all the rest clung round her, and scrambled up her gown, and pulled her this way and that in their delight, till I wondered she wasn't cross; but she only looked as pleased as they did.

They brought her into her room in quite a little procession, and everyone had something to show her. Mary Jane had lit a little fire to make it look cheerful; Fred had framed two little likenesses which hung over the chimneypiece; Amy had worked a mat for a large shell which came from foreign parts; and Tom, the biggest boy, who was apprentice to a joiner, had put up a neat little shelf for her books, and stained it to look like mahogany. When everything had been admired, they left us to take off our bonnets, while the whole tribe scampered off to help get the tea ready; for Kate, as she had told me, boarded with the family.

We had a merry tea that night in Mrs. Espin's kitchen, and I know I wished mistress's children were but half as well behaved and civil as these little ones. That set me on to wondering whether they would do better if I was kind to them, like Kate, instead of scolding, and giving. boxes on the ears, which, I own, I was sometimes provoked to do when no one was looking. I began quite to wish to try, and I didn't feel half as miserable about going back as I had thought I should when I was in the hospital.