full terror of a decree which announces to us that 'death is come into the world.'

And so it was now. It was the very glory of the year, when the corn was ripening on the hills, and the early fruits were dropping from the bough; when the roses were lingering ere the magnificent bouquet of autumn burst forth, and the birds hardly sought shelter in the night; ere the ash had shed a leaf, or the lime flowers had lost their fragrance; before the hue of the sycamore had turned, and while the husks of the horse-chestnut yet retained their vivid green; when the sky gleamed with radiance, and the earth laughed in its beams, and hill and valley rejoiced and sang.

Such was the season when on Sunday morning, at the accustomed part of the Service, our officiating clergyman announced that the 'prayers of the congregation were desired for Bridget Heyton, for Gabriel Halling (two aged sick parishioners), and forand he stopped, unable to proceed, and every eye in Church was raised in anxious and too certain anticipation- and for-with the utmost difficulty, choked with his own emotion, he at length half audibly enunciated the words-and for the Curate of this parish.' The remainder of the Service was almost inaudible; the reader could neither command his voice, nor quite repress his tears; and many a halfsmothered sob in the Church evinced the heartfelt

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sympathy of the flock who felt they were about to be bereaved of a true and faithful shepherd. Some of the ancient fathers of the hamlet' left the Church and returned from time to time, bearing whispering messages to the officiating minister, and also communicating them, but with all due decorum, to some members of the congregation around, but each whisper seemed to deepen the pervading gloom.

The tale had nothing in it of the marvellous or uncommon: it is a comparatively every-day occurrence. The Rev. Henry Medvill was our Curate: he was a young man of considerable literary attainments, and of the sincerest piety. He had devoted himself unremittingly to the duties of his high and noble calling, and in the enthusiastic devotion of himself to them, had neglected the early warnings of the disease by which he was prostrated. His income too, being merely that of a Curate, unhelped by any private sources, did not suffice him for the generous wine and strengthening diet which his delicate frame demanded; and his own dinner, spare as it was, was frequently given to those poorer than himself, whilst he fasted the while. Of delicate and independent feelings too, his personal wants were not even suspected, and there is little doubt that his disease-consumption—was aggravated by the extreme abstinence which his extensive charity imposed on him. Sufficiently well

were his principles and habits known however to render him adored by the poor, and esteemed by the rich; and could love, and prayers, and tears, and showering bounties have raised him from his sick bed, assuredly he would have been restored: but it was not to be.

That evening, so still, so soft, so balmy, when hardly a zephyr stirred the air, and hardly the chirp of a bird occurred to break the spell; when the last beams of the sun lingered an unwonted time above the horizon, as if loth to leave so lovely a scene, and the moon gleamed palely in the clear grey sky, where the silver stars were one by one appearing in dewy brightness-like angels, as we afterwards thought-like angels gathering to watch the death of the righteous; then, as with my sister I paced the garden thoughtfully, the silence, which we had not cared to interrupt, was broken by a deep, low, and solemn knell which struck to our very hearts. After an interval of a minute it was repeated; and softened and deadened as it was, coming to us over hill and dale for upwards of a mile-we could mistake it no longer, and we knew that our good Curate was at rest. It was his Passing Bell.

From these and from many-how many soever other instances-the one brief but sufficing lesson given in the old couplet is to be adduced

When thou dost hear a Toll or Knell,
Then think upon THY Passing Bell.

THERE

CHAPTER XVI.

MINISTERING SPIRITS.

And there was one who said that he
(Speaking in his simplicity)

Had oft been here at dead of night,
But yet no form had met his sight,-
By that negation bringing nigh
His secret deep expectancy ;-
But that the midnight tombs around
Strange floatings by were said to sound,
And through the aislèd stillness deep
Strains indistinct were heard to sweep.
Blest wisdom, dress'd in fancy's hue!
Such legends, if they be not true,
Speak what our nature here divines
'Mid holy sepulchres and shrines!

Baptistery.

HERE is a sort of misgiving-not a fear, not an apprehension, but an 'all-overishness' (as we once heard it elucidated)-which most persons experience in passing through a lonely churchyard at night. This nervousness is by no means confined to people of weak minds or evil conscience, but having its origin in the superstition inherent in our human nature, is more or less influencing on all. Very good and very sensible individuals have not hesitated to admit this

influence, even while blaming themselves for indulging it, and have entered entirely into the feelings of that belated schoolboy, who,

With his satchel in his hand,

Whistled aloud to keep his courage up.

For it has been at all times a deep-seated feeling that burial-places are especially haunted by immaterial beings; and amongst pagan nations these were mostly considered to be of an inauspicious kind. The Umbra hovering about the tomb as if unwilling to quit the body, was, at least, an unhappy spirit; but the Larva roamed only for evil. All youthful readers of the Arabian Nights have shuddered at the picture of the

Ghoule of the East, with quick scent for the dead.

In the Christian community the same superstition, modified, has always, generally, existed. But while it was believed that an evil spirit dared not even to approach the tomb of a holy man, it was also as firmly understood that the graves of murderers, suicides, and other criminals, and of unbaptized children, were thronged with dismal phantoms, rejoicing over the wicked dead, and most direful to the living.

We have recorded elsewhere how usual was the solicitude of persons to be interred near holy people; and also, in particular, the earnest and terrified en