N extract from Mrs. Liebenhoff's work, entitled "The Way:"

"Here cometh my Hebrew teacher of the Hebrew tongue," said the pastor's wife of Reykiavik, as she heard his step upon the staircase which led to her husband's study. "Verily these crooked characters and this inverse style of reading backwards instead of forwards, agreeth not well with the spirit of my 'Tale,' which

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is onward and still onward, casting no vain, regretful looks behind, but ever pressing for the goal of the New Jerusalem, that city in the heavens, which is to be brought down to earth, and its temple for a universal faith to be rebuilded by a woman. Verily, again I say, there is too much of the dust and odor of the ages past upon the language to assort well with my aspiring contemplations. It does not crush, but for the time being, so confines and thwarts them that their flutterings to be free disturb the order of my soul and make it like the caged lion, tramping to and fro within his narrow prison, more piteous to behold than his most dangerous rampancy is awful. I will tell him that I must relinquish it and only read with him the French language."

He approaches the door which is wide open, and she is standing directly in front of it with her eyes upon him, but at which he nevertheless knocks and stands until he is bidden to enter, when he bows profoundly.

The lady aside: "Truly a most oriental mode of entering the presence of the royal sex! But it is all very well. As women are henceforth to take the lead in life, I am glad that one man's manners are on the whole up to the idea."

"Good morning, ma'am; I come to you in the sublimest possible mood. After my wanderings of ages and the multiform experience of fifty centuries' existence in which I have ever, with a child-like eagerness, clung to some fond dreams of personal happiness, I have resolved to cast them to the winds and live for Truth alone."

"A very sensible and pious resolution, and I rejoice that resignation, that plant, it would seem, of tardy growth in the harsh soil of a man's nature, has. at length flowered in yours! With women it fructifies almost spontaneously; the soil, if not so strong, being more mellow and pervious. to skyey influences. Nevertheless I congratulate you. Better late than never."

"But lo! a strange phenomenon attended the stern sacrifice! As with a struggle such as divides the soul from our

corporeal part, and with a gasp of agony I flung them from me; amazed I saw come trooping towards me the angels of Hope, of Joy, of Peace and Victory, bearing in their hands their different symbols, and attended by cherubs, scattering from golden vases the flowers and perfumes of the heavenly sphere, so that where I looked to travel henceforth in the rugged path of self-renunciation, I found it strewn with roses, and the sweet, heavenly company awaiting to attend me."

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"O yes, that is of course the natural result of yielding up one's blind, selfish will to the guidance of the wiser one of the Supreme. Plod on patiently five centuries. longer, and I have no doubt that then this truth will be thoroughly stamped upon man's nature; that God never intended that we should live in an exhausted receiver, but in this living, boundless universe, every part of which will minister to his health, happiness, and highest good, provided we journey through life in parallel lines with his harmonious appointments. Now that you have schooled yourself to submission to all evils which may await you in particular and the universe in general, it may be the most fitting time to announce to you the painful intelligence that I shall for a time deprive you of the felicity of administering to the stupidity of a preoccupied mind. I relinquish the study of Hebrew for the present."

"I cannot listen to your determination for a moment, madam. Allow me to use the privilege, which my position as an instructor gives me, and earnestly insist upon your continuance of the study."

"Your urgency is of no avail, sir. I have sublunary reasons sufficient to determine me, and besides this, I am bidden through a friend by the spirits beyond this timevail, to keep my mind perfectly passive. I wonder if they think to impress me against my will? I defy them. So I shall relinquish the study."

He fixes his eye upon her and says emphatically: "You

will please read these four pages; you will have no difficulty in doing it. Keep your mind passive, and this tongue of Eld, the great medium of God's subtle influence over the ages, shall enrich your life by its possession. And what a mine of wealth does it unfold to the waiting soul! Not through the vulgar, school-boy notion of plenary inspiration, as if each line and word were a magic spell to keep the darkened, timid mind in fetters that it go not astray, leading it into idolatry of ink, parchment, and letter-press, no less gross and still more crushing to human nature than that which deifies the elements, the fruits and flowers, the sun, moon, and planetary bodies, and the ideal of man and woman; but through its spirit, which is in perfect harmony with common sense and reason. As in my passage through the ages I paused in Greece and Rome, and took note of their Deities-Jupiter, Minerva, Mercury, Juno, Bacchus, and Venus and thus saw these their thoughts expressed to the eye in their almost living, breathing works of Art, though to worship such seemed most unmeet to me, to whom the one true God has been revealed, yet was I glad that to any people it was permitted to reveal in its perfection the wondrous handiwork of God, the human form, the living temple of his image here on earth. And as I gazed upon the Muses, beautiful representations of poetic womanhood, to whom is given in keeping some great Art to teach and to transmit to coming humanity, I rejoiced that such broad glimpses were permitted to these early times of her high mission here below. Surely, thought I, when cometh the brighter light promised to my people, men will see clearly that those earth-gods are but the types, the reflections, the imperfect embodiment of the great idea of a universal Father, all-wise, all-present, joyous, beautiful, and loving. And when the truth of the Messiah shall flower in lovely woman, a tenderer grace shall sit upon her brow than any that adorned these Muses; for endued with the true Christian spirit, home, through her affections and

fidelity, shall be her shrine, from which shall arise her worship to the Most High, and the hearts of her husband and children be the Lares to which she will award the tribute of her life's devotion."

"There has been a failure somewhere, for we are not so much in advance of the ancients as we ought to be, and as the whole spirit of Christ's teachings taught us to expect either in religion, morals, intellectual culture, or physical development."

"No, the ascetic element so rife in eastern countries, whose deities are monsters, whose nature is to blast more than to bless, has ever mixed with Judaism. As soon as Christianity left the bosom of its founder, in whom dwelt perfect love of God, invigorated only by a healthful, inspiring awe, it mingled in his imperfect followers' minds with this dark stream flowing from the perturbed, bewildered minds of Jews and Pagans. The Catholic Church, so called, by its penances and cruel, abominable restraint upon much that is innocent and beautiful in human nature, and by its bold assumption, in which glares the spirit of Lucifer, not beams out the encouraging glance of meek, disinterested, freedomloving, liberty-giving Christ, has perpetuated this degrading principle. And not less grievous and wicked, but more insidious and life-crushing is the same in the prevalent Protestantism of the day, dubbed Calvinism, self-nicknamed Lutheranism, or with the presumptuous title of Orthodoxy, rolling like a sweet morsel its self-assurance under its blistering tongue. For it has by its worse than heathen dogmas darkened our earth's atmosphere, set it awry upon its axis, wheeled it aside from its proper orbit, so that the moon's dark side is turned towards it, the spots upon the sun are so magnified to the world's eye by their false position as almost to conceal its beams, and the planetary system and the stars seem not to shine by their heavenappointed light, but have the lurid glare of Hell upon their spheres. O! it is awful that this perversion of the great