smallest of all the Protestant denominations. There was no scope for distinction there; but he found what was more precious, what he missed in all other churches,— the right of free thought and reverent acknowledgment of the natural instinct of worship." Through the help of Dr. Martineau he secured a parish in Croydon, where he remained seven years. While there, he assisted in founding the "Liberal Social Union" in London, at whose gatherings many intellectual and influential religious minds were brought together, as seen by the reports in the Inquirer for several years past, which many of us have read. He afterward went to Reading, where he soon was enlisted in public as well as parish work, and was active on temperance committees, charity boards, and in the University Extension movement, besides forming the "Literary and Scientific Society." He was on the most friendly terms with Mr. Gladstone, and held correspondence with him.

men who leave old and more emotional churches for the Unitarian body are inclined to go to the other extreme of rationalism when they come over to us. We got this impression of Mr. Suffield; but doubtless his parishioners knew to the contrary, and we are very glad to hear this testimony from his Roman Catholic pupil.

During his illness overtures were made to him by Cardinal Manning and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portsmouth. He received kindly the visits of two priests on his death-bed, but he never thought of returning to his old faith.

The Rev. Charles Hargrove (Unitarian) at the funeral service said, among other things: "Twenty years of his life were spent in zeal for the Roman Catholic church, and twenty years in the Unitarian ministry; yet he was not two men, but one and the same. Truthfulness and earnestness characterized his whole life. . . . Among Unitarians he lived, worked, and died, bearing without a murmur suspicion and contempt, being fully persuaded, peaceful and satisfied to the end. The last words he said to me were, 'Yours forever in God.' It is even so, for in God nothing is lost."

In 1871 Mr. Suffield married the daughter of Edward Branley, Esq., solicitor of Sheffield, "who became," he says, "my wife and the joyful companion of twenty years."

The editor of the London Sun writes some very tender words of his early friend, "Father Suffield," as they called him in the Catholic Retreat. He says: "During a Retreat you are expected to keep silent, go to chapel several times a day, and hear about death and the wrath to come, which is rather trying to restless boys. But, when Father Suffield came, all was changed. The boys hung on every word he said. He seemed to love them all. Laughter was in his eye, and love and sympathy in his beautiful voice. Whenever he reached any height of eloquence, his small figure seemed to rise into magnificence."

We have never heard much said of Mr. Suffield's sermous, but it seems as though

Somerville, Mass.

MARTHA PERRY LOWE.

The latest philanthropy, named for the eminent author and divine, Dr. Bartol, is an institution recently established for the accommodation of young women students who come to the city in order to obtain those educational advantages for which Boston is eminently distinguished.

Recognizing the many limitations and disadvantages under which the homeless student struggles, as well as the insidious temptations that encompass her path, Mr. Albert Murdock, with characteristic energy, foresight, and generosity, has converted his large and handsome building into a real home for such students, where every comfort, even luxury, will be found at a cost less than that paid at common boarding houses. The building is a large and handsome stone structure, standing at the corner of Gainsborough Street and Huntington Avenue. It has accommodations for one

hundred and fifty students, with several halls, parlors, music-rooms, etc.

But, first of all, it must be understood this is in no sense a charity, nor is it allied in the most remote degree with eleemosynary institutions. The idea of being in any way the recipient of “ charity" is most repugnant to the pride of the high-spirited girl, and this feeling often stands in the way of her availing herself of the comforts of the socalled homes for whose support public sympathy is often invoked. The Bartol is expected to be self-sustaining in every respect. By a careful estimate of ways and means and strict economy of space every foot of the beautiful and commodious building has been converted into profit. Nor has this been done with a view to self-interest, for Mr. Murdock generously devotes the surplus income derived from the institution to the benefit of the student herself. Every one who remains a year at the Bartol becomes by virtue of that fact a partner, and is entitled to a share of the revenue derived therefrom. If ill, the expense is drawn from this source.

One cannot fail to be greatly impressed with the thoughtful care and foresight that seem to anticipate every requirement of a place devoted to the well-being of those for whom so much has been provided. Every. thing is systematized, even to the special adaptation of the students one to another in the allotment of room-mates, though personal sympathy and attraction are by no means overlooked. With perfect comfort and ease the house will accommodate one hundred and fifty students. Most of the rooms are in suites, each bedroom opening into a small parlor of its own. Some of the larger rooms are arranged with screens, enclosing a space devoted to a sitting-room, giving it quite the air of a separate apart

ment.

Board is quite separate from the rent of rooms, which is an excellent arrangement, as the student is at liberty, if more convenient, to lunch near her school or studio or master, as may be, though lunches are provided at a nominal cost to those who choose to carry them. Regular meals are provided at a cost of four dollars for twenty-one tickets, making the cost per meal nineteen and a half cents. Lunch is provided at a small cost. The dinner, breakfast, and lunch rooms are separate

and distinct, lending variety even to the monotonous duties of the table.

The price of rooms ranges from $1.50 to $3.50 per week. For $3.50 a week each, two girls can command a prettily furnished suite, entirely new, consisting of parlor and bedroom, with ample closets, both rooms lighted and heated. For $2.00 a week each, two girls will occupy one large room, each having her own separate bed. For $1.50 each, four girls will have separate beds in large and spacious rooms, averaging 20 to 35 feet, affording space for a screen partitioned parlor. In addition to their rooms, all spacious, lighted and heated, the students have the privilege of five large general rooms: a parlor, with a seating capacity of 250 people, decorated with an old style of English frieze, bearing the names of celebrated painters, musicians, poets, and prose writers; a large reading-room that easily accommodates 100 at a time; a music-room twice its size; and smaller sitting-rooms, where friends can meet and pass the time in a manner most agreeable to themselves. To avoid the frequent ascent of the stairs, closets, numbered and locked, are provided for walking garments of those occupying the higher rooms. Indeed, the thoughtfulness that has provided for all actual and possible wants is notable. The spacious roof provides a veranda high above surrounding buildings, where books, chats, and even dancing may be enjoyed in the cool air of the evening. The whole house is heated and ventilated at the same time by a draught of fresh air drawn from the roof down a shaft to the basement, where it is passed over 6,500 feet of steam-pipes, giving a temperature of 70 degrees, which is forced by immense blowers into every room of the house.

Aside from the arrangement for the physical well-being, the intellectual and moral culture is amply provided for. One of the mottoes decorating the frieze of the reception-room is this:

"It is not only necessary to know how to do a thing, but also necessary to be able to do it." One's acquirements are vain unless one can put them to practical use, and this is greatly or wholly a matter of practice. Many a young student carrying off the honors of her class from all competitors, when confronted by her own family and friends

finds herself, to their chagrin and her own surprise and mortification, unable to control her faculties, is seized with "stage fright," all from want of being accustomed to the presence of an audience. This most neces

sary and valuable discipline of the mind has been provided for in a series of public receptions to be held on each Wednesday evening during the term. The hour of social receptions will be from 6.30 to 7.30 P.M., to which the student can invite her friends. At 7.30 there will be a concert in the music-room, at which there will be vocal and instrumental music and elocution by various students engaged in the most charming study, and at the conclusion of the concert there will be dancing and other social entertainments in the parlor till eleven o'clock, when good-night will be said. A small admission fee of ten cents will be paid; and the sum thus created will be devoted to the care of any who may be sick at any time, and any residue will be divided among all the students of the house.

Religious services will be held in Music Hall each Sunday evening, when clergymen of different denominations will be, by vote of the boarders, invited to officiate, the girls furnishing the music. Ladies distinguished in moral and educational reform will also be asked to address the students. Such will be the guests of the Bartol, a suite of rooms being especially devoted to their use while in Boston.

Altogether, the Bartol is unique in the history of public institutions, both as regards its peculiar function and in the admirable arrangement, management, and local environment. Boston may number this new aspirant to public honors among her justly celebrated institutions that draw alike from every quarter.- Boston Journal.

A POET PREACHER.

"In virtue of the close affinity, perhaps ultimate identity, of religion and poetry, preaching is essentially a lyric expression of the soul, an utterance of meditation in sorrow, hope, love, and joy, from a representative of the human heart in its divine relations."- Dr. James Martineau.

These eloquent words of the great Unitarian might stand to-day for an epitome of the preaching of the greatest of American

Broad churchmen, recently become the Bishop of Massachusetts, from the time of his earliest ministry in Philadelphia until

now.

Never, perhaps, has this union of preaching with poetry been better exemplified than in Dr. Brooks's sermons, especially in those days, a generation ago, when the oldfashioned, heavy style of pulpit oratory prevailed almost everywhere, and neither ritualism, on the one hand, nor liberalism in Orthodoxy, on the other, had begun to extend their widely differing welcome to unsatisfied souls. And to many, perhaps beginning life with a secret store of spiritual longings shyly hidden from their elders, hearing little save worn-out, well-meant platitudes in their own churches, yet pining after some living words of counsel or encouragement, his sermons, heard from time to time, seemed like a cheering bugle-blast, whose call still echoes across the gulf of years.

We have elsewhere spoken of those stirring services in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, when the sympathetic power of the preacher held its magnetic sway over the vast audience. The High church party, as might have been expected, were reluctant to admire Dr. Brooks, and denounced the broadness of his views, admitting that he was eloquent, but stigmatizing him as "unsound." Elderly persons often called his notions "wild." Democrats and Southern sympathizers, during the great war, abused him for his manly black Republicanism, and spoke of him with ridicule. To his friends the only real fault to be found with his preaching was that, as we used to say nearly thirty years ago, "his imagination runs away with him now and then." Poetic flights carry him into an ideal region where, for the time, we rejoice in a new heaven and a new earth. He draws beautiful pictures of human life and character, which we feel are beyond the range of possibility. He loves to inculcate what to some colder natures appears to be a Quixotic degree of self-sacrifice. He is not merely optimistic, but Utopian; he seems to have a vein of Transcendentalism underlying his strong New Englandism, always poetic, always delightful to listen to, yet often betraying him into extravagances that we feel must be toned down by our own reason

"A pew there is for sale within,
To no one but an Afrikin;

And, lest its owner should be sold,
It must be paid net cash in gold.”

If not sound enough in the eyes of High churchmen, Dr. Brooks was yet too strict now and then for the young, who com plained that he was too fond of denouncing

"the follies and frivolities of fashionable society"; and one young girl, afterward most active in the congregation, said he made such a talk in his confirmation lectures about giving up the world that she thought she should never join the church. Perhaps in those days the gulf supposed to exist between the church and the world was wider than it is now. The young were then too much inclined to hang back from confirmation and the communion table out of very slight scruples and vague dread, thereby losing the help to be gained by Christian fellowship when they perhaps needed it most. Dr. Brooks was certainly not a man to try to throw obstacles in their path. "Christianity," as he so often said,"Christianity means only one thing, — loyalty to Jesus Christ."

In a recent number of the Churchman it appears that one of Dr. Brooks's sins in the eyes of the High churchmen (cited relative to Father Hall's recall to England) lay in the fact that he on some occasion, presumably the consecration of Trinity Church, not only invited several Unitarian clergymen to be present, but permitted them to partake of the sacrament with the rest of the assembled clergy. This being brought to the notice of Bishop Paddock, he took upon himself the responsibility of the whole ordering of the ceremony, practically exonerating Dr. Brooks. To all liberal minds, this wise and kindly conduct, both of Dr. Brooks and his then bishop, requires no excuse; and we merely smile, recollecting the storm let loose upon Dean Stanley when he allowed a Unitarian member of the revisers of the New Testament to communi

cate in Westminster Abbey, absurdly called the "Westminster scandal." In this connection we are reminded of a story, current about 1863-64, that a young Unitarian lady, being at Dr. Brooks's church one Sunday, and hearing him, as usual, conclude his communion address by inviting any strangers present to remain to the sacrament, took him at his word, and remained. This being brought to his knowledge, he was said to have written to her, remonstrating with her, and adding that, if she again ventured to present herself, he must pass her by. He was also said to have called upon her, and discussed the matter, whereupon she defended herself with such ability, taking her stand upon the fact that he had invited every one, that he, although not convinced, said it was wonderful that a girl of her age could argue so well. Some years later, when a very distinguished woman, then a Unitarian, though brought up in the church of England, asked him whether he would consider it his duty to refuse her the communion because her own opinions did not quite agree with the doctrines of the church, he replied that he would not feel bound to exclude her.

Before leaving Philadelphia, therefore, he had begun to broaden upon this subject, regarding which much might be said, best comprised in those eloquent words by the author of "John Inglesant" in his paper

The Agnostic at Church" in the Nineteenth Century for April, 1882. He is discussing the oft-mooted question as to how far a free thinker (he does not say an atheist or a materialist) ought to join in the services of the church of England, advising such, with his usual winning grace and gentleness, to claim their full privileges of membership, and gain whatever spiritual strength may be found, as for earnest seekers it may be always found, through her holiest rites.