Pope is as nothing compared with a better Infallibility still the Infallibility of those who speak the truth. Since the whole tribe of Levi has been dispossessed, there is now no special priestly caste. There is but one Temple, and but one Priest, and that is the great High Priest-"He, He alone, He alone for ever." All Ritualism, juggling with the sleight of surplice, candlestick, and altar-pall, is an anachronism-the revival of what has long since served its day. It is "the old temple wall overlooking the churches of Christ." Like her illustrious husband, she was very sure of God, and that not by way of proofs, not by scaling painfully the logic ladder step by step, but "by way of sight which goes faster." Her highest conception of God was a God of Love, His Crown Name, more than which can never be. She believed in the articulated Gospels Το which showed "Christ crucified on the Tree." her the dearest name of Christ was the "Saving One." She believed in the Immortality of the soul for one great reason, that the soul, different from the body, held its youth. The body falls from the chariot in the race, both weak and cold. Not so the soul; and so she cries out rapturously, "On, chariot on, soul!" "On the heaven-heights of truth, Prayer was very precious to her, because it fastened the soul on high; and as for the Church, she considered that its chief function was to awe "the times down from their sins." She loved all who loved the truth. Mrs. Browning longed to see on the Literature of the age the Hand of Christ, a Hand whose touch she herself had felt, and whose touch brings blessing. Like every Christian, her hands are lifted towards the East. Her last word is a word of hope. The work of God shall be done in the world. If by us, good and well, yet whether by us or not, that work shall be done. If God cannot work by us, He will work over us, and work towards the dawning of the new and dear day, and the coming of the "Perfect Noon." She closes her great work," Aurora Leigh," with these words "Jasper first, I said; And second, sapphire; third, chalcedony; The one word which Mrs. Browning uttered, as she breathed her last in her husband's arms in the old home at Casa Guidi, was the word "Beautiful " fit word at once to close and designate her own life. Let us say of her as she said of Savonarola And having strewn the violets, reap the corn; And having reaped and garnered, bring the plough, And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn, "Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God." BROWNING, "La Saisiaz." "Aspire, break bounds! I say, Endeavour to be good, and better still, And best! Success is nought, endeavour's all.” BROWNING, "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country.” "The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; God's in His heaven All's right with the world!" BROWNING, "Pippa Passes." ROBERT BROWNING I BROWNING'S life was not an eventful one, in the usual sense of the word. It was rather a still, studious life, the main facts of which are easily recorded. He was born at Camberwell, London, in 1812; died at Asolo, Venice, on December 12th, 1889, and was buried on the last day of that year in the "Poet's Corner" in Westminster Abbey. We gather one or two interesting facts about Browning from a volume recently published by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, a book for which we are upon the whole thankful, although it has been very severely and justly condemned for much of its spirit. We learn from this source that his father was a bank clerk, and that his mother had Scotch blood in her veins. Carlyle calls Browning's mother "a divine woman," and Browning revered her deeply to the day of his death. Whatever Browning had of evangelical Christianity, he got from his mother; and to her, it has been said, he owed the metaphysical cast of his mind. The Brownings were Dissenters, although Mrs. Orr seeks to qualify this |