now arrived his fourteenth year at Rugby was drawing to its close-the course of sermons, in which, during the preceding month, he had dwelt on the three things necessary to be borne in mind by his scholars wherever they might be scattered in after life, had now been ended, and on the 5th of June the last and farewell sermon was preached in the Chapel, before the final dispersion of the boys for the holidays, in which he surveyed, from his own long experience, the peculiar difficulties and tempations of the place, and in which he concluded his parting advice in words to which, in the minds of his hearers, the sequel gave a new import, even in their minutest particulars. "The real point which concerns us all, is not whether our sin be of one kind or of another, more or less venial, or more or less mischievous in man's judgment, and to our worldly interests; but whether we struggle against all sin because it is sin; whether we have or have not placed ourselves consciously under the banner of our Lord Jesus Christ, trusting in Him, cleaving to Him, feeding on Him by faith daily, and so resolved, and continually renewing our resolution, to be His faithful soldiers and servants to our lives' end. To this," he said, "I would call you all, so long as I am permitted to speak to you to this I do call you all, and especially all who are likely to meet here again after a short interval, that you may return Christ's servants with a believing and loving heart; and, if this be so, I care little as to what particular form temptations from without may take; there will be a security within a security not of man, but of God."

The succeeding week was as usual one of much

labour and confusion from the accumulation of work at the end of the half-year. There was the heavy pressure of the Fifth Form Examination, and the general winding up of the school business;-there was the public day of the school-speeches, on Friday the 10th, the presence of the yearly examiners from Oxford and Cambridge,—the visits of his former pupils on their way from the Universities at the beginning of the long vacation. It might seem needless to dwell on details which, though of deep interest to those who knew him well, differed but little from the tenor of his usual life. Yet for this very reason it is worth while to recall so much of them as shall continue the same image down to its sudden close.

Whatever depression had been left by the feverish attack of the preceding fortnight, had in the two or three last days passed away, and he had recovered not only his usual health, but his usual spirits and energy, playing with his children, undertaking all the work of the Examination, and at the same time interrupting himself in his various occupations, to go and sit for an hour to relieve the anxiety or enliven the sickbed of an invalid; and though "glad to get off going up to Oxford to do battle," and wishing to avoid the excitement and inconvenience of a hurried journey, he offered, if it were necessary, to give his vote in convocation, on June 9th, for the repeal of the censure on Dr. Hampden.

Deeply, too, did he enter into the unusual beauty of the summer of that genial year. In his daily walk to his bathing-place in the Avon, he was constantly calling the attention of his companions to the peculiar charm of this season of the year, when every thing was

so rich without being parched; the deep green of a field of clover, or of an old elm on the rise of a hill on the outskirts of Rugby, or of a fine oak, which called forth many old recollections of its associates in the adjoining hedges, of which it was one of the few survivors; or stopping again and again to admire the unclouded blue of the sky,-" the blue depth of æther," which was at all times one of his most favourite images in nature, "conveying," as he said, "ideas so much more beautiful, as well as more true, than the ancient conceptions of the heavens as an iron firmament." And these walks were enlivened by those conversations in which his former pupils took so much delight, in which he was led on through the various topics of which his mind was full. There were the remembrances of his past tours, and "of the morning between Pisa and Rome, which gave him the most perfect outward enjoyment which he could conceive;" the expectation of future journeys-of the delight of visiting the Sierra Morena, “containing all the various stages of vegetation, and beautiful as the garden of the Lord," and yet again the constant feeling that "he never could rest anywhere in travelling,""if he staid more than a day at the most beautiful spot in the world, it would only bring on a longing for Fox How." There was also the anticipation of the more distant future; how he would have pupils with him in Westmoreland during the long vacation, when he had retired from Rugby, and "what glorious walks he would take them upon Loughrigg."

His subjects of more general interest were also discussed as usual, such as the comparison of the art of medicine in barbarous and civilized ages,-the

philosophical importance of provincial vocabularies, -the threatening prospect of the moral condition of the United States,-united on the other hand with their great opportunities for good in "that vast continent." Of the Oxford opinions his language was strong as usual, but with none of that occasional vehemence of expression, which had of late years somewhat interfered with the freedom of his intercourse with some of his Oxford pupils, who thought more favourably than himself of the school in question. He objected, as he often did, to the use of ridicule in religious arguments, as incompatible with the painful feeling which should be aroused by the sight of serious errors or faults; and spoke of the irreconcileable difference of principle by which he believed Roman Catholics and Protestants were divided, and "between which," he said, "the nineteenth century will have to make her choice,"-dwelling at the same time on the inconsistency of any attempt to hold the Apostolical Succession short of Romanism; though with expressions of great affection of some of his friends, and with great respect of Mr. Maurice, who seemed to him to do this. "But such views," he said, 66 were my earliest dislike, the words mean so entirely nothing,—their system goes on two legs and a half,-the Oxford system on three and three-quarters, the Roman Catholic on four."

On Saturday morning he was busily employed in examining some of the boys in Ranke's History of the Popes, in preparation for which he had sate up late on the previous night, and some of the answers which had much pleased him he recounted with

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great interest at breakfast. The chief part of the day he was engaged in finishing the business of the school, not accepting proffered assistance even in the mechanical details, but going through the whole work himself. He went his usual round of the school to distribute the prizes to the boys before their final dispersion, and to take leave of those who were not returning after the holidays. "One more lesson," he had said, to his own Form on the previous evening, "I shall have with you on Sunday afternoon, and then I will say to you what I have to say." That parting address, to which they were always accustomed to look forward with such pleasure, never came. But it is not to be wondered at, if they remarked with peculiar interest, that the last subject which he had set them for an exercise was "Domus Ultima;" that the last translation for Latin verses was from the touching lines on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, in Spenser's "Ruins of Time;"-that the last words with which he closed his last lecture on the New Testament were in commenting on the passage of St. John:"It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."-"So, too," he said, "in the Corinthians, For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.-Yes," he added, with marked fervency, "the mere contemplation of Christ shall transform us into His likeness.”

In the afternoon he took his ordinary walk and bathe, enjoying the rare beauty of the day; while at dinner he was in high spirits, talking with his several guests on subjects of social or historical interest, and