n lowly ways of prayer and patient labor,
were one with us of modern times in the great central belief of the
Christian heart, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain."

As Agnes came slowly up the path towards the little garden, she was
conscious of a burden and weariness of spirit she had never known
before. She passed the little moist grotto, which in former times she
never failed to visit to see if there were any new-blown cyclamen,
without giving it even a thought. A crimson spray of gladiolus leaned
from the rock and seemed softly to kiss her cheek, yet she regarded
it not; and once stopping and gazing abstractedly upward on the
flower-tapestried walls of the gorge, as they rose in wreath and garland
and festoon above her, she felt as if the brilliant yellow of the broom
and the crimson of the gillyflowers, and all the fluttering, nodding
armies of brightness that were dancing in the sunlight, were too gay for
such a world as this, where mortal sins and sorrows made such havoc with
all that seemed brightest and best, and she longed to fly away and be at
rest.

Just then she heard the cheerful voice of her uncle in the little garden
above, as he was singing at his painting. The words were those of that
old Latin hymn of Saint Bernard, which, in its English dress, has
thrilled many a Methodist class-meeting and many a Puritan conference,
telling, in the welcome they meet in each Christian soul, that there is
a unity in Christ's Church which is not outward,--a secret, invisible
bond, by which, under warring names and badges of opposition, His true
followers have yet been one in Him, even though they discerned it not.

"Jesu dulcis memoria,
Dans vera cordi gaudia:
Sed super mel et omnia
Ejus dulcis praesentia.

"Nil canitur suavius,
Nil auditur jocundius,
Nil cogitatur dulcius,
Quam Jesus Dei Filius.

"Jesu, spes poenitentibus,
Quam pius es petentibus,
Quam bonus te quaerentibus,
Sed quis invenientibus!
Nec lingua valet dicere,
Nec littera exprimere:
Expertus potest credere
Quid sit Jesum diligere."[A]

[Footnote A:

Jesus, the very thought of thee
With sweetness fills my breast;
But sweeter far thy face to see,
And in thy presence rest!

Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find
A sweeter sound than thy blest name,
O Saviour of mankind!

O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
To those who fall how