thing as Pyllycrochan in the last number. Blackbird says, very truly, that it is much easier to note the deserters from an elaborate service, than the absentees from a dull one. Atheline takes the same line

rather less unreservedly.

Lucciola repeats her objections to difficult music, as being uncongregational.

Dandelion's paper

defends ornamental ritual as a teaching power,

appealing to the intellect. Part is given.

By some of those who contribute to the debate in August, it seems to have been too much taken for granted that ritual was optional, and that its aim was to please. This is a quite wrong view. No mere sensuous enjoyment, whether religious or not, can ever be properly termed devotion.

The Church has Rites and Ceremonies (see the title-page of our Book of Common Prayer); whenever you have a rite to perform, there must of necessity be ritual, where there are ceremonies there must be ceremonial of some sort or another. Ritual has ever been and still is the great educating medium of the Church. The burning question in our branch of the Church to-day is not whether there shall be rites and ceremonies, but whether these shall be performed 'according to the use of the Church of England,' that is, whether ritual shall mean something, or whether it shall be ornamental' alone.

In order that elaborate ritual shall conduce to devotion, two things are necessary.

1. That the ritual shall not be fancy, but that the outward act or symbol shall really express and set forth the doctrine embodied in it. 2. That the body of lay worshippers shall be instructed in the significance of every symbol and act, that they may be able to enter into the spirit.

When the Spirit is right, we should be very tender over the failure. What is our best that we can offer to God? Yet He accepts it. Is it too much to ask that we shall sometimes bear with an offering, which is perhaps more fervent than artistic. DANDELION.

There have ever been two classes of minds in the Church, the lovers of simplicity and the lovers of beauty, the Puritan and the Ritualist. The hermit and the monk of the desert burst away from the high ritual of the primitive Church. Later we have the contrast of Citeaux and Clugny, and by-and-by of the Jansenist and Jesuit. Dangers lie behind each custom, and each again has support on the greatest authority. The bareness of all adjuncts of worship aids the spiritual sense of some, and makes their feeling of devotion purer; but it alienates others, and rouses a certain indignation at what can be easily neglect and parsimony. Ornament for glory and for beauty may well be felt to have the very noblest precedent. It was enjoined

upon the chosen people; it gives the opportunity of lavishing our best and most costly, it lifts the souls of many, and may well be a foretaste of Heaven.

But as 'noblest things find vilest usings,' the ideal being highest, it is open to the greatest abuses and perils. It can only be brought near perfection by a combination of circumstances-time, thought, talent, money, unremitting attention, and even thus, without the spirit within, it may realise the legend of the poor monks who sung badly, till they were charmed by the arrival of a chorister with a perfect voice, until an angel came down to ask why all their praises had been omitted that day. They had been admiring the chorister, he admiring himself.

There are places and occasions when such perfection can be established, and where the tone of the performers can be cultivated so as to give a hope that at least their minds are in a reverent state. The perils of the services being used as a spectacle must be for the frequenters to take to their own consciences, the subtle perils of rivalry with other Churches should be prayed against by those concerned.

In general, a service where the music and hymns fairly represent the aspirations at the best of the average congregation are the safest to cultivate. The old generation who could not follow a chant are nearly extinct, and no longer to be pained and alienated. Singing in schools has given early a power of following and enjoying. But therewith comes the terrible peril to be laid to heart by all concerned, namely, that to excuse absolute persistent ill conduct-not mere boyish thoughtlessness in members of the choir, is absolute encouraging of profanity.

Where voices are few, and the bad boy has (as he always has) the best musical gifts, the temptation is great; but the irreverence to the Highest, the harm to his own character, and the effect on all who know him, are terrible. SPERMOLOGOS.

Is love of personal adornment detrimental to the female character?

It is rather curious that the first contribution which Debatable Ground has received from an avowedly masculine source should deal with this feminine question.

We may form our views on verbal truth, courses of study, thoughtreading, and other important topics for ourselves; but when it comes to Dress, we require the aid of a higher intelligence.

It appears to Chelsea China that the point to settle is when the law of diminishing returns' begins to act.

Papers received from Taffy, Bathbrick, Beta, Fidelia, Stanzerl, Bildad, Lucciola, and Peter Piper. Most of the papers take a moderate view of the subject, best expressed by Lucciola. Bildad is the most

severe.

Chelsea China does not see what depths of meaning' there are in the expression 'a love of personal adornment,' as Beta thinks, nor does she agree with her that women are likely to make their dress pleasing and artistic without some touch of the quality.

George Herbert says, 'The more women look in their glass, the less they look to their house,' and there is without doubt much truth in this old saying. Love of personal adornment, whether in studied simplicity or the reverse, is apt to concentrate the thoughts too much on self, and is after all a form of vanity. The crushing of self in any form ought to be always before our minds, and self-pleasing must be put completely in the background if we would serve and please God. As long as we hug in our hearts a love of anything personal, we are prone to become selfish and self-concentrated. To look nice and picturesque to oneself is always pleasant, it is but human nature that it is so; but do we admire and respect those who are constantly thinking of their adornment? Hardly, I think. Fénélon, on the contrary, says, "There is really nothing more beautiful and attractive than a thorough absence of self-consciousness,' and those who love to adorn themselves, in any class of life, can hardly be thought to be lacking in self-consciousness. It is, and ever will be, difficult to crush self-love in any point, and in our own strength an utter impossibility. It is only by absolute conformity to God's will, merging our wills in His, that we are filled with love for Him rather than for ourselves, and then, when He is remembered, self is forgotten. BILDAD.

Bonnie bride-soon buskit,' says the sagacious old proverb. It is by no means the prettiest woman who takes most trouble over her busking.' But, taking the widest view of the question and excluding details, I can never condemn wholesale any universal instinct. Its universality attests it as coming from the Creator's hand. We have the best authority for considering this care for personal adornment as inherent in womanly nature: Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?' And there is no suggestion that she is wrong; only a strong argument-post hoc, propter hoc-is based upon the accepted fact. If I am told that this love of adornment has been to woman a source of multifold evils, I can only reply that it is so with every natural instinct, affection, and passion of our complex nature, ever since Eden's gates were barred with the flaming sword. Yet to crush or destroy an instinct is unnatural and wrong. Educate it, cultivate it, put it into due proportion and fixed control. No doubt, some of the most subtle dangers of our weaker sex lie hidden beneath the surface of this inherent tendency. Selfishness, hardness of heart, every phase of rivalry and jealousy have budded and borne fruit under the folds of the silk attire; but it was not the wearer's dress, but her heart that

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needed alteration. I call the love of personal adornment an integral part of every truly womanly' woman, needing only direction, wise and tender, as to its motive. If this be love in any right and praiseworthy form, the adorning will do the girl good, not harm. If thinking this will please him best, she takes a ribbon or a rose,' the busking of this bride is a sight for the angels who guard our path. May we not reverently see a further Scripture warrant for this instinct,' when, in her hour of consummated redemption, the Church, Jerusalem, appears in vision as a bride adorned for her husband?' If the instinct were a wrong one, could that exquisite

parable be possible?

LUCCIOLA.

The discussions in Debatable Ground are generally outside the capacity or the interest-of a merely masculine intelligence. For instance, last month a question was raised about unselfishness. It was a foregone conclusion that the result of that would be all in favour of us. One felt it superfluous to explain that the comfort of man depends on the unselfishness of woman, and that therefore unselfishness is to be cultivated by the great majority of readers of the Monthly Packet. But this month, a far more important question is raised, with a more doubtful issue. There are so many ladies now-a-days who consider that a consideration for personal appearance stamps one as an effete believer in the subjection of women. They should appreciate the reference to political economy below. Well, it really is of vital importance that the larger half of humanity should arrive at a correct conclusion on this point, and I desire to enter a vigorous No! to the question propounded. (Were I the father of grown-up daughters I might take a different view, but that would be the result of an unseemly and merely mercenary bias.) Why should a proper regard for personal adornment be deleterious? It is the solemn duty of every one who is able to do so to make the world a little more beautiful (or a little less ugly), consequently, to make themselves a trifle more beautiful (or less ugly) than they would be without attention to personal adornment. Masculine opportunities for adornment are so limited that the duty hardly comes into play; but if an ordinary average girl realised the amount of positive pleasure that she can disseminate by merely looking' nice,' and the positive irritation she causes by looking 'dowdy,' she would always look nice,' as a matter of principle. The thing is like the economic law of diminishing returns.' Ornament up to a certain point, and the satisfying effect increases in proportion to your adornment. Beyond that point, the proportion of satisfaction to adornment diminishes; the return is not in due proportion to the expenditure. Moral up to the point where the diminishing returns' begin, the result to the community at large is worth the exertion; therefore the exertion is a duty. Beyond that point, the community doesn't profit duly, therefore the extra exertion and

:

expense is mere vanity. Then of course it is demoralising. If Lalage wants to look nice, she is acting on a virtuous principle. If she wants to look nicer than Neæra, she is going wrong. But anyway, please don't dissuade her from looking 'nice.'

PETER PIPER.

A very good paper on Unselfishness by Atheline is squeezed out by the length of the debate on Church Services.

There will be no question set in October, in order that everything may finish in December, before the commencement of the New Series of the Monthly Packet.

Papers on any preceding debate may be sent in as usual to Chelsea China, care of the Publishers, before November 1st.

SONNETS FROM THE ITALIAN OF VITTORIA COLONNA.”

I.

WHEN wearily mine eyelids close against the light,
And thought is gliding to the land of silent dreams,
Then is thine image brought before my yearning sight,
And like thy living, breathing self, the vision seems:
Thou who once lightened every thought of sorrow here,
Deprived the night of gloom, and made each joy more dear.

Oh! if these eyes must open still to weep,

Yet will night's closing shades my life renew;

And when Time's stealing steps shall silent creep

(Yet bear from me no memory of you),

Thy loved form shall yet more clear arise,

As earthly pleasures vanish from my eyes

And Faith its strengthening balm shall on me shed,
And Love Divine upraise my drooping head.

II.

FATHER Eternal! Heavenly King!

By bounty infinite, a living branch if I

May be of that true Vine that circleth everything,
Bend low Thine eye and see me fainting lie
Beneath the shade its leaves around me fling;
Till Spring's soft airs, renewed eternally,
To me their life-restoring orders bring.

Oh make me pure! and resting still on Thee,
My food each day shall be the holy dew
Of penitential tears, that, falling silently,
My day and withered root may yet renew.

Truly, Thou said'st that Thou would'st be my rest;
Come, then, that I may ever-grateful yield the best
Of fruit most worthy of a Tree so blest!

M. A.

M. A.