young men who came to learn divinity, and who bore away in their hearts the ineradicable memory of a true shepherd whose example gave all their divinity a new force and new meaning and made it seem worth while. And certainly he might have secured wide distinction had he as bishop availed himself of a tithe of the invitations which came to him for public and distinguishing service. But he was busy with the lives and cares of the preachers for whom he was officially responsible, seeking to know them in their homes and to realize their conditions of work, that he might, if possible, make the burden of their labor lighter for them. The plan of episcopal visitation made it his duty three times to travel abroad. In 1880 he visited the missions of the Church in Europe and India; in 1890 he visited those in Mexico; in 1894 those in China, Japan, and Korea. The spirit in which he undertook these tours is perfectly illustrated in a remark of his own to the members of his family: "We do not wish to go to them in the spirit of mere tourists, but in the fullness of the Gospel blessing." Of Von Weber it is said that in driving through a beautiful country he could only enjoy the beauty by translating it into music. Bishop Ninde knew no enjoyment in anything which could not be transformed into material for the extension of the kingdom of God among

men.

Bishop Ninde was in frequent demand for public occasions of various kinds. His addresses were uniformly models of good taste and appropriateness; but never, even in those which might be called the most purely secular or academic, did he fail to infuse into them the spirit and message of his Lord, or leave his audience without a quickening of heart and conscience which gave them, for the time at least, nobler views of life and living. In his simplest and most informal utterance he had, as Mr. Morley says of Burke, "the sacred gift of inspiring men to care for high things and to make their lives at once rich and austere."

Such a man, dominated by such an idea, must necessarily be a favorite with young people. His work with and for the

young people of his Church during the quadrennium in which he was president of the Epworth League was, and is, greatly prized. The profoundly spiritual character of his influence was felt in the impetus given to missionary enterprise throughout the entire Epworthian following. His call, "Let us organize in the Epworth League the greatest missionary propaganda the Church of Christ has ever known," still echoes in the ears of our young people as an inspiration. The high distinction with which he treated young people was perhaps the explanation of his popularity and power with them. It comes out in a singularly beautiful and impressive way in a letter to his son upon the latter's ordination. After expressing his deep gratification at the step taken, and his anxiety that the young man should be a thoroughly consecrated man and minister, he says, "Let us both form strong purposes for the future," etc. The "us" in that sentence is a revelation of character; the "Do you form" which would be natural from the older to the younger, and especially from father to son, is abrogated in the swift recognition of the right of youth to companionship and brotherhood in the work of serving a common cause for a common Master.

It was Bishop Ninde's distinction that, putting aside all personal considerations, he devoted himself to an ideal of usefulness; he consecrated great power to Christian uses and Christian results. United with this devotion was a most engaging and pervasive holiness of character. From sheer love of the goodness of the man one was apt to lose sight of his many-sided greatness; the admirably rounded character of the man was an obstacle to the proper appreciation of him. It is a common observation of visitors to St. Peter's at Rome that the largeness of scale in details is hardly noticed in the perfect proportion of the whole. The more perfect the balance of excelling virtues, the less notice of their individual greatness in a world where eccentricity alone compels attention. But recognizing to the full Bishop Ninde's gifts and acquisitions, his almost matchless pastoral work and his rare administrative gifts, it still remains true that he will be most

tenderly cherished for that which most endeared him to the people, the obvious closeness of his fellowship with God. A friend used to say of Thomas Erskine that he never thought of God but the thought of Mr. Erskine was not far away. In Bishop Ninde's case we might reverently reverse the order: one never thinks of him without thinking of the God he loved and declared. His daughter entering the study one day "found him sitting, with uplifted face and rapt expression, apparently oblivious of her presence. Startled and awed, she paused on the threshold. In a moment the abstracted look left him, and he turned to her with his usual kind smile. To her 'Father, what were you doing just now?' he replied gently, 'I was thinking about God.'" And because God was in his thought continually he was able to live before men in the beauty of holiness, to show them God's power to make and keep a man patient, kindly, cheerful, hopeful, forgiving, just, and true. Bishop Ninde loved men and hungered to be loved by them. But not even for their good opinion would he lower his sense of duty or drive a bargain with sin. The one thing that mattered to him was the approval of God and of a good conscience. In communion with God he nourished that imperial spirit which neither seeks to be great nor fears to be least, which asks no privilege but that of serving God, and which cheerfully relinquishes every claim but that of loving the Hand whose pressure, whether to comfort or chasten, is the ineffable joy and prize of living.

Chances M. Stuent.

ART. II-THE STORY OF THE TROUBADOURS.

If you happen to be in Paris and are intending to pursue your travels as far as Italy you will find on looking up the matter that you have the choice of three different routes to take into that famous country. You can go by way of Dijon, Chambéry, and the seven-mile tunnel of Mont Cenis, or by way of Lucerne and the still longer tunnel of the St. Gothard; these two routes will bring you out finally in Milan. Thirdly, you can take the P. L. M., that is, the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Railroad, pass through the whole length of France to Marseilles, and then along the wonderful coast known as the Riviera, to Genoa. If you choose the latter route you will leave Paris on the 9:25 A. M. fast express and arrive after a ride of seven or eight hours at Lyons, situated on the right bank of the Rhone, and next to Paris, the largest city in France. One hundred and fifty kilometers, or about ninety-five miles, after leaving Lyons you pass by the small town of Montélimar, situated, according to Rousseau, "in the finest country and under the finest sky in the world." As you happen to glance at your guidebook you read these words, "At Montélimar we enter Provence." At that magic name your languid interest is revived, and as the train flies along through the landscape, with its crumbling brown hills, its groves of olive and mulberry trees, its white-housed towns and villages, its bridges and ruined castles, the whole lighted up with peculiar beauty by the rays of the setting sun, you gaze with more than ordinary interest on this the land of the Troubadours. And you will do well to gaze thus, for few countries can offer a more genuine interest to the lover of nature, to the student of literature, or to the philosopher who loves to muse on the vicissitudes of history. Note the names of the cities and towns as you hurry along through the darkening landscape: Orange, with its Roman theater and Arch of Trajan, a city famous in the wars against the Goths and Saracens, the home of William Fierabras (who was the hero

of a cycle of romances almost as extensive as that of Charlemagne himself), and the original dwelling place of those princes of Orange who furnished to Holland the great Stadtholder and to England King William, the son-in-law and successor of James II: Avignon, which belonged successively to Burgundians, Franks, Goths, and Saracens ; later the scene of the Babylonian captivity of the Roman papacy (in whose power it remained down to the French Revolution), famous and interesting still on account of the tombs of Petrarch's Laura, and of John Stuart Mill, as well as for its papal palace and the ruins of the bridge over the Rhone, which was the highway of the world in the Middle Ages. And so on with many another famous city, until at 10:25 P. M. you reach Marseilles and see the blue waters of the Mediterranean glittering beneath the rays of the moon, which shines with a soft luster unknown to a northern sky.

Nor does this land, so full of laughter and song to-day, with its bullfights and farandole, its thoughtless gayety and love for pleasure, offer a less absorbing interest if we take a flying trip across the centuries. Away back in the dim dawn of history we see the savage tribes of Celts and Gauls making their way over the mountain passes and pouring down into Italy, even to the gates of Rome itself. Then we see the legions of Cæsar performing those marvelous feats of military prowess which finally made the southern part of Gaul a Roman province, whence the present name of Provence. Again the scene changes and we see the vast hordes of northern barbarians pouring down from the north of France over the fertile plains of the south as far as the shores of the Mediterranean, Vandals, Goths, Franks, of whom the two former finally passed on to Spain and Africa, leaving the Franks in final possession, with the Burgundians in the southeast as their vassals. It was the Franks under the command of Charles Martel ("Carl the Hammer"), who at the battle of Poitiers drove back the flood of Saracenic invasion, which, overflowing the walls of the Pyrenees, threatened to make all Europe fall under the sway of Mohammed. Finally, as the