"Our father has spoken wise words," said a priest. "She has robbed our gods of the blood which was promised them."

Several other priests rose after this, and spoke to the same effect. They all required her death. Then the Helgoland chief rose. He dashed his sword and shield on the ground with such vehemence that the forest echoed the noise.

"I

"There lies my honour and glory," he said. am a wretched man. She is my only child. Her first breath was her mother's last. She always was the light of my eyes. But I leave her to you. Deal with her as it is right in your eyes. As to me, I shall not survive her long. My broken heart cannot be healed."

A feeling of compassion was legible upon all faces. A soft plaintive sound was whispered from mouth to mouth. The grey-headed old man who had spoken first, rose again, and said—

"For shame! Are you sheer women and children? Are you the offspring of the old Frison race? Did our fathers ever flinch from offering their children to the gods? I am an old man. I never saw those glorious days, but I remember my father telling me of them when I was a boy. He often told me, how his own mother put her baby in a basket and burnt it alive for our great goddess Freya, who was so pleased with this token of veneration, that she promised our family an old age, down to the tenth generation. And she has kept her promise hitherto. Many of you know that my father died in his hundred and sixteenth year. I am nearly fourscore and ten now. I killed a wild boar with my own hand yesterday. The gods bless those who obediently worship them ; but woe to those who withhold the blood which is due to the Alfadir! Wrath will surely come upon all of us, if we despise the mighty one."

"To the wolves! To the wolves!" cried some voices; and a general murmur, sounding through the whole assembly, showed that the old man's speech met with general approbation.

Then Adgillus rose from his seat. He was a noble prince, and very much liked by the people, because of his spirit and gallantry.

"I am a young man," he said, "and it becomes me not to speak against the old of days, whose heads a long experience has adorned with a white crown, and filled with wisdom. Still, when a man's life is concerned in a debate, every one's voice ought to be heard. Our venerable old father told us just now, that in former days our fathers sometimes would kill their babies to please their gods. It appears, however, that the gods are not much pleased with such cruel sacrifices, for they have not asked for them during the last hundred years. I don't see, indeed, what delight there may be in tasting the blood of innocent babies. Are the gods of our fathers wolves and tigers? Would any one of you like to drink the blood and to eat the flesh of a baby? I ask, would any one of you?"

"No, no! we would not!" cried many voices. "I was sure of that," continued the prince. "I know you are not such blood-thirsty people. The Frisons never dreaded to look their enemy in the face, and to make him pay for his insult with his blood. But no noble Frison ever desired or shed

the blood of babies or women. The Frisons were always ready to shed their own blood for their babies and women.' 11

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'Yes, yes; true, true!" shouted a thousand voices. A general enthusiasm seized the assembly; all the spears and swords were lifted up, and the forest resounded with loud cheers.

"Well then," resumed the prince, "if it is true that we don't desire the blood of babies and women, are we better than our gods? Are our gods worse than us? Are the Frisons free, noble men; and are their gods blood-thirsty tigers? I don't desire the blood of that harmless girl. I am sure none of our gods desire it. Does any one of you? I ask you,'| does any one of you desire to drink the blood of that harmless girl?"

No, no! we don't!" cried the assembly in one voice. "We don't!"

"Well, then, will you give your gods to drink what you do not take yourselves? I have always been proud of my being a Frison, because no innocent blood ever stained the Frison name; but if you kill that harmless girl, I leave the country at once. I will be a Frison no longer. I shall be ashamed of my Frison name, because every one will have a right to say to me, 'Thou art a member of that people who kill defenceless women.' If you throw her to the wolves, I'll go with her; I'll fight the wolves for her with my good sword."

No

Here the prince held up his sword high in the air, and looked all over the congregation. breath was heard. Every one gazed at the noble young man with indescribable admiration.

"When my royal father, here by my side, gave me this good sword," he continued, "I swore that I should draw it for the protection of the weak, the innocent, and the defenceless. I'll keep my oath. Here I am. May God help me !"

With these words the noble prince leaped from the turf platform, and placed himself in the attitude of a protector before Fostedina, holding his drawn sword in his hand. Incredible was the impression which this act produced upon the congregation. The whole mass was transported with admiration. The applause never seemed to subside. The aged oaks re-echoed the oft-repeated shouts of the enchanted multitude.

At length the Helgoland priest rose, and, beckoning with his hand, succeeded in silencing the assembly.

"Our noble prince," he said, "has spoken a knightly word. Blessed is the people that can boast of such young men. He does not desire the blood of that girl; nor does any one of us. But young blood is often rash in judgment. This girl has insulted our gods. She has embraced the new religion. She has abandoned the religion of our fathers. This is a great crime. The law of the Frisons requires the death of every one . . "No death! No death!" cried a thousand voices, interrupting the priest. "The girl shall not die !"

The priest bit his lips. He turned pale from overwhelming anger. He saw that the people had made up their minds; that it was impossible to sacrifice the girl.

"Very well," he said, disguising his spite, "ht her live. But it would not be right to let her go

filial feeling towards the patron and the master of the school, but also a kindly, brotherly spirit among the scholars themselves; in fact, the establishment is more like a family than a school; its domestic character is strengthened by the scholars taking a meal together daily, and occasionally having tea in a quiet sylvan nook in the country; great pains are taken to deal truthfully with the boys, and to promote truthfulness among them; the master feels that to form a manly, open, generous Christian character is even more his business than to give instruction. The lesser aids to this great end are not overlooked; the power of music, for example, is thoroughly understood, and well is it turned to account; for promoting bodily health, care is taken to secure plenty of fresh air; bathing and swimming are practised; there is the cricket field too, and the lithographic press, and carpenters' tools, and so many other things, that it is next to impossible to understand how an old cottage of three or four little rooms could, for some years, have formed the centre of so varied operations. All accounts bear testimony to the remarkable success which has attended this school for the children of working-men, small tradesmen, soldiers, and poor widows. The visits to the "Pembroke" form the culminating testimony in its favour; for what captain in Her Majesty's navy would have encumbered himself for a week at a time with a score or two of poor school-boys on board his ship, had there not been something singularly good in their training? This, however, is but half the secret of the success of the visit to the "Pembroke." It turned out that the discipline of the man-of-war and that of the school were conducted on the very same principle; Captain Charlewood and Mr. Hawtrey had both lighted on the same key to the hearts and the obedience of their respective charges; the power of sympathy which made the school-boys cheer so lustily for the one, was that which would have made every man and boy in the ship turn out cheerfully at midnight at the call of the other. So the crew of the ship and the boys of the school were like unknown brothers accidentally finding each other; and the "happy-to-meet, sorry-to-part" feeling that has ever since given such cordiality to their re-unions, was the welling up of the deep fountain of brotherhood, the token of what both owed to their nursing-mother-Sympathy.

The

But it is time to go back to the beginning. name of the Rev. Stephen Hawtrey has long been well known at Eton; more than one generation of Etonians owe to him their mathematical training. Upwards of twenty years ago, when the present Bishop of New Zealand was curate of Windsor, he erected a school-room, used on Sundays as a chapel, in the village of Dedworth, about three miles from Windsor. The services in the chapel were intrusted to Mr. Hawtrey. The singing was atrocious; especially that of the charity children in a far-off gallery. While revolving on the steps possible for the cure of so great an evil, Mr. Hawtrey fell in with Hullah's Manual, and at Exeter Hall, had his mind opened to the capabilities of Hullah's system. He and his clerk at Dedworth then obtained leave to teach music from notes, after the regular school hours, to those of the Windsor national school-boys who showed a dis

position to learn. By and by, the best of the class were formed into a choir, who accompanied him, Sunday by Sunday, to Dedworth. This continued for some years. There was an afternoon and an evening service, and as the distance from Windsor did not admit of their returning between services, Mr. Hawtrey and his boys used to take tea together, and, on summer evenings, they had their meal under the shade of trees in an orchard adjoining the chapel. The affectionate social character afterwards impressed on St. Mark's school had its origin in this almost accidental way. "This meal taken in common, the walk in the adjoining forest after the afternoon service, the seeking the primrose bank in the opening spring, or the bed of wild violets, the Sunday story-book read out as the party sat in a social circle on the new-mown hay, or gathered in the heat of summer, under the shade of the oak trees in the forest,—all this was doing its work. It was working into the boys' hearts a humanized, affectionate, family feeling, which has never gone out of the school. To this must doubtless be added the effect upon themselves of the music they practised and sang, still affectionately remembered by the inhabitants of the hamlet."

Ere long, Mr. Hawtrey became the incumbent of a church in Windsor, and, about the same time, circumstances rendered it desirable that his singing boys should have a school of their own. Where was it to be? One of them remembered that there was a washerwoman's cottage, with a small dryingground attached, at the junction of Goswell and Clewer Lane, which had been for some time vacant. The cottage was taken, and by a wonderful process of transformation, to a large extent executed by the boys themselves, it was converted into school premises. Even Mr. Darwin could hardly conceive more startling developments. A bath-room was fabricated out of a duck-pond, and a dressing-room was formed from the adjoining pig-sty. A carpenter's shop and tool-house was derived from a shed, and two of the cottage rooms developed into the apartments for the school. A master was got from the Training College, Chelsea, and nineteen boys, all of whom had been under humanizing influence for some time, enrolled themselves as scholars. The establishment became the parish or district school of St. Mark's. By and by the number of scholars was enlarged to fifty. From time to time it has undergone further increase; and an enthusiastic admirer of the school, who casually stumbled upon it, and wrote a graphic account of it in the Times of 2d December 1858, mentions 107 as the number of its pupils. The remarkable thing is, that notwithstanding the great size to which it has grown, the school still retains the domestic and affectionate character with which it started. The moral of the tale Mr. Hawtrey conceives to be this,-begin with a small number, get a good tone into the school, and the incomers will pick it up. Other persons will be disposed to believe that Mr. Hawtrey's personal superintendence and fatherly interest in the boys, seconded by the masters whom he has been fortunate in securing, have had no small share of influence in making the school what it is.

On the first day of the school, the master and his boys, after meeting in church at seven o'clock,

for morning-service, walked together to the school, and at a quarter to eight sat down to breakfast. The master's breakfast was laid on the table in the centre of the room, and the boys took their seats at tables ranged round the walls. Each boy took out of his bag a slice of bread and butter, which he had brought from home, and a basin of milk and water, or of cocoa, was provided for each. The same practice has continued ever since. Mr. Moseley, in one of his Reports, observes :-" I doubt not that this meal, eaten in common by the teacher and children, has contributed largely to the high moral tone of that remarkable school.

The most perfect idea we can form of a school approaches to that of a well-ordered family, and of the proper relation of the teacher and his scholars to that of a parent and his children. It is difficult to conceive how this idea is to be realized unless they take their meals together." The kindly feeling of the boys towards one another (which has often been observed) has been greatly fostered by this interesting practice.

The boys who form this school are from the ordinary labouring classes. Of 228 boys who had passed through the school in 1857, 41 were the sons of widows; 50 of labourers, with wages from 12s. to 15s. ; 22 of petty shopkeepers; 68 of mechanics; 12 of soldiers; 17 of domestic servants; 1 of a policeman; while only 17 belonged to a somewhat superior grade. One French boy and one Russian had occurred among the scholars; the latter was picked up by a kind English officer, after the battle of the Alma, in a vineyard through which our army passed in the flank-march to Balaclava. The little boy had apparently lost all his kindred, and was so entirely desolate, that, on the return of the army to England, his protector brought him with him, and finally he was placed at St. Mark's parish school. The average time spent at school is a little under four years. The weekly fees are 4d., 6d., and 9d., | according to the subjects taught; but the appli- | cations for admission are always more numerous than can be granted. Mr. Hawtrey says, "I have known a widow, left to bring up a family of six children, nurse her baby with her left arm, while she turned her mangle with the right, for many a long hour into the night, rather than take her boys from school. And when so reduced as not to have a change of clothing for her children, she would sit up at night and mend, wash, and iron the clothes they had taken off, that they might go neat and tidy to school the next morning. Of another widow, left with a family of five young children, with no means of support but her own occasional charing, and a little parish relief, I inquired how it was she was able to keep her boys at school; she said, 'I hardly know how it is, but I must not keep them from school; I want to give them what nobody can take from them.'

The training of St. Mark's school is education in the literal and true sense of the word; it is not cramming,-not pouring in, but drawing out. It is education both of mind and body. Mr. Hawtrey has felt it to be very desirable that the minds of boys of the working class should be taught to make great efforts, and for this end, he has introduced Latin and Euclid among the studies of his school. He conceives that though scholars acquire less of

what is showy by such a process, they turn out more valuable and useful men. They learn to think, they get the mastery of their own powers, their faculties are quickened. All his experience, he tells us, goes to confirm his views on this point. At the same time, he believes that the public at large will be more disposed to follow his advice on another branch, which has been cultivated with great diligence-learning music from notes. Boys should begin at once, and the music-lesson should come in as regularly as the ciphering or readinglesson. The boys should meet one evening every week for the practice of music, and this meeting should embrace those who have left the school. It will form a pleasant bond of union among them, and it will prove in itself a source of great pleasure. We can but notice cursorily some of the plans in this school for the physical improvement of the boys. First, we mark in the inspector's report a brief but most important entry, "ventilation good." The boys are not poisoned, stupified, sleepified, with bad air. Would we could say the same for even half the schools in the country! Then there is the bath. The little duck-pond has become a great institution. Its sides have been raised, lined with concrete, and covered with a shed; and through the aid of a large copper and a pump, it has become a respectable bath-room, where the boys bathe twice a week, greatly to their own benefit, and the freshness and comfort of the schoolroom. Further, there is the cricket club, managed by the boys themselves; and Mr. Hawtrey strongly urges, that besides regular hours, on certain days, for cricketing, a whole day should occasionally be devoted to this sport, and the entire school should go off for a thorough hearty game. The ringing merry laugh of the boys on such occasions, and their nimble rushing and curvetting to and fro, are things cheering to witness, and even to remember. Swimming is another branch of their physical training. The instance of its usefulness which Mr. Hawtrey mentions is not the highest that might be, yet to him it would be pleasant to receive the thanks of a soldier's mother, who came to tell him that her son's fortune was as good as made, because when the colonel's horses fell into the water, as the regiment was embarking at the Crimea, her boy, who had learned to swim when at St. Mark's, had jumped overboard and saved them. but enumerate, as affording other sorts of physical employment, a lithographic press, which does much service many ways; carpenter's tools, wherewith the boys repair the premises; a paste-pot, useful for fastening loose leaves, or pasting sheets on boards; the work of the bath-room, pumping, the preparation of the tea, sweeping the school-room, and keeping the yard in order. There is no sign of stagnation in all this; and the interesting thing is, that these employments help, instead of hindering, the serious work of the school, and enable the boys to do their counting, or their grammar, or their Euclid, with clearer head and stouter heart.

We can

No wonder though the boys trained under such a system turn out well. It is a practice of Mr. Hawtrey's to write to the several tradesmen or employers to whom the boys are apprenticed in business, inquiring how each is doing. Many of the answers are printed in his account of the