the flames in a changeless, vacant stare. I
spoke to him, I shook him by the arm. He was
past rousing. He only whispered once more,
"Where is he?"

In ten minutes, the engine was in position;
the well at the back of the church was feeding
it; and the hose was carried to the doorway of
the vestry. If help had been wanted from me,
I could not have afforded it now. My energy of
will was gone—my strength was exhausted—
the turmoil of my thoughts was fearfully and
suddenly stilled, now I knew that he was dead.
I stood useless and helpless—looking, looking,
looking into the burning room.

I saw the fire slowly conquered. The brightness
of the glare faded the steam rose in white
clouds, and the smouldering heaps of embers
showed red and black through it on the floor.
There was a pause—then, an advance
altogether of the firemen and the police, which
blocked up the doorway—then a consultation
in low voices—and then, two men were
detached from the rest, and sent out of the
churchyard through the crowd. The crowd
drew back in dead silence, to let them pass.

After a while, a great shudder ran through
the people; and the living lane widened slowly.
The men came back along it, with a door from
one of the empty houses. They carried it to the
vestry, and went in. The police closed again
round the doorway; and men stole out from
among the crowd by twos and threes, and stood
behind them, to be the first to see. Others waited
near, to be the first to hear. Women were among
these last—women with children in their arms.

The tidings from the vestry began to flow out
among the crowd—they dropped slowly from
mouth to mouth, till they reached the place
where I was standing. I heard the questions
and answers repeated again and again, in low,
eager tones, all round me.

"Have they found him?" "Yes."—"Where?"
"Against the door. On his face."—"Which
door?" "The door that goes into the church.
His head was against it. He was down on his
face"—"Is his face burnt?" "No." "Yes,
it is." "No: scorched, not burnt. He lay on
his face, I tell you."—" Who was he? A lord,
they say." "No, not a lord. Sir Something;
Sir means Knight." " And Baroknight, too."
"No." "Yes, it does."—"What did he want
in there?" "No good, you may depend on it."
"Did he do it on purpose?"—"Burn himself
on purpose!"—"I don't mean himself; I mean
the vestry."—"Is he dreadful to look at?"
"Dreadful!"—"Not about the face, though:''
"No, no; not so much about the face."—
"Don't anybody know him?" "There's a man
says he does."—"Who?" "A servant, they
say. But he's struck stupid-like, and the police
don't believe him."—"Don't anybody else know
who it is?" " Hush!——"

The loud, clear voice of a man in authority
silenced the low hum of talking all round me,
in an instant.

"Where is the gentleman who tried to save
him?" said the voice.

"Here, sir—here he is!" Dozens of eager
faces pressed about me—dozens of eager arms,
parted the crowd. The man in authority came
up to me with a lantern in his hand.

"This way, sir, if you please," he said, quietly.

I was unable to speak to him; I was unable
to resist him, when he took my arm. I tried to
say that I had never seen the dead man, in his
lifetime—that there was no hope of identifying
him by means of a stranger like me. But the
words failed on my lips. I was faint and silent
and helpless.

"Do you know him, sir?"

I was standing inside a circle of men. Three
of them, opposite to me, were holding lanterns
low down to the ground. Their eyes, and the
eyes of all the rest, were fixed silently and
expectantly on my face. I knew what was at my
feet I knew why they were holding the lanterns
so low to the ground.

"Can you identify him, sir?"

My eyes dropped slowly. At first, I saw
nothing under them but a coarse canvas cloth.
The dripping of the rain on it was audible in the
dreadful silence. I looked up, along the cloth;
and there at the end, stark and grim and black,
in the yellow light—there, was his dead face.

So, for the first and last time, I saw him. So
the Visitation of God ruled it that he and I
should meet.

       THE PAPER WALL OF CHINA.

IT is a serious political misfortune for a nation
to have a number of pretenders to its throne.
England is far happier under undisputed
Victoria than she could be with contending Roses,
white and red. Fortunate for France will be
the day when the last, except one, of her rival
royal branches and imperial dynasties shall
become extinct.

In like manner, it is a heavy philosophical
and religious misfortune, a grave source of
ethical weakness, when a wide-extended population
has a plurality of claimants on its faith, its
worship, and its obedience—by which plurality
mere sects in religious belief are not meant, like
the various forms of dissent in Protestant
churches, because they are all one in principle,
equally based on their common Christianity.
Throughout all Europe, with the exception of
Turkey, the reigning faith, without the shadow
of a single serious rival pretender, is some mode
of Christianity, whether Latin, Greek, or
Lutheran; and in Turkey, and in several other
Oriental regions, Mahomedanism is equally the
undisputed master of the hearts and souls of
men. But if we travel further eastward, and
enter China, instead of one acknowledged Divine
Founder, or Inspired Prophet, we find
philosophers many, gods hardly any, and moral
doctrines so confused and contradictory, that the
result is like the blending of all colours, white
—a blank. The acid of one sage neutralises the
alkali of another; do-nothing and know-nothing
are the antidotes applied to feverish excesses of
free-thinking and free-acting; and, in