Port-Royal had long before Jacqueline's entrance been noted for the admirable education bestowed in its schools:

"The truths of Christianity were there solidly and luminously taught-the minds of the pupils were thoroughly cultivated; and where they perceived the germ of peculiar talents, the education they received under the sisters of the Arnaulds and the Pascals was far different from that which any other public system of education ever elsewhere afforded to ladies."-Memoirs of PortRoyal, vol. i, p. 206.

The Arabs say that a tree becomes fruitful by looking upon another: so we may imagine what enduring effects continued intercourse and communion with the Port-Royalists would have upon the youthful mind. The words of such instructers must indeed have "kindled as they fell;" and it is no wonder that their pupils were everywhere distinguished for the purity of their lives as well as for the superiority of their acquirements. Jacqueline's letters to her relatives at this period are written in a cheerful tone, and breathe the most undying love; a love, she tells them, resembling “a fire closely packed together, which diffuses the more heat because it does not waste its strength over a large surface." We should wonder that she makes no allusion to the persecutions of that period, if we were not aware that the Port-Royalists made it a matter of conscience to preserve a profound silence respecting their injuries; and were exhorted never unnecessarily to speak of their own concerns, and then in as brief a manner as possible. 'This barrier," says Vinet, "is never threatened either by the dearest interests or the most profound emotions."

We find Jacqueline Pascal the obedient nun and the passive recipient of the opinions of her Church, until forced into collision with it by what she considered an "imperilment of the truth." Then, standing face to face against a power which demanded the surrender of the human will, and aimed "to smelt soul-ore into one solid mass," all the nobleness and intrepidity of her character was fully evinced. The much-talked-of formulary drawn up by the council, sanctioned and enforced by the clergy, and submitted to by some who had hitherto been pillars for the truth, was condemned both by Jacqueline and her brother: he, in Paris, and she, at PortRoyal, unknown to each other, lifted up their voices against it. He afterward yielded; but no excuses for expediency, no fallacious reasoning moved her; and, to use her own idea, she turned from truth itself "when painted in the colours of falsehood."

"What are we afraid of? Banishment for the nuns, the seizure of property, prison, death, if you will; but are not these things our glory, and ought we not therein rather to rejoice? Let us either give up the gospel, or let us carry out its principles, and esteem ourselves happy in suffering for the truth's sake.

But we may perhaps be cast out from the Church! True; and yet who does not know that none can be truly detached from the Church except by his own will? The spirit of Jesus Christ is the tie that binds his members to himself, and to one another."-P. 215.

She elsewhere writes:—

"I know very well that the defence of truth is not woman's business; though in a melancholy sense it may be affirmed, that when bishops seem to have the cowardice of women, women ought to have the boldness of bishops. And if we are not to be defenders of the truth, we can at least die for it, and suffer everything rather than abandon it."-P. 219.

M. Arnauld, worn out with the persecutions that had broken up their schools, scattered their nuns, and imprisoned their directors, thought that a compromise, which would give them a little repose after the storms of so many years, would be allowable; but Jacqueline continued firm, and wrote him one of the most noble and fearless letters that was ever dictated by the heart of woman. She and the Prioress of Port-Royal, Deschamps, at length stood alone in their opposition. But after a letter from Arnauld, in which he endeavoured to overcome their objections, their signatures were at length extorted, but not without a protest, "in order to clear their consciences in some degree." How ineffectual these concessions were, the utter domolition of Port-Royal attests. It scarcely delayed its doom, and the life of Jacqueline became the costly sacrifice.

"She died of grief because, under the guidance of her brother, with the great Arnauld, and the distinguished members of Port-Royal, she had consented to a transaction esteemed proper by them all, but in which the exquisite delicacy of her moral sense detected a slight evasion. How much mingled strength and weakness in such a death! yet it was not the Christian, but the woman, who sank overwhelmed by the weight of her own courage."—P. 248.

She passed from the sorrows and anxieties of earth to the peace and serenity of heaven, on her birthday, 4th of October, 1661, aged thirty-six years. M. Angelique was gathered to her Father's house two months before. Of Jacqueline, M. Singlin from his place of concealment thus writes: "When God takes them in so holy and happy a frame of mind as was hers, I have reason to praise him, and therefore to rejoice. My only sorrow is because I know there is a void in your house which it is impossible to fill;" and Angelique St. Jean, at that time the very soul of Port-Royal herself, exclaims: "Alas! I had hoped great things in all our present and future trials, for her whom God has taken away lest we should lean on her too much."

Her brother followed her on the succeeding August; and thus, as Vinet beautifully remarks, were shattered "two precious vases, by the mighty workings of truth, genius, and feeling within them. The covering was too frail to resist the internal pressure."

And now Gilberte is left, the last of her father's family, with radiant memories of the dead, and Christian hopes for the living. These hopes were fulfilled; for in after years her daughter writes:

"Such was the life of all the members of my family. I am left alone. They all died in immovable love for the truth. I may say, as did Simon Maccabeus, the last of all his brothers: All my relatives and brethren have died in God's service, and the love of his truth; I am left alone, and God forbid that I should ever think of renouncing either."

Happy Margaret! thus standing upon the verge of heaven thyself, with all thy loved ones beckoning thee from thence. The bitterness of death is gone, and the sorrows by which thy heart was riven have made for thee a channel of consolation and of joy.

In reading the work before us we have been struck with the strong resemblance between the Pascal and the Wesley family. Both possessed the same concentration of purpose, the same simplicity of motive, the same love for the truth, and the same indomitable will. John Wesley, rejecting the living of Epworth against the arguments and entreaties of his father and brothers, stands side by side with Jacqueline Pascal, turning away from the prayers of a brother who loved her as his own soul, when she felt that her vocation was for a monastic life. Both of them refused to succumb to spiritual despotism, when its mandates warred with the voice of God within their souls; and, like Susanna Wesley, Jacqueline, at every risk, would have refused to respond to the prayer that involved the recognition of the title of one whom she did not consider to have a legal right to his position as king.

Jacqueline Pascal was taken from the evil to come. The full fury of the storm that hung over the convent burst upon it immediately after her death. The nuns were placed in such rigorous captivity that in several instances it resulted in loss of life. The recluses were threatened with the Bastile, and hunted from place to place. M. Singlin died of the hardships he endured.

And now the valley of Port-Royal is desolate; the site of its noble buildings is scarcely discernible. The fiat, "Raze it, raze it, even to the foundations thereof," was remorselessly executed. Lovely wild-flowers wave over prostrate arches, and cover the desecrated graves of its saints, as if nature would veil the ruin which man has made. No sound save the sighing of the wind and the note of the lonely bird is heard; for even the soft music of the little stream is hushed by the profuse vegetation that crowds its channel. But is the mission of Port-Royal ended? Can this noble band of confessors and martyrs have suffered and died in vain? We cannot so believe.

The leaf falls from the tree to fertilize the soil; the

dew rises to heaven, and returns in showers "to cover the broad fields with golden grain."

"What seeds of life that day were sown

The heavenly watchers know alone:"

and as seeds that for hundreds of years encased in darkness have afterward distended, and sprouted, and brought forth blossoms, so we trust that the love, the devotion, the unshrinking faith of the Port-Royalists may yet yield a noble harvest to the Christian Church. Reuchlin, a German Protestant, has written a History of Port-Royal; and St. Beuve, "one of the most distinguished of the living critics of France," is now occupied with a similar task. We have no doubt that the writings and examples of these eminent saints, when thus made familiar to us, will kindle a brighter flame of devotion, and "impart a leaven of new life throughout the entire commonwealth of Christianity."

The founder of our Church, with his large Christian heart, delighted to dwell upon the piety of Gregory Lopez and De Renti. He loved the image of Christ wherever manifested. And we in his spirit may rejoice to know that, in the one song that has no discordant note, many will unite with us who have not called themselves by our name, nor worshipped after our manner; but who "are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."

ART. V.-BISHOP ASBURY.

Journals of the Rev. Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 3 vols., 12mo., pp. 524, 492, 502. New-York: Carlton & Phillips. 1854.

WE Congratulate the friends of the Methodist Episcopal Church upon the appearance of these volumes. It is a singular fact, that although Francis Asbury is the most distinguished man that the Methodist Episcopal Church has ever produced, and the most important ecclesiastical personage that our country has ever seen; and although more than thirty-seven years have passed away since his decease, a full memoir of his life yet remains to be written. Numerous and urgent calls have been made for it; and several attempts have been made to meet them; but with singular want of success. The reasons of this are two: First, adequate materials for such a memoir were not to be had, until very recently; secondly, a fair

estimate of the character of the man, and of the relative position that he was entitled to hold in the ecclesiastical history of the country-until the recent extraordinary and unlooked-for developments of his wonderful labours-could not be made. He was one of those few men whom his own generation could not appreciate. The men of his time did not know who was among them. The goodly proportions of his lofty and apostolic character were more than they could comprehend. It has remained for the men of another generation, who are now the eye-witnesses of some of the results of his wisdom and toils, to do him justice. Those memoirs will, probably, appear in due time; and, until then, we commend our readers to the perusal of the interesting volumes before us.

One volume of these Journals was published during the author's lifetime,-first in numbers,—although not under his own inspection; and also the first number of the second, with the intention of publishing the whole volume-a purpose not then carried into effect. The remainder were not published till 1821, five years after his death, when the whole were issued by Messrs. Bangs & Mason, then agents of the Book Concern of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in three volumes, octavo. Though much pains were taken with the edition, and it was probably made as perfect as circumstances then admitted, yet it was full of errors and inaccuracies, and was far from giving entire satisfaction to the numerous friends of the distinguished author. This first edition was never extensively circulated, and has long since been out of print. Something better was much needed.

This desideratum is at length supplied in the volumes named at the head of this article. In these we have an elegant and accurate edition of the Journals, upon which no pains seems to have been spared, and which cannot but be read with pleasure and satisfaction by the friends of our Church, and indeed by all persons who feel interested in that much-neglected branch of study-the ecclesiastical history of our country. The writer lived during the most important and eventful period of our history,-namely, from the commencement of our troubles with the mother country to the close of our last war with Great Britain. It was during this period that all the leading denominations of the country became fully organized in their present form, and the ecclesiastical as well as the political interests of the country were placed upon a firm and solid foundation, from which has arisen the great prosperity of later times. This department has hitherto been almost wholly ignored by most writers on American history, because they were ignorant of it, and incapable of appreciating its value and importance; but this will not always be. And it is also to be further noted, that the author