concentrated ray of light and heat straight to that earthly picture to that cloud-borne tear; and the vision of earth shivered before the gleam from heaven; all its colours blackened; its golden cords, stripped of their tinsel, hung in dingy threads; its flowers, lately so bright with life, now faded, died-were nought but the wrecks of beauty!

But the tear-the crystal tear-shone but the brighter for heaven's own gleam, reflecting back, in its pure lustre, the sunny smile of all creation. Millions of fluttering wings waved in the vaulted skies, and the hosts of creation, the beings of a universe, waited to hear the last decree that the archangel's voice was allowed to proclaim.

"Rare and pure as aught of earth are the mother's earnest prayer and tear; yet, because of earth, impotent to win heaven's priceless pearl, 'salvation."" Still, through that warm prayer, blending with the dying utterance of him for whom 'twas uttered, this great gift of God's imperishable love is granted.

"Seraphs, waft on your plumed wings yon fleeting soul to the blest realm of heaven."

"Off, impious fiend of darkness," and the archangel frowned on the dark form; "off, and learn thine impotency 'gainst the angel ministers, 'gainst the great mercies of God."

The freed soul, led by its heavenly guides, stood at the throne of heaven.

"Take thy bright angel form, and onwards on thy mission," and the new found seraph plumes fluttered with joy in the clear atmosphere.

"Thine be the task, with thy redeemed companions, to watch o'er earth's frail children. Hover near them in their slumbering as in their waking hours; waft into their souls gleams, thoughts, hopes of our own blessed kingdom; place in their mortal path warnings against a foul career of sin; and when ye see some sinking wretch, in his determined guilt, seeking to cast aside these friendly obstacles, let your seraph prayers fly to the one great source of aid, and seek the only help which can avail him. Meet office is it for the redeemed to act as guardian ministers to the wanderers on earth, 'mongst whom they once existed-most fitting, glorious office-as ministers of good, workers out of the eternal will of Him who bought them with his blood.

To earth that spirit flew, hastening to do his master's bidding.

Quickly he travelled to the busy city, where the ceaseless toil and noisy traffic made the weary ear groan for quiet, and the racked mind almost crave the one great boon of rest eternal. One of the bustling throng sought gold by usury; then the angel rested one moment in his flight, whispering softly in the guilty ear-and God's own truth dwelt in that whisper-and made the sordid bargainer pause in his sin.

On went the angel still, and hovered o'er a haunt of flaring vice; but his plumed pinions veiled his shrinking eyes, and bore him swiftly past.

"Not there," he cried, "where guilt, in bold defiance stands forth, in awful mockery of God." On and on farther, dropping the balm of heaven wherever the good seed could take root and spring. On, o'er hill and dale, country and city, sea and land- -on to the glowing Indian plain, where, lingering between life and death, lay that once loving Indian mother.

"Uncas, my child, my lost darling, would that thy loved spirit could hover near me, round me, in my death-wafting into my soul clear thoughts of that pure heaven I only dream of dimly.”

And the wings played round her lovingly, and wooed her unto rest, and more gleams of truth entered her fainting soul, and strengthening it, fixed its eyes on heaven.

Through that long night her weary nature halted 'tween life and death; but when the morning broke, and the great orb of day rose in his golden majesty, that soul received the welcome mandate of dismissal.

Gently the wings played now; gently, more gently, till they drooped in solemn sadness, as the soul, with one long gasp, threw off its "mortal coil," and, fanned by its spirit guide, took its glad way to heaven.

And shall any say that such things may not be? Shall any declare that these angel ministers exist not, save in the heated fancies of a crazy brain? Look to holy writ, where we are told,

The angels of the Lord encamp round those that fear him ;" yea, round those that fear him, fear his anger, fear his frown, fear to grieve his loving, tender spirit; not round the bold undaunted sinner, who, with fearful weakness, clings to earth's damning pleasures; holds to its tempting sins, smiles on its luring phantoms; from such the pure ministers of heaven turn weeping, for their office is to "minister to those who are heirs of salvation"-those who are the favoured children of God, who, through his mercy, have grasped the the blessed gift offered to them.

And must the thought of angel ministers watching in our path, dropping good into the mind matured, whose page, blotted by evil, loses the fair impress of good, be deemed irreverent? Would it be called profane to tell the young that angels, good and loving angels, hover round their earthly path, ever ready, ever waiting to do the bidding of the one great Master-ever hoping to lead lost souls to the blest state that they have themselves attained. Air and space, and every busy phase of life may be filled with beings invisible to our dull senses, all working out some great and lasting purpose-all bent on some imperishable end.

Could this idea be fully realised, established, both old and young be taught to feel themselves thus guarded, watched-watched with loving thoughts and anxious care-perchance some tempting sius might be discarded, and flaring vice forsaken.

Were these guardian ministers felt-believed in

-as an intangible but near reality, many weak and wavering mortals, fearing to grieve their loving natures, loathe to requite their anxious care with base ingratitude, might be led to shun the insidious whispers of the fiend of darkness, and,

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standing boldly forth (secure in a protecting influence round them), range themselves fearlesslythankfully-under the banner of the "Children of Light."

DRY as that verata questio, the Civil Service, may seem to superficial politicians and comatose country M.P.'s; trivial as may seem any consideration of the daily heart-burnings and hopeless lives of too many of the working bees in the great hive of Red Tape, there is nevertheless just now abroad a spirit of inquiry into the manifold abuses which have year by year grown with the growth and strengthened with the strength of our system of executive government. The question now is not whether a civil servant's meagre salary should or should not be lessened by enforced deductions, in order that, by cheap charity, his declining years should be solaced by, should he live to receive it, a pension-but whether the Civil Service should go on as at present-whether a positive "bad" should, in all arithmetical progression, become a hopeless “worse ;” and that this is inevitable, unless the work of reform speedily begins, is easily proved. It is not here proposed to descant upon a by-gone grievance, the superannuation deductions, whereby since 1834 till last month, the civil servants have been robbed of 2 per cent. on salaries under £100, and 5 per cent. over that amount-in order that thereby a fund might be created whence the worn-out official, if he were fortunate enough to escape dying in harness, might derive a scanty pension for his later days. That grievance is doubtless by this time well known to most of the readers of this and other magazines and newspapers; and, what is still better, was knocked on the head by a large majority of the House of Commons on July 29th last. But "the snake, though scotched, is not yet killed." For there is still at work a system of low salaries for important services, by the Government demand for much ability, and the Government proffer of a salary utterly inadequate for the acquirements sought by the Civil Service Commission-that incubus of Dean's Yard-which examines candidates for appointments on subjects for which their official lives will furnish no exercise-which demands great things, and offers a coalwhipper's stipend in return! Will the common sense of a great nation long suffer this miserable anomaly to continue ? If work is to done, let it be well done, let able men be selected for the discharge of duties requiring some ability; if the labourer be worthy of his hire, in the name of common justice and sound policy, let him receive a "fair day's wages for a fair day's work." It may here be objected that, on the whole, the

clerk in a Government office is as well paid as his brethren in the Bank of England, whose duties are as responsible as those of the civil servants. But this objection will only be made by people who know little of such matters, and less of the Civil Service; and, moreover, that one-sided objection can be thus overruled: the evidence of Mr. Weguelin, the respected governor of the Bank of England, is only needed to settle the question on that head.

That gentleman-as quoted by Lord Naas, in the House, July 29th-states that the average bank salaries are £196, while the average salaries of public civil servants are only £141. Yet the civil servant has now to undergo the ordeal-no slight one in many cases-of an examination by the Civil Service Commission, while the bank clerk is under no apprehensions on that score. And yet, in the face of all this, we are to be told by Sir John This and Mr. That, M.P., that the civil serIt is vants are overpaid. 66 more than most ridiculous." It is, of course, a capital topic for a joke to the possessor of ten thousand a-year in a ring-fence, and a seat in parliament, this same fallacy. But ridicule is not-in spite of the dogma of the sceptical scoffing of philosophy"the test of truth." Take the case of a clerk in the Customs or Post-office; say his salary is £80, rising £6 per annum-that for this sum he is expected on all occasions to dress, live, and look like a gentleman; imagine him a married man-for, in spite of Malthusian theories, civil servants on small salaries will marry sometimes-imagine him, as the Civil Service Commission require, a welleducated person, attending regularly at his office from ten to four, performing duties which, if they require but mediocre ability, at least demand application and fidelity; and then, look at his coat, which, carefully preserved though it be, is growing threadbare-pity poor gentility under difficulties-think of the little house at home, where reside the poor official's wife, and possibly children; and then, call your cab, drive to your club, and over your '34 port, in a spirit of poetical economy, say the civil servant is overpaid. Then, and then only, will you be a consistent jackal of Red Tape.

But it has been said that the great advantage of the Civil Service over other professions is, that the widows of the officials are pensioned. This, however, is, in great part, with the exception of

the "Tritons" among official "minnows," a hollow delusion. It was said by Mr. Wilson, of the Treasury, that widows of civil servants are pensioned; it was said au contraire, by some fact. loving member, that these same pensions, for the most part, existed only in Mr. Wilson's generous brain, and the Treasury Secretary paused for a reply-and found none. That the widows of great functionaries receive pensions-that govern. ment liberality is too often recklessly bestowed on noble widows, who need it not, is not to be denied ; but that the Treasury, pitying the poor clerk in his life, pensions his widow after his death, is a fallacy, fit only to be classed with infantine delusions, one of which is on the material of the "moon." A reference to blue books will prove this.

That the work of the civil servant must become harder year by year in most departments (say the Customs, Post-office, Inland Revenue, &c.) is a self-evident proposition. In proportion as population and trade increase, must the civil servant's work increase. It will not be for a moment asserted, by any one who knows anything of the question, that the work of a clerk-in the Customs' for instance-can possibly have decreased since the days when work was done by deputy, and the younger sons of peers fattened upon snug sinecures. The revenue of H.M. Customs, in 1763, was under £2,000,000; in 1853 it rose to above twenty two millions and a half sterling. But while business is yearly increasing, any man can satisfy himself on this head by looking over the Pool" of the Thames to-day, and calling to mind the disparity existing between the tonnage of "lang syne"-now; and we are yet told by people who, having little knowledge, have consequently more prejudice and less charity, that the Customs' clerks and officers are overpaid. Facts are stubborn things," and in his favour the poor civil servant can bring forward some of the stubbornest, for the mental digestion of our men of the RobPeter-to-Pay-Paul-Society.

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Another crying evil of the present system is the lack of hope. The prospects of any clerk of good ability, but no particular interest, in the Civil Service, are many shades darker than those of his brethren employed by private parties. There is that other incubus-promotion by seniority, to crush his hopes-a poor £10, in some cases but £5, yearly increase of salary; and when he has worn out his health and energies in the service, a prospect of some £250 per annum looming in the future, which he may never reach; and, finally, a pitiful pension, such as a liberal nobleman bestows upon a superannuated gardener, to console his declining years; and this is all the civil servant can get, under the present system, for his "competent knowledge" of the English, Latin, Greek, or French languages, geography, English, Roman, and possibly, French or Grecian history (as a knowledge of these is required for admission into most of our public offices), and arithmetic, etc.;

an acquirement which pre-supposes a man of gentlemanly education, but obtains for him a poor per centage on the money expended by him on that education, in the shape of a stipend of some £70

£80 per annum, rising £5 or £10, as he may be lucky or luckless in his nomination to a good or a bad office. Such is the Civil Service of to-day!

But it will be here said that I am speaking of an evil without hinting at a cure. The remark is just in part. To procure a better class of men, who would, as more willing workers, do their work better, the salaries must be revised with a view to increasing some and decreasing others. Let the man who works be paid; let the drone who takes snuff, and dozes over his newspaper, in a welllined arm chair from ten to four, in a fashionable West-end office, discover that the public have other uses for their money than investing it in salaries for sinecurists. Let ability, wherever and however displayed, be selected for the performance of such duties as may be indicated by the bias of that ability; let the ability find a quid pro quo, and we shall hear less of red tape mismanagement, less of abortive attempts, and more of desirable conclusions. Let mere seniority, endowed with no better qualification, be no step to promotion. Let imbecility and nepotism sink together. Let the young gentleman who resides in Belgravia, and boasts of an acquaintance with Almack's, be assured that in future something more will be required of him than a noble pedigree, and a condescending attendance at his office daily, to ensure promotion.

Again, if economy be desirable, and doubtless, in many cases, it is imperative, let not the large salary of our lordly sinecurists escape revision. Let the authorities in Downing-street, ere they cut and carve at the "poor pay of a Somerset House lean annuitant," take counsel as to the necessity of the existence of other and far more lucrative, if less laborious, appointments; the advantage of which reverts solely to the holder, and in nowise to the nation, and the prime object of which, not to speak ill-naturedly, would appear to be-the doing nothing, and receiving much for it!

Our readers all recollect the trite saying of the witty Sydney Smith, touching the "round men" who had got into the "square holes," and the

square men" who had got into the "round holes" in life's game of cribbage. The application thereof in this place is obvious. Let the Civil Service be no longer disgraced by the "round men in the square holes." Let us no longer see a man who, possessing ability for composition, etc., is pitchforked into some arithmetical department, nolens volens, where that very ability is against him rather than otherwise, and of no service to his country. Let us no longer see the mere red tapeworm, who may, nevertheless, be in his proper capacity an excellent clerk, put into high place, merely because he has dreamed away half a century of dullness on his stool, while his subordinate and