liarities of this age, indeed, is the extraordinary cessation of controversy and absence of new doctrines within the Christian communion. Never, perhaps, since the Council of Jerusalem, has there been so marked an abeyance of serious theological dispute. Middle-aged and old men, who can remember the Tractarian controversy, and the Gorham controversy, when the country was filled with tumult about matters of faith, can appreciate the strange, great calm which now prevails. Whether true believers have any reason to rejoice in the change may be doubted. The differences within have been followed by far more serious hostilities from without, and it is the deadly war with the sceptic and the infidel which justly pre-occupies the earnest thoughts of Christian men. This last state, which is worse than the first, tends to make us forget how painful were the anxieties as to the threatened prevalence of "grave error," whenever serious controversies arose; what fiery pamphlets were published by deans, archdeacons, and even by bishops; what agitated letters appeared even in the secular newspapers; what meetings were convened, and what danger to Christian verity was apprehended if the faithful did not see to it. The world has rolled so far away from this state of things, that even those who witnessed it, retain but an imperfect recollection of the remote

scene. Who can easily recall the excitement consequent on the publication of so anodyne a work as Professor Jowett's edition of St. Paul's Epistles ? How difficult to remember the time when the illustrious Master of Balliol was a persecuted man, considered more than passing rich with forty pounds a year, for teaching Greek as it had not been taught by a Regius professor from time immemorial? But faith was still lively and vigilant, even in that recent past-a very pale reflection of its former brightness no doubt. To realize what it once was, and what mental distress it could cause, we must have recourse to reading; and, with such historical imagination as we can command, revive an extinct controversy; not one of the mightier disputes of the sixteenth century, the dust-cloud of which reached up to the heavens and obscured the stars; but a relatively minor one, and only an episode in that, the fate of Jacqueline Pascal.

Jacqueline, the younger sister of Blaise Pascal, was remarkable for talent and beauty even in her own family, in which beauty and talent were hereditary gifts. Like Pope, she lisped in numbers, and composed verses which were not contemptible before she had learned to read. Her grace of person and manner caused her to be invited to play in a comedy before Richelieu, and though

only nine years of age, she so charmed the Cardinal that he recalled her father, who had incurred his displeasure, from exile. We have letters of hers written in her twentieth year, in which she gives to her sister, Madame Périer, a lucid and intelligent account of a conference between her brother Blaise and Descartes, when they discussed the discovery of the barometer, and the phenomena of atmospheric pressure. But religion already occupied all her thoughts, and she resolved to become a nun of Port Royal, though, out of deference to her father's wish, she refrained from taking the veil until after his death. "She made all her preparations in my presence," says her sister, Madame Périer, "and fixed the fourth of January as the day for entering the convent. On the eve of that day she begged me to speak about it to my brother, to avoid taking him by surprise. . . . He was much touched, and retired very sad to his room without seeing my sister, who was in a small apartment where she was wont to pray. She did not leave it till my brother had gone, fearing that the sight of her might give him pain. I gave her the tender messages he had charged me with, after which we all went to bed. But I could not sleep. Although I approved heartily of her resolution, its magnitude so filled my mind that I lay awake all night. At seven the next morning, as I saw that

Jacqueline did not rise, I thought that she also had not slept, and I found her fast asleep. The noise I made awakened her, and she asked me the time. I told her, and inquired how she felt, and if she had slept well. She replied she was well and had had a good night. Then she arose, dressed herself, and went away; doing this, as all things, with a tranquillity and composure of soul which cannot be conceived. We took no farewell of each other from fear of breaking down, and I turned away from her path when I saw her ready to go out. In this way she left the world; it was the fourth of January, of the year 1652, she being twenty-six years and three months old.”

Sister Jacqueline, of Saint Euphemia Pascal, was for nine years a nun at Port Royal, and became subprioress and mistress of the Novices. In the latter character, the duty of teaching young children to read devolved upon her, and she introduced into the convent the new system of giving merely the phonetic value of the letters and not calling them by misleading names, which was the invention of her brother Blaise, and obtained afterwards great renown in the "Grammaire Générale" of Port Royal. But the pious Jansenist foundation was already doomed. The Jesuits had not yet avenged the Provincial Letters. Strong with the support of the pope and the king, they produced a formulary, the signature

of which was compulsory on all ecclesiastics. It referred to the eternal question of the Five Propositions, and declared that they were in the book Augustinus of Bishop Jansenius, and were contrary to the faith. Much subtlety was employed to find a means of signing it in a non-natural sense, and the chiefs of the Jansenist party, to escape destruction, visibly wavered. But Jacqueline, like her brother Blaise, was made of sterner stuff, and resisted all compromise with passionate zeal. At last the great authority of Arnauld and Nicole prevailed upon their followers to accept the bitter cup prepared for them by their enemies. Pascal swooned away when this decision was taken. Jacqueline yielded at last to the pressure of her superiors, and signed the formulary, but with such grief and anguish of soul that she predicted she would die of it; as indeed she did in less than six months.

The affliction of the just and the prosperity of the wicked has always been a serious difficulty to pious persons who combined reflection with devotion. "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them." * And the prophet *Job xxi. 7-9.