The fifteen years which followed Colet's death were sufficient to prove that the strength of the humanist movement. had passed as an inspiration, but not as a name, to other forces, and had suffered transmutation into a thousand forms. The rugged Calvinistic and Lutheran doctrines were the weapons for the hour; but the gentler, wiser, more universal and sympathetic influences of the humanists lived on in silence, awaiting the growth of modern thought. They were years of doubt, struggle, and confusion. Münzer's second revolt, in Thuringia, was quenched in blood at Frankenhausen; Gustavus Vasa at the Diet of Westeräs introduced the Lutheran faith into Sweden, as the Diet of Odensee gave it to Denmark; Zwingli, of Zürich, held his famous dispute with Vicar-General Faber; Switzerland, as at a later period the Netherlands, divided into Catholic and Protestant; the Calixtines and Bohemian Brethren gave aid to Luther; rival princes and persecutions tore Hungary; the fierce contest between the Augsburg and the Helvetic Confessions waxed hot even in Iceland, where the haughty Bishop Arensen was executed by the reformers; new troops of flagellants, beguines, and nameless enthusiasts marched through Italy, and even Spain; in Lucca, Ferrara, Modena, Venice, and Naples, such men as the saintly Capuchin Ocheno, Peter Martyr, the noble Contarini, and the learned Vermigli preached the new doctrines; even Seville and Valladolid became honeycombed with heresy and reform; Loyola's iron Brotherhood, and Cardinal Caraffa's Inquisition, rolled back the assault, and began to recover disputed territory; the statesmanship of Charles V. was unconsciously preparing the way for Alva, St. Bartholomew, and the Thirty Years' War.

England, meanwhile, was not idle. Tyndale's translation of the New Testament was printed at Antwerp in 1526, and the Tyndale-Coverdale Bible, in 1535, at Hamburg. The convocation of Oxford theologians, long resisting and protesting, had

divorce from Queen Katharine, and in 1534 another Oxford convocation declared in favor of the separation from Rome. Sir Thomas More perished on the scaffold in 1535. The famous parliament of 1529-36 and the royal commissioners accomplished the dissolution of the monasteries, and the great reforms in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, carrying out in great measure the views urged by Colet and the humanists of forty years before. Erasmus died at Basle, still toiling with the pen that had wrought so much and so well. The Catholic reaction, known as the "Pilgrimage of Grace Rebellion," broke out in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and was as promptly put down. Beginning in personal motives, the reforms and changes the king had set in motion were greater than any one guessed. The last strongholds had been taken from sullen ecclesiastical resistance. There were no more pilgrims in devout procession to such shrines as "Our Lady of Walsingham" and Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, whose gorgeous decorations had been swept into royal treasuries. The large conception of a national church did not destroy the growth of a large thought-that of national tolerance of all faiths alike. step of progress, each crystallization of doctrine, seems more or less connected with Oxford thought and theology. That leadership the forerunners of the reformation had given Oxford was never quite lost. The gentle, pure, and beautiful teachings of the English humanists, driven from statesmanship, glowed in the lives of many of the leaders of the new Anglican church, lived as an inspiration in the eloquence of fervent preachers among the dissenters, helped to awaken sleeping giants of genius, fostered unceasingly a juster appreciation of free thought and fine scholarship, aided to give England better schools and more earnest teachers. The whole movement, called the "Oxford Reform of 1498," deserves critical and appreciative study. It is, perhaps, the most characteristic as it is the most important movement Oxford influence has fostered; and, marking as it does the revival of classic learning, the destruction of

Each

SHE sat in the open door, her folded hands resting idly in her lap, her eyes fixed absently on the distant mountains. It was the kitchen door, and it led directly out on the wide, desolate plain. No garden surrounded the little house; no tree was there to throw its lengthened shadow in the evening's sun. But the purple lights and crimson tints on the mountain's side filled the heart of the lonely woman with pure delight. These mountains are so beautiful, more par-. ticularly to those who see them first in spring-time, and when their own hearts are rich in hope and happiness. To such they will always be fair, even when the summer's sun has scorched the verdure that clothed them with beauty, and hope has died in the slow-beating heart.

The silent woman in the doorway turned her eyes at last from the deepening shadows, and bent her head over her clasped hands. There was no use denying the fact that they ached-ached with hard, unaccustomed. work; and when she raised her face again, a harsh look had crept into it, for in those few moments she had once more lived through the last months of her young existence. Not that any dread tragedy had suddenly laid waste her young life, or a great disappointment had crushed her heart at one fell blow. Everything had come in so natural a manner; and perhaps, she thought, it was the doom of all women to find less of happiness in married life than they had anticipated; though months ago when she had first seen John Marston in the fire-lit parlors of her uncle's house, he had seemed to her the perfection of all that was handsome, noble, and desirable in man. He was seated among a number of older men, who were attentively listening to stories about California.

"And how large might your ranch be, Mr. Marston?" one of them had asked him.

"I have two hundred acres in wheat," was the reply.

"Do you keep much stock?" was further asked.

"No; it is not a stock-ranch. Four horses can readily do the plowing, and I do not want to choke up the place with barns and stables."

The young girl had listened in surprise.

"Why, Mr. Marston, you talk as though you allowed yourself hardly room enough for a dwelling-house," she said.

"Indeed, there is only a very small house on it, built of wood, as most houses in the country are, in California."

"Ah! I see," she laughed-"a little vineclad hut'; true-love-in-a-cottage style."

"Well"-he hesitated a moment, stroking his flowing beard, then continued boldly, fixing his gray eyes full on the girl's sparkling face-“the vines are not grown yet, but can soon be planted."

Those present' considered this the conventional Californian style of asking for a lady's hand in marriage: he obtained it, at least; and they were married in less than three months from that date. Then came their journey to California and through California, till their own home was reached. In May California wears her bridal robes, and Selma's soul was filled with joy as they passed through towns where every house was surrounded by its own choicely planted grounds; and villas and country seats literally hidden in masses of gleaming flowers and graceful foliage, while the strawberries in the fields vied in brilliancy of color and abundance with the cherries on the trees. Then came their own more distant home.

It was true, there was no vine yet to cover the naked little house; there was no garden, no orchard to be seen. But the wild flowers grew close to the kitchen door, and when Selma crossed the threshold the little blue fairy-cups seemed to look up into

her face, pleading and consoling at once. In the first half-hour, she had filled every glass and tumbler in the house with bunches of the many-hued, fragrant wild flowers, and when she complained to John:

keeping a chicken-ranch; you know that I raise wheat."

She studied a moment.

"Very well, but we have strawberries, I suppose. I can do wonderful things with

"Strawberries!" there was contempt in the

"O,

She gave a little scream of delight. -quick, quick! How shall I get there?" she asked, in sudden surprise. This was certainly their best room; and all at once she saw that there was no door except the one that led into the kitchen.

"Go through the kitchen, and then around the house." It was the most natural advice in the world, but she followed it with lowered head. Her eyes were bent toward the ground, and she saw the tender wheat-shafts crushed beneath her feet; but she did not see how rich of promise the broad acres lay before her, the deep orange of the California poppy flaming out from the tender green.

The wheat grew close up to the edge of the water, and when its glitter flashed into her eyes, and compelled her to raise them, she found that John had not been gallant enough to follow her; and she plucked the flowers as far as she could reach them, till her feet were wet through: then she turned slowly toward the house.

"What good will those foolish things do you?" he asked, looking up from his trunk, in which he was hunting for his meerschaum pipe, the only article of luxury he had brought out with him from the "the States." "Your shoes are quite wet, and to-morrow you will have a bad cold."

She bit her lips, and her head drooped a moment; but shaking back her curls quickly, she said, laughing:

"That's true. You Californians are practical people—and here comes the man with his horses, so I'll get supper now, and you shall see that I can do something useful, too. Will you show me the hen-house? I shall want some eggs for cooking."

on such stuff? Mr. Smith has a strawberry ranch about four miles from here; I will speak to him about a supply to-morrow."

"But, John," she persisted, "have you not always told me that California is the land of flowers and fruit? and is our ranch alone so bare of everything that is generally found on a farm?"

John was spared the answer by the man's coming to the door to call him out; and Selma looked around disconsolately a moment in the little house about which the vines were not yet growing.

At night, when they sat silently together, Selma asked suddenly: "Do you know what I miss? The barking of a dog. It gives one such a pleasant feeling of safety, out in the country, where everything is so still at night. Don't you remember old Tiger, on Uncle James's farm? When he struck up his deep bark it always seemed to me he was saying, 'Take your comfort in your cozy room, good folks, I am here to see that no danger comes near you. And we have none, you say? I shall miss a dog very much."

"There are many things you will miss here," said matter-of-fact John, yawning; "but what should I do with a dog? When the wheat is cut there will be sheep driven onto the stubble, and then the dog would either worry the sheep or fight with the herder's dogs."