his quondam friend was thus familiarly locked in his own. It seemed like another coil of the serpent winding about him, which would at last consummate his ruin. But there appeared no help for it; he could not shake him off, and so the two walked on in company. The subject, of course, of their conversation was Richard's singular success in perpetrating the forgery. "I know," said George Hathaway, "Gilby is as green about it as he can be; and as for Mr. Belham, on whom you drew the check, he has such entire confidence in you, that he would cash another, if you took it him to-morrow."

"Don't talk of another. I have gone deep enough already. I am determined, henceforth, to get my bread honestly, however hard I have to work."

"Pooh, pooh! a man of spirit like you talking of earning your living. Who would take the trouble to earn a living, when he has a far easier and shorter road to it than that old hum-drum way. Walk on quicker, quicker (hurriedly continued George Hathaway); as long steps as you can take, without appearing to hasten. Did you not see those who just now passed us ?'

"No," said Richard, trembling, for the slightest fear unnerved him.

"Come on; I see they are following. There is old Gilby himself, as large as life. As he passed by, he took a searching glance at you, and now he has turned back. Remember the old trick."

For a minute, the two figures of Richard Singleton and George Hathaway disappeared behind a recess in the bridge, and immediately afterwards, two sailor looking men, with broad, flapping hats, covering almost their entire faces, walked slowly out.

"Did I not see," said Mr. Gilby to his friend, Mr. Belham, "two figures of gentlemen walking behind that recess in the bridge, and now they are no where visible?"

"Who are you galloping after," said Mr. Belham, who, up to this time, was profoundly ignorant of the bent of his friend's explorations.

"I should think I had good reason to gallop. I could swear that I saw my clerk, who ran away from me without saying a word, or leaving a note, walking arm-in-arm with a rascal who I turned out of the office six months ago."

"Don't clutch my arm like that, whatever is the matter," continued Mr. Gilby, as he felt that sinewy limb of his subject to as much pressure as if it was placed in a vice.

"Your clerk! your clerk ?"

Mr. Belham was a man of stronger emotion than Mr. Gilby, and was easily overcome by any startling intelligence. He could, therefore, do nothing except reiterate the name.

"Well, Belham, whatever is the matter, what can my clerk be to you. It was, I admit, a small inconvenience to me at first, but I soon filled up his place by some one who came at a lower salary. I was following him up now, for the sake of satisfying myself that it was really him I saw."

"I think you will say there is something the matter," responded Mr. Belham, "when I tell you that your clerk did not run off empty-handed; he took good care to line his pockets well first."

"Not from my till, that I am sure of."

"Not so quick, Mr. Gilby, Did Mr. Singleton ever have access to your cheque-book?"

"Cheque-book. Ah, yes! But, I am certain there could have been no fraud there. Every cheque is numbered."

"I trust, then, both for your sake and mine," replied Mr. Belham, "that it was a bona fide cheque, of £1,000, that I cashed the other day."

"You don't say £1,000; surely, the villain can't have made off with that sum.'

"All I can say is, that I cashed it; and, thinking

25

it was a large amount, made some inquiries about it, when he told me that it was for a large freight of goods, just arrived at Liverpool."

"A pretty fellow he is, indeed. I have had no goods at Liverpool for the last six months. He is a downright swindler; but he shall pay for it as sure as my name is Gilby."

"I feel certain that it was him I saw to-night; but as he has disappeared in such a mysterious manner, we had better postpone the search until the morning."

As the two merchants were making their way to the suburbs, neither of them, as it may be presumed, in a pleasing frame of mind, George Hathaway and Richard Singleton were hurrying towards the heart of the city.

Their transformation, so suddenly accomplished, had been the result of dexterous practice. They had employed it before with equally successful results.

The dress of both was so arranged that it allowed of a sudden change from their ordinary apparel to the slouched clothing of sailors.

The destination to which they were bending their steps was eminently characteristic of the altered condition of the age, with regard to the resorts of bad characters. Time was when crime skulked away and buried itself in some remote, obscure public-house, in a locality where few ventured except the initiated. Now crime seems no longer to shrink away into these remote corners. It plots, and plans, and manoeuvres in central halls, in our large thoroughfares, amidst dazzling lights, and showy company, and questionable music. In one of these so-called music halls kindred spirits were waiting the arrival of Hathaway. While the

company, on the appearance of the two friends, are noisely calling for more spirits to celebrate their arrival, let us take a glance round the establishment. It is a large, handsome edifice, brilliantly lighted with ornamental glass chandeliers, large mirrors face you on every side, reflecting the variegated lights, till there seem to be endless avenues of rich illumination. The gilding is of the most gorgeous description; the painting of the panels is wrought up to the highest pitch of art. Benches of luxurious softness, composed of rich velvet, are in front of every table. At one extremity of the hall is a high platform, on which performances are going on by no means over refined. Some comic songs, with gross allusions-some stump oratory, with the coarsest wit-are what draw down the greatest applause from the motley audience. If this is a rendezvous for bad characters-for those who are acknowledged criminals in the eyes of society-it forms, also, the meetingplace of those to whom society does not impute a stain.

It is eleven o'clock now, and paterfamilias has retired to his couch, and most probably entered on his first sleep; but see there his son, a young man, gaily dressed, of gentlemanly manners and appearance, chatting away familiarly amongst the lowest characters. "There is nothing disgraceful," he thinks, in being there. Do not very respectable people do the same? Next morning, when at the breakfast table, he appears to be a little heavy, and his eyes seem rather red, his tenderhearted parent fears that he has been suffering from the effect of over-study. Innocent paterfamilias, innocent guardians of youth, how long will you be blinded? Innocent, purblind society, how long will you go on tolerating, in the drawing-room those who leave it for the company of the music hall? When will you learn that music halls are the most consummate glossing of vice which the world has ever exhibited, and which the devil has ever devised?

(TO BE CONTINUED.) (The Right of Re-publication of this Tale is reserved.)

There is ever a something heroic and something tragic in the meanest life that can be manifested in time. Remember that thoughts are the guests of your soul; beware, therefore, what manner of these friends you admit into the sanctuary of your consciousness.

26

Sir Sintram;

OR, THE CONFLICT WITH TEMPTATION.

BY REV. G. R. WYNNE, Dublin.

SIR SINTRAM was the noblest knight
Of all the northern land;
Untarnished shone his armour bright,
Unstained he wore his plume of white,
And sheathed a guiltless brand.
His castle gates stood open wide,
To noble knight and squire ;
It was his glory and his pride
To see his comrades by his side,
Around the glowing fire.

Full many a ballad sung they there,
The vassals and their lord;
The clanging harp it banished care
When minstrel sung of lady fair,

And cheers went round the board.
Nor less they loved the softer lute,
By fairer fingers strung,

And every louder sound was mute
When Sintram breathed upon the flute,

And Lady Constance sung.

In Winter's sterner reign of white,
Amid the freezing air,

The vassals and their stalwart knight

Would lead the chase with weapons bright,
Against the howling bear.

And when the joyous Summer lent
His beams to cheer the world,
The live-long happy day was spent
In field, or feast, or tournament,
Beneath the flag unfurled.

Sir Sintram was the first of all
In field, or feast, or chase;
And ready, too, at honour's call,
To take the armour from the wall,
And see the foeman's face.
And yet a moody heart had he,

This brave and stalwart knight;
Beneath that breast of chivalry
A storm raged, like the raging sea,
When winter beats it white.
Duly, as months had rolled away,
And Christmas time drew near,
Full fearful sights he saw by day;
And nightly dreams, with horrid sway,
Tortured his soul with fear.

Two forms appeared, by day, by night,
To scare his maddened brain;
No spells availed to put to flight
The terrors of the awful sight,
That came, and came again:

A grey-haired pilgrim, with his beads,
That groped among the stones,

And gathered roots, and leaves, and seeds,
And wore upon his pilgrim weeds
A mail of rattling bones.

The other was of evil mien,

Two curled horns he bore;

He grinned a wild and fiendish grin ;
And fiery flashes gleamed between
The garments that he wore.
These visitants, by day and night,
Assaulted Sintram's ears

With words of horror and affright,
And bowed his noble soul with might,

And saddened all his years.

Dread thoughts, and fresh from burning hell,
The fiend made Sintram think;

"The lovely Lady Gabrielle"-
Ah, no, my page shall never tell,

What made his brave heart sink.

Yet so it seemed, the foulest thought
Was born of his own breast;

So subtilly the tempter wrought;
So skilfully his forces brought
To mar his heart's deep rest.

"Slay-slay her lord, and to thine arms

Clasp thou the lady fair!"
And then he dwelt upon her charms;
And Sintram shuddered with alarms,
To read such feelings there.
Again, again, temptation's might
Came like the rising blast,
That bows the forest in the night,
And then dies off to zephyr light,
Across the woodland vast.

"Oh, spare me, fiend! avaunt! away
When wilt thou leave my side?
And thou, avaunt! thou pilgrim grey!
Back to your haunts again, I pray !"

The hapless warrior cried.

"Come, take thy easy prey. She waits,
And longs alone for thee;
There stands she at the castle gates,
The fairest among all her mates,
In that high majesty."

Then, innocent, the lady past;
The lady passed hard by-

Glowed like a coal before the blast
Poor Sintram's raging heart-at last
He uttered one wild cry.

66

Avaunt,-away, foul fiend, I pray!
Back-back whence thou art come!"
And Sintram sprang, away-away,
And crossed the hills the live-long day,
Far from his castle home.

At Marienfels a convent stood,

Where he would fain have found
A refuge with the abbots good,
And sought to calm his raging blood
On consecrated ground.

But Fate, or Heaven, refused to give
Such easy cure for care:
"Live as all other knights must live,
And slay thy foes ere we receive
Thy soul amongst us here.
"But take this consecrated sword,
A cross upon the hilt;

And take the blessing of the Lord,
And meet, all strengthened by his word,
The prompter of thy guilt."

And Sintram rode, equipped with steel,
From holy armoury;

A bright spur clanging at his heel;

A bright hope, that his breast could feel"I conquer, or I die!"

Across the plain alone he rode,
On consecrated ground;
The noble charger proudly strode,
And hope in Sintram's bosom glowed
At every distant sound.

He reached a valley dark and steep
Where high rocks mantling rose;
The valley of the land of sleep,
Damp as an ancient dungeon keep,
Where victors bind their foes.
Dark was the night, and noxious air
Stifled his throbbing breast;
Foul lizards swarming every where,
And fatal mushrooms, here and there,
The hateful vale infest.

Suddenly in the path there stood

A sorry beast before;
And on the hack a pilgrim rode,
He wore a cowl and tattered hood
And little else he wore.

A bell hung at his horse's mane,
So much could Sintram tell;
The rider shook his bridle chain,
And then the bell rung out again—
It was a passing bell!

"Help!" cried the pilgrim-"In this vale Foul beasts and birds abound;

Let me ride near, thou knight in mail,
Thy sword shall for us both avail

On this enchanted ground."

"Ride by my side, thou grey one, ride,”

Sir Sintram said, and drew

The vizor down, his face to hide;
He felt his good sword by his side,
And spurred his charger true.
Few words spake he, the aged one,
And Sintram said no more:
And so in silence they rode on,
The faint stars on the corslet shone,
And on the helm he wore.
Suddenly neighed the charger proud,
And shied and bounded on;
And Sintram's heart it beat aloud;
The pilgrim's hood, it was a shroud,
He was a skeleton!

He held an hour-glass in his hand,

His bones they shook and shivered; Low in the hour-glass stood the sand, And Sintram drew his glittering brand, Although his strong arm quivered.

"And yield thee, Knight, my name is Death!" Yield thee at once to me!"

And Sintram felt his chilly breath
Surround him like an icy wreath

That hangs upon a tree.

Another horror! By his side

A yet more fearful form;

Half hog, half horse, the knight descried,
And shrunk back well nigh terrified,

To feel his breathing warm.

"Stay, Death!" the fiend he muttered low,
"This brave knight is not thine;
Knight! in a moment thou may'st go,
And clasp the heart that loves thee so,
And see that face divine."

He muttered it from burning hell
As he had done before;

"Think of the lady Gabrielle,
Obey my voice, and thou shalt dwell
Close to her side once more."

Then courage came, and heaven-sent might
To fill Sir Sintram's breast;

He grasped the sword that glittered bright,
But yet he raised it not to smite
The base fiend on his crest.

The cross upon the jewelled sword
He held aloft and cried-
"Worship or fly! By Christ the Lord
I bid thee speak no further word.
Fiend, are thou satisfied?"
Loud as the thunder overhead,
Loud as the bursting shell,
One fearful name the foul one said,
And like the lightning's flash he fled-
He fled, the Prince of Hell!

"And now I yield me unto thee,

O Death!" exclaimed the knight;
"What more is life, poor life to me-
One storm of dark perplexity,
Without a gleam of light?"

But, Light more strange than all; the form
Of that dark skeleton,

Was clothed again with flesh, and warm,
And seemed no more to threaten harm,
As slowly they moved on.

"O knight! I claim thee now no more;
Live on, and fight for truth,
When all thy course of life is o'er
I'll place thee on the heavenly shore
In a perpetual youth."
"Yes, I will bear thee in my mind,
O Death," the knight replied;
"God give me grace to use the sword,
In the dear name of Christ the Lord,
Who standeth by my side."

"Knight, thou shalt conquer in that name
Temptation's fiercest dart;

Thou shalt not do the deed of shame,
And

no more a place shall claim

In thy long troubled heart!"

27

Ꮪ Ꭲ Ꭺ Ꭱ .

Oswald's arrival in Edinburgh was his entrance on an entirely new phase of life. In everything there was an almost total contrast to the things he had been accustomed to in the small provincial town of the southwest of Scotland. Oswald saw life for the first time in its exalted form, and found himself in a city possessing, probably, a greater proportion of learned and distinguished men than in any other of modern times. The churches, too, both in number and size and architectural variety, no little developed the wondering faculties of Oswald. But he was particularly struck with the gross exhibitions of open iniquity and unblushing vice. The High-street and Cannon-gate of an evening were filled with crowds of dissipated people, reeling-men, and dirty, half-drunken women. Dram shops were crowded with these motley groups of profligate victims, and haggard poverty and physical degradation faced him at every turn.

For days Oswald seemed as one who dreamed, and he felt inwardly shocked at the manifestations of evil, unknown to him in his native home. He became the lodger in a family known to his father, the head of which was of the same religious persuasion, and who was to exercise a moral superintendance over the young stranger. Robson, his worthy host, had been a resident in Edinburgh for upwards of forty years, and had been a decided Church member for three-fourths of that time. He was an honest, industrious man, generally respected by his neighbours, and well to do in the world. His own family were grown up and settled in life, so that now his wife Jean and he, having an extra spare room or two, had agreed to receive two or three young men who might come to Edinburgh to procure their collegiate education.

A day or two after Oswald's occupation of his new abode, he was joined by a young man from one of the large towns of the West, who also was entering on the first year of his collegiate studies. Barton was a year or two older than Oswald, and had seen very much more of the world, having often spent weeks together with his uncle in Glasgow.

But

Robson, the head of the establishment, had family worship in the evening of the day, and the attendance of the students were invariably expected. And general good behaviour and decent and gentlemanlike conduct were terms carefully stipulated for, any breach of which, if unrepented of and unreformed, was to be made known to the sires of their hopeful sons. Robson expected that by his wisdom, good example, and Christian exterior, he would have no difficulty in maintaining family discipline and order. He had been highly favoured in his own sons and daughters, who had been reverential, kind, and obedient children. He, too, while avoiding all foolish indulgencies, had a due appreciation of youthful vivacity, and could make reasonable allowances for the inexperience of early life. He was also fond of young people, and was delighted to join in their country excursions and open-air sports. It took two or three weeks for Oswald to get fairly into harness, and then his various studies were sufficient to keep a large ainount of his time fully occupied. In the late evening, when preparations for next day were finished, and family worship over, he and Barton would spend an hour discussing the events of the day, or criticising the lectures they had attended. In their private room they had a cupboard for the extra things with which they might wish to supplement the provisions

of the house. A bottle of whiskey for the nightly manufacture of toddy, and a drawer or two full of presents that often came from their distant homes in token of maternal remembrance, gave great attractiveness to their nightly communings.

Barton one evening took Oswald with him to a sort of convivial gathering of students, who met weekly in the back parlour of a public-house, and here several of the company drank deeply of the stimulating potion. Oswald remarked that the very young men who thus went at any rate a good way towards excess, were those he had recognised in the college-ball as being noblehearted fellows full of a genial and unselfish spirit. It would be a tragical and extended parenthesis in our story if we were to relate the final destiny of several of these young men. We may say of one that he became a downright drunkard, left college, and tried to live in his own native village by teaching a few poor boys at threepence a week. We once saw him after he had essayed to reform, and there he was, clad in rusty clothes, dirty, unshaven, dwelling in a small room, within sight of the Kirk, where his reverned parent had been minister for upwards of fifty years. Another

of these had to flee from the city on account of the heavy debts he had incurred, and the utter inability of his friends to pay them. A third lost all self-respect, and became so utterly vicious that to obtain drink he pilfered books from one of the old book-stores, and was detected after long suspicion with two or three volumes in his pocket. The bookseller, a kind-hearted man, on his engaging never to enter his establishment again, forbore to prosecute him, but the attempted theft became noised abroad, and his whereabouts was never known from that day. Oswald and Barton both confessed that it would not add much to their intellectual or moral improvement to be often found joining this party, but Barton added that it was necessary that they should see the world in order to fit them for a better discharge of the duties of the office they expected ultimately to fill.

Their behaviour at family worship on the night in question was so peculiar, that their worthy host was sorely puzzled to guess the cause, but he took care to caution them against making over free with the bottle, or they might become poor fools instead of wise, learned men. The following day confusion and redness of eyes clearly told the true story of their sin and folly. Next night Oswald told Barton that he had been more wretched that day than during any one of his previous existence, and that he felt self-degraded and humbled before God. In the morning when they met at breakfast, Barton was thus addressed by Mr. Robson:"I say, young man, your return last night, or rather this morning, is a violation of the rules of my family, and I will neither leave my doors open to midnight, nor allow the servant-girl to stay up to such an untimely hour for any one living. You know well that I can take a glass of good Glenlivet with anybody, but these late hoursand your stumbling across the threshold of my door when all decent people should be asleep in their bed I cannot tolerate." Barton, who at first intimated that he was come to sufficient years to take care of himself, and that he did not require either a nurse or a spy over him, yielded as he saw that his host was not to be bullied by his bold assumptions, and so he said if he would but be lenient this once he would avoid giving offence in future. To this the good old man cheerfully consented, and it was agreed that this peacemaking should be duly celebrated in the evening by a good supper and an extra glass of toddy taken in a quiet way in their own parlour. And Jean, good wife, said nothing on her part should be wanting to make them all really cozy. This was Saturday evening, and as was the wont and custom of Robson, he generally had a lengthened service on that occasion, as a preparation for the holy duties of the Sabbath. On this night, however, so many healths had to be drank, and so many absent

friends had to be remembered, that before family worship was thought of, the spirituous had gained the ascendancy, and Jean wisely suggested that, as her better half was so overdone with the excitement, they had better have an extra chapter at the Sabbath morning prayers; and thus bewildered, confused, and extremely whiskyalised, they separated for the night.

The next morning, in the kirk where they all worshipped, the minister was expounding that part of the Romans where the Apostle speaks of Christians as being of the day, and not of the night, and pressing the necessity of walking circumspectly, not as fools, redeeming the time. They all agreed that the sermon was of no ordinary talent, but their hearts had not been pierced, nor a sense of sin produced by it. About the end of their first session a terrible calamity occurred at Macduff's drinking establishment over the way. At midnight the whole street was roused, and shrieks heard, and "Murder, murder," loudly called. By the time the police arrived, a tradesman, who lived in another part of the city, was found outside the house, lying in a pool of blood. A medical man was soon in attendance, and it was discovered that in addition to a deep stab in the side, he had been violently choked by his neck-cloth or some other bandage that had tightened about his throat. Those who first arrived at the spot declared that Macduff was seen with his foot on the man's body, and violently twisting something he held in his hand, while a notorious woman of the street flew down a close and escaped. When the police got admission into the house there were stains of blood on Macduff's shirt sleeve and on his vest, and he was in a violent state of excitement and agitation. Of course, the case under-went long and careful legal investigation. No one could positively swear to the woman, and Macduff said that he heard a scuffle outside of his door, and ran out, and did all in his power to rescue the murdered man. However defective the necessary evidence to carry the crime home to him, every one said that Macduff, if not the chief criminal, was an essential accessory in the horrid affair. The murdered tradesman left a melancholy widow and several children uprovided for, and his own friends whispered that his dissipated conduct, and obvious drunkenness on this occasion, had made him an easy prey to those who, no doubt, were first treated by him, and who then conspired to rob, and finding unexpected resistance, finished the scene and his existence together. Many decent people of the more regulated drinking class never entered Macduff's house after that night, and it was evident that his career from that period became more reckless, downward, and hopeless.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

To ads and asses.

BY THE REV. HENRY OSBORNE, M.A.

I AM not now speaking to men and women grown up, in business, married, settled in life. Neither am I speaking to children at school, though I may do so again. I speak now to you, lads and lasses. Lads finished school and going out apprentices; lasses, thinking what they shall do and be in this life. I remember going once, on a visit to an intelligent, clever man, who had a remarkably nice lad as his son. It was late when I arrived on a summer evening, and the lonely house lifted its pointed gables, rosy with sunset, out of a lush mass of lilacs and laburnums. Everything was charming in the lingering glow of the summer evening, and the beds of flowers nestling among the shrubbery. But one thing was not charming; quite the opposite of charming, and spoiled all. The gentleman of the house was babbling at a prodigious rate, talking noisy nonsense, drivelling like an idiot. He was in his cups. The wife, long accustomed to it, tried to smile. But, knowing the stranger-guest

was not accustomed to it, and came from a sober household, she flushed and blushed with painful shame. The son parried the absurd and disgraceful talk of his father gently and kindly. Then, turning to the visitor, asked him to walk in the garden. We two went out. The lad's big black eyes were heavy with sorrow, and his voice touchingly sad and solemn, as he said, "I saw you were surprised at father, and felt uncomfortable. You must not mind him-he will be different to-morrow." He pressed his hands nervously together, his face red with honest shame. We talked and walked there till all the glow was out of the sky, but an uneasy sadness, an irksome sense of misery, mixed with all, and marred our enjoyment. What right had that man to cover his wife with shame? What right had he to disgrace his noble young son before strangers? What right to make the house so uncomfortable that the garden, or anywhere, would have been far preferable to listening his silly and idiotic prate? I say he had no right, but was doing us all an unspeakable wrong. Look at the selfishness of the thing. For a little gratification of his appetite, for an evening's tipple, he must make his family miserable. Look at the meanness of it. Degrading himself and besotting himself before everybody. Look at the wickedness of it. His tongue was given to speak useful words, ministering grace to the hearers; his time was given to raise his family and benefit society. He was a very intelligent man, yet he talked and acted as a fool. He was a clever man. What was he doing with his cleverness? He had a precious soul, but it was drowned in the drink, like the pearl which Cleopatra dissolved in her goblet. Well, that lad grew up in steady habits. He seemed to have got a righteous indignation at the drink. He was disgusted at it, and, though his father's habits put them out of house and home, he sought, and found a situation for himself, and began to rise. He rose to a position of respect and comfort, as a bank clerk, or cashier, I forget which, and no doubt will one day be a bank manager, with a good salary and a comfortable home. If he ever sees this periodical, he may ! remember the evening we spent in his wretched father's garden. Now, lads and lasses, let us hate these tippling habits, either in public houses or in private houses, and take the opposite course altogether.

In a certain small town in the County Down, lived some years ago, a gentleman of good means and respectability. Educated, and clever, he had the means of commanding public respect, and so it is that the curtain, on its first rising, discovers him to us. The curtain falls. At the end of many years it rises again and discloses, a mean, and ragged wretch, his slippered feet standing in the slush of the winter street, his body bent with early age, and shivering with cold, his rheumy eyes twinkling with an evil expression, and his skinny palm held out for pence. Is this the same man? Yes, the same. In the town where he once lived in comfort? The very town itself. During those years covered by the curtain, drink had dragged him down stairs, in some such order as this. First, promiscuous hospitality. Then, conviviality. Then, stimulants in the morning; bumpers and toasts after dinner; deep, and long potations at night. Then debt-then the sheriff and the auctioneer. Then, loss of self-respect-then, self-abandonment-then, the giant-power of evil habit-then, drink, drink, drink— then-what you saw. Ah, my young friends, don't begin. The first step of this damnable stair is the step that leads down to the rest. Don't begin.

A young apprentice, in Scotland, who was learning the mason business, was fond of reading in the evenings, as many of you are in Ulster. One evening, however, the other lads asked him to join them in a lark, and they all went to a whisky shop. talked the usual nonsense, and thought themselves clever fellows; and when all was over, this young lad got home, and tried his books, as before. But, alas,

They

33

He tells his own

he could not understand a word. story. He says he was dreadfully ashamed that the fine mind God had given him was clouded and muddled; and so he there and then resolved he would keep out of such company and such places evermore. And he did so, and rose to be great, and good, and useful, and honoured. Why should not you do the

same?

One evening, in an English village, a lad, such as you, came out of a dram-shop, and made to go home. He was not quite intoxicated, but when the fresh cold air blew about him, he felt very giddy, and so, stumbling down some kind of steep place, he fell forwards, and fell asleep as he lay. After sleeping some time, he woke with the sense of something very cold. His hand was lying on an iron rail. He roused himself, and found he was spread right on the railway track, and in a few minutes more, the train would have crushed him to jelly, and sent his unshriven soul to the judgment-seat. He was cured that night of tippling, and never afterwards indulged that sin.

Now, if there be one thing more awful than a drunken man, it is-what think ye? It is, a drunken woman. O, lasses! Ye expect to be wives and mothers, and to have houses of your own. Let me kindly tell you the best thing to begin housekeeping with. It is A STRICT HABIT OF TEMPERANCE. It will save the goodman from many a temptation. It will make home tidy, and pleasant, and cheerful. It will save many an odd shilling, and sixpence, which can go to the PostOffice Savings' Bank; and then, when the baby comes, there will be comforts ready for it, and farther on, schooling for it, too. And, besides all this, think how sweet to have the smile of God upon your behaviour; and how much more likely you are to make a good wife and a good Christian, to live useful, to die peaceful, and be happy for evermore.

OUR second chapter records the turning point of Hugh's life. In the little family council, the question of the boy's future was gravely discussed by the long-headed uncles, to whom we have referred. What shall we make of him? was their absorbing thought. Nothing short of a clergyman, doctor, or lawyer, surely. One or other of these they determined he should be; but the lad had already decided. In his rambles amongst the rocks, he had calmly cogitated his prospects, and had cast a penetrating eye into the future. Balancing argument with argument, he came to the conclusion that a mason, aye, a hard-working mason was his present destiny. His decision startled his uncles, who were ready to sacrifice every comfort to place their protegé at college. To all their pleadings his reply rang out clear as the sound of his hammer on the flinty stone. "I have neither wish, nor fitness, for a lawyer or a doctor; and to be a minister, without a special call, I cannot and will not be." And thus it was settled. youth, clad in homely moleskin, cheerfully took up chisel and hammer, and began his toilsome career. At a later period of his life, and when no longer a dweller in dream-land-for he, too, had in his early years been a dreamer-we hear him, in his own beantiful language, burst forth, in praise of labour-"Noble, upright, self-relying toil! who that knows thy solid worth and value would be ashamed of thy hard hands, and thy soiled vestments, and thy obscure task,-thy humble cottage, and hard couch, and homely fare! Save for thee and thy lessons, men in society, would everywhere sink into a sad compound of the fiend and the wild beast; and this fallen world would be as certainly a moral as a natural wilderness." Geology, at this

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