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ROUGH WATERS.

After driving nearly an hour up one back street and down another, through places that made her almost doubt was this London; such wretched houses! such ragged women and children! such streets! how could any one live here! How she pitied the palefaced creatures that stood with sickly children at the doors, to breathe, as they thought and hoped, the air of heaven, but which was little better than azotic gas.

Near the corner of one of these streets, the cab drew suddenly up. She looked out and saw a poor boy with an arm in a sling, and a face that told of suffering, sitting outside the door on a low stool. Even from the hasty view she got of him, her heart was touched. What a brotherhood there is in suffering! What an electric current is established between hearts that have equally endured. She looked out, wondering why the cab stopped at such a place, perhaps there was some obstacle in the way.

"Here we are; No. 5, Elephant Row," and the cabman put his hand on her trunk, and, whipping it out, placed it on one end in the middle of the street. Had he driven to one of the squares, or to any respectable street, he would have touched his hat, and have spoken in a different tone; but poverty never commands the respect of cabmen. Still I believe that had she put up the thick dark veil she wore, shrouding her face, even the cabman would have shown the truth of the Chinese maxim, "Sorrow on a fair face is the mother of respect."

The fare was paid, the cab drove off, she stood by the trunk and looked towards No. 5; could she have mistaken the number-"Oh, dear, darling sister, have you come!" and an arm was about her neck. She looked; good heavens! could this be her brother Henry. And thus brother and sister met, who had a happy home six months ago.

"Henry, my own, poor, dear Henry, have you been ill? Mamma never told me."

"I was hurt the night of the fire; I am now nearly quite well; but oh! I am so glad you came, Amy is dy-," he checked himself, "so very ill."

Brother and sister carried in the trunk between them; it was not difficult to do so; else with a wasted body and one hand poor Henry could not have done it. Adelaide was going up the creaking stairs, groping her way, though it was broad day-light; a door was opened on the side of the lobby, which, while it enabled her to see, showed also the utter desolation of all around. The walls were so black that, however thankful a person might be to their shadow for

"Sometime falling there,"

they would have very little chance of seeing it. She stood a moment at the open door like one who awakens from some terrible nightmare. Could this be her mother, who, with a face as pale as ever human eye beheld, sat by the curtainless and squallid bed of a young girl who had more of heaven than earth in her look. How quick are the senses of those on the brink of eternity! as if already there was an unseen communication between them and the spirit-realm.

"Mother, hush, I know the step; there, there's our darling Adelaide. Oh! I knew she would come." The mother scarcely raised her head, for often in delirium had Amy called upon her absent brother and sister; but this was no fevered dream; the sisters were locked in each other's arms, and with "heart to heart" forgot the pain of a long separation in that one fond embrace. Poor Adelaide turned towards her mother; she had fainted, and never did a faint look so like death.

"Oh! Amy darling, what will I do; our mother, our darling mother, is dying," and she flung her arms wildly around her.

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"Adelaide, get some water and bathe her temples, and wet her lips with it; dear mamma often has a fainting fit." It was wonderful with what steadiness Amy said this, with all the precision of an old person. Sickness invariably produces that steadiness of thought and action.

Adelaide did as her sister directed, and the poor mother opened her eyes.

In the midst of these scenes Mrs. Banett, who lived in the next rooms, came up stairs and, putting down a basket said, "I could get but two shillings on it, mam, and the baker kept the fivepence you owed him, and I got tea and sugar for the rest. I'll boil the kettle and you can have breakfast in a few minutes." It had come to this. They had pawned almost everything. It was now one o'clock and they had no breakfast. It is a terrible thing to stand face to face with poverty-to see no ray of light amidst the gathered gloom-to yield up hope, and lie prostrate in the arms of grim despair-to know that you might as well bring life into the stony eyes of the sphinx, as try a passage through the gloom of poverty. Talk of poverty-learn it in the case of Otway, who died gnawing a bone; see it in Chatterton, the noble gifted child of song, driving him to face the unseen world; see it in the hundreds from out whose hearts it crushes every hope, and then you may begin to know its effects upon the once happy home of the Singletons.

Adelaide, for the first time, opened the purse Mrs. Letstieg gave her, and placed the five notes in the hands of her mother; yet they brought no smile upon that face. There is a depth of sorrow which shuts out joy. No wonder the long-imprisoned captive, who had in weary years of captivity outlived all his friends, preferred the dungeon to liberty, and hearing of his release without a smile, sat still within the cell which soon became his grave.

Adelaide told the history of the five pounds, and when it was ended, Amy said, "Let us kneel down and thank our Heavenly Father, and then let us pray for-What is the name Adelaide ?-Mrs. Letstieg."

"Mrs. Letstieg, I'll never forget that name, it will be ever upon my lips; I'll mingle it with the song of angels;" and after the momentary excitement, she lay back upon the pillow as if she were soon to join that angel choir, of which she often spoke.

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AN INSIDE PASSENGER.

ON sped the train to Plymouth. The moment it arrived there Richard Singleton drove to the principal hotel, and made enquiries about the American or Australian steamers. He had money enough, and once away he would begin again-turn over a new leaf-be a reformed character in fact. Such are the intentions of thousands, but they put them off until action becomes impossible. He had been made the tool of Hathaway, and both were the tools of Mr. Wriggle, gentleman at law; but of this again. He had now five hundred pounds with him, and once away he would earn an honest livelihood, though he were to break stones by the way side. He went down to the harbour, and found that a steamer would be ready to start at ten o'clock that night. As it was now only five he went back to the hotel. He thought he had guarded sufficiently against detection by cutting his hair very closely, and shaving his whiskersthose whiskers that had cost him many a box of pomatum, and which had been coaxed to their growth

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by sundry contrivances. He went into the coffeeroom, assuming as careless an air as possible, and ordered a beef-steak and a pint of stout.

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While he is enjoying his meal we must look after Sergeant Catchwell, of the detective force. Throwing himself back in the railway carriage, he looked into the little enamelled bag and found that the train would reach Plymouth at nine o'clock. "Now," he thought, "as this is a luggage train I may calculate that it will be half-an-hour late. Now what about the shipping." He turned over a few leaves and ran his eye along the advertisements. "Here they are; the Seamew' sails at ten o'clock for Melbourne; I need not look at the others. He is a young hand, and he will go at once and secure a berth in the first ship that sails. An old chip would wait for a few days. There wont be much trouble in securing him. There's very little interest in a case like this; but the reward is pretty good, and my reputation is at stake, as I have never failed for the last two years. Let me see, I must secure him this night; to-morrow I must see after that infanticide case when I get back."

Exactly at half-past nine the train arrived at its destination. He sat at the station a few minutes reflecting what his next step would be.

"Move aside there," said a surly porter, as he rolled barrel after barrel from the goods carriages to the float that was ready to carry them to the shipping. Bales, barrels, and all were now packed up and ready to start, when Mr. Catchwell, as if struck by a new thought, went over to the superintendent of the station and showed him some papers. They then went into the office; and in ten minutes Mr. Catchwell came out, whip in hand, a carter's smock frock, and a slouched hat, and, mounting one of the waggons, sat on a barrel and drove away with the other carts. He took the driver up, who looked in astonishment at him.

Well, I suppose its all roight, as the master told me he gave the hanimal to your care; but I dont see the fun of it all."

"Bob, aint your name Bob." "No, it be Tom."

"Well, Tom, I'll show you some fun by and bye. I don't mind telling you. I hexpect that there's a young man a going out in the Seamew,' he has some money that I would as soon take from him, and, in return, I'll get him a free voyage. There are some valuable papers a missing which I hobject to his keeping. Just you see how quietly I do these things."

"I hexpect he's armed, so I'll not be near you when you take him. I as read on the papers how a man was shot some time ago in a mistake."

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Mr. Catchwell, “You would make a bad detective; he won't make much fuss when these bracelets are on him ;" and, saying this, he took handcuffs out of a breast pocket.

"Perhaps he has some friends." This trifling remark made Mr. Catchwell silent for a moment.

After a few minutes he said, "There is a young rascal connected with the removal of valuable papers, and I made sure of nabbing him, but as hif the earth hopened and swallowed him hup, like the big fish that a swallowed Jonas, I can't make him hoff."

"Oh! a youngster like him can't get away, you'll soon put a ring on him."

"Yes, but my reputation is at stake; for I as promised to give him a new suit of jail clothes afor Saturday, and this is Thursday morning." Mr. Catchwell gave the horse a cut of the whip as he said, "But I'll have the young rascal safe in a few days."

Was it the wheel running over a stone that made the barrel give such a sound. Mr. Catchwell evidently thought so, for he looked over the side of the cart,

yet sharp a fellow as he was, and he was sharp, the sound arose from the barrel on which he was sitting. I must give the brief history of that noise which Mr. Catchwell and the driver did not bestow a second thought on. If you, good reader, are sceptical about the truth of the story, just read the cross-examination of Sergeant O'Figh, in the case of the Queen versus John William Thimble, in which it is narrated, on no less authority than the reporter of the "Monthly Hexameter," that the said Sergeant O'Figh was obliged to leave the detective force because it appeared he heard a sound somewhere near him, and did not look whence it proceeded. After such a want of curiosity he was obliged to retire, though it had been urged, on his behalf, that he found out a murder that had for months baffled detection, by looking curiously at the heel of a lady's stocking. The reader remembers how Bill Higgins put his friend, Jack, into a barrel, when Mr. Gilby and a squad from the ragged school were in hot pursuit. Well, then, this barrel was conveyed with a lot of others to the railway station, and sent on to Plymouth by the very train by which Mr. Catchwell travelled. Poor Jack was very uncomfortable, and did not at all relish "life in a tub." Every time the barrel was moved he was knocked about, sometimes he was on his feet, sometimes on his head, and very often lying in what a mathematician would call a "horizontal direction," but what Bill Higgins advised him to was "keep on your crubbeens."

Mr. Catchwell sat on the very barrel in which Jack was immured; he heard all the enquiries after himself, and from a hereditary hatred of all such law officers, Jack was half inclined to run the knife he was provi ded with through the top of the barrel and thus dislodge his adversary by an admirable coup de etat. In the anger and forgetfulness of the moment he raised his head and hit the top of the barrel, hence "the sound so softly" that stole on Mr. Catchwell's

ear.

Jack was determined to give timely notice to Richard Singleton, not that he knew his name, but he understood the game perfectly now, and saw that he had been a cat's paw for others. Nothing like poverty for sharpening the intellect. Let a man live on four-pence-ha'penny a day and earn it, too, and take my word for it, you wont find it easy to get at the blind side of him. Yet there are hearts that struggles against poverty, afflictions, and temptations render more tender and sympathetic. Jack was certainly more sinned against than sinning. It would be a very difficult matter to fill up a census return for him, inasmuch as his parentage was unknown, and he was brought up by an old hag who sent him out to steal at the age of six. He had no residence, no religion, even no age, for you might guess ten or eighteen years and be far from the mark; yet he had an open brow and a clear blue eye that made you look a second time, and somehow interested you in him. The barrels were deposited one after another near the "Seamew," at the shed built for goods. The barrel in which Jack was concealed, in place of rolling along the plank fixed at the end of the cart, dropt down on the pavement. Jack's head got a bump that would have puzzled a phronologist, and which almost made him cry out with pain.

"All right now," shouted Mr. Catchwell to the drayman, "Do you take this hanimal, while I catch another hanimal-a boyped. I dare say Mr. Catchwell meant a biped, probably in his playful humour he made a pun, but whether successful or not, he succeeded in making Tom Parkins the drayman hate him, and inwardly pray he might never nab his man; even a smothered curse did not satisfy him, for he expressed a curse as Catchwell went away, which

BANDS OF HOPE.

would shock ears polite, but which came to the ears of Jack in the barrel, like an anthem. Jack saw at once that he had an ally in Tom Parkins, so gather. ing his knees up to his mouth, he flung his legs against the head of the barrel, which dropt out at the first attempt. Tom Parkins looked round of course, and strong man as he was, his legs trembled under him, paleness o'erspread his face, and he stood like a sheeted ghost.

"Obstupuit, steterant que como, vox faucibus hæsit." "He was dozed; his hat stood on three tips of his hair and hang the word he could speak."

Jack, now free of the barrel, came over to Tom, and, with a finger on his lips uttered the monosyllable, "Mum."

Tom could only summon courage enough to say, "What countryman are you; are you from heaven or hell?" Had Tom read Shakspeare he could have put the question in a better form, but I doubt whether he could have got a better answer.

"I say, I'm the young cove that ar beak gone down there is after, and I want to see my pal who has all the ringo."

This sounded like a foreign tongue to Tom Parkins, who had not yet quite recovered his fright.

"See," said sharp-witted Jack, "go and drink that with him in the tavern there, while I keep on the look out," and he threw him a half-crown.

Keeping the shed between him and the temporary office erected on the quays to which Catchwell went, Jack looked out in every direction like a sharpshooter. He was looking scarcely ten minutes when he saw Richard Singleton running, with a bag in his hand, towards the "Seamew." Like a hound, he sprung from behind the shed, afraid to call, lest he might be overheard; he stood right before Richard Singleton, who almost fell over him.

(To be continued.)

Bands of Hope.

By ROBERT A. WILSON, Enniskillen.

To train up the young in a grand idea-to make it as it were part of their identity-a portion of their being, is a great thing. It may be mightily evil or magnificently good-that depends on what the idea is; but, for evil or for good, it is a great thing. I believe that, if we only knew all, it would be found that society has, in every country, been cast into its present form by some idea wrought into the minds of the young.

Formerly, the children of this country were brought up to regard hard drinking as a thing of course; and, as a matter of course, hard drinking was common among them. Latterly, and to the present time, they have been trained to regard moderate drinking as just the thing for a Christian people and an enlightened state of society. They have learned the lesson from the secular teacher; they have been taught it by good respectable neighbours; they have learned something of it, sometimes, from the religious teacher; by act and word they have been taught it under the rooftree that dirled with their childish laughter.

Well-meaning people have trained up the children in the way they thought they ought to go-the way of moderate drinking: and by that training they have been keeping up the supply of drinkers-hard drinkers-besotted, enslaved, reckless and doomed drinkers. We seek to bring them up in the way we think they ought to go-the way in which, so far as intemperance is concerned, there is no danger. We seek to keep them what God makes them

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teetotalers. In the Enniskillen Band of Hope there is one member about the same age as the Band itself -a month or two older, perhaps. His father and mother were among the first to join the society, and it is intended and hoped that the young teetotaler, after he leaves the holy bottle provided for him by nature, shall never put to his lips the dangerous one offered by the usages of society. It is intended and hoped that he shall be a Nazarite from his mother's womb to the narrow house. Why should it not be so with all children? There is no necessity for their ever becoming acquainted with the witch-drink's dangerous taste. We seek to accomplish this: to take the infant from its birth, and keep it safe-to take the child at any childish age, and train it to abstinence.

There is a singular notion abroad in this country, that young people ought to have sense, and that old people only have a right to make fools of themselves. I have often heard from a mother, when her son came home under the influence of drink, some such language as this:-" Well, now, Johnny, aren't you the purty boy to be comin' home in sich a way at your time of day! Isn't it enough for your father and the other ould fools to be makin' bastes an' behays of themselves, an' not you take to the whiskey! A body would expect more wit from a boy of your age!" This very singular philosophy, which expects the old people to be fools and the young to exhibit sense, appears to be somewhat unreasonable in its requirements; but the friends of temperance are willing to take it as it is. If the old people will be foolish, let us teach common sense to the young. If the old will not set the proper example, let the young set it to them; and let the childish heads on aged bodies be taught by old heads on young shoulders. If this could be effected generally, the next generation would see the realisation of what has been too long a dream of benevolence, and ought to be made an actuality, what every one, whether abstainer or drinker, owns would be redemption for society-the extinction of intemperance.

To effect in this respect a thorough social reformto raise up an army of temperance aggressionists that will revolutionise the sentiments and usages of― not the world, perhaps, but-drink-cursed Christendom, more is needed than simple abstinence. It is not enough that the young-and others too-dislike and abstain from strong drink: they must be taught to expect the complete triumph of the abstinence principle.

And here, for our purpose, the words "faith" and "hope" may be used indifferently, to signify the expectation of success.

There is a notion abroad-I know not whether the advocates of abstinence meet it everywhere, but I have encountered it often-it is, that total abstinence has reference to the individual rather than to the community-that the object is merely to rescue and preserve those who take the pledge. We must get rid of this notion. We can never occupy our proper vantage ground till it is understood that we are working for society-that ours is an aggressive movement, aimed at the abolition of drinking, and that we expect to succeed.

In the part of the country in which I reside we have found that a Band of Hope composed of all ages works well. We are still very young, and it may be that the freshness of feeling and vigour of action which belong to youth have enabled us to get along without that formality of organisation which may become necessary afterwards. Still, I cannot but suspect that a movement may be organised to death. There is a possibility of dressing and accoutring an ardent young reform till, like the Hebrew

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shepherd in the monarch's panoply, it is unfit for action.

In Enniskillen an attempt was made some time ago to get up a juvenile Band of Hope. From the very first it was a failure. A Band of Hope organised in a Sunday-school was, after some months, made a general society; adults joined pretty rapidly; and now, in a few months, it numbers about fifteen hundred members, and has become a power in the country.

I cannot see why the term "Band of Hope" should be confined to juvenile societies. It is the most touchingly appropriate title ever bestowed on any temperance society; and I see no reason why it should not be the name of the whole movement. We are, all of us-who hope and work and pray for the time when the Drink-demon shall not flap a wing over Ireland-the Band of Hope. The hope within us has reference to all. It is hope for the young-that they shall be preserved from the master evil of our age and land-that the children of the future shall be strangers to the curse. It is hope for the moderate drinker-that his feet shall be taken out of a dangerous path, and his steps made sure. It is hope for the slave of drink-he who lies in the miry clay of the horrible pit that forms the roof of the eternal pit -that he too shall he set upon a rock, and his goings established. It is hope for the countless ones who, directly or indirectly, suffer from the despotism of the King-fiend of modern curses. I know we all know -that the only hope of many a wo-wasted wife is"Oh! if my husband would join the Band!"-that the only hope of many a child who has for father not a man, not a brute, not a fiend, but a horrid hybrid between brute and devil, is, "If my father would only sign the pledge!" It is hope for all of living out their days with clear intellects, healthy bodies, and peaceful minds. It is the hope, and I believe the only hope, of our country. It is the lever placed under Ireland to heave her out of the slough of despond in which she has lain through ages of darkness, and sorrow, and sin. Without it, there is no more hope for Ireland than for a corpse.

I have not been able to say anything that is not, most probably, better known by all here than by myself. The one thing that I think I see clearly, and on which I would have all to feel, as I do, deeply, is the necessity of faith in our cause. Let us, by all means, generate a strong hope of success-spread abroad the expectation that we must succeed. Without hope, people will not, cannot work; and they will, as a rule, work vigorously in proportion to the strength of the hope. With Heaven, and all that is best on earth, for us, we ought not to even contemplate failure. I feel absolutely certain that our cause must triumph. If we should not live to see the good time which is surely coming, let us, while we do live, live in hope, and work in hope. And when the good time has come, and the sons and daughters of the future sing over our graves the death-song of Ireland's curse, they may look back and bless the pioneers of the cause-the Pilgrims of Hope, who died in faith, not having entered the promised land. With an eye to that time, ours is

Hope that the young shall never
Quaff as their fathers quaffed;
That their lips shall remain untainted
Till death by the deathly draught.

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OSWALD had so yielded to the passion within for drink that he felt miserable if for days he had only what would be thought a moderate quantity. He wanted excitement; he wanted it for its own pleasurable emotions; he wanted it to make society enjoyable; he wanted it to give him extra fire in preaching; he wanted it after his labours to put away the weariness and exhaustion-in fact, he wanted it always-so that the intervals between these periods of artificial exhilaration were almost unbearable, and often he appeared as if he would sink into absolute melancholy. His wife, with a woman's keen and unerring perception, saw it all, and her good sense came to the conclusion that the new American society, with its pledge, was the only thing adapted to his case.

We must now request our readers to go with us to the hotel, and retire into a small cozy back room, and there they will see two persons engaged most intently in conversation. It is the father-in-law and the minister. The former began:-" My dear Oswald, I have been most woefully affronted by what the people are saying about your habits and your liking for drink. I would hope that there is some mistake about it." To which Oswald replied, "Well, I have yet to learn that there is either sin or shame in taking what we feel is necessary to our duties and comfort." "Just so," replied Mr. M'Dougal, "and you know that I am the last man who would blame people for enjoying themselves, but there must be a place somewhere for people to stop; and if you would always give up when you have had enough, no one could blame you." "Why," said he, "that is what I always do; but my temperament is excitable, so I suppose it is sooner shown in me than in many others." "Well, but if that is the case, must you not, as a matter of course, stop sooner than others? Your wife is sinking beneath the weight of her sorrow, and she cannot keep up unless you earnestly resolve to be more moderate in future. She advises that you should read the tracts of the new American society, which they say has saved many excellent persons from a drunkard's fate. But I feel that we should all be disgraced by having a minister over us who could not temperate himself. Yet, Oswald, something must be done." Oswald knew by a thou

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sand acts of kindness how M'Dougal loved him, and therefore he fairly broke down under the friendly admonition, and wept like a child. When he could speak he said, "Well, I will try-try as I never tried before, and try to get God to help me to give up this fearful curse. I tell you," he said, "I will try. And now will you forgive me, and help me, and pray for me; for I tell you I feel as weak as a child in this matter ?" It need not be said what pledges were mutually exchanged, all earnestly made, all truly given; but the real pledge of abstaining from the drink was ignored by both.

For several months things wore a more hopeful aspect, and the appearances of excess were few and far between, until a powerful temptation shattered to pieces the fabric of safety they had reared. A gentleman some miles off had invited Oswald to spend a day or two with him before the meeting of Presbytery in an adjoining town, and here one or two social souls were to meet him. The entertainment was of a most liberal, almost princely kind, and the liquors unrivalled both in quality and quantity. All were expected to make free, and after dinner each day this was carried out to the very letter. The gentleman's failing lay in the same direction with Oswald's, and they considered they were enjoying first rate good fellowship together. On the evening before the Presbytery met, Oswald and his host kept long at the bottle, so that a little after midnight they were both incapable of ascending to their rooms. Oswald, in making a final effort, lost his equilibrium, and fell on the stone stairs and cut his forehead, and there he had to remain until next morning. The proprietor of the house had fallen into a deep sleep in the room; and both were thus found by the servants in the morning.

The lady of the house was in a delicate state of health, and had her own room, and was scarcely able to leave it, so that when informed of the double catastrophe she at once sent for the doctor, a most worthy member of the same Church, and entrusted the whole affair in the utmost confidence to him. Dr. Black did all in his power to excuse the occur. rence to the servants, and then had them both put to bed, plastered Oswald's head, and gave him a composing draught. He then sent word to the meeting of Presbytery that Oswald had been taken ill, and could on no account be with them, and that his host would not allow his removal until he was better. A note was despatched to Dalbreathe, to Mrs. Oswald, to prevent alarm, and also to stop her from coming, if possible, to see her husband. But the suspicion oozed out everywhere, and in the evening the wife of the minister was by his bedside, accompanied by her mother. Oswald was not quite sober; but the effects of the drink were still visible, and his cut forehead told strange tales. He said it was a fit; but the time, place, and his remaining unhelped until the morning, told the whole of the story most truthfully.

It was now Friday. A supply had to be got for the pulpit; and the doctor advised that he should retire for two or three weeks until his wounds were healed, and open suspicion prevented. After sundry grave and affecting conversations between Oswald and his wife and mother-in-law, it was deemed expedient to leave him where he was, and his host engaged to convey him to a retired place on the southwest coast, where he would be out of the way of peering eyes, and at any rate out of the hearing of scandalising tongues.

Well, in a day or two Mrs. Oswald joined her husband, and they spent three weeks in tolerable comfort. At the end of that period he was fit to return

home and to enter afresh on his onerous and solemn duties. When he reached the manse, among other letters waiting for him was the following:

"My dear Brother,-I hailed your residence among us as a special blessing. There is much good to be done here, and I said in my heart- Here is the man of God raised up to do it.' Much as I had expected from your preaching talents has been more than realized. I love you. I would cheerfully honour you. I would make great sacrifices to open your way and to help you in your work. I would be kind and faithful as Jonathan was to David. But you stand on the brink of a frightful precipice. Any other scandalous rumours of intemperance will be assuredly followed by a close investigation of the Presbytery, and I need not tell you what will be the result. Do, for your own sake, religion's sake, and for Jesus Christ's sake, whose servant you are-be sober. May God bless you. Yours in the ministry of Jesus,

A FRIEND AND A BROTHER."

He had a strong conviction as to who was the writer of this letter, and saw its truthfulness most fully, and resolved to follow counsel so wisely and kindly given. The next three months gave great promise of a real change in his general conduct; but with these signs of hope there was frightful depression of spirits. His wife had now fears lest his reason should give way altogether. He took only a moderate quantity of his usual beverage, but it was enough to keep the flame burning within.

Mrs. Oswald was again made happy by the birth of another daughter, and while Oswald was delighted too-for he had a loving heart towards children-one of the most terrible of all his drunken acts occurred. One night, when all had retired to rest but the nurse who was attending Mrs. Oswald, a strange loud and unearthly noise was heard. The servants were immediately called, and it was feared some maniac had got secreted in the manse. Proceeding to the room where the noise came from, they found Oswald halfdressed, with the whisky bottle flourishing in his hand, and expressing all sorts of mad exclamations that only a frenzied man could invent, or a debauched tongue could utter. He now demanded the serious attention of his servants to his utterances of drunken folly, and said-" Ah, thou elixir of life, never will I part with thee again. No, no, thy inspiring powers I will-I must have, living or dying, saint or devil." And then he literally grinned as with horrific triumph. Mrs. Oswald sent for her father, who was in the house in a few minutes, and who went at once to calm down his delirious son-in-law. When he entered Oswald said to him-" Come and shake hands my best and most devoted friend. You know what's what-you knew it would be folly and disgrace to listen to the American humbug society. Why, you have made your fortune by the drink-Bella's fortune came by the drink, and why should not the Burgher minister drink. Yes-why? why? why ?-I want to know. For drink-it banishes all our woe." By entreaty and help he was placed in bed; but he was so outrageous in his talk that it was deemed proper to send for the doctor, who felt alarmed at the frightful state he found him in. An emetic was administered, by which nearly half-a-pint of whiskey was removed from the stomach, and then a composing draught was given, and in the morning he ventured to leave him, and not before, for the doctor concluded that delirium tremens would be the result. Happily, this was not the case; but what, with the stir and noise, the fainting of Mrs. Oswald, and the sounds having been heard in the road by persons passing by, the crisis had indeed arrived. Unable to preach on the next Sabbath, and the whole thing being noised abroad, a special meeting of the Presbytery was convened, and Oswald was put on his examination.

He had many friends there, but they felt that Christ's cause could not be sacrificed for the sake of private friendship; and therefore he was, after a long

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