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 pretty head, as she listened to the flattery and compliments of her admirers; but there was a point at which the young girl would grow suddenly cold and stern, when her eyes would flash angrily, and her-lip curl with scorn, as she uttered a few vividly indignant words, and swept away, leaving the man who had dared offend her, humbled and bewildered by her rebuke. Then she would fly to the side of her husband, and press her rosy lips to his withered hand, and look up smilingly into his eyes, as a child looks into a father’s face. She sincerely loved the old man, and he loved and trusted her, until the gad day that Leon de Saint. Evre- monde came to court, with his rare, brilliant, deep-blue eyes, and his long, fair hair, his grace, and courtesy, and bravery. He was a cousin of the marquis, and, therefore, entitled to pay greater attention to the young marquise than any other gentleman at court; but, to the surprise of every one, after the first few weeks of pleasant, friendly intercourse with his beau- tiful kinswoman, Saint Evremonde appeared carefully to shun her; and when they met unavoidably, a visible coldness and restraint marked their manners toward each other. The whole court wondered, for no one had ever before failed to admire the young Marquise de Hautlieu, and Saint Evremonde, though only a lieutenant in the King’s Guards, and totally without fortune, was eminently accomplished and fascinating; and many a lady of rank and fortune would gladly have bestowed her hand upon the noble young soldier. That these two clarmihg young persons should appear to select each for special avoidance and dislike, excited the surprise of all, and the suspicion of the old marquis. With the keen eye of jealousy he noted every action and word of Saint Evre- monde, every movement and glance of his wife. Why should Leon stand aloof with eyes bent on the ground, when other gentlemen crowded around Vivienne with smiling homage? He could talk and smile gay!y enough with every other lady in the court—why not with her? What was it that deepened the color in the cheeks of both, and made their hands tremble as they were forced to touch, for an instant, in some stately dance? Only a madly jealous man could have seen these things; but the marquis dil see, or imaginefl he saw them. That bis wife had been pure, and lovely, and loving as an angel hitherto; that Saint Evremonde was ike Bayard, a chevalier, “‘sans jeur, et sans reproche,” formed no bar to his suspicions and his rage. True, nothing had occurred which he could possibly wrest into a cause of quarrel with his cousin; and no one but himself dared to entertain a thought against the fair and spotless character of his wife. So much the deeper and subtler must his revenge be; and for his own sake, no one else must suspect the truth.

Without a word of explanation, hp suddenly ordered his wife to make preparations for leaving Paris, and taking up her residence at Hautlieu.

Vivienne was surprised and distressed by the command. She pouted a little, and entreated like a child for a short delay. Briefly and sternly the marquis refused to grant an hour’s respite.

Surprised by his harsh tone, she looked up into his face, and her eyes filled with tears.

‘Pardon me, monsieur; I could not mean to offend you, who are always so kind, so good,” she murmured, ‘I will cheerfully go with you anywhere.”

And she bent down with the old sweet caress, taking his hand in both hers and pressing soft kisses uponit. But he shook off her light touch, and pushing ber fiercely and roughly from him, he left the room.

Vivienne was utterly confounded by his conduct. For a moment she. stood bewildered; then she threw herself weeping on a couch, and was only roused by the sound of her mother’s voice, asking permission to enter the room, Vivienne’s first impulse was to spring up and run to sob out her grief upon her mother’s bosom; but then came the quick thought, «He is my husband. I have no right to speak of this, even to my mother,”’

So, with a hasty hand she dropped the heavy curtains over the windows, wiped away her tears, and as she bade her mother enter, she quickly loosened her long hair, and showered it about her face, hiding completely her flushed, tear-stained cheeks. Madame de Beranger did not discover in the dim light anything unusual in her daughter's appearance; and she began immediately and eagerly to speak of the pleasure she anticipated in a quiet residence at Hautlieu with her child. She, too, had been requested by the marquis, but with great ceremony and deference, to prepare for the journey—and she hastened with delight to obey.

There was no time for farewells. The marquis went alone to the palace, in the evening, and announced their intended departure.

There were many regrets expressed. The king himself was graciously pleased to lament that the court was about to lose one of its brightest ornaments, and the courtiers murmured their participation in his majesty’s

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 qualities of the external world, and set at work, in each instance, by our witnessing or hearing described certain events or circumstances, affecting others, which, by a reference to our own feelings, we can readily imagine as they would affect ourselves. Hence arise those various and potent emotions of sympathy which impel us to acts of benevolence, and which are the springs of conduct in almost the entire circle of our social relations.

A vivid conceptive power, in relation to the sufferings of others, is the prime element of the philanthropic character. Often enough we may meet with those whose feelings are humane, and who will act generously, if only, by the aid of some unusual circumstances, one can get them to realize mentally, the woes and wants of the wretched; but the conceptive faculty is itself so torpid, with such persons, that, ordinarily, no heed is taken of what others may be feeling. Selfishness is sometimes a deliberate and odious preference of the individual well-being to that of others: often it is only, as to its cause, a torpid or callous imagination. The HOWARD, is the man whose imagination puts him into the very place of the unhappy, and who labours to relieve the distress he knows of, as if it were actually pressing on himself. It is, moreover, a modification of the conceptive power which generates that nice and sensitive regard to the feelings of others which distinguishes the well-bred man; and it is the want of this species of Ideality that makes the low-bred man an annoyance in society. It is in great degree because the conceptive faculty much more readily repeats to itself the feelings of those who are always about us, than of strangers, that the vivacity of the parental sympathies so vastly exceeds, in most cases, the measure of general benevolence, in the same persons.

A hundred familiar illustrations of this principle of human nature might readily be adduced, and some such will no doubt occur to the reader’s own recollection. It would

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 106 DEATH IN LIFE.

sentiments. Only Leon was silent, and the marquis, fixing his piercing eyes upon him, saw that his face was white as marble, and his lips close- set and ashy pale.

Still more profoundly convinced of the truth of his suspicions, the marquis returned to his fair, young wife, and at midnight they set forth on their journey, with flaring torches, and numerous out- riders. As the cumbrous coach rolled through the city-gates, a man, muffled in a cloak, started from the shadow of an arch, and stood for a moment near. His face was invisible, but something in his figure and carriage recalled Saint Evremonde's to the mind of the marquis. Vivienne had been leaning forward, gazing fromthe window. Perhaps the red glare of the torches fell just then upon her face, but it seemed to her husband that a deep flush came hotly to her cheeks for an instant-the next moment she sunk back in the carriage with a sigh, and soon many miles lay between the travelers and the gates of Paris.

The life at Hautlieu was pleasant, indeed, to Madame de Beranger. She was fast becoming a feeble invalid, and once established in a large, sunny chamber in the chateau, she rarely left it, save for a slow walk upon the terrace with the aid of her daughter's arm. Vivienne de voted herselfto her mother. She read, and sang, and talked to her, or she sat quietly embroidering by her side, and listened with ready smiles to Madame de Beranger's praises of her exemplary son-in-law, and her thankfulness that heaven had given so kind a protector, so noble a husband to the daughter whom she felt that she must soon leave.

And Vivienne listened, and kept steady silence about the awful change which had befallen her husband. She would not disturb the tranquil happiness of her mother's life by the knowledge that her life had become one long torture ; that day and night she felt herself watched with suspicion, and hated by her husband ; that no words of kindness, nothing beyond the barest, coldest courtesies of life were ever addressed to her by the marquis ; that the chateau was a prison, beyond whose walls she was not permitted to stir without an attendant, whom she knew was a paid spy ; and that her tears, her prayers for an explanation, and her entreaties for the pardon of her unknown offence, were met with cold, contemptuous sneers, or stern commands of silence. It was horrible, this consciousness of being forever watched. She had discovered that when the marquis himself was not with her, she was under the surveillance of a person whom she specially disliked, and who as heartily hated her. This person was Monsieur Duroc, the secretary of the marquis, at whose expense Vivienne had once indulged in some childish merriment, and who, in spite of her sincere apology, had always secretly hated, while openly flattering, the marquise. Now she was conscious that this man was set to watch her. Into whatever room or saloon of the chateau she might enter, save her own private apartments, she was almost sure to see a figure stealing noiselessly as a shadow between her and the sunlight, and the white face and black eyes of Duroc would gleam out as he bowed obsequiously, and glided to a seat in a distant corner of the room.

When she walked in the grounds, Duroc glided as near her as etiquette would permit. Even now, on this sweet September evening, as she sauntered on the terrace beneath the windows of her own apartments, she was not sure that the evil eyes of Duroc were not fastened upon her from some secret turret window, or other lurking-place.

Ah! unhappy Child Marquise!" Her cheek no longer glowed with bright roses; her eyes sparkled no more: her step had lost its airy buoyancy, her voice its joyous ring. Sad, pallid, yet lovely as a dream of heaven still, she walked with bowed head in the dying sunlight, and the "Hautlieu rubies" lay like drops of blood on her fair bosom.

She was walking there, waiting till she should be summoned to meet her husband and a guest whom he had told her to prepare for. Gues's were not unfrequent at the chateau, and the marquis entertained them with great magnificence, his lovely young wife always presiding at the entertainment with quict grace and dignity. No one guessed the deep sadness of her heart, and to none on earth would she reveal it.

While she paused beside a vase of glowing geranium, and mechanically gathered one of its blossoms, her husband's voice startled her. Never had it sounded so harsh and cold.

"Madame," he said, " Monsieur de Saint Evremonde has arrived, and is waiting for you in the grand saloon. Will you go and receive him?"

A faint color came into her cheek- n color so faint that it might have been a reflection from the rosy sunset clouds, and into her eyes flashed a strange brightness, while the hand that she laid upon his ceremoniously proffered arm trembled with repressed emotion. The marquis said not a word, but led her into the grand saloon. There, by a distant window, stood a gentleman, who advanced to meet them, bowing low—a tall,

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 however be impracticable to enter upon the subject with any advantage, apart from what belongs to Moral and Religious education; and rather than injure so momentous a theme by a hasty and incidental treatment of it, I omit, or post-pone, much that might have been included, as bearing upon intellectual culture. It is to be presumed however, that no parent or teacherat home, will lose sight of so main a part of the business of education, or fail to avail them-selves of all proper occasions for cherishing a faculty in default of which active virtue can hardly exist. The minds of young persons had better be left void of every thing, rather than be destitute of the power and habit of transferring the consciousness of other minds to their own.


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 effect, perhaps, by a few well-chosen words; but also to establish a connexion, in the minds of his pupils, between these objects and the entire compass of descriptive terms that might be associated with them, in the way either of resemblance, contrast, or negation. For an example, and a better one does not immediately occur to me, we may take Southey’s ingenious accumulation of descriptive participles, in the well-known verses entitled, "How does the water come down at Lodore?"

Now, with the aid of a view of the Fall, a very few sentences might suffice to convey a general idea of the scene, as it affects the eye and the ear; and this would be quite enough if we intended nothing' further than to lodge the image and its accompaniments, in the mind; and if any natural water-fall has actually been seen by the learner, then a condensed description, graphically characteristic, is the best mode of conveying an idea of any other cataract. If the Falls of the Clyde, and the Fall of Lodore, have been visited, then a few words may be better than many, for describing Montmorency, Rinkanfos, or Niagara.

But after as much has been said as just satisfies the Conceptive Faculty, in its efforts to realize the scene, and what approves itself to good taste, as to the choice and collocation of epithets, then occasion may be taken (leisurely, and at different times,) to assemble around this scene, every other term in the language we can think of, which, by right of affinity, analogy, or opposition, might fairly claim a place in a description of it. Now this is done pretty nearly in the often repeated verses, above referred to; for, about a hundred and fifty participles are strung together, in these jingling stanzas, and there are scarcely three of them that can well be objected to as wholly improper to the subject, or as violently twisted from their ordinary import. And so it appears that the impressions on


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 two only of the sensessight and hearing, made by the precipitous descent of a body of water, are reducible to a hundred and fifty, or more, distinguishable elements, each of which, as denoted by an appropriated term, holds a place in the mind, and may be thought of by itself. But then to these hundred and fifty terms might be added, in the way of opposition, contrast, or negotiation, nearly as many more. Indeed as the descriptive words, assembled in these verses, relate principally to motion and sound, the number might be greatly increased by adding those which convey ideas of colour, light, and shade, and form.

A good exercise, with the view of assembling the contrasted terms, might be found in describing the sullen majesty of the Ganges, in its course through the jungled swamps of Bengal; and the materials for such descriptions are at hand in every library. But it should be remembered that, whereas, in geographical descriptions, such as those recommended in the last chapter, the precise intention is merely to bring the scene vividly before the mind, in the most concise and appropriate terms, the intention in the present case is, to accumulate, or may I say, to conglomerate, words and phrases, so as to familiarize the mind with the copia verborum, as related to any particular aspect or accident of visible nature. It is another and a later work, so to instil the principles of good taste, as shall serve to reduce, within due bounds, a too florid or exuberant style. A chaste style is not to be obtained by stinting the mind in its materials, or by chilling the fancy; but by training it to command its conceptions, and to husband its resources. What we are now about is the process of accumulation, apart from which the maxims of severe taste apply to nothing that is positive, and are brought in to regulate{bar|1}}inanity.

It cannot be necessary to specify the many objects and scenes of nature which may be made use of in furnishing


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DEATH IN LIFE 107 fair man, with cold, steel-gray eyes and glittering white teeth.

Vivienne turned. with a bewildered look toward her husband, who said in measured, distinct tones, ‘‘Madame, this is my cousin, my nearest kinsman, Monsieur Philip, de Saint Evremonae, the elder brother of Monsieur Leon de Saint Evremonde, whom I believe you met in Paris.”

Ah! she knew now who it was. Philip, the half-brother of the noble young Leon—Philip, who was the coldest, cruelest, most remorseless man in France. She shrunk back, shuddering, from his extended hand; but in a moment recovering herself, she advanced, laid her cold palm in his, and with a dignity that was almost hauteur, pronounced a few formal words of welcome.

“Madame, I fear, would rather have welcomed ny brother,” said Saint Evremonde, in: a soft, languid tone, gazing at her with his cruel eyes slightly closed, yet expressing an amount of half-insolent admiration, that Brought the quick Beranger blood hotly to her cheek, ‘Ah! I am very unhappy in not having met my fair kins- woman before. May I.not hope my past negligence will be effaced from memory by the devotion I shall manifest in future, madame?”

Vivienne met that evil, half-sneering, half- admiring glance with the.cold, steady glitter of her scornful eyes, and she answered with increasing hauteur,

“Monsieur may be assured that his negligence has not offended ms, and that he need make no atonement.”

Philip bowed as if her haughtiness had been the blandest, warmest welcome, and said, in the same silky tones, ‘Such graciousness, madame, is beyond my desert. I may hope, then, in time to hold as high a place in your esteem as that occupied by my fortunate brother?”

Vivienne’s rapid glance had flown, for one instant, from the fair, cruel, face before her to that of her husband, who stood silent and motionless beside her, his keen, dark eyes fixed upon her, his thin lips wreathed with a cynical, malicious smile.

Good heavens! Could he see and endure the insolent gaze with which Saint Evremonde’s cruel eyes were fastened on his wife’s face? Could he hear the taunting accent with which the young man spoke, the evident meaning with which he uttered his brother’s name? Ah! six months ago, how his eyes would have flashed, and his sword sprung from its sheath, to punish such insolence! What did it mean? Was he mad? Had he no sense of honor, or of pity left? That sneering smile, those mocking eyes, told the young wife that her husband was no longer her protector; nay, that he was her bitter enemy, and looked on with pleasure while her cheek burned, and her eyes flashed with in- sulted dignity. She was alone, with those two cruelly smiling faces bent toward hers, and Leon’s name throbbing in her heart. Leon, who was so noble, so pure! How dared that bad man even utter his name?

A thousand tumultuous thoughts had rushed thus through the mind of the marquise in the fieeting moment, during which she had paused after Saint Evremonde’s question; but last, and strongest of all, came the conviction that she was to battle alone with these two men, who seemed, trying to’ look into her very heart, and ‘to find the means by which the deadliest tor- ture could be inflicted upon her; and then a sudden resolve nerved her frame, and glittered in her eyes.

Her beautiful face changed, and brightened, and softened. A smile parted her lips; her figure lost its air of haughty dignity; and with her old careless grace, she swept a laughing courtesy, and answered lightly, ‘«Monsieur does me too much honor. He may have'in my esteem any place that he can win.”

Then, with the same airof ease and gayety, she, went on to ask him questions about the court:he had just left, and her numerous friends there, including his brother as one of these; and hearing with apparently merely a polite inte- rest that Leon had that week left Paris, having been appointed captain in a regiment going to the seat of war.

She listened, and asked careless questions, and passed on to other-things. They need not know, she scarcely' dared acknowledge to herself, the deep interest she felt in hearing anything. concerning the young soldier. ‘And yet,’ he reasoned, “I am surely not wrong in wishing all good for my husband's. kinsman— it is but Christian charity. It can be nothing else, for Leon disliked and shunned me—I know not.why. I did not think at first that he hated me.”

She thought of .those sweet, happy days, the fairest. in her life, when Leon first came to Paris, and they strayed. together through the enchanted gardens'of the palace, she thinking, poor child! that she had found a friend and brother in her young cousin, and learning to love and trust him with all her innocent heart. Then he had changed suddenly, and grown cold and distant; and there were no more walks in the gay gardens, no more quiet talks, and she

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 defined alliance with the most significant terms. There is, in such a process, a double, and an intimately blended training of the mind, the effect of which is in an equal degree to enrich, and to empower it. The practice of translation from another language, when the time comes for attempting it, and if passages are selected with judgment, may be resorted to with the best effect, as related to our immediate purpose. The learner, when qualified to do so, should take a floridly descriptive passage, such as may be found in Buffon, or Fenelon, and render it into English, in two versions; then into Latin; and if not proficient enough in Greek to carry the same passage forward into that language, our purpose, in some good measure, will be secured by his merely looking out the epithetsadjectives and verbs, which would be best embodied in such a translation.

I well know that the teacher of language whose habits of mind fix his attention upon grammatical and synthetical proficiency, and who feels as if Horace himself were to re-vise every exercise, will distaste methods such as those which I venture to recommend; decrying them as impertinent, or as likely to withdraw the learner’s regards from the momentous matters of syntax and quantity. Be it so: I am intent upon the invigoration of the elementary faculties of the mind; and with this view, holding in abeyance the objections of scrupulous scholarship, avail myself of such means as seem adapted to my purposea purpose I humbly deem important. And in this place I must express the opinion that, in teaching languages, the process would be greatly facilitated by confining the learner’s attention, in the first instance, or so far as could conveniently be done, to the descriptive portion of each; this being the class of words most readily taken up by the mind. I grant however that a method of this sort demands some preparations to be made for carrying it into effect, in the way both


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 of newly arranged vocabularies, and new selections of readings.

With a description of some impressive scene, in a lively and natural style, as the nucleus of the exercise, four or five languages may be familiarized, at one and the same time, and without implying any more effort, on the part of the learner, than is required in the study of a single language. On the contrary, I believe that the mind is aided and lightened, rather than oppressed, by the conveyances in conjunction, of several sets of words and idioms. But then the entire system of teaching must be natural and colloquial, not scholastic or abstruse. The modern European tongues (at least) may, with great ease, be thus taught in conjunction; and so many are the points of agreement among them, that the points of difference give rise to little difficulty: and it is evident that, when four or five languages, placed, as we may say, in parallel columns, are compared, the general impression made upon the learner's mind by the analogies, or identical forms, in a view of the four or five, in conjunction, will be so strong as to aid him much in rendering himself master of the peculiarities of each. The English language, claiming cousinship as it does, on both sides, with the northern and with the southern tongues, opens the way to the acquirement of any one of either class. Especially is this true (after Greek and Latin have been acquired) in relation to French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, which in fact may more readily be taught and learned as so many dialects of the same stock, than separately and consecutively.

Thus far we have spoken of that correspondence between the conceptive faculty and Language which is promoted, in an inartificial manner, by the mere use of its descriptive portion, while it is employed for enriching the mind with ideas of the various scenes and single objects of the visible world. And if this process be pursued in the two modes


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108 DEATH IN LIFE.

had not won him back, though she tried her sweetest arts; and since then life had seemed very dull and cold, " because she had lost her friend."

She was thinking of this in a pause of her conversation with Philip-thinking very sadly, and she was glad that the little sigh that stirred her bosom was not heard, because the marquis was just then speaking to his guest, and summoning a servant to conduct Saint Evremonde to his apartment.

A little silence followed the departure of Saint Evremonde, which was broken by the marquise, who had been gazing abstractedly from the window, watching the last gleams of rosy light fade from the clouds.

Monsieur," she asked, " will your cousin's stay with us be a long one?"

"A very long one, probably, madame, " answered the marquis, coldly. "Are you not pleased to have him here?"

"Of course, monsieur ; it is my duty to be pleased with whatever pleases you," was Vivienne's quiet answer.

"Your duty? Yes, madame ; but you have been known to fail in your duty," said the marquis, in a tone of suppressed anger. "Do you think I am blind, Madame la Marquise ?" he continued, in a lower, yet infinitely more terrible tone. "I know that you gave a cold and haughty greeting to my cousin; that you expected to see another in his place; that you asked eager questions about that other, and became suddenly gracious and smiling that you might hide the interest you feel in him. Yes, you dared speak of him in my presence of him, the traitor! And you, madame, can you deny that you love him, that——"

"Monsieur! You are speaking to your wife!" cried Vivienne, throwing off the hand he had laid, with an almost savage grasp, upon her white arm : She confronted him with proud, steady eyes, that did not fall before his, and with a brow as calm as his was wrathful and stormy.

"You are a good actress, madame, " he said, with a sneer. "I am speaking to one who dared forget that she was my wife. I watched you, madame, you and your lover, when you little dreamed that I did so. I saw your heart won from me by that fair-faced, treacherous boy; I was not deceived by your sudden pretended coldness and avoidance of each other. Madame, you need never hope to deceive me, or to escape my revenge."

"Monsieur - oh! my husband! You have deceived yourself, " she cried, with a sudden change of voice and expression. Her eyes filled with tears, and her white hands went out toward him with a tender, appealing gesture ; and in the fading light he saw her sweet face turned toward him with a look of supplication and sorrowful love.

"Monsieur- oh! believe me, I am innocent of all that you accuse me of. I have loved no one better than you; I have pretended nothing. Oh, my husband! love me again, I beseech you!"

"And be again deceived?" sneered the marquis. " No, madame. Leon Evremonde loved you, and loves you still. I am not duped now by your protestations, or your show of affection to me. Spare yourself all this trouble, and remember that my revenge will come. You cannot escape me. "

He was gone from the room, leaving her there, white and trembling, clinging to the stone frame of the window for support, and vainly trying to shut out from her mind the vision of that dark, threatening face, the sound of those low, terrible tones. "You cannot escape me!" The words sounded on and on, and in her ears like a death-bell.

How helpless, how wretched she was! What was the revenge he was preparing for her im agined crime ? Was there no help on earth or in heaven for the young girl trembling in the power of bad and unscrupulous men, and knowing no way of escape?

With flying steps she sought her mother's room, and as she gazed upon the face of her parent, who lay sleeping gently in the soft light of a swinging lamp, she vainly tried to persuade herself that this was a refuge for her. Alas ! she knew that if they were determined to destroy her, even here, in her mother's presence, they would plunge the knife in her flattering heart, and watch her life- blood ebbing away with cold and cruel eyes.

For this was in the old, old times, when such hideous crimes were committed, and went unpunished. The dark, old chateau had already witnessed many a deed as horrible as this-and there was no escape for her.

Sitting there beside her mother, with the lamp-light shining on her fair face and rich dress, with the Hautlicu rubies glowing on her bosom, her thoughts went back again to the palace gardens, to Leon, and to those sweet days of the past-"so sweet, so sad, the days that are no more." Through all her terror and despair there thrilled one thought which was strangely sweet, though meant to be the keenest stab her cruel husband had inflicted. Leon Evremonde loved you, and loves you still,” the

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 above mentioned, that is to say, first, in the way of well selected and concise descriptions, and secondly, in that of the accumulation of kindred terms, we shall go near to comprehend the entire vocabulary of the language, as related to the objects of sense.

But there remains a process of another sort, and of the highest utility, as well in relation to that command of language which we wish to insure, as to the enrichment of the conceptive faculty. To explain what I now mean I must remind the reader that the vocabulary of words (whatever may be their grammatical form, and which is accidental merelywhether substantives, adjectives, verbs, participles, adverbs) relating to the visible appearances and sensible properties of the external world, is, if we speak of it in a massa RECORD of general facts, cognizable by the human mind, through the senses. And whereas no one human mind, however nice in its perceptions, or exact and excursive in its habits of observation, ever takes account of more than a portion, and probably a very small portion, of the sensible qualities and shades of difference which are actually cognizable by man, a copious and refined language, such for example as our own, contains the recorded notices of thousands of minds, and of minds of all classes, and of all degrees of precision.

Thus for example: if the most frequently used words, or epithets, of a language are taken as representing the broad perceptions of the mass of mankind, and as sufficient for all ordinary purposes of description and narration, there yet remain, in reserve, several sets of terms, representing the more exact, or more penetrating perceptions of minds whose faculties have been exercised and sharpened by peculiar pursuits, or by the habit of admitting intense sensations. One such set comprises those descriptive words that find a place only in poetry, and which are nothing else


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ᎠᎬᎪᎢᎻ IN LIFE. 109 marquis had declared in his jealous madness. § In her childlike innocence she had failed to in- terpret aright the conduct of the young soldier, bat now she understood it; now she knew why } he had seemed to change; why his brilliant } eyes had ceased to meet hers with a smile; why his voice had no longer thrilled on her ear in low, eloquent tones. It was because he loved her, and honor bade him leave her.

Leon had discovered the danger in which they stood, and bad nobly withdrawn himself } from her society that she might not see his love, and learn to love him in return. It was this secret love, then, that prompted him to conceal himself under the dark archway of the city gite, that he might bid her farewell on the night she left Paris.

Ah! it was true she had never loved any one better than her husband, or thought she never hal; but she turned, with relief, from the thought of the stern and jealous marquis, who seemed to care for her love no longer, to the remembrance of her graceful, ardent, young kinsman, who was so gay, so gentle, so brave, aud who loved her still. In the ‘wonderful sweetness of this thought she had almost for- gotten the horror and danger that had seemed closing around her, when the voice of one of her attendants recalled her to the present. Her husband had sent for her. She started up, re- poaching herself for allowing her thoughts to dwell so long on one who should be nothing to her, and resolved to banish every remembrance of Leon from her heart.

The marquis met her with his usual cold for- mality—Philip with the same insulting admi- ration; and the evening wore away tediously enough to the young marquise, who was forced } to counterfeit the ease and cheerfulness she could not feel, to hide her fears and suspicions from the watchful eyes of her husband and his guest. At last midnight approached, and the guest was rising to retire to his chamber, when the marquis suddenly proposed that Saint Evre- monde should go with him to see a famous pic- ture, which hung in the chapel adjoining the chateau. They set out, Duroc, the secretary, «ccompanying them, and carrying two tall, wax candles to light the way.

“Madame, will you not go with us?” inquired the marquis of his wife, in a tone which was ‘command, and Vivienne followed, trembling vith a strange, vague terror. Through the great entrance-hall they passed, through a wide, well-lit eorridor, then into narrow passages, which stretched away, black and chill, in the distance; past suites of unused and closed apartments—on, on, down the echoing passages, where the sweep of Vivienne’s silk dress on the stone floor started her with its ghostly sound; where the flickering candles seemed to burn dimly, and the arched walls to be pressing closer to her at every step. Then cameo narrow stairway, a heavy oaken door, which opened with grating hinges, and the chapel was reached. It was low-arched, and dark, and silent; and in the picture they had come to see, the uncertain, wavering light showed them only the white, agonized, yet triumphant face of a dying saint—a young and lovely woman tortured to death by a mocking, reviling, heathen mob.

They turned away from the picture, and the marquis, beckoning them to follow, led the way to a door opposite the one they had entered.

Vivienne hesitated, and ventured to observe, ‘Monsieur, you forget, perhaps, that this door leads to the vaults of the chapel?”

“I forget nothing, madame. I desire you to follow me,” said his stern, pitiless tones; and Vivienne was forced to obey. With limbs that almost refused to bear her, she followed the three men into the dismal chamber the marquis had opened. It was a small, vaulted room, dimly lighted in the day by a single grated window, and communicating by a flight of stone steps with the vaults below the chapel, where lay the tranquil dust of all the proud men and women who had once lived and loved, and hated, and died, in the great Chateau de Hautlieu.

Vivienne entered the gloomy cell, and the heavy door closed behind her. For 2 moment she leaned against the cold, damp wall, fnint with terror and apprehension; then the blood of the brave and gentle Berengers animated her with sudden courage, and she glanced fearlessly and calmly from one to another of the three men who stood beside her.

The burning dark eyes of the marquis gleamed upon her from beneath their heavy eyebrows, as he stood haughtily erect with folded arms.

Saint Evremonde leaned with careless grace against 2 column that supported the arches of the roof, his fair, insolent face and half-closed eyes turned toward her with an evil smile.

Duroc had placed the lights within a niche in the wall, and stood now bending a little toward her, as a beast of prey crouches before spring- ing on its victim. His eyes, too, dark and. baleful, were fixed upon her, and his right band seemed to her to be stealing to his bosom, as if sceking some deadly weapon.

She felt that all was over, the hour of the marquis’ revenge had arrived. There was no

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110 sign of pity or faltering in any one of the cruel faces before her, no gleam of human feeling in the eyes that fastened themselves upon her face.

She was beyond the aid of human help, her wildest shrieks could not penetrate the walls that shut out the chapel from the chateau, and her tears and prayers could avail nothing with these three unserupulous, cruel men. She must die if they willed it, but she would die as: be- came a Beranger. So she stood there, calm and still, her eyes shining with a steady glow, the lace on her besom, and the blood-red rubies that fastened it, scarcely stirred by her. breathing; one little hand pressed against her heart, as she counted its slow, strong throbs, and waited.

“You are pale, madame. You are frightened, perhaps, by the gloom, of this place,” said the soft veice of Saint Evremondg, startling her as the hiss of a serpent would have done.

‘‘No, monsieur, I am not so cowardly as to be frightened by shadows,” said Vivienne.

“I am sorry you do not seem pleased with this room, madame,” suddenly observed the marquis. ‘‘I have had it furnished for a special purpose, and trusted you would like its Could not a per- son, given to religious, meditation, spend many hours here with comfort and profit?”

Vivienne glanced around the room, and saw that it, indeed, contained several articles of furniture which had at first escaped her notice, There was a low couch, covered with a pall, of black velvet, an oaken chair and table, and high up on the wall gleamed a silver crucifix, shining with a faint, mysierious radiance in the light of the flaming tapers.

A terror worse than that of death seized upon the unhappy young marquise. It was evident, then, that they did not. intend to take her life by violence, but to leave her.a prisoner in this horrible place, to die a lingering, agonized death by starvation, or, perhaps, to exist for years, shut out from the light of the sun, and the sound of voices.

Oh! it were better, more merciful, to plunge a dagger in her heart, and send her soul into the future; with one sobbing, quivering shriek from her dying lips.

But her husband’s eyes were on her, and she must speak, in spite of those choking throbs of her heart.

“Monsieur,” she said, gently, ‘a pure conscience, and a devout spirit, could make one happy, even here.”

“I am glad you think so,” madamé,” said the marquis, with a grim smile. ‘Come, messieurs, let,us return to the salon.”

Duroc lifted the candles from the. niche, and the marquis opened again the heavy door, and motioned to Philip to pass through it; but, with a formal bow, Saint Evremonde signed to the marquise to precede him.

Was she, then, to go back to life again? The reaction from despair to hope, however faint, alniost rendered her ineapable of motion; but, with an effort, she returned his courteous bow, and passed over the threshold.

She could not believe in the reality of her escape from this shadow of death. She walked like one in a dream, expecting yet some horror to start out upon her from the shadowy arches of the chapel, or to meet her in the long, dreary passages leading to the salon.

But they were passed in safety, and Vivienne was,at last permitted, worn out with terror and fatigue, to seek her own apartment, and pour out her thanks to that heaven which had pro- tected her in the midst of danger. And yet she felt it was only a respite, not an escape. There had been.a purpose, she well knew, in taking her to that vault. Suddenly she started from her knees. She had. divined the fell design of the marquis. Sooner or later she was to be incarcerated in this awful cell, and by a refine- ment of torture, she had been aequainted with her sentence in advance, so that its terrors might be before her, night and day, intensified by the uncertainty as to when the blow was to fall.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

LINES.

BY FLOY FLOYD.  WHEN, borne on memory's airy wings, My thoughts go back to thee, I know that twilight to thee brings Thoughts of the past and me; It brings the words so fraught with pain To both- we may not meet again.

And yet, though bitter is the thought, Perhaps ' twas best to part, Ere cold distrust had banished love, Or time had chilled the heart; For now we only know we met To love, to part, but not forget.

When twilight's sombre shadows creep O'er life's declining day; When burst our souls their prison deors, And break their bands of clay, At last united may we soar Through worlds of light,for evermore.

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 IN PURSUIT OF A PARSON.

BY FRANK LEE BENEDICT.

My name is Anthony Morris. I am an artist by profession, and a successful one; whether thanks to my talent or my good luck, I leave to those amiable critics, my friends, to decide.

I might be older, and the innocent and ribald jokes of a callow, younger brother lead me to believe that I might be younger; but I suppose when a man chooses to relate a few of his little experiences, he is not bound to set down his age, so I will not reveal my years exactly, but go on with my story.

I have had my pitfalls, but I have escaped them, thanks to keeping my wits about me. I don't pretend to dislike woman, nor to set пр for a hermit. I have met with a bereavementI have lost a friend, and the species is becoming rarer every day.

I have lost a friend-that's his picture yonder, back of the big easel, with a broken pipe and the stem of a wineglass suspended over it by a black ribbon, as a sorrowful memento where he is concerned, and a dismal warning to such lucky birds as still remain on the list of freemen.

I have lost a friend, and I could better have spared a better fellow. I never thought him perfect, and I never pretended to. I am proud to recollect that I did my duty by him, and never failed to point out his little errors, such as crooked temper, writing verses, and being weak in the head where the female tribe were concerned ; but, for all that, I was fond of him.

He usually told the truth, except about himself; and when he was not in his cross mood, or his cranky mood, or his poetical fit, or possessed by his dumb devil, or scampering after a petticoat, he was as reasonable an old dog as one could wish to see ; if he happened to be in the humor of using such common sense as had fallen to his share.

But he is gone- I shall never see him again. It is a little sad to me to think I shall never meet that careless face any more; never hear that somewhat reckless and unmanageable tongue, which had a trick of telling things that other people only think; never laugh in listening to his laugh, which was sure to ring out on the most improper occasions- never any more; and, the worst of it is, that I cannot even say a requiescat in pace when I think of him and his mournful taking off.

It was not that our friendship ended in a quarrel. No, I was faithful to him to the last, stood by him up to the final moment. I did my duty, and I never shall have to reproach myself where he is concerned.

Not the slightest badge of outward mourning is permitted me, save those warning relics that hang over his picture yonder: Owing to the prejudices of an ignorant, superstitious world, my lips are sealed against emitting so much as a sigh in reviewing his fate, except in the society of the gradually narrowing band of select spirits that still frequents my snug old studio.

I said never any more should I meet his careless face, or hear his unchecked laugh —never. But, ah! in place of that, I know that some time in the future there will appear before me a carelined countenance, a stiff, Puritanical figure, like a wooden image of virtue, innocent of the smell of pipes, guiltless of gorgeous scarfs and disreputable breakfast- coats, and he will claim to be the friend I have lost, and in the eyes of the world I shall have to acknowledge him as such ; but here, in the retiracy of my sanctum, I shall refuse to accept this sententious animal, trying to conceal a subdued air under an affectation of seriousness and dogmatic assertion.

You know now what has happened to himhe is married, married ! It were idle, and would be too painful to speculate upon the depths of degradation to which he may sink, after having made the first fatal plunge into a gulf deeper than that wherein Curtius sank, and without the consciousness of duty fulfilled, which supported the sallow old Roman.

I may live to see him deprived of a latch-key ; grown familiar as a man-milliner in the booking up of dresses ; accustomed to rushing about with footstools, nay, with that peculiar, one- sided appearance I have so frequently observed in married men, and which I solemnly believe to be owing to the fact of their having to sleep on the hard edge of the bedstead, instead of being permitted a rightful share of bolster and mattress. Worse even than that may lie beyond- I may go to make a duty visit, perfectly conscious that I shall be regarded in horror by his legal owner as a tempter and lost spirit come up out of the Pandemonium of his past life; and while

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perish; therefore he died for all men in respect of impetration, it hangs but loosely: for they themselves will say, Christ died for the faithfull only in respect of application, and not for all men, whatsoever we are to thinke of the condition of the faithfull, whether they shall stand, or may perish. Amongst themselves, some that maintaine generall redemption by the death of Christ, doe yet hold, that no lively member of Jesus Christ, can perish, or fall away. And I can hardly see how their positions will hang together, if they doe not grant, that though some believers may fall and perish, yet others cannot: But as concerning the weake bretheren, such as be true believers, it is possible they should be grievously shaken by offences and temptations, yea destroyed, as farre as lies in the authours of scandall and temptation, and their own frailty: but in respect of the decree and unchangeable love of God and the intercession of Jesus Christ, they shall not utterly perish, but if they be tempted, they shall be supported, or if they fall, God will raise them up againe. The Apostles exhortation then is forcible, that they should not offend their weake brother, for this was as much as lies in them to destroy him for whom Christ died. Thus Vorstius paraphraseth the text, offend not him with thy meat, I pray thee, and as much as in thee is destroy him, for whom Christ died. And in his ''loc. com.'' upon that Chapter, although the elect cannot perish, the unchangeable decree of God withstanding, yet it is not said in vaine, that they perish by our fault, who when they have entered into the way of salvation, being offended with our actions begin to turne from the same. And ''in loc. com.'' upon the other place; although Christ will suffer none of his to perish, yet indeed they are said to drive weake Christians into destruction, who doe rashly offend them, because to wit offences of themselves doe tend to their destruction, to whom they are objected.

Lastly, It is objected, that the Covenant in Christ is generall, Joh. 3. 16. & 6. 30. without respect of others.

As the Covenant is generall, so is the fruit and application of Christs death, in and through whom the Covenant is made, that is, proffered of God, and accepted of man. As all and every man is called into Covenant, liveth under the Ordinances of grace, is partaker of the fruits of the Spirit, and applieth the death of Christ, so Christ died and rose againe for him. But this manner of


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112 IN PURSUIT OF

A PARSON.

I am trying to make small-talk and propitiate his lawful jailer, I may see him trotting a redfaced atom on his knee, submitting to have his mustache pulled by two lean claws ; yes, maybe four-there may be twins, for what any reasonable being can tell - for, as I said, after the opening degradation, one never knows how far down, into what depths of humiliation and despair lost humanity may descend.

But here I pause, unable to pursue the subject further. Mine is a bachelor-pen, and blushes at the bare idea of thus reaching forward into futurity, and dragging out of its awful maw any such spotted, shrieking, kicking, indistinguishable, and appalling possibilities, as may become actualities in his case.

It was an astonishment te me—I will admit that, all the more readily that it seldom happens that anybody can surprise me now-a-days; but Damon did, I am bound to confess.

I knew his weakness—I knew how easily he ; was bamboozled and made, figuratively, to stand on his head by those descendants of mermaids and the syrens; but I never thought it would have come to this.

After all the warnings he had had, too; after watching with me to see one hapless wretch after another allow himself to be deluded out of our band, with the fatal noose around his neck! Being always the harshest in his judg- ments, the most unsparing in his sarcasm, when at odd times they crept back to make us surrep- titious visits, bearing the marks of the halter so plainly about their necks, grown lean, and care- worn, and melancholy-voiced under their bond- age, or else trying to carry it off with a jaunty, insolent air of triumph, getting red-faced and lazy, and with no more poetry in them than would go to the choosing of a good dinner.

How unmerciful Damon was; how he liked to make them trip if he possibly could; and what a horror and disgust he was to all the spouses of his former friends.

The vile jokes he was accustomed to play! The time Jo Harmon sent him word to go to his tailor and dispatch a pair of pantaloons, and at the same time to fulfill several commissions for Mrs. Harmon; and Damon pretended to make a mistake, and directed the breeches to madam, and a corset to Jo, accounting for that last by } saying he mistook the word corsage, and coolly } adding in his note that he hoped the things fitted and suited the lady.

There was no end to his evil jests and per- formances; and many is the time I have warned him that some horrible fate would befall him if he persevered in his shocking career—but I; never looked for anything so hopeless and irreparable as this! I might have endured his running off with another man's wife and not been surprised; but to see him live to run off with his own - oh! shade of every old bachelor that ever frowned upon matrimony, aid me to chant the harrowing tale.

One of the last men we had seen go was Alf Chauncy-poor, handsome Alf; but everything connected with his faux pas ( or don't you use that word where men are concerned ? ) was so romantic that it appealed to all the blank verse Damon and I had in us, and we bore it with tolerable patience.

Alf fell in love with pretty Marian Lacy on board an ocean steamer, and the steamer caught fire, and he saved her life, and they and a party of the saved were out in 2 small boat for days, and got so short of biscuit that they began te cast hungry eyes at Marian, as looking the youngest and tenderest among them. But they were picked up in time, and Alf fell mad in love with her, and even Damon and I rather applauded it in his case, for there are excep- tions to all rules.

But this was only the beginning of their ro- mance. They quarreled outrageously—I be- lieve most people wait until they are yoked for that—and at last Alf came moaning and tearing his curly hair into this very studio, and dida five act melodrama for Damon’s and my benefit; and we essayed to comfort him with apples, and stay him with flagons, but he was hard bit, and a most dismal old time we had of it with him.

It had got to be summer, and we were just getting ready for a trip to Moosehead Lake, and we carried Alf off with us, though he said he preferred the bottom of the river, or the silent tomb, or some other eligible planting- place of that sort. But we held him fast and touk him withsus; and at the last moment, without knowing why, Damon would go to the Adirondac Woods instead, and I had to give in to his obstinacy, as usual.

We were there for nearly two weeks, and Alf got so that, on ordinary occasions, he could con- duct himself like a civilized being. Of course, he was liable to his attacks, but we got used to them, and never minded when he was moved to rout out of bed in the middle of the night te bay the moon, like a watch-dog, or indulge in other Bedlamitish proceedings, which are apt to -be somewhat confusing to lookers-on, how- ever soothing their effects may be upon the mind of the sufferer.

But I am bound to say that we bore with his whims and vagaries with a patience that was

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 but expressions of the highly refined perceptions of the most gifted and sensitive minds: and these very perceptions, unheeded by the generality of men, are, through the medium of the terms employed to convey them, brought within the range of allare forced upon the notice of all.

It is as when two persons, very unequally gifted as to their powers of observation, are travelling together; for the more observant of the two is every moment jogging the elbow of his obtuse companion, and directing his eye, on the right and the left, to many forms of beauty bid by himself, he would have disregarded.

And thus again, there is another set of descriptive terms, expressing those partial, and yet very nice perceptions which result from the avocations and mechanical employments of different classes of men. These technical words (and the amount of them is very great, and their significance very remarkable) although they may not ordinarily be available in writing or discourse, are worthy of attention when considered as records, or notations, of the sensible qualities of things. We might take, for an example, the description of the sea and sky in a storm, which would be given by a landsman, of ordinary sensibility, and ordinary acquaintance with language; and which would well enough convey a general idea of the scene, in its broader features. But next, let us ask the poet, whose eye has a peculiar regard to the sublime and beautiful, and whose vocabulary contains a far more extensive assortment of terms, to take up the same theme; and we shall find that he not merely associates many fine sentiments with the natural objects before him, but that he has observed and noted many circumstances of the scene that had altogether escaped the vulgar eye:in fact he has seen, what the other saw not. Yet this is not enough; for we must next call in the painterthe marine painter, and if he possess a tolerable command of languagethe technical language of his art,


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Ogura yama Mine no momiji-ba Kokoro araba Ima hito tabi no Miyuki matanamu.

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Mika no hara Wakite nagaruru Izumi gawa Itsu miki tote ka Koishi-karuramu.

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Yama zato wa Fuyu zo sabishisa Masari keru Hito-me mo kusa mo Karenu to omoeba.

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 we shall immediately feel that he too has noted a hundred nice shades and aspects of the scene, which not even the poet had discerned. Yet every such technical descriptive phrase notes a real circumstance of a stormy ocean and sky; and each is a circumstance which, after it has once been pointed out to us, we shall ourselves be able, another time, to catch, and which we should regret not to have had the power of observing.

We have not however yet done; for if we go astern, and enter into talk with the old mariner who holds the helm, and get him freely to employ his slang terms in describing a gale of wind, we shall again be met, not merely by a new set of words, but by a new class of observations, so peculiar as not to have been regarded either by the poet or the painter. One step more will lead us as far as we need go in this illustration. Let us then turn to the naturalist, or the man of science, who having acquired those habits of refined observation that are requisite tin pursuing the exact methods of modern science, sees and notes, in the agitated sea and atmosphere, many evanescent indications of the meteorological, the chemical, and the electric changes that are going on, and which had wholly escaped every eye but his own; and these more recondite phenomena he consigns to a technical phraseology, peculiar to science.

And now, if we take the entire compass of phrases employed bythe common observerthe poetthe marine painterthe old sailor, and the man of science, and expunge the few which may be strictly synonymous, or undistinguishable in sense; the copious collection will then constitute a vocabulary corresponding with all the appearances that are cognizable by the human eye, during a sea storm. The set of phrases employed by the first observer embraces only the most obtrusive features of the scene; those introduced by the second, have the effect of extending and refining our conceptions on all sides; and thus in


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Kokoro-ate ni Orabaya oramu Hatsu shimo no Oki madowaseru Shira giku no hana.

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Ariake no Tsurenaku mieshi Wakare yori Akatsuki bakari Uki-mono wa nashi.

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Asaborake Ariake no tsuki to Miru made ni Yoshino no sato ni Fureru shira yuki.

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Yama gawa ni Kaze no kaketaru Shigarami wa Nagare mo aenu Momiji nari keri.

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Hisakata no Hikari nodokeki Haru no hi ni Shizu kokoro naku Hana no chiruramu.

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 succession, a third, a fourth, and a fifth pair of eyes, is lent to us, and by the aid of each, and through the intervention of language, we are made mentally the spectators of the scene, five times over, and until nothing scarcely remains unnoted or unthought of.

Now it is manifest that, whoever, by the simple and easy means of collecting, and making himself thoroughly acquainted with the meaning of the entire body of descriptive terms, as severally employed by different classes of observers, not only enlarges his knowledge of language (a secondary yet important object) but brings himself into a point of view whence every nice variety of the external world may be distinctly noted, or vividly conceived of. To learn the meaning of all descriptive terms, whether common, technical, poetic, or scientific, is to furnish the mind with a museum of specimens, containing whatever the most practised eyes have described on the face of the material universe.

Yet this is but a portion of the benefit accruing from an extended acquaintance with descriptive vocabularies; for, as any one knows, words are at once our guides and our goads in seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, with discrimination. Words are the stimulants of perception, and the indicators of the less obtrusive class of sensible facts. There are many thousand appearances in naturethere are innumerable varieties of figure, motion, colour, texture, which would never arrest the eye, and of which we should take no sort of cognizance, if we had not first come to the knowledge of the word which notes the particular phenomenon, and thence been led to look for its archetype in nature.

The hearing of a new descriptive term, with its meaning, is like the"see there," addressed by the quick-sighted and well-informed to the dull, when the two are taking their turn through a museum. It is thus that the


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Tare wo ka mo Shiru hito nisemu Takasago no Matsu mo mukashi no Tomo nara-naku ni.

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 reading of poetry opens the eyes to a new world of phenomena, obvious indeed, but not actually observed until we receive this sort of aid. An appropriate instance in illustration of my meaning, may be found in the set of phrases employed by medical practitioners for characterizing the variations of the PULSE: for this example shows how very much the exactness of our perceptions depends upon the mental aid we receive from the use of distinctive terms. An unprofessional finger, how fine soever may be its sense of touch, does not usually discriminate more than four or five varieties of beat, at the wrist; and we are content to say that the pulse isquick or slowhard or softstrong or weak. But the varieties noted by the physician, and retained in his recollection by the use of distinctive epithets, amount to as many as two and twenty. As for instance, the pulse is said to be eitherfrequent, slow, intermittent, equal, regular, or of varying force: or it isfull, long, labouring, bounding, feeble: or it ishard, sharp, strong: or it iswiry, weak, soft, yielding: or it isquick, or tardy: or it islarge, or small. Now by the mere aid of this set of phrases, fixed in the memory, an unprofessional hand might be trained, with a little practice, to feel and to distinguish all these varieties. Descriptive words, then, and especially technical terms, might justly be called the antennæ of perception: it is by these that we feel our way toward nicer, and still more nice sensations.

Or let any one give a few days’ attention to a botanical glossary, storing his memory, pretty well, with those phrases which have been constructed for the purpose of noting what common eyes do not discriminate, in the forms and colours of the vegetable world. The mere possession of these words enables him to see what, without them, he would never have noticed. We now put out of view the regularly conducted and scientific study of botany, and borrow an illustration from it, with the single intention of


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IN PURSUIT OF A PARSON.

113 beyond all praise; and it somewhat astonished me in Damon, fur he was about as uncertain and gusty a young gentleman as you could meet in a day’s march, and not at all inclined to sub- mit unmurmuringly to anything that bored him, or interfered with his own pleasure.

We met a party of Boston men, acquaintances of Alf, and we united forces. I said nothing, being a quiet man, but I was perfectly convinced that ill-luck of sotae sort would speedily over- take us. Mother Cary’s chickens are not more certain forerunners of evil to sailors than.my prophetic soul felt that those modern Athenians would be to us.

Of course, the few words of expostulation that I attempted made Alf and Damon more deter- mined to have them. You know enough of human nature not to be surprised at that; so I smoked my pipe, and took refuge in silence, for fear Damon should go off into one of his “moods,” which would be rather more unen- durable than Alf’s love-sickness.

And the catastrophe came. Alf and one of the Boston men were in a boat together, and Boston would carry his gun cocked, like a fool, though I shouted to him a dozen times from my boat that he would meet with an accident, for he kept shifting the gun about, and making feints of firing at ducks, but was never ready.

“Let him alone,” said Damon, who happened, at the moment, to be savage about something; “he'll only kill himself, and that will be a blessing!”

“But he may shoot Alf,” I ventured to say.

“I hope to the Lord he will,” growled Damon; “I’m disgusted with everything and everybody! Nothing goes right; we ought to have met them before this.”

“Met whom?”

“Oh! mind your business!” quoth Damon, and I did, and was silent. Then he was vexed at that, and muttered that if he was me he wouldn’t make a dumb beast of himself, and I thought I wouldn’t; so I hazarded a remark about Ruskin and the clouds, and Damon said irreverently.

“The deuce take Ruskin! I don’t want any of his stilled trash at second-hand.”

Altogether, the morning was an uncomfort- able one; and just as we reached the piace where the guides, who bad gone on in advance, had arranged we should stop for dinner, that Boston man got into a new frenzy about some ducks. He stumbled over an oar; bang went the gun, and down went Alf like a hit pigeon.

There was dreadful confusion, of course. We  got ashore and ran—the guides ran; the Boston man, having done all the mischief he could, stood howling like a bull of Bashan, declaring that he had murdered his friend, and begging somebody to put an end to him, which 1 would have dont with the greatest pleasure in life, if I had had leisure to spare from Alf to attend to the blundering, ill-regulated animal.

We thought at first the poor boy was dead, but he opened his eyes after a little, and we got his coat off, and discovered that he was wounded in the arm, but badly; and what with its being about an artery, and our not knowing how to manage the confounded thing, he nearly bled to death before we could row him out to the hotel near the lower Saranac Lake.

The Boston man kept on making a whole menagerie of himself till Damon lost patience; and what between anxiety for Alf, and rage at the man, I never heard any poor fellow take ten minutes of such abuse as that child of the Hub from my excitable friend.

“Talk about Cain,” howled Damon, when he got fairly under way, “why Cain was a gentle- man and a Christian compared to you! I swear by all that’s good, I'll have you- lynched the moment we reach Baker’s! I wonder we don’t drown you now! Shut up, you scarecrow! Can't you evén let the poor fellow you’ve murdered die in peace, you concentration of a whole troop of ravens, you?”

The best of it was, he was so mad he had no idea how funny it sounded. I laughed, so did the guides, and poor Alf, too, until he started the bleeding worse than ever, and by the time we landed him at the hotel he was a very bad case, indeed.

Luckily there was a young surgeon there with a party, and he found what I suppose he would not if he had staid at home, an opportunity to exercise his skill; and after the wound was dressed, he assured us there was no danger if fever could be kept down.

Then, while Damon and I were alone in the parlor discussing the matter, the door opened, and we became a scene in a theatre at once, for who should rush in but pretty Marian Lacy, calling out,

“Is he dead? Is he dead?”

I was so overwhelmed with astonishment tat I did the attitudinizing; but Damon, who could have talked if he had been dead a week, soothed her, and performed hero’s friend for her benefit in fine style. I can’t make a pretty story outs of it to please you; but the plain facts were that Marian had come up to the Woods with some friends, and Damon knew it, and that was why he whewed us off there, meaning to

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114

IN PURSUIT OF A PARSON. effect a meeting and reconciliation between the lovers

Of course, you know what happened, being familiar with romances and love matters, Pretty Marian and her old-maid aunt (who looked like an umbrella with a frizzed wig set on it, and always moved with a creak, as if her machinery was out of order) stationed themselves by Alf's bed and watched over him as only women can. I am always willing to speak a good word for the sex whenever I can do it conscientiously— heaven knows they need it sorely enough!

The fever did set in, and Alf had a terrible bout, and death made a fierce old struggle for his prey; but the surgeon, and the nursing, and Alf’s constitution, were too much for him, and they beat him off at last.

Finally, the day came when handsome Alf woke up out of his delirium as pale as a ghost and weak as a baby, and the first sight that met his eyes was Marian’s dear face bending over him, and Marian’s sweet voice assuring him that it was not a dream.

So everybody was glad, and Damon relented enough to let me write to Cain, as he had christ- ened the Boston unfortunate, and put him out of his misery; for the poor fellow had been forced to go back to Boston, (what a fate!) and was daily sending us imploring and penitent letters to inquire about the wounded man—his ‘victim, as Damon insisted on calling Alf.

Alf got so he could be dressed and sit up in ‘the sun; and one day Damon beckoned me mys- teriously, and I crept toward the veranda, and I saw a very pretty picture. Alf sitting back in his easy-chair, and Marian half on her knees by his side, and his arms were ahout her, and they were looking in each other’s faces— heigho!

“What a pair of fools!” whispered Damon; but I knew he was pleased for all that.

I was so softened by what had happened, that ‘when we got back to town, and Alf sent us word in a few weeks to be ready for his wedding, I forgave him and her, and was quite satisfied about them; but though that wretched Damon had done his best to bring them together again, he was terribly severe on, both, ,When I at- tempted to say that for once I approved of what was going on, and that I really believed the pair would be happy, Damon flew out at me in the most violent way, and abused me worse than he had ever done in his whole life, which is saying a good deal, for he was very unreserved in the expression of his sentiments even on ordinary occasions,

«Pleased!” quoth he, knocking the ashes out of his pipe fiercely, ‘A good thing! you great maundering ass! I know how it will end, I’ve seen one good fellow after another go over the bay; here’s Alf—it’ll be you next! You'll let some woman make a blind bat of you; and first you know, you'll be tied, hand and foot, scratched, fondled, teazed, deceived, made to quarrel with your relatives, to hate your mother, to stop smoking, to be humdrum, bewitched, bekissed, befooled, bedeviled—married! Ugh! Shut up, you great cormorant, you!” I declare, he fairly alarmed me, and I could not speak to a woman for a month after. From the date of Alf’s marriage, Damon went on worse than ever about marriage, and was set down as a more hopeless case than before, by everybody that knew him. His heretical opinions abso- lutely were too much for me sometimes, and the mothers of families regarded him as a species of ogre, who would probably devour the youngest and tenderest of their offspring, without remorse, if only he found an opportunity.

Well, I am coming to the finale. Damon had been out of town; he was gone a good while, and though he wrote to me occasionally, his letters. were so vague and unsatisfactory, that I felt confident he was deep in some sort of mis- chief, though what the mature of it might be I never dreamed.

He came back in the autumn, and, would you believe it? I discovered a change in him,, so marked, that, for the life of me, I could not tell what was up. I scarcely ever saw him, yet, when we met, he was as friendly as ever; so I could not think that he was angry. He had always vague excuses, which threw no light on the matter, to offer for his inability to visit the studio. As for the old-time bachelor-parties, he stoutly refused to go to any of them, and one day had the impudence to take me to task for an abandoned Bohemian, which came with very poor grace from him, though he was s0 brazen about it that he quite took my breath away; and it was not until he was gone that I remembered how I might have turned the tables on him by recalling a little of his own past, if I had only kept my wits about me during his tirade.

Time went on; vague whispers reached me, grew, spread, took shape and form. I heard of Damon at all sorts of proper places, and never alone; and, most suspicious sign of all, it was invariably the same female that hung on his arm.

I looked about, the old studio, and felt disconsolate. I remembered Dick, and Jo, and Alf, and the troop of jolly, good fellows who

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22

Econdly, by mixing two uch liquid Bodies as Petroleum and trong Spirit of Nitre in a certain proportion, and then ditilling them till there remained a dry mas, I obtain'd a brittle ubtance as black as Jet; and whoe Superficies (where it was contiguous to the Retort) was gloie like that Mineral when polihed; and as I expected I found it alo to reemble Jet, in being endowed with an Electrical Faculty.

Hirdly, Having burnt Antimony to ahes, and of thoe ahes, without any addition, made a tranparent Glas, I found, that, when rubb'd, as Electrical Bodies ought to be to excite them, it anwer'd my expectation, by manifeting a not inconiderable Electricity. And this is the worthier of notice, becaue, that as a Vitrum

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 the various forms so distinguished. Deprived of the assistance of language, very few minds (probably none) could retain and recall, with any degree of precision, any large assortment of forms, shades, tints, kinds of movement, and modes of action. But with this assistance, the all but innumerable phenomena of the material universe, at rest and in motion, as they come under the cognizance of the several senses, singly or in conjunction, are not only treasured up in the mind, but are held at beck and call, so as to be available in whatever way they may promote the operations of the higher faculties.

The acquisition of the entire compass, or UNIVERSAL VOCABULARY of descriptive words, in our own language, I therefore consider as the chief preliminary work of a complete intellectual education. This labour thoroughly achieved, the mind is placed in a position (according to the rate of its original powers) whence it may advance, with ease and success, in any direction it may choose. Nor is the labour implied in making such an acquisition by any means severe or repulsive; indeed it may be so conducted as to be effected with scarcely any conscious effort.

It is by the means of classification, that we must abbreviate our toils in this department of study; and in truth, wonders may be effected by this simple device. If nothing more were aimed at than to give the learner a liberal acquaintance with the language of elegant conversation, and of books, we might leave out of view for the present, the whole mass of technical and scientific terms; and might then rely upon the insensible operation of general mental culture for conveying so much knowledge of words as is requisite for taking a part in refined conversation, or for relishing literature. But we have in view something beyond thisnamely, the culture of the Conceptive Faculty, and for securing this further end, it is necessary to include every species of descriptive language, whether technical or


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Rh Vitrum Antimonii, that is aid to be purer than ordinary, may be made of the Regulus of the ame Mineral, in whoe preparation you know a great part of the Antimonial Sulphur is eparated and left among the Scoriæ; o Glas of Antimony made without additament, may eaily, as experience has inform'd us, be in part reduc'd to a Regulus, (a Body not reckon'd amongt Electrical ones.) And that you may not think, that 'tis onely ome peculiar and fixt part of the Antimony that is capable of Vitrification, let me aure you, that even with the other part that is wont to flye away, (namely the Flowers) an Antimonial Glas may without an addition of other Ingredients be made.

Ourthly, The mention of a Vitrified Body brings into my mind, that I more than once made ome Glas of Lead per e, (which I

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24 I found no very eaie work) that alo was not wholly detitute of an Electrical Vertue, though it had but a very languid one. And it is not here to be overlook'd, that this Glas might eaily be brought to afford again malleable Lead, which was never reckon'd, that I know of, among Electrical Bodies.

Ifthly, Having taken ome Amber, and warily ditill'd it, not with Sand or powder'd Brick, or ome uch additament as Chymits are wont to ue, for fear it hould boyl over or break their Veels; but by its elf, that I might have an unmixed Caput mortuum; Having made this Ditillation, I ay, and continued it till it had afforded a good proportion of phlegm, Spirit, Volatile Salt, and Oyl, the Retort was warily broken, and the remaining matter was taken out in a lump, which, though it had quite lot its colour being burnt

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IN PURSUIT OF A PARSON. 115 had gone, one after another, into the mysterious realm of matrimony—that dark bourne from whence no bachelor returns, and I wondered if I was to sit by and seé another, the most outrageous and fickle of the whole set, follow in the wake of those unfortunates.

I said nothing; I waited, I kept to my work and my pipe—time enough to speak when my forebodings became a reality. They did that a few weeks ago. I wassitting at my easel yonder, one morning, thinking no evil of anybody, wishing no harm even to the most savage critic of my new picture, not conscious that I ei been particularly wicked, so as to need any great shock or discipline, in fact, at peace with the world in general, and rather easier in my uind in regard to Damon, from some little hints that had reached me.

Ting, ting, went my door-bell. Then the door opened before I could rise, and in rushed Damon, with as much fracas as if he had been the noisiest ward in a mad-house.

He shook hands with me six times, asked the sane question over and over, began sentences aud did not finish, upset my paint-box, trod on the dog, broke a pipe, and finally burst out with,

“Old fellow, I want you to do me a favor. Of course, I tell you, because you are such an old friend; but it’s all being done in a great hurry, so you'll not be vexed at my silence. She’s the dearest. creature, and I am the happiest old dog——

I didn’t hear any more, though I was con-} scious that his voice rambled on, at high-pres- } sure rate, while my brain whirled, and I felt as dazed as if somebody had hit me a peck‘on the back of the head with a sharp stone.

“What is it? What do you mean?” I asked, feebly.

“Ain’t I telling you!” he cried, shaking me, and laughing like a maniac, as he was, of course. “Wake up, you old bat! Don’t you hear? I’m going to be married!”

“Married!” I repeated.

“You couldn't be stupider if you’d been buried," quoth he. "Now get your wits back, you dear old musty bachelor, for I'm in an awful burry, and there's lots of things you must do for me. Married day after tomorrow. Oceans to do! On my way down town! Want you to find a parson, and all that! Hurry up!"

Upon my word, that was all I got out of him, though he talked enough, heaven knows. He pushed me into my hat, dragged me down stairs, bade me hasten, and, above all, not to blunder and it was not until he had jumped into an omnibus, and was gone, that I remembered he had not even told me what clergyman to seek.

I meditated as well as I could in my confusion, and finally remembered he was an Episcopalian, at least I had heard him say his family had always been Episcopalians, so I determined to seek a clergyman of that persuasion.

It was beginning to rain. I had no umbrella. The mud was deep; find a carriage I could not— so away I trudged. The first parson I caught had a funeral on hand at the hour I needed him; the second had his own wedding to attend; the third was laid up with the gout; the fourth affected to think the whole thing a sell on my part, and said disparaging things of my per- sonal appearance, and declined to talk with me.

I pinned one at last; he seemed a very good sort of chap, though we made a blunder at starting. He got the idea, somehow, that I had come about the burial of a relation, and com- menced condoling with me; and I, thinking he had sensible ideas in regard to matrimony, did not discover what he was driving at for some time; but after that, we settled matters very amicably.

Well, I found Damon again in his room, up to his eyes in packages and letters, (by-the- way he was burning a rare lot,) trades-people and bills.

“It’s all right,” said I; “at ten o’clock on the fatal morning he’ll be ready for you.”

“Ten o'clock!” shouted he. “Tony, you always were a fool, and I knew it; but I did think you would try to make what wits you have of some service to a friend at a time like this— it’s very little you can do.”

I looked at. my muddy boots, thought of my tired legs, of my ill-luck, my journies, the abuse I had suffered from the parson, the testiness of the gouty one, the con- fusion of the about-to-be-married one, the mis- take in regard to my errand of the one I had secured, but I only said, mildly,

“What have I done wrong now?”

“Everything!” howled Damon. ‘Unless I do everything myself, it’s all wrong. I told you eight o’clock—we have to catch a train.”

Yes, I positively set off through the mud and the coming dark to find my parson again! He was not at home ; the only time I could be certain of catching him, his landlady said, would  be at his breakfast, at eight o'clock, and he  lived good two miles away from my domicil.

I dared not trust to leaving a note- I had promised Damon to see him in person. Sympathizing soul ! if there be such left on this abandoned old footstool, I was so afraid of over-

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140 revenues, which came chiefly from the royal domains. The kings became possessed of numerous villae scattered over the various districts of Gaul, and these properties were constantly augmented by purchases, donations, and advantageous exchanges. It is true that at the close of the Merovingian epoch the kings, in order to conciliate the great men, distributed among them, a large number of these royal estates, and the treasury became impoverished.

In the second place, the kings levied, at least at the beginning of the period, a number of taxes direct and indirect, which were adaptations of the former Roman imposts. They raised customs dues (telonea) on the goods which passed through certain towns, others on goods passing along the high-roads, by a public bridge, or transported by river, and on goods exposed for sale in market. But these dues were often made over to the churches, abbeys, or private persons. Sometimes also the king levied a tax on men who were not of free condition. This was the old capitatio humana. Those who were liable to it were inscribed in a public register known as the polyptychum. But this impost gradually lost its importance. The queen Rathildis, who lived at the period when Ebroin was Mayor of the Palace, and was herself a former Rreton slave, forbade the levying of this tax, because parents killed their children rather than pay for them. The tax became a customary due, of which the incidence was limited to certain persons; traces of it are found in the time of Charles the Great. Similarly the land tax, capitatio terrena, brought in less and less. Smitten by fear of the divine wrath Chilperic himself burned the registers in order to win back the favour of God. The capitatio terrena came to be limited to certain lands, as the capitatio humana was to certain persons. At the end of the Merovingian period it became necessary to create new imposts, and then the warriors were required to bring to the spring assembly gifts nominally voluntary, which soon became compulsory. The minting of coinage was in the earlier part of the period another source of revenue. For a long time the Frankish kings confined themselves to imitating the imperial currency; Theodebert was the first to place his name and effigy on the gold solidi. But his example was little followed. Down to the seventh century coinage was minted in Gaul bearing the names of former Emperors like Anastasius, Justin, and Justinian, whose types became permanent, or of contemporary Emperors like Heraclius (610-641). From the middle of the seventh century onward we find no coins bearing an effigy. On one side we find simply a man's name — that of the monetarius — on the other that of the locality. More than 800 local names are found on the Merovingian coins. Evidently coining had become almost entirely free again; minters, provided with a royal authorisation, went from place to place, converting ingots into specie. Charles the Great however resumed the exclusive right of coining.


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Rh burnt quite black, and though it were grown trangely brittle in comparion of Amber, o that they who believe the vertue of attracting light Bodies to flow from the ubtantial form of Amber, would not expect it in a Body o changed and deprived of its noblet parts: Yet this Caput mortuum was o far from having lot its Electrical Faculty, that it eemed to attract more vigorouly than Amber it elf is wont to do before it be committed to Ditillation.

And from the foregoing Instances afforded us by the Glas of Antimony, we may learn, that when the form of a Body eems to be detroyed by a fiery Analyis that diipate's the parts of it, the remaining ubtance may yet be endowed with Electricity, as the Caput mortuum of Amber may acquire it; as in the cae of the Glas of Antimony made of the Calx and of the Flowers. And from the econd Example above-mentioned, and from common Glas which is Electrical, we may alo learn,

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116 WITHERED FLOWERS. sleeping myself that I slumbered sitting up in my big chair, got the nightmare, and bumped my head against the table.

But I was up and out in time, and found the parson, and got it straight at last, and he tried; to console me for all my trouble by saying,

“It might be worse; you might be going to be married yourself.”

“God forbid!” said I, fervently; then remem- bered that he was a clergyman, and apologized. But he laughed heartily, and said,

‘It was so evidently heartfelt that I really think it was not irreverent.”

What an awful day I had of it! Damon sent for me, and I had to go. First, he reviled me; for my bruised forehead, and vowed that I had been on a spree, and that it really was enough to ruin a man’s character to present a friend with such a mark on his face as there was on  mine. Then he read me a brief but dreadful lecture on the enormity of my conduct generally, and figuratively spat upon me (as the foulest reproach) the name ‘‘fusty, musty, crusty old bachelor.”

There was a world of things to do—he always was the worst fellow for leaving matters to the latest moment—and when he was not reviling me, he was praising his intended, or telling me what a happy dog he was, or pitying me for being a disconsolate old crow.

I may have been guilty of my little errors in my life, but whatever they have been, certain it is that the purgatory I endured that day ought to have atoned for them ; and the most provok ing thing was, that, whether he reviled me or pitied me, or talked about our old friendship, it was so evident that he was ridiculously, idiotically happy, that he was no more sensible of the horror of his position than a blind man would be of a precipice. Friend, the morrow came, I was up at early dawn—at the’church precisely at eight. Would you believe it! only that one can believe any- thing of a man capable of falsifying all his old sentiments as Damon had done! Late the even ing before it had been decided to have the cere mony nearly half an hour earlier, so that as I entered the chapel the clergyman was just con cluding the performance ; and the little group of relatives, who had felt it their duty to get up  and be present, glared at me as if I ought to be ashamed of myself-and I really felt conscience stricken, though for what I could not have told.

That is all! The last of them is gone - the band of old bachelors is definitely wasted to a single span. There hang the pipe and glass  here I sit and recall the by-gone days, and see the ghosts of good fellows sitting about, and hear them laugh and talk, and the past grows so real that it is only with an effort I rouse myself to the mournful truth that they are all gone lost ! Damon latest ! Sold, betrayed, buried- no, I mean married!

WITHERED

FLOWERS.

BY MRS. EMMA DIX. Who placed ye here, bright memory flowers? Sweet emblems of fair Summer hours, Within this Sacred Book ? Had ye a mission to fulfill, To call again with magic skill, Some fond or gentle look?

Perhaps ye decked a mother's pride, When time on rapid wing did glide, Crowning her life with joy; Sweet token of some happier morn, That blushed above its tiny form, One day without alloy.

Mayhap a bride, with modest grace, Had twined ye 'mid the fleecy lace Shading her maiden brow; What hopes ye brought, sweet memory flowers, Of other days and fonder hours, Fair records of a vow.

Maychance bedecked some dear loved one, Fit emblem of the life just done, As fair, and bright, and ble t; Soothing the pathway to the tomb, A gentle flower in early bloom, Seeking its joyous rest.

Fair, smiling flowers, once bright and gay, Withered hopes of a happier day, Speak, and tell me all: My childhood seemed as bright and fair, Its faded dreams can well prepare The soul to obey its call.

I'll place ye back; ye long have lain, Some joy or care, some grief or pain, That long hath slept untbought; Mayhap the one who placed ye here, Is floating in another sphere, By God and angels taught.

Sleep on, sweet flowers, the tears will start, When memories crowd within my heart, An orphan's sad and lone; The best beloved, each kindred tie, Like your bright joys, must fade and die Our brightest days have flown.

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572-575] previous instalments should be paid in advance. Sebocthes arrived (probably early in 572) to remind the Emperor of his obligations. In the judgment of Chosroes it was to Persia's present advantage that the peace should remain unbroken. The disagreeable question of Suania was shelved for the time, and Rome's claims were quietly ignored. Sebocthes preserved a studied silence in relation to the disturbances in Armenia and, when Justin mentioned that country, even appeared willing to recognise the rights of the Christian inhabitants. On dismissal, however, he was warned by the Emperor that if a finger was raised against Armenia it would be regarded as a hostile act. Justin indeed seems to have been anxious to force Persia to take the aggressive. He chose this moment of diplomatic tension to send the magistrianus Julian on a mission to Arethas, then reigning in Abyssinia over the Axumite kingdom. The envoy persuaded Arethas to break faith with his Persian suzerain, to send his merchandise through the country of the Homerites by way of the Nile to Egypt and to invade Persian territory. At the head of his Saracens the king made a successful foray, and dismissed Julian with costly gifts and high honour. Evidently Justin considered that Chosroes was only waiting until the Roman gold had been safely received, and that he would then declare war on the first favourable opportunity.

The Emperor determined to strike the first blow. The continuance of the peace entailed heavy periodical payments, and throughout his reign Justin was consistently opposed to enriching the Empire's enemies at the expense of the national treasury. Though the subsidies paid to Persia were to be devoted to the upkeep of the northern forts and the guarding of the passes against eastern invaders, it was easy for any unkindly critic to represent them as tribute paid by Rome to her rival. Again Justin had welcomed the Turkish overtures: the power which had overthrown the Ephthalites would, he thought, be a formidable ally in the coming struggle. Further, through the mistakes in diplomacy of his own envoy, Suania had remained subject to Chosroes, and it was now additionally necessary that the country should belong to the Empire, since Persian ambushes rendered insecure the trade route to Turkish territory from which so much was hoped. But above all the capital had been deeply stirred by the oppression of the Armenians: Justin was resolved to champion their cause and, as a Christian monarch, to challenge the persecutor in their defence. When the ambassadors of the Frankish Sigebert returned to Gaul early in 575 they were full of the sufferings of the Armenians; it was to this cause, they told Gregory of Tours, that the war with Persia was due.


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Christs death pertaineth to the event, act or application, which they confesse is not common to all men, and is manifest in this, that God entred not into Covenant with every Nation at all times, neither under the Law, nor in times of the Gospell, scil. with the Nations he passed by, and which as the Scripture saith were without God. God expressely declared himselfe in the time wherein the distinction of Jew and Gentile tooke place, that he would accept of strangers, as well as any, if they should love and feare his name, Isa. 56. 7. But the Covenant at that time was not made with all Nations, as it was with the Jews, not made known unto all the Gentiles, they did not enjoy means sufficient to come to the knowledge of the truth; That the promises of mercy did at all times belong to them that fulfilled the condition, is needlesse to be proved: but that the Covenant was made with every man, or that meanes sufficient or grace to receive the promises was granted to every man, at all times, in all ages if they would, is that which no Scripture testifieth. And that passage of the Prophet, which promiseth the acceptance of the stranger, if he repent and turne unto the Lord, is manifestly spoken of the times of the new Testament, when the partition wall was broken downe, as the verses following doe convince. In the daies of grace the Covenant was more generall, then in former times it had been: but God hath not erected his Tabernacle, nor walked amongst all Nations, in every age of these last times, as experience teacheth. How then is the Covenant generall, respecting every man? Peradventure they mean no more but this, that every man that will be saved, must be saved by it, and whosoever doth believe, be he bond or free, Jew or Gentile, male or female, rich or poore, he shall be saved, though the Covenant was never made with most Nations of the world, nor accepted by them, nor they had means to come to the knowledge of it, much lesse grace to performe the conditions: and then to grant the Covenant is generall will availe them nothing. There is no force in this argument, the Covenant of grace is made with some, none being excluded, if they repent and believe, therefore Christ died for every man, rather we may strongly argue, Christ died not for every man, because God is not the God of all by Covenant. But the invitation is generall, scil. in the daies of grace and to them that heare it, and the promise universall to every believer: we adde, the invitation is serious,


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 Rh “He intends to send over a secret treaty of the same nature as the one recently made with his recent Highness the recent Czar of Russia. Under this treaty Germany proposes to give to the United States the whole of equatorial Africa and in return the United States is to give to Germany the whole of China. There are other provisions, but I need not trouble you with them. Your mission relates, not to the actual treaty, but to the preparation of the ground.”

I bowed again.

“You are aware, I presume,” continued the Baron, “that in all high international dealings, at least in Europe, the ground has to be prepared. A hundred threads must be unravelled. This the Imperial Government itself cannot stoop to do. The work must be done by agents like yourself. You understand all this already, no doubt?”

I indicated my assent.

“These, then, are your instructions,” said the Baron, speaking slowly and distinctly, as if to impress his words upon my memory. “On your arrival in the United States you will follow the accredited methods that are known to be used by all the best Spies of the highest diplomacy. You have no doubt read some of the books, almost manuals of instruction, that they have written?”

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