supposed to have belonged to one of the old barons. He showed it to Sir Thomas who permitted him to keep it.

"This, Sir, is the horn that Sir Thomas' father used to drink out of when he returned from hunting. It was given to me by Sir Thomas.

"But this, Sir, is the greatest curiosity. It is the prayer-book which the family used to use at church. You see it bears their coat of arms. That, Sir, is Fleetwood's Life of our Saviour, which was given to me by the old vicar, the Rev. Mr. Wood, who, when he died, left me an annuity of twenty pounds a-year for my life."

His library contained a few odd volumes of the Spectator, the Gentleman's Magazine, the Whole Duty of man, Goldsmith's Deserted Village, Thomson's Seasons, Young's Night Thoughts, and about thirty other volumes. "But, Sir," said the old man, with great animation, "this is my greatest treasure," resting his hand on his Bible, which was laying on the table. "I have had this blessed book in my possesion many, very many years; but like an Eolian harp when no air is stirring, it was thrown aside, and would have remained neglected, had not that Angel in human form taught me its value, and how to understand it. She came, Sir, and found me ignorant, yet presumptuous; dreaming of future happiness, when expecting it, as the reward of my righteous deeds; tottering on the verge of the grave, without any experimental knowledge of Him who is the resurrection and the life. But blessed be the holy name of my God, who of his great mercy sent his hand-maid to teach me the way of the Lord more perfectly."

66 You now,

I

presume, read your Bible more

frequently than in former times, and with much greater interest ?"

"Yes, Sir; it is now my constant companion. In former times I seldom read it, except at church; and when I did, I found no pleasure in reading any part of it, except the historical books, the book of Proverbs, a few of the Psalms, and a few of the Parables of our Saviour. I could not understand the Epistles, because the veil of ignorance was over my eyes; but now, blessed be the holy name of the Lord my God, that is taken away, and I see new beauties rising up before me every time I examine the sacred pages."

"You must now have a new, a purer, and a more definite class of pleasurable feelings, when engaged in the exercises of devotion, and when anticipating your entrance into the heavenly world ?”

"Yes, Sir, I have !" he exclaimed, with more than usual animation, as a fine glow came over his wrinkled countenance. "Before I passed from death unto life, I had no feeling in my devotions, as they were conducted mechanically, rather than from supreme love to the great object of devotion. I was religious only by profession, for I had no conception of what the Apostle calls the power of godliness. My character was good, but my heart was deceitful, and I knew it not; and when I thought of heaven, I thought of going there, rather from necessity than from choice, as I had no desire to depart. And when I thought of the felicity of hea ven, the highest conceptions which I could form of it, was by supposing, that we should live there much as we do here, only we should suffer neither hunger, thirst, nor oppression. But now, a Saviour is become the medium of my access to the Father; the object of my dependance, and of my love, I feel as though I

D

were introduced into a new world of being, in which all things are become new. I see the same church, I read the same Bible, and I exercise the same faculties, as in former times, but I now discover their relation to God, to the Redeemer, and to an eternal world, which was concealed from me in the days of my ignorance. I now can say, I am happy: happy, because redeemed by the precious blood of Christ; happy, because I can commune with the Holy One; happy, because I expect ere long to unite with the general assembly of heaven, who serve him day and night in his temple.”

"I suppose you often enjoy the society of the estimable Miss Lester, to whose conversation, under the divine blessing, you attribute the great moral change which you have undergone?"

Never shall I forget the depressing effect which this question produced on the old man. He looked at me till the tears moistened his fine blue eyes, and wetted his aged cheeks; he heaved a deep sigh, as though nature had made the last gasp for life; and after pausing, to regain the power of utterance, he said, "Alas, no Sir! She often came to see me when she dwelt at home, and used to sit in that window seat, and talk to me about the Saviour; but now she is far away, and I never see her. Here is a letter, Sir, I received from her three months ago last Sunday evening ;" taking it out of his side pocket, and handing it to me, "and if you would like to read it, you are welcome. She called on me before she left, to bid me farewell, and then told me it was probable I should never see her again. She wept when she parted from me, and so did I, and I have often wept since, and if my tears would bring her back, I would weep day and night. She

did not tell me why she was going to leave us, but since she left us, strange rumours are afloat."

I now listened with deep interest to the old man's story, and though at times I thought he was narrating the events of a recent and actual occurrence; at other times, I thought that his mind had suddenly relapsed into a state of idiocy, and that he was now collecting, out of the fragments of some strange tales, of the iron age of intolerance, materials to form a regular history of a Modern Martyr. I knew not how to discredit, nor how to believe him; and having heard all he chose to tell me, and promised to renew my visit, I left him, amazed and deeply affected. "And can it be true! And is it possible? And has the evil genius of persecution outlived the revocation of his own laws? and dares he still linger about the vallies, and mountain tops of society, annoying and oppressing those whom he cannot, as in former times, destroy?"

GAMING.

GAMING is one of those departments of guilt which combine a certain exercise of the intellect with the indulgence of the baser passions. A devotee to the turf and the dice must be a man selfpossessed, cool, collected, and capable of making complicated calculations. The tempter does not generally assault him by very sudden and perceptible attacks. In this respect, the sensualist-strange as it may sound-has an advantage over the victims of avarice, and the professors of play. If men die by their own suicidal hands, as bacchanalians, and as having given way to such animal lusts as

bar against the soul, their guilt is far more evident to themselves than is the case with the man who soberly retires to rest, with a head calm, though busy with the arithmetic and the computations of the succeeding day, and even when he foresees the ruin of his inexperienced dupes, who will come and flutter about his nets. He is wicked by rule and compass by a kind of mathematical precision. His guilt is of the most malignant type-but its malignity is interior. We therefore cannot wonder at hearing of gamblers who journey on to eternity itself without any very lasting remorse; though wives have died of broken hearts, and children have not been recognised by their fathers. It is the inevitable course of events, as the sparks fly upward. Death indeed-and the approach of death, as of a spectre troubling the imagination of bad men-may be attended with what have been called the compunctious visitings of nature; these things have sometimes darkly clouded the last days even of a gamester, and made him anticipate the terrors of an invisible state. But up to this dreary extremity of life he may have travelled with comparative quietness and freedom from alarm; and this is his very misery and ruin. Spiritual diseases are often as flattering as certain of those which affect only our physical frame. There is little pain. The fever itself-a mortal symptom-induces, as sometimes happens under the influence of opium, pleasurable and almost delicious feelings. But death-death-not to be ultimatly shunned-not much longer to be contemplated at an indefinite distance-comes at last; and the veil of the eternal world hides the rest.