The reader of the volume, now published, will see, that I have by no means followed out the wishes of the excellent clergyman whose letter I have cited, but that letter was the chief inducement which led me to apply myself to the work which now appears. The writer of the letter has since entered into his rest. I saw the notice of his death in the public papers, when I was about to write to him; but though I have only taken a hint from his suggestions, it has been a pleasing thought to me, that I should be endeavoring, in some imperfect sense, to fulfil his wishes.

The volume, though it be considered as a work of fiction, is not so, either as to persons or circumstances; no portion of it is personal, no locality could be pointed out, but almost every part is drawn from observation. The picture of a landscape-painter may represent to the eye of the spectator an ideal scene; but the whole has probably been produced from the pages of his sketch-book. A group of trees, an aerial mountain, a peculiar sunset, a road-side bank, &c., actually sketched on the spot, may present in their combination a landscape which no one could remember to have seen; but each part of the composition is true to nature, and has, as a fragment, an actual existence. Such, I may assure my reader, are the

written pictures which I am accustomed to set before him; and notwithstanding the objections which are made by some persons to what are termed works of fiction, I am not at all convinced that I should be doing what is right, if to please such objectors, I were to lay aside my pen, and publish no more. I had at one time made up my mind to do so, under what I am now convinced was a mistaken impression. I have not only been recommended by men of the highest Christian character to go on writing, but I have also received so many accounts of the good effect which, by God's blessing, has been actually produced by my bookstheir having indeed, in many instances, been blessed of Him, to the actual conversion of the reader-that I am now determined, while the opportunity is still prolonged to me, to continue to write. That which was at one time almost an undefined hope of doing good, has now assumed the definite form of a solemn duty; and I am more and more convinced, that while there are some minds so constituted, that they would receive nothing which does not come before them in the didactic shape of a sermon or an essay, there are a tenfold number who will only receive instruction in the form by which I have endeavored to convey it. My chief care must be, as I trust it has long been, to

be true to God, and to represent, and recommend, nothing which is not in strict accordance with His divine word; and my wish is that while I would if possible be true to nature in my delineations of character, not to amuse, by merely showing society, in a nominally Christian country, as it is; but to edify, by representing Christian society as it ought to be.

I fully respond to the quaint verses prefixed as an apology, by John Bunyan, to his glorious allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress; many of them might be Drought forward in answer to those who denounce all but didactic works on religious subjects. I give but these few lines:

"May I not write in such a style as this,

In such a method too, and yet not miss

My end, thy good? Why may it not be done?

Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.

Yea, dark or bright, if they their silver drops
Cause to descend, the earth by yielding crops
Gives praise to both, and carpeth not at either,
But treasures up the fruit they yield together."

"Let me add one word more. O man of God,
Art thou offended? Dost thou wish I had
Put forth my matter in another dress?
Or, that I had in things been more express?

I find not that I am denyed the use
Of this my method, so I no abuse

Put on the words, things, readers, or be rude
In handling figure or similitude

In application; but all that I may

Seek the advance of truth, this or that way.
Denyed, did I say? Nay, I have leave
(Examples, too, and that from them who have
God better pleased by their words and ways
Than many a man who liveth now-a-days)
Thus to express my mind, thus to declare
Things unto thee that excellentest 'are.
I find that Holy Writ, in many places,
Hath semblance with this method, where the cases
Do call for one thing to set forth another.
Use it I may, then, and yet nothing smother.
Truth's golden beams-nay, by this method-may
Make it cast forth its beams as bright as day."

EARNESTNESS.

"Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but.willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind."—1 PETER V. 2.

CHAPTER I.

"AND so we must leave Springhurst!"-There had been a long and thoughtful pause before these words were spoken; and a deep sigh had been their prelude from the lips of her that breathed them.

It was a bright morning in April, the first real Spring morning; a soft shower was just over, and the grass, and the flowers, and the bursting leaves, were all glittering in the warm, golden sunshine; the gentle breeze was laden with balmy fragrance, the hedge-row banks were blue with violets, the air was ringing with the songs of joyous birds, and all nature seemed to be keeping holiday.