your principles." She remained with the children, and Smith returned to his own library, and told Mrs. Smith that he was going to make a sermon.

But, alas for the Rector of Clifton !-Soon, with deplorable perversity of taste and feeling, he turned his attention from theology to poetry, and instead of a sermon, he wrote a hymn; a few verses of which we will transcribe.

"God created all to bless,
Trust with Him thy happiness;
Courage! brighter days will come,
Earth is not the Christian's home.

Though no gleam of day appears,
Not a star thy darkness cheers,
No faint streak of welcome light,
Break the shadows of thy night;

But around and o'er thy head,
Every thing is cold and dead,
As if forgotten and unknown,
Thou strugglest with the world alone.

Yet on God, thy life, thy way,
Let thine orphaned spirit stay.
Cease contending-Who art thou?
Be at peace-What can'st thou do?

Who in thickest darkness reigns,
He thy weary life sustains;

God sees through the darkest night,

God is love and God is light.

On his changeless love rely,

Time and earth and hell defy;

Till awak'ning from the tomb,

Heaven's own light disperse thy gloom."

And now, with your permission, we shall leave Agnes to the care of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and for lack of incidents, adventures, or something more piquant or romantic than their life at Clifton Rectory, we shall take a liberty with old father Time, which is wisely forbidden except in story books, leap the bounds of several distinct seasons, and relate what happened to the Unbeliever, on his return to the continent, about ten calendar months after he had left his wife and country.

CHAPTER XV.

"But the sorrow of the world worketh death."

SOME of us may have seen a young man following heedlessly the bent of his corrupt passions, until he is, as it were, borne headlong downward by their impetuosity. He may have been warned of the consequences of his course; and reminded that, although "he walk in the ways of his heart and in the sight of his eyes," the end of these things is death. We We may have appealed to his affection, or to his better judgment; and in the name of religion, and truth, and reason, attempted to exorcise the unclean spirit, and command that he should come out of him, and enter no more into him: and what has been the result? The deluded votary of voluptuousness and pleasure has listened, and is persuaded. He knows that sure as death and the grave, is the fatal termination of his path; and perhaps, for a little while, he turns from his vain pursuits, and wanders about in dissatisfaction and vexation of spirit, seeking rest and finding none. But his heart is still cleaving fast to his degrading gratifications; the relish, the keen appetite for unhallowed enjoyment is undiminished; and soon again he is turned aside, rushes backward with increased eagerness, and despite the thunders of heaven, or the accusa

tions of a half enlightened conscience, he opens his heart to the reception of every vile and hateful feeling; like the seven devils they come and dwell there, and "his last state is worse than his first."

Then, we may have seen him again. The way of unholy pleasure is swifter than a weaver's shuttle; and the interval between our first and second interview with

him, has perhaps been very brief. Death has now marked him for his own,-he is stretched upon a bed of sickness, and the sunk eyes, and hollow cheeks, and shrunk emaciated form, tell us that he is in the firm grasp of him from whose cold embrace there is no escape. For a little while he clings tenaciously to life, and trifles, with the few remaining sands that are in his glass; but soon the stern realities of an unknown state of existence stare him in the face. Oh, if it were but a dream, and he could return again to the freshness of the morning,-to his schoolboy days, when his young heart glowed with life and expectation, and he knelt in the bloom of rosy health to receive his mother's blessing; -or to youth's first dawn, when in the anticipation of his ardent mind, this world of love and beauty seemed created all for him; and he drunk in happiness as the breath of spring. But the past has faded like the vague images of a dream, and who shall recall it?-As it is appointed unto man, once to die," so-as far as this mortal life is concerned-it is appointed unto man, once to live. Happy is he who," using this world, does not abuse it, but remembers that the fashion of it passeth away." But it is time that we return to our story.

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It was now more than twelve long months since that blithe May morning when Wallace Arnold led his little Agnes from the altar, and called her by his own name. The ceremony had not been to him an unmeaning one: he loved Agnes with his whole heart, and when before God and man, he had vowed to cherish and protect her until death, he meant all that he had said; he was ready to dedicate his whole life to her happiness.

His marriage with Agnes was not a comparatively, unpremeditated act. It had been for years, the favorite object of his schemes and wishes; and now that he had, after repeated disappointment, at last succeeded in claiming her as his own property, he had ventured to look forward to a long life of uninterrupted prosperity,-to a home of domestic happiness,-to children-sons in whom his own character might be immortalised and gain increased strength; and daughters-fair and gentle as Agnes.

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But he had fled from that home while as yet it hardly existed, but as a creation of his own fancy. Unbelief,an evil heart of unbelief," while it incapacitated him for its enjoyment had driven him from its shelter; and words, a few careless words, coming to him like a poisoned arrow, had sunk deep into his suspecting nature, and rankled there, until, in the delirium of his excited feelings, he committed the act which turned the whole course of his future life.

From that hour the fair visions of youth and of manhood faded from his mind. He believed that he had lost Agnes, and with her that he had lost all; and so miser