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up!-whither shall the impenitent and unbelieving fly? To God? Hear, O sinner, His warnings in time!"When your fear cometh as a desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you: then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices!" (Prov. i. 27-31.) Shall they fly to Jesus? He also tells them what must be His sentence: "I know you not; depart from me, ye that work iniquity!"

There can be no hope for the impenitent then, but there is hope now. "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." "To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts!" Beware of giving your hearts to what cannot last or be your life, when time shall be no more. What can "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life," do for you on that day? But, seeing all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" Yet those who know and love Jesus may rejoice. "The world," indeed, "passes away, and the lust thereof." Let it pass; who will mourn over its funeral pile? But all that is worth keeping will be preserved. "He who does the will of God abideth for ever! " While this world is kept in store for the perdition of the ungodly, a better world is reserved for the godly: "Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth

righteousness." Wherefore, believer, "seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless; and account that the long-suffering of our God is salvation!" And again, "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken, are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him."

NORMAN MACLEOD.

XX.

THE MERCHANT OF THE FAR WEST.

T was a magnificent autumnal evening. Our ship was

IT

covered with canvas towering to the very truck; her studding-sails spreading outwards like the wings of an immense sea-bird, and herself "staggering," as the sailors say, under a fresh quarter-wind, with as much as she could carry, neither less nor more. The horizon was clear a rare thing at sea-and gave promise of a glorious sunset. We were in the middle of the Atlantic, and not a sail in sight; so that we seemed to be the living centre of the whole visible world,--of the ocean which swept around us, and the blue dome of the cloudless sky that descended over us, resting its huge rim upon the circumference of the plain of waters. The passengers had finished dinner, and were pacing the deck; or, broken up into little parties, were singing, telling stories, reading, or gazing over the bulwarks upon the ruddy rays of light becoming more intense in the western clouds that gathered round the setting sun. Such delightful evenings on ship

board always spread a happiness throughout the whole vessel. Sickness and moroseness are both banished; and those who ordinarily "dwell apart," become frank, affable, and communicative.

It was so with one of the passengers, whose appearance and manners had arrested my attention ever since we had left harbour. He was a man of ordinary stature, and of a light wiry make. There was something peculiarly striking in his countenance, yet one could hardly tell what that something was. The features were all small and well formed; the complexion dark and swarthy; the hair lank and jet black; the eye—yes, therein lay the mysterious something.

For four days I never heard that man open his lips. He sat during meals at the corner of the table near the door of the saloon, nearly opposite to me, and separated always by a considerable gap from his next neighbour. He seldom raised his head while eating; never partook of more than one dish, and of that very sparingly, eating very rapidly, and never drank anything stronger than water; so that his meal, begun always late, and taken in silence, was over in a few minutes, and his seat again empty. When on deck he paced up and down from morning till night, speaking to no one, and apparently absorbed in his own thoughts. His step was as peculiar to himself as were his other manners; short and rapid, and noiseless, like a wild beast speeding onwards towards its prey, he seemed to glide along the deck. But no one could look at that face without feeling there was something behind it "out of the common." That eye! How quickly it glanced round, and seemed to fasten on every

thing and everybody; now changing to calm sadness, brooding in deep thought; or suddenly-one knows not why-becoming fixed with a sharp piercing glance of fire, beneath the contracted eyebrows, as if it gazed upon a spirit; while the nostrils were distended, the lips compressed, and the features lighted up with deep emotion.

A total stranger myself to all the passengers, I could not make the inquiries, which I felt prompted by curiosity to make, about this unknown person. But one day after dinner-on that beautiful autumnal evening I have described two passengers beside me, while conversing about the great emigration then taking place from the United States to the shores of the Pacific, happened to forget the name of some dangerous pass. "What is the name?" exclaimed a Yankee, stamping his foot with irritation, and knitting his brow. "Jonada del Muerto between Chihuahua and Santa Fè," said the unknown one, without lifting his eyes or speaking another word; then rising from his seat, he proceeded to the deck as if he had uttered something in a dream.

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'Queer chap, that!" remarked one of the speakers, as he gazed after him; "I knew he knowed it, if man did."

"Who is he?" I inquired.

"Well, I expect," said the Yankee, "that he does some business in the far west. I heard a St Louis man -that tall, red-haired fellow at the other table-say, that his life would be one of the loudest in any language, if it were in print."

This description, peculiar though it was, made me desire a closer acquaintance with the stranger; and ac

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