How delicate are the fibres which cement human hearts, on the preserving or the severing of which concord and harmony depend. O how well were it that those who have the care of children, not only knew but practically remembered, that no human beings can be placed closely together without at times mutually and severely jarring against each other! One of the most holy and universally beloved persons I ever knew, once said to me, in her old age, "My child, seek faith with your whole heart, and obedience to God; for, however amiable and devoted those around you may be, there is much need of forbearance with the innocent infirmities of human nature, and a variety in providential destination, fully enough to try that faith and love at times to the utmost." If such be the experience of mature Christians, what must be the collision between undisciplined children, if placed together without suitability of object and without control?

I think that, with a very little management, my little brothers and sisters and I might have been made, in a measure, to understand the necessities of each other, and not to consider those things in which we differed as a mark of ill-will; whilst the same wisdom might, during many portions of the day, have made us helpful to each other, by the advantages which might have been derived, to me from their strength and spirits, and to them from

my greater interest in the objects of pursuit required from both.

Sensitive as I was by nature, the addition of the misery produced by Jones's terrible instrument rendered me quite incapable of entering into their amusements and pleasures. The trial to me was great, when from the quiet enjoyment of the society of my mother and her friends, I became subject to the high spirits of my young brothers, on their return from school, and the noise and frolic in which they delighted. Even their most innocent mirth and playfulness appeared an empty weariness to me, who had always been accustomed to associate cheerfulness with some intellectual combination. I was grieved, too, by their appearing to forget my dear mother's regulations, which I looked upon as sacred, and this, though but the natural consequence of their thoughtless age, was a daily trial to me.

Yet, oh, how deceitful is the human heart! If I had then looked into my own, I might have seen that, in some respects, I was virtually as unmindful of my mother's wishes as they were. No temptation would indeed have led me not to attend my masters, or prepare my exercises, at the appointed hour, nor do I ever in my life remember having been blamed for neglecting them. But then, though I attended in bodily presence, I had the habit of learning my les

son, or writing my exercise, probably in half the time allotted for it; and for the rest of the hour, whilst to others I seemed absorbed in study, my mind was far off in Dream-land, living in an ideal world, which I peopled according to my fancy, and where, in truth, I sought to indemnify myself for my unhappiness by an imaginative creation.

How has the remembrance of these days impressed me with the great importance of our early habits and associations. The mind of infancy is ductile ; little channels of thought and affection are soon formed, and then it becomes almost impossible to prevent every accession of knowledge or feeling from pouring its currents in the same direction, till that which seemed at first but as a narrow brook soon becomes worn into the deep bed of an irresistible stream. Well has the Psalmist said, "The rain filleth the pools." Whatever reservoirs we make, they will soon be filled, either like the Lake Moris, by the floods and slime of earth, or like Solomon's cisterns and Hezekiah's pool of almonds, by the rain from heaven.

What a respite it appeared, when one day in each fortnight, we went to Birmingham to attend our masters. On such occasions we usually walked from my father's house of business in Steele-house Lane, to that we at this time occupied in winter, where we took our lessons.

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In this walk we necessarily crossed the large churchyard of St. Philip. As I hopelessly followed Mademoiselle, how many hundred times have I looked at the sods of that crowded churchyard, and thought I would have given all I had to be lying under one of them.

I

It is one effect of being sunken in spirit and broken-hearted, that we lose even our power of exciting sympathy; and this was probably felt by those around me. It was just two years since the time of my first grief, when my dear mother had been taken so ill; but now, oh! how different was my case! then loved God, and I wished to do right. Now the strong-hold of principle, for such it was even to a little child, was gone. I knew not if there was a God, and I knew not right from wrong; darkness brooded over the deep, and my misery seemed hopeless.

Such was my state at this time. During the hours in which I was ordered to lie down, I was left to the amusement of reading many historic, many infidel, and many of the political works of the day; and though my reading time abstracted me for an hour or two from my social trials, it only added to the root of misery, by infusing still deeper doubts into my mind, and bewildering me amidst a galaxy of arguments, too brilliant not to puzzle, and too contradictory to convince.

Nevertheless, that dark and desert time, even that passage through the land where no water is, by the mercy of God was interspersed with occasional

oases.

Among the most sweet and pleasant of these were occasional visits to the Catholic chapel at Oscott. Few, indeed, and far between, they were, but the sweetness of their remembrance must ever remain. After the society of literary unbelievers, and amidst the discussions I have mentioned, and the misery and perplexity of mind they occasioned me, how can I describe the rest it was sometimes, on Sunday, to take our quiet country walk, through meadows and green and silent lanes, to this little Catholic chapel. As we went, the budding flowers, the sweet singing-birds, the bursting trees, and all the rich creation of that bountiful God whose very existence I had so continually heard questioned, seemed to speak an invitation to the wearied spirit, and to allure the heavy-laden heart to come to Him, to sit at His feet, and find rest in His life-giving word. I, indeed, little understood the detail of the service, nor had I any clear apprehension of the doctrines taught; yet I perfectly understood from the heart, that the little company of wise and happy poor who alone surrounded me reverentially felt the reality of the Divine Presence. I saw before me the semblance of the Redeemer upon the Cross,