CHARLES was determined to go and visit his old friendy Mrs. Wenlow; and therefore he lost no time the next morning to call upon her at the cottage. It was a beauti ful morning; the sun gilded every leafless tree as it shone in the blue, firmament above. Charles entered the cottage, and found the four amiable sisters, Miss Huntleys, with Mrs. Gell at the head, sitting round the table, with their work before them; while one of the youngest sat with Scott's Commentary on the Bible before her, reading a chapter for their mutual improvement, Charles begged her to proceed, which she agreed to do, upon condition that he would offer up a morning prayer for them at the close. Charles had now leisure to survey the company; and he beheld sitting near the fire a lady, who appeared unknown to him, in a very homely dress, in a most penta sive attitude. She frequently sighed, and lifted up her hand; her countenance was woefully emaciated, and her whole form seemed wasted by inward grief; but through this wreck in her person he fancied he discerned features which he knew. "It is! it is!" he thought, "Mrs. Wenlow." The discovery shocked him extremely. "What are we," he thought, "when the hand of God touches our senses !" It deepened his solemnity, and added fervour to the

petitions, and the expressions of gratitude and praise which formed his promised devotions at the close of the chapter. When the service was ended, Charles respectfully advanced to Mrs. Wenlow, and offered her his hand. "No," said she, withdrawing her hand, "I am unworthy to touch it. If you knew the crime I had committed you would not offer it." "You have committed no crimes," said Charles, which should prevent my taking your hand, and therefore I insist upon the privilege of an old friend ;" and then seizing her hand, he led her to the window. "See," said he, "how the risen sun gilds every object with gladness; why then should gloom distress you?" "Ah Charles," said she, "the smiling sun shines with no gladness upon me-the song of the bird brings no music to my soul—the azure firmament calms not my troubled spirit,' nor does the green meadow soothe my agitated mind to repose the face of Heaven, that casts a ray of gladness upon all, looks on me only through clouds of wrath; the whispering zephyrs only murmur terror!" "You astonish me!" said Charles. "What have you done to darken the bright face of Heaven against you to arm every element with wrath, and to make yourself the object of vengeance to the God of mercy and of love?" "Pride! sir, pride, has been my crime-it has risen-it has increased, till the spirits of darkness were subject to my controul; and at the head of the infernal hosts, I turned the angels out of Heaven, and plucked the Almighty from his throne! and now, sir, I am fallen from this lofty eminence, like a withered, trembling aspen leaf, under the stroke of my victorious adversary, and am exhibited as a spectacle of horror to the whole rational creation throughout the universe!" "What astonishing pride!” said Charles, “what daring presumption! what horrid blasphemy!--but no! this is all delusion! Can you suppose that a puny being like

yourself could acquire such power, or that a mind like your own, that used to breathe nothing but love and gratitude to your Creator, could be capable of such opposition, or be enraged with such enmity? How often has my young mind been charmed with your admiring descants on the beauties of creation and the love of God in Christ? Your heart was ever bowed with humility when it spoke of his Majesty, and melted with love when you have traced his goodness! An enemy has invaded your soul, and sown tares in its kindly soil; the cares of this world, like thorns, have sprung up and choked the goodly seed, and it hath become a wilderness, in which the serpent and the adder slink, instead of the garden of the Lord in which the holy Dove of peace used to rest and sing. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Pray again for the return of the peace you have lost: say, with penitent fervour

"Oh! would it were with me, as in days past," exclaimed Mrs. Wenlow, "when the candle of the Lord shone around me! Would that your words were true!"

66

They are true," said Charles; "it is folly, it is madness to suppose that a worm like you could climb to yonder sky and enter yonder heavenly abodes, to perpetrate the horrid crimes which your bewildered imagination conceives. Look to yourself as a wretched sinful worm; you never have changed this state yet; you have always been

.

as weak and powerless as you now are: think of your insignificance, and you will see, however high may have been your aspiring pride, you never could have risen to the audacity of such an attempt; and, therefore, you are tormenting your mind with the perpetration of crimes which are impossible." "Oh !" said Mrs. Wenlow, "you prove" to me my own absurdity-you have unravelled an enigma which my bewildered fancy could not reconcile; and I hope, that the mercy of God, may again be extended, to enable me to grope my way out of the labyrinth in which my wayward imagination, beguiled by Satan, has involved

CHARLES left her with tears of sympathy, and said to himself, "Oh! the dreadful distress which has racked the mind of poor Mrs. Wenlow, concerning evils, which, however incredible and strange, forced themselves upon her weakened nerves as realities, and accompanied with all the remorse which their truth would occasion! How thankful we should be that God continues to us our senses, without which we might be exposed to more agonies than the hypochondriac suffers from imaginary woes !"

I

Charles now took leave of his friends, mounted his biped again, and returned to college, ruminating on the scenes which were opened to him, and planning in his mind the future management of his three young pupils, and anticipating the pleasures which he should enjoy in a societys which was so select, and where he had friends who were nearer his heart than even his own relations.

"I am determined," said Charles, "to ground my pupils well in the Latin grammar to explain every portion to them well before they commit it to memory; and as soon as they begin to construe, to make them parse every line, and give the rules till they are versed in the rudiments. But it shall be an object with me to ground them well in the holy Scriptures-they shall read a chapter ના જેવ