MARHAM.

O Oliver! I am proud of what you are, but over what you have been as a sufferer I could cry; and yet I think I am proud of that too, for you are my sister's son. Oliver, you are not

well, you look

AUBIN.

for it; but

For I have

Uncle, one thing I have to ask of you, and that is, that you will not for a while ask me any thing about my past life. I can think it over on my knees, and be thankful to God your pitying it is too much for me. not been as manful as you think, or else my courage was only just enough. For now that I am out of my troubles, I could cry for hours sometimes, though a month ago I could have said that I had not had a tear in my eyes for years.

MARHAM.

And now you are ill. O, very sorry I am that, — that

AUBIN.

That I should only have been helped out of my wretchedness just against my death. But better men than I will die in worse miseries than mine were.

I do not think so,

sorry to believe it.

MARHAM.

Oliver, and I should be very
For I have never heard of

another instance like yours in all my life. For

opportunity to help a good man and a man of ge

nius is a treasure

ue.

AUBIN.

Which not many men are good enough to valBut this is a thing which it is better not to say, even if quite true. And so I will not say it. For the soul gets embittered with saying bitter things. And then even good men may not find one another out, as I ought to remember from the way in which even you and I did not know one another for so long, and never should have done but for an accident, no, a providential event; for so it was for me.

MARHAM.

And for me, too, Oliver. But you suffered so strangely! Why, O, why did not I know of it, or guess it? And why did I let my foolish prejudices, foolish and worse

AUBIN.

No, dear uncle, uncle Stephen; do not talk so. But let our not knowing one another be among the strange things of the world, and they are very many. Why they are allowed, we cannot tell always. But they are wisely allowed, no doubt. Why, why is this? But for any of us asking so, there is no special answer vouchsafed. wheels of the universe do not stop for us to examine their mechanism; for if they did, there would be no progress; because, at every moment,

The

the self-will of some creature or other is in collision with that Divine will which is the mainspring of creation.

MARHAM.

It does my heart good, and it does my soul good, to see you so happy, Oliver, and so at peace with the world, after having been so hardly used in it.

AUBIN.

It would be a shame if I were not so; and the more I have suffered, the greater shame. Because, with a Christian, at the end of a grievous trial, and when the soreness of it is abating, there is a strange and sublime experience. There is the feeling of sorrow, and there is that of infinite goodness; and the two blend into a consciousness like that of having been just about to be spoken to by God. And this is not a deceptive feeling, though God is silent towards us all our lives; for with him a thousand years are as one day; and when he will justify himself to us, it will not be our fleshly impatience which he will address, but the calm estate of spirits everlasting like himself.

CHAPTER II.

The very spirits of a man prey upon the daily portion of bread and flesh; and every meal is a rescue from one death, and lays up for another; and the clock strikes, and reckons on our portion of eternity: we form our words with the breath of our nostrils, -we have the less to live upon for every word we speak. -JEREMY TAYLOR.

All death in nature is birth, and in death appears visibly the advancement of life. There is no killing principle in nature, for nature through. out is life; it is not death which kills, but the higher life, which, concealed behind the other, begins to develop itself. Death and birth are but the struggle of life with itself to attain a higher form.-J. G. FICHTE.

MARHAM.

OUT of our hearts, and out of our reasons, many things are said to us about our immortality; but they would not be listened to believingly, if it were not for our Christian courage. Christ said, that because he lives we shall live also. what emboldens our faith.

AUBIN.

This is

Twice did Christ enter this world, and twice did he depart from it, and so the other world and this were made to feel the nigher.

er's cares, and once from withinside the grave of the Arimathean. To and fro, between this and the other world, Christ passed. So that to us believers this earth feels like the fore-court of heaven, and death like the door into eternity.

MARHAM.

At that door, threescore years and ten make a loud knocking for me; and old age is like an anxious waiting for the door to open. And awful waiting it would be, were it not for Christ inside. But for him, it would be dreadful leaving this known for the unknown world.

AUBIN.

This known world, you say. But now, uncle, is it known? No, it is not. It feels known, because we feel foolishly. For every grain of sand is a mystery; so is every daisy in summer, and so is every snow-flake in winter. Both upwards and downwards, and all round us, science and speculation pass into mystery at last.

MARHAM.

We will say, then, that this world is little known, and the other still less.

Perhaps it is so.

AUBIN.

MARHAM.

Why, Oliver, how can you say perhaps, as though you were not sure?

AUBIN.

Nay, but, uncle, how can I be sure?