might gaze undisturbed upon the Eden of their childhood. The air was exhilarating to the weary travellers, for they had long been pent up in a dense city, and the ministerial duties of the young Mr. Bradley had been too numerous to admit of spending his summers in the country, as is the usual custom of the city clergy. The cause of Christ lay too near his heart for him to indulge in inglorious ease, while the lambs of his flock required his unceasing attention. CHAPTER V. BLIGHTED HOPE. "The gloomy future bears No promise for to-morrow; The taste of bitter tears Is the sole bread of sorrow."-Ellis Lewis. How different were the feelings of the Bradley party, as they descended the long hill that introduced them to one of the loveliest villages in New England, from those of the unhappy Willard, from whom they had been separated for a few hours. They had found the ways of virtue the ways of pleasantness, that all her paths were paths of peace; and their minds were as free from clouds as the etherial arch above them, and as pure as the light that was poured from the silver lamps with which it was adorned. They had ridden some distance in silence, each having a world within themselves, in which they were busily engaged. Amelia, aroused from a holy reverie, repeated: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and stars which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him." Charles continued, "Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain; who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the clouds his chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind; who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire; who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever." There had a holy admiration diffused itself in each soul, and unfolded to them worlds, and systems of worlds, each containing an inexhaustible storehouse, and each sufficiently accessible to call into action towering intellects, and where every order of mind will move harmoniously in its own sphere. They had each made the word of God their study; as the astronomer looks through his telescope and views the distant planets, so they used the word of God, which not only enabled them to look into the upper sanctuary, but unfolded its unfailing truths to their scientific minds; and was an unerring lens through which they could look with unsullied joy upon the vast machinery of art, and the untiring wheels of science. The same cloudless sky and the same jewelled lamps that were lighting the Bradleys to their home, were shedding their silver light upon the agi tated Willard, who urged his spirited steed on, and still on, tossing in his chaise from side to side, as the wheels struck the rolling stones that lay in his way. The road was hilly, and often very rocky; but the unhappy man was unmindful of this. His brow darkened as he muttered to himself, "Lain down, and the hired girl holding him; it can't be possible that Joe has given up the keys to her, for I charged him to keep the cellar and bar locked, for I knew that she would raise the devil with us all, if she got into either." Mr. Willard had married his wife on a very short acquaintance. Her family had been wealthy-she had gone the giddy rounds of fashionable lifewas intelligent and very fine looking -she had shone with brilliancy in the circles where she had been caressed and ruined—and had acquired a habit of intemperance, not only from her |