whistle had sounded, emerging from the ledge of rock on my left, and moving slowly along. I could see the flash of the oars, but could not distinguish the sound they made in the water. Now I thought I had a justifiable cause for disturbing my companions' repose-at least Godfrey's, whose post it was to watch; but, strange as it may seem, my efforts were to no purpose, and the moment I ceased to shake him, he relapsed into slumber again. I did not wish to call out aloud, not from a disinclination to molest the sleepers, but somehow silence itself at such an hour insists on being respected, and you cannot invade it rudely. I had almost determined to try whether I could not succeed better with the occupiers of the couch than with Godfrey; but as, if there were to be any forbearance, they were entitled to it, I proceeded again to the window, purposing to be decided by what I should behold The boat was still in sight, but not nearing the little cove at the bottom of the lawn. It seemed rather putting out to sea, and had soon passed beyond the hill on my right, and became lost to my view. I saw now no necessity for giving an alarm. I had carefully examined the arms with which we were provided-looked to the fastenings of windows and doorsand, now that the menace from without had passed away, and that my fancy, wearied or exhausted, ceased its persecutions, I drew my chair towards the fire, and patiently waited for the morning.

"And in due course I am to believe morning came, but before it, came to me a more un welcome visitant. Little time was given me for reflection. Few and short notices were afforded of the coming dread. Only one whistle, low, but near to the house, followed by a whispered monosyllable; the word was Now,' in my chamber or its immediate neighbourhood-whispered, but dreadfully audible-then a slight rustle, which was only not silence, and when I started and looked round, at two paces distant-not more the dreaded being confronted me. In his form or aspect there was nothing of that horrid nature which I had been led to expect -no stain of blood-no countenance of despair. I have the appearance fully before me at this moment-a figure rather tall, and quite enveloped in a large cloak

calm steady eyes-a head uncovered, and of fine formation, and a visage which gave you the idea of one who was beyond fear and beyond surprise. A countenance of this nature, even on common occasions, has great power over you. You offer an involuntary homage to one whom you believe to have attained that height of philosophic security where nothing can agitate or amaze. Whether this height is ever attained through any passage but the grave, I will not now conjecture, but leave you to imagine how I felt, quelled and controlled by such an appearance as I beheld, and by the awfulness with which my imagination invested it-Suppose it only imagination which caused me to believe that I saw no inhabitant of the earthI did not, however, give myself up to this imagination. I strove to think that I was looking on a being mortal and sensible to injury as myself, and I prevailed. I remembered the succession of sounds before his appearance-the whistle from withoutthat prompting whisper, the terrible Now'-the rustle which attended the coming of this new guest to our chamber, and I concluded that all indicated human contrivance and a mortal visitant. Then for the first time I looked eagerly to the arms, but he stood at the table on which they were laid, and I felt convinced that he was prepared to baffle any attempt I could make to procure them. I cast an eye on my companionsthey were sleeping with an indifference which provoked my anger, and I stamped on the floor and uttered some passionate exclamation. Still my persecutor looked on unmoved-and my poor friends, after an inarticulate murmur from Godfrey, continued in deep and silent slumber. Could our wine have been drugged?-I had drunk only water. Had my companions taken unconsciously an opiate, and were we all now to pay the penalties-I of my abstinence, and they of indiscretion? The instant this thought presented itself to my mind, I became desperate; I dashed my hand violently against my head, and in another moment I would have been, if I had persisted in the attempt, engaged in a struggle for life or death with my adversary. He saw what was passing in my mind, and with the same composed manner which never deserted him, he moved his

head, mournfully, I thought, and said, in a rapid whisper, Forbear-be temperate and discreet, and no evil shall befall you or your companions, -if you are violent, nothing can save you. His words and manner recalled me to reason. Surely, even though his intents were evil, he was not without adherents to uphold him in them. Some subtile agency must have contrived the plot to which my friends were victims,-the whistle in the neighbourhood of the house must have signified the approach of partisans, and, as we were circumstanced, resistance (in all probability) to armed numbers, was not to be thought of. You will not then be surprised that my resolution gave way, nor perhaps at my subsequent conduct. He spoke again-not in a whisper, but in a tone so low, although without apparent effort or restraint, that his voice scarcely sounded louder. 'Your intrusion here was rash and culpable. You came to indulge your curiosity; have you courage to pursue the adventure, and have the mystery disclosed?' I looked to the arms, and for the first time he smiled. They are not necessary,' said he. Are you willing,' he continued, to learn what you have exposed yourself to untried peril that you might know? Will you,' he continued, accompany me?'

6

"I hesitated for a moment, and he proceeded- You are not safer here than outside this chamber; your best security is to confide in me.-Are you ready to follow me-unarmed?'

"I ran rapidly over all the circumstances of my situation. I was, I might say, alone and defenceless, surrounded, I had no doubt, if my adversaries were mortal, by numbers, which it was absurd to think of withstanding. What should it avail me to manifest distrust? The love of adventure, too, awoke in me. Why might I not have the fortune to witness things worthy of remembrance? Why might I not be a means of extricating our entire party from danger. I will confide in you,' said I ; lead on.'

"I looked, with all the anxiety natural in my situation, to see how my communication would be received; but the face remained quite unmoved -no malignant satisfaction-no plea sure no surprise-he simply, by a slight inclination of his head, gave

notice that my proposal was accepted; and in the next moment was passing through the wall of the chamber, which seemed to open to give him admission. In the state of mind in which I was, things very strange appeared natural; and, without a pause, I followed my mysterious conductor. I pursued the rustling of his cloak, and soon found myself descending a narrow staircase. I groped my way in darkness for a few minutes, and after proceeding for some paces along a passage to which the staircase led, found my self in a little square apartment, without furniture of any kind, the floor of which was flagged, and which was lighted by a lamp suspended from the ceiling. Here my conductor paused, and seemed to reflect for a moment. That door,' said he, directing his eyes towards a door covered with black cloth at a corner of the room, it should not be closed -pray open it.'

What did he mean by this command? Was I to be precipitated upon some sudden destruction? Why was I to be thus thrust upon an unseen danger, and to lead the way, where I bad promised only to follow? Although unarmed, I had hitherto held myself prepared, in case of treachery, to exert my strength to the utmost; and was determined, if my guide betrayed me, to seize upon him, and make him feel the energy of a dying grasp; but here I was to be taken at vantage; enemies, perhaps, suddenly to start up before, a perfidious instigator of them behind, -I was to suffer without an effort at revenge. I will not do it-I will sell my life dear,' and I looked round for some weapon to second my desperate intent.

"Your life-What puts your life in peril? You are safe as in your father's house.' I felt strangely assured by the tones of his singular voice, so passionless, but so impressive. Still, however, I shrunk from the office he would assign me, and said, with full determination of purpose, I will not go before you; I promised to follow where you led-Go you on-open that door, and still I follow.'

"He was silent for a moment; and, for the first time since I saw him, appeared disturbed; he even smiled a scornful and bitter smile, and replied, repeating my words in a tone suitable to his altered appearance- Open that

to the life of all mankind. I certainly will not resign my claim to my own separate identity.-How was this question to be decided? We had both become satisfied that one of us was the shadow of a dream, but neither would acquiesce in the notion that he was to have his portion only in so fleeting an existence. How was the matter to be decided? My tormentor proposed a contrivance. We should each give the other a cuff on the ear, and ascertain thus the shadow and the substance. I was to strike first, and I delivered my buffet with hearty goodwill; my hand fell noiseless upon his cheek, but to my mortification, there he stood still, with a malicious grin upon his countenance, and ready to repay my blow with interest. Now came my trial and my alarm. I dreaded what the effects of the blow might be; sure I was that I had real life; but not sure, that the issue of the trial might not adjudicate me a shadow, and banish me for ever to the land of dreams. My persecutor seem

ed to enjoy my distress, and to dally with delight of the vengeance he was to indulge in. He raised his arm, and strained his muscles for the blow by which I was to be proved nothing; but my dread of annihilation became too sévere, and before the blow descended, I awoke in ecstasies that I had not been pronounced a vision.'

"This is Mr O'Brien's recital, and I find two lines drawn across it, and the following comment:-'N.B.-O'Brien has told me that he invented the above story merely for his own and my amusement. Now, confess, have you been punished beyond your deserts ? I have merely had my revenge; but I promise, that, without provocation, I will not again assail you, Hic victor cœstus artemque repono.' Let me hear soon that you bear no malice in your heart, and that you believe me no shadow, or delusion, or tormentor, but most sincerely your friend,

"CHARLES HASTINGS."

Ar the time when the great Scottish reformer John Knox, through the instrumentality of an overruling Providence, made his appearance, the Roman Catholic religion in Scotland had arrived at that pitch of corruption and abuse to which, from its very nature, it must always incline. Being founded on the evil passions of the human mind, in so far as it differs from the pure doctrines and precepts of Christianity, such evil passions it must always subserve; and as, in many cases, it has substituted the dogmas of fallible and sinful beings, in the place of the infallible oracles of God, its tendency is to enslave, to darken, and degrade, the human understanding. To the full exercise of the mind it must be, and always has been, the declared enemy: it shrinks from the light of reason, as the phantoms and fiends of darkness flee the approach of the day-spring: it can only reign and domineer amid ignorance and the prostration of the powers of the human understanding: it is

despotic in its enactments, intolerant in its exactions, and bloody and persecuting in its spirit. It has always set its face against every improvement and innovation; and has looked with the scowl of disapprobation on every art and science which did not minister to the promotion and advancement of its own superstitious rites and ceremonies. Every thing that tended to expand and strengthen the intellect of man, it has ever opposed; and if it has been the friend and foster-mother of Painting, Architecture, Statuary, and Music,-and of this there can be no doubt,-it was because it perceived in these most glorious arts, the most powerful auxiliaries to enslave the spirit of man, by working on his imagination, and to darken him through the medium of his senses and his feelings. In this respect it has put in practice the devices of ancient heathenism, which also was indebted to the fine arts for much of its power and efficiency. It also appealed to the senses and the imagination; it embo

died, in pictured and sculptured forms, the abstract conceptions and the traditionary lore of the human mind the virtues and the vices of the deified hero and legislator-the power of allpervading love-the principles, real or supposed, that regulate the air, the earth, and the water-and, in fine, the whole being of man, as he has been, as he is, and as he hopes or fears to be.

Popery is Christianity engrafted on the Paganism of Greece and Rome, and its fruits have the flavour, and have always partaken much of the nature, of the parent stock. The statue of the Thunderer required but little alteration to be a fit representation of the Fisherman of Galilee: the soror atque conjux Jovis was but another expression for the mother of God, and the queen of heaven;-and from the Mythologic Tartarus, the cunning priesthood could easily borrow all the grim and horrific imagery of their purgatory. The resemblance between the two is, in various particulars, remarkably complete; but the priest of St Peter was unlike the priest of Polytheism in the article of toleration. These rejected not the gods of others, nor persecuted the worshippers of strange gods, if so be that Jupiter and all his tribe were treated with due respect, and not spoken against. The Polytheist never asserted that all without the pale of his church are accursed now and for ever; he was the most accommodating of religionists. Your god was his god, for whom indeed he exacted from you a decent degree of reverence; and with a "quocunque alio nomine voceris," he lifted up the voice of supplication and of adoration to the gods of foreign lands, whose power, and whose attributes, and whose very names, he did not and cared not to know. The Athenian had an altar dedicated to the unknown godlike an hospitable landlord who keeps a place vacant for an unexpected guest -even although he had thousands of his own to worship; and in the Roman Pantheon, there was a niche for the statue of every new divinity that might happen to make his appearance. Among a rude and warlike people such as the Scots, Popery flourished long and prevailed; and at the time of the Reformation, its corruptions and impostures, and the profligacy of its

priests, are scarcely credible. Some of our ancient kings had been devotees of the sternest cast, who had lavished on the church both lands and treasures, in order to lay up for themselves treasures in heaven. Others of them, the slaves of every evil passion, and the perpetrators of the foulest crimes, were taught by their ghostly counsellors, that gold and lands, and the church's prayers, alone could purchase for them the forgiveness of the past, immunity for the future, and bliss eternal. The prince, the peer, and peasant, the religious enthusiast and the dissipated profligate, all were excellent subjects for the crafty ministers of this polluted system, who revelled and rioted, flourished and fattened, amid the ignorance and the crimes of a priest-enslaved people. Vice, in all its hideous shapes, started up from amidst this rank hotbed, this superfetation, of wealth and luxury. The priests, like Jeshurun of the Old Testament, "waxed fat, and kicked. They provoked God to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up. And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very froward generation, children in whom there is no faith."(Deut. 32, 15.)

The greater, and that, too, the more fertile part of the kingdom, was in the hands of the churchmen, who squandered away their immense wealth by indulging in every luxury, and rioting in every extravagant pleasure. Prevented by the laws of their church from marrying, and persecuting with relentless fury every one of their order who transgressed such laws, but at the same time winking at the abominations to which this unnatural restriction gave rise, they lived in open profligacy with courtezans, whom they maintained in the greatest pomp and luxury, and with whose offspring even the great and the noble did not disdain an alliance, because of the splendid fortunes which thereby accrued to them. They disregarded all secular jurisdiction, and held every enactment