THE FALL OF THE MIGHTY.

By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, Author of "Our Old Home."

A parcel of letters had been accumulating at the Consulate for two or three weeks, directed to a certain Doctor of Divinity, who had left America by a sailing-packet and was still upon the sea. In due time the vessel arrived, and the reverend doctor paid me a visit. He was a fine-looking middle-aged gentleman, a perfect model of clerical propriety, scholar-like, yet with the air of a man of the world rather than a student, though overspread with the graceful sanctity of a popular metropolitan divine, a part of whose duty it might be to exemplify the natural accordance between Christianity and good-breeding. He seemed a little excited, as an American is apt to be on first arriving in England, but conversed with intelligence as well as animation, making himself so agreeable that his visit stood out in considerable relief from the monotony of my daily common-place. As I learned from authentic sources, he was somewhat distinguished in his own region for fervor and eloquence in the pulpit, but was now compelled to relinquish it temporarily for the purpose of renovating his impaired health by an extensive tour in Europe. Promising to dine with me, he took up his bundle of letters and went away.

The doctor, however, failed to make his appearance at dinner-time, or to apologise the next day for his absence; and in the course of a day or two more, I forgot all about him, concluding that he must have set forth on his continental travels, the plan of which he had sketched out at our interview. But, by-and-by, I received a call from the master of the vessel in which he had arrived. He was in some alarm about his passenger, whose luggage remained on shipboard, but of whom nothing had been heard or seen since the moment of his departure from the Consulate. We conferred together, the captain and I, about the expediency of setting the police on the traces (if any were to be found) of our vanished friend ; but it struck me that the good captain was singularly reticent, and that there was something a little mysterious in a few points that he hinted at, rather than expressed; so that, scrutinizing the affair carefully, I surmised that the intimacy of life on shipboard might have taught him more about the reverend gentleman than, for some reason or other, he deemed it prudent to reveal. At home in our native country, I would have looked to the doctor's personal safety, and left his reputation to take care of itself, knowing that the good fame of a thousand saintly clergymen would amply dazzle out any lamentable spot on a single brother's character. But in scornful and invidious England, on the idea that the credit of the sacred office was measurably intrusted to my discretion, I could not endure, for the sake of American Doctors of Divinity generally, that this particular doctor should cut an ignoble figure in the police reports of the English newspapers, except at the last necessity. The clerical body, I flatter myself, will acknowledge that I acted on their own principle. Besides, it was now too late; the mischief and violence, if any had been impending, were not of a kind which it requires the better part of a week. to perpetrate; and to sum up the entire matter, I felt certain from a good deal of somewhat similar experience, that, if the missing doctor still

breathed this vital air, he would turn up at the Consulate as soon as his money should be stolen or spent.

Precisely a week after this reverend person's disappearance, there came to my office a tall, middle-aged gentleman, in a blue military surtout, braided at the seams, but out at elbows, and as shabby as if the wearer had been bivouacking in it throughout a Crimean campaign. It was buttoned up to the very chin, except where three or four of the buttons were lost; nor was there any glimpse of a white shirt collar illuminating the rusty black cravat. A grisly moustache was just beginning to roughen the stranger's upper lip. He looked disreputable to the last degree, but still had a ruined air of good society glimmering about him, like a few specks of polish on a sword-blade, that has lain corroding in a mud puddle. I took him to be some American marine officer, of dissipated habits, or perhaps a cashiered British major, stumbling into the wrong quarters through the unrectified bewilderment of last night's debauch. He greeted me, however, with polite familiarity, as though we had been previously acquainted; whereupon I drew coldly back (as sensible people naturally do, whether from strangers or former friends, when too evidently at odds with fortune), and requested to know who my visiter might be, and what was his business at the Consulate. "Am I then so changed?" he exclaimed with a vast depth of tragic intonation ; and after a little blind and bewildered talk, behold! the truth flashed upon me. It was the Doctor of Divinity! If I had meditated a scene or a coup de Theatre, I could not have contrived a more effectual one than by this simple and genuine difficulty of recognition. The poor Divine must have felt that he had lost his personal identity through the misadventures of one little week. And, to say the truth, he did look as if, like Job, on account of his especial sanctity, he had been delivered over to the direst temptations of Satan, and proving weaker than the man of Uz, the Arch Enemy had been empowered to drag him through Tophet, transforming him, in the process, from the most decorous of metropolitan clergymen, into the rowdiest and dirtiest of disbanded officers. I never fathomed the mystery of his military costume, but conjectured that a lurking sense of fitness had induced him to exchange his clerical garments for this habit of a sinner; nor can I tell precisely into what pitfall, not more of vice than of terrible calamity, he had precipitated himself,-being more than satisfied to know that the outcasts of society can sink no lower than this poor, desecrated wretch had sunk.

The opportunity, I presume, does not often happen to a layman, of administering moral and religious reproof to a Doctor of Divinity; but finding the occasion thrust upon me, and the hereditary Puritan waxing strong in my breast, I deemed it a matter of conscience not to let it pass entirely unimproved. The truth is, I was unspeakably shocked and disgusted. Not, however, that I was then to learn that clergymen are made of the same flesh and blood as other people, and perhaps lack one small safeguard which the rest of us possess, because they are aware of their own peccability, and therefore cannot look up to the clerical class for the proof of the possibility of a pure life on earth, with such reverential con

fidence as we are prone to do. But I remembered the innocent faith of my boyhood, and the good old silver-headed clergyman, who seemed to me as much a saint then on earth, as he is now in heaven, and partly for whose sake, through all these darkening years, I retain a devout, though not intact nor unwavering respect for the entire fraternity. What a hideous wrong, therefore, had the backslider inflicted on his brethren, and still more on me, who much needed whatever fragments of broken reverence (broken, not as concerns religion, but its earthly institutions and professors,) it might yet be possible to patch into a sacred image! Should all pulpits and communion-tables have thenceforth a stain upon them, and the guilty one go unrebuked for it? So I spoke to the unhappy man as I never thought myself warranted in speaking to any other mortal, hitting him hard, doing my utmost to find out his vulnerable part and prick him into the depths of it. And not without more effect than I had dreamed of, or desired !

No doubt, the novelty of the Doctor's reversed position, thus standing up to receive such a fulmination as the clergy have heretofore arrogated the exclusive right of inflicting, might give additional weight and sting to the words which I found utterance for. But there was another reason (which, had I in the least suspected it, would have closed my lips at once), for his feeling morbidly sensitive to the cruel rebuke that I administered. The unfortunate man had come to me, labouring under one of the consequences of his riotous outbreak, in the shape of delirium tremens; he bore a hell within the compass of his own breast, all the torments of which blazed up with tenfold inveteracy when I thus took upon myself the devil's office of stirring up the red hot embers. His emotions, as well as the external movement and expression of them by voice, countenance, and gesture, were terribly exaggerated by the tremendous vibration of nerves resulting from the disease. It was the deepest tragedy I ever witnessed. I know sufficiently, from that one experience, how a condemned soul would manifest its agonies; and for the future, if I have anything to do with sinners, I mean to operate upon them through sympathy, and not rebuke. What had I to do with rebuking him? The disease, long latent in his heart, had shown itself in a frightful eruption on the surface of his life. That was all! Is it a thing to scold the sufferer for?

To conclude this wretched story, the poor Doctor of Divinity, having been robbed of all his money in this little airing beyond the limits of propriety, was easily persuaded to give up the intended tour, and return to his bereaved flock, who, very probably, were thereafter conscious of an increased unction in his soul-stirring eloquence, without suspecting the awful depths into which their pastor had dived in quest of it. His voice is now silent. I leave it to members of his own profession to decide whether it was better for him thus to sin outright, and so to be let into the miserable secret what manner of man he was, or to have gone through life outwardly unspotted, making the first discovery of his latent evil at the judgment-seat. It has occurred to me that his dire calamity, as both he and I regarded it, might have been the only method by which precisely such a man as himself, and so situated, could be redeemed. He has learned, ere now, how that matter stood.

POOR CRUTCHY: A STORY FOR BANDS OF HOPE.

James was a poor boy, who had lost the use of his lower limbs, and had hard work to walk even with the help of two crutches. He was cut off from nearly all work and play, and his prospects for happiness and usefulness in life were very small. His parents were poor and humble, and this made his misfortune the more depressing, for he often heard he was a burden to them. But he was a good boy, and tried to keep up a brave heart. He slowly hobbled his mile and a half to school through all kinds of weather, for he thought he that if he could get a good education it would help him to be useful, he might perhaps some time get a situation as clerk, or book-keeper, or teacher. But his hope was less than his perseverance, and he was often down-hearted and sad. He greatly needed pity and help and encouragement from others. But he did not always get them.

In the same school with him was a large, strong, healthy boy, of nearly the same age, named Guy Sandford. His father was rich, and he was greatly indulged. He was always hopeful and daring, and full of high spirits; quite the opposite of James. He was so full of gaiety, and so bent on mirth, that he was quite thoughtless of the feelings of others, and sometimes even cruel. He had a wicked habit of nicknaming James "Crutchy," and "making fun," as he called it, at his expense. He would sometimes pretend to chase him, screaming out, "now see if I can catch a greyhound!" And when the question was discussed as to the best runner among the boys, he would often bring out a hearty laugh by insisting that it was "Crutchy," and then declared that he would have a pair of crutches, that he might not always be outdone by him. Poor James would faintly smile at this, but for all that it stirred the great deep of sorrow in his heart, and his breast would swell with a suppressed sigh. He could not run. He needed not to be told it in jokes; he knew it too well. He saw the other boys run, while he sat apart smitten, palsied, wondering what the delight of running might be, when it was so painful for him even to walk. Debarred as he was from nearly all the pleasures of childhood, and loaded down with pain instead, it was sometimes hard for him to be patient and say, "It is well. for thou, O God, has done it, thou who dost not willingly afflict the children of men! good when thou givest, supremely good when thou deniest !"

One day when Guy was unusually full of spirits, he played a very mean trick upon James. James was bending over his desk hard at work at his sums; his crutches were leaning against his chair. Guy obtained permission of the teacher to speak with him about his lessons, and while standing by him engaged in talk, cunningly contrived to insert some bent pins in the worn arm-pieces of James's crutches, so that the points projected above the surface. The time soon came for James to take his place in the class for recitation, He grasps his crutches and places them under his arms-a scream of anguish, and he sinks back into his chair, pale and

trembling. What a commotion then! "What's the matter?"" who did it?" is asked on every hand. Some looked terrified, some pitiful, others smile, and try to find something amusing in the scene. Guy looks very sage and sober, and tries to enjoy the matter, but the fun is not what he expected. It does not pay; and he begins to dread his punishment. Poor James! how he suffered! not only from the extreme torture of the moment, but from embarassment at being the cause of so much excitement, the object of so much attention, and still more at the thought that any one would treat him so unkindly. But he cherished no resentment toward Guy, though for some time afterward he involuntarily shrank at his approach.

Not far from the school-house was a river, and in the winter, when it was frozen over, the boys were accustomed to slide and skate upon it. One warm, sunny Saturday afternoon, when a large party of boys were skating there, the ice began to crack and break. It was evidently unsafe, and most of the boys made for the shore, but Guy Sandford, full of excitement and reckless even to fool-hardiness, skated on, sneering at the caution of those who left the ice. "No danger! don't be cowards!" he shouted. Crack! crack; and Guy is out of sight. He has gone under. Who can save him? What can be done? A few of the boldest boys rush to the spot. Guy rises to sight. "Give us a hand, boys," he screams. The boys creep as near to the edge of the ice as they dare, and reach out their hands. "Stretch out farther," screams Guy, struggling amid the water and breaking ice, and again he sinks.

"Poor Crutchy," as Guy calls him, is making his way towards his home on the road by the river bank. He sees the alarm and consternation

of the boys; hears Guy's scream. He shouts with all his might, "Take my crutches!" "Reach Guy a crutch!" and throws first one and then the other towards the boys who are hastening for them, and sinks down alone in the snow by the way side.

It was a good thought. The crutches were in season. As Guy again rose to the surface, they were stretched out to him. With a desperate effort he seized one of them, but the ice on which it rested and was held broke, and it was lost. He seized the other, the ice beneath it was stronger, and cold and freezing as his hands were, he managed to keep his hold, and move himself to the main ice, and at last was safe upon it. O, what a joy! What a relief to all! How could they express their gladness. For a moment all was confusion, each one telling what he saw and did, and how he felt, in the loudest and most earnest tones, and then they all united in glorifying James, till Guy himself swung up his dripping aim, and shouted, "Three cheers for Cruthchy! Crutchy for ever!” and the boys gave the hurrahs with a will.

Poor James, sitting waiting alone, was nearly overcome by excitement. As the cheers reached him, the tears rolled down his cheeks, and he lifted his heart to heaven in fervent thanksgiving that he was not quite useless in the world; even through his misfortue he had helped others. His despised crutches, such wretched substitutes as they were for healthy limbs, had been better to Guy than the swiftest foot or the strongest arm.