gibbetted. Yet do I firmly believe that I have never lost my senses for an hour, nor have I allowed myself to cease from feeling the perpetual sorrow I have so dreadfully earned, save when my precious child has for a single moment beguiled me into the pleasure of a parent." The unhappy and exhausted man ceased to speak, and his auditors, struck with severe horror at the dreadful narrative of the murderer, yet deeply affected with the sad condition of the penitent, were silent also. At length the Rector, who was a man stricken in years, and deeply affected, arose for the purpose of approaching close to the sufferer, and addressing the words now labouring in his bosom to him with the more effect. The poor man mistook his purpose, and by a violent effort sprang from his chair, and threw himself prostrate on the floor, exclaiming, "Take me, reverend sir: I beseech you, take me try me-sentence me to death! I am a murderer! I charge you, as a minister of Christ, as a magistrate of the land, do your duty upon me." In great distress and perturbation, the aged clergyman threw his arms around him, and lifted him, as well as he was able, into his chair, as in a tremulous voice he said, “I am not your judge;” and would have proceeded, but the countenance of the invalid was now more wild and livid than before, and in a tenfold agony he exclaimed,"Ah! just so did his heart beat against my breast,once-only once!" A groan that seemed to shake the foundation of the house now burst from his lips, and his long-suffering spirit fled to its eternal audit. In awe and horror, yet with all the tenderness of Christian pity, did the spectators behold a transition so fearful and affecting, and deeply did their hearts labour in prayer for that wretched soul, which they could scarcely yet believe to be dismissed from the woeworn tenement before them. Let us for a moment contemplate this terrible and afflicting spectacle. Is it not a "fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," as a "God of vengeance?" Is it not necessary that we should continually study the precept, "Be ye angry and sin not ;" and that, day by day, in humility and prayer, we should seek for the attainment of that spirit which "beareth all things," even the "reproach of the wicked," and which, by a mild answer, turneth away wrath?" That spirit He only can bestow who exhibited its most perfect example, in that "when he was reviled, he reviled not again." 66 The widow of this unhappy man survived but a few months, and the children were taken by relations to a distant home, so that I have no knowledge of what became of little Mary, that child of early sorrow. For several years the house was either untenanted or found no abiding inhabitant; for fearful whispers and heart-appalling memorials rendered it a melancholy abode. Even last summer, as I passed it in my way to Matlock, the appearance of desolation prevailed as I remember it in my youth. The sign-post had fallen, the garden was a wilderness, the doors and fences were in ruin, green moss crept over the damp stone walls, and grew luxuriantly on the crest of the house of Athol which surmounts the entrance; all around revived the memory of this sad story, and stamped upon this melancholy scene a character like that placed on the brow of the first murderer. AN EPITAPH. STRANGER-Whoe'er thou art-draw nigh, Floretta well deserves a sigh ; For hers were gifts of heart and mind, We rarely meet with in mankind: Nor blush to know a dog lies here— Continuing faithful to the end, A gentle, humble, constant FRIEND! Untutored in the school of art, S. E. F. THE ORB OF DAY. BY JOHN BOWRING. UNHEEDED by the careless eye So God's great purposes advance! Behind the mists, with quenchless ray, The great light-giver moves serene; And millions bless the orb of day, While to our view unseen. He never fails-in love and might When first he bathed the world in light; And blesses as he goes. |