heart so wofully at war with itself. My mother could not even comprehend why I so compassionated her. My father was indignant that I should DARE to suppose that there was comfort for him under such disgrace; and Charles repelled my advances by waving me off with a gesture of the most agonising despair; but instantly after, as if recollecting that he was not the ONLY sufferer, he said gently and falteringly,

"Not yet, dear Alice, not YET; I am too much overpowered to bear even your sympathy; the blow was so unexpected, it has quite prostrated me; but there is One to comfort us both still. He, who has ever been 'a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.' For are we not poor? are we not needy? has not the blast of the terrible ones been unto us, indeed, as furious as against the wall, my poor fellow-sufferer? Who would, who COULD have believed this blast would have been blown to our destruction by thy sister Jessie ?"

Who indeed? Surrounded by fond and watchful eyes, not one suspicion had been awakened by look or action; so guarded, so wary was that young girl to outwit the vigilance of age, the circumspection of experience, the reliance of all. I could rather have suspected myselfdoubted of my own integrity, my own truth-than charged her with the shadow of deception. I should have thought it a crime, almost a profanation, to have associated her and dissimulation for one instant together. Oh! for my trustfulness! oh! for the fatal consequences of that blind trustfulness! oh! for its direr effects on my unprepared heart! "No little cloud arose out of the sea, which was to overwhelm me, like a man's hand, to bid me hasten down that the rain stop me not," the tempest had come "as a thief in the night," sudden and silent as the muffled bullet launched from an air-gun, which is felt but not heard, as it strikes the aimed-at victim to the earth.

The church-bells chimed for service, but there was no one to officiate; the assembled and regretful congregation were informed that their beloved and respected minister had been seized with sudden indisposition; but the news spread, spread like ignited flax, that his betrothed had fled-fled with another; then every heart execrated her infidelity, every heart deplored his disappointment.

What a Christmas-day was that for us! how different to the one anticipated only a few short hours before! "Truly our feasts had been turned into mourning, and all our songs into lamentations;" we were sadder, far, far sadder, than if my sister had been lying in an upper chamber DEAD; for she had deceived our hearts, returning ingratitude for kindness-treachery for confidence-and disappointment for the holiest hopes that were ever founded on a maiden's faith.

As if to harmonise with our distress-as if in unison with our melancholy, it snowed violently and without intermission throughout that most interminable day, so that the whole aspect of the country, as far as the eye could reach, was wrapped in the sad same whiteness, as if Nature was enveloped in the cold shroud of universal dissolution.

This had so drifted in many parts during the night, as to render all transit impossible; and a severe frost coming upon it, travelling was out of the question, so that for six weary weeks we were obliged to affect the warmest hospitality, and look cheerfully on those whose absence would have been an absolute mercy; for, besides the mutual restraint naturally felt by all parties, owing to the terrible bar the conduct of the fugitives

had placed between us and our guests, each one of us longed for solitude; longed to be alone to commune with his own heart; longed to weep without the fear of detection; longed to pray without the dread of interruption; longed, in fact, to pour out that heart's bitterness to its very dregs in the stillness of his own chamber.

My mother, after vainly struggling against the painful tension of feeling this state of ceremonious exertion required, fairly gave way to her agony of soul, taking to her bed, to bewail, in her too partial anguish, for the guilty daughter who had cast this shadow over the sunset of her declining day, forgetful of the sympathy due to the virtuous and dutiful one, whose sole study it was still to brighten that darkened twilight.

Jessie never wrote home; that was as well, for what could she say in extenuation of her fault?-Nothing! We read her marriage in the papers-her safe arrival at Madras-and then we endeavoured to think of her as of one separated from us for ever in this world.

One by one the heart-broken victims of her turpitude dropped into the peaceful grave. Charles went first; then, one after the other, my beloved parents and kindred; until I stood alone, quite alone, in the house of my fathers. And, oh! how LONELY! Yet, whom could I associate with a sorrow such as mine?

After years of suffering, which cannot be described; regret, which cannot be imagined; darkness and silence of heart, which cannot be thought of unshudderingly; lo! came her little girl, her first-born child, her breathing image, like a winged and radiant messenger of light, to beam refulgently on that long-gloomed heart, to speak, as with the voice of melody, to the mute anguish, so long, long rendering hushed as death its dismal chambers. Yes! Jessie-the repentant Jessie-had sent the sweet bird so long nestled in her own bosom, to refuge in mine-to sing of summer-time for it again; to break in upon the cypress-wave solitude of its lonely bower, like the sunlight breaks on the forest gloom; to scatter the flowers of her fair innocence around; to tell, in the artless language of simplicity, of that sister's sorrow, tears, remorse, and contrition, in her self-imposed, but, doubtlessly, most deplored exile. To tell how that sister bewails the blight she cast upon my youth-to ask forgiveness for that blight and shall I be unrelenting? Shall I be implacable? Oh! no, no, no; a thousand times, no!-Those tears atone for all; those secret tears, those bitter tears, not DARED to be shed before the husband, lest he, too, should feel a latent pang for his early and betrayed love!

How I longed to kiss those tears off my sister's cheeks! How I longed to assure her of my free and entire forgiveness! How I studied, for her DEAR sake, to devise how the coming Christmas should indeed prove as MERRY as possible, for the darling who came to me so endearing in her inherited loveliness-so endearing in the hallowed claims of memory-so DOUBLY endearing in the appellation she bore-for Jessie, as a crowning act of expiation, had named her ALICE. Soon, soon, wafted over the ocean to that distant clime where she now dwells, with all her deep heart-yearnings for the land of her birth, the home of her childhood, shall be the glowing account of the MERRY CHRISTMAS the young Alice spent with the aged Alice, who strove, with devoted zeal and affection, to make it resemble in every way the BYGONE ones, spent at the same age, and many, many years after, by her mother, and her then most happy, most happiness-dispensing sister.

35

"LOOKING BAC K."

BY E. P. ROWSELL, ESQ.

WE are advised in certain religious books, each night, when we lie down in our beds, to consider the several proceedings of the day, and to determine their good or evil nature. I do not care to discuss now whether I am called upon so to employ a portion of the time allotted for rest and sleep, but I quite assent that, adopted in a right spirit, and to a reasonable extent, the practice of "looking back" is productive of benefit, and so, worthy of commendation. The first thing to be done, when a managing body are assembled, is to read the minutes of the last meeting; so that there having been made known, that most important point, "where they left off," and there having, beside, been laid bare what on the last occasion was short done, and what (as has been proved by subsequent events) was badly done, the meeting are in a favourable position for the proceeding with the business; the rectifying, as far as may be, the errors previously committed, the supplying the deficiencies of which they have been guilty, and, instructed and warned by the past, for the acting in future with more of wisdom, and with greater energy, than have been heretofore displayed.

Let us, as a nation, on the 1st of January, 1851, read the minutes of 1850. Let us calmly and dispassionately peruse the record of our sayings and our doings. Let us see where we were on the 1st of January, 1850, and trace our steps from that time until now; and while taking credit for those things wherein we may fairly consider we have acted wisely and well, let us not shrink from acknowledging, if our eye light upon portions of the minutes which stand in judgment against us, evidencing our folly or our weakness, our rashness or our sloth, the full extent of our misdoing; rather let us penitentially express our regrets, and, at the same time, firmly and courageously resolve on reformation and amendment.

Now I cannot here undertake the task of examining, seriatim, the events of the year just concluded. I do not know that we can regard it as an important year; there have come to pass no startling occurrences upon which we might dwell; and its main incidents, the sudden loss of the chief statesman of later years, and a very absurd act committed by his holiness the Pope, have been contemplated and pondered over so much (and the latter so recently) that it would be nauseous to enlarge upon them in this place. But there is one feeling that, on a general view, rises forcibly within me, and this feeling I am anxious to express.

I am discontented with the progress we have made during the past year. I do not see that clear and manifest improvement which, I think, might have been effected. Without indulging in anything like extravagant language, without being lured into sacrificing truth for the sake of penning a "slashing" paragraph, I assert that the need, the desperate, overwhelming need existing at the present time for calling into action the brightest mental ability our country can boast, combined with the utmost energy and the most undaunted determination, ought to be, soon will be, apparent to every individual. There never was a time when

there was such a grave call for consideration as the present. This is termed an enlightened age-the march of intellect; to hear people talk, one would think our forefathers were idiots, and, intellectually, we towered above them as giants. Reader, it is not true. Education is more diffused; accomplishments more prevail; but if there have been any change in regard to intellect in its lofty perfection, it has been for the worse, and mental power has declined. The mass are, indeed, raised; brutish ignorance exists no longer in our land; the people are elevated; they understand now matters formerly altogether beyond their range; they can reason, and argue, and cavil, and dispute; and they can murmur and complain. And though God forbid that I should say one word against the spread of knowledge and the improvement of mind, I do see that by and through this very fact, under present circumstances, a danger is created. If you have so raised the humbler classes that their eyes are opened, their minds expanded, their hearts made to beat quicker, their desires rendered stronger-if you have assimilated them more or less to the higher ranks in all save wealth and worldly dignity-and if, while raising them intellectually, you have not opened channels through which intellectuality may be turned to account, so that it is the same hard, up-hill journey as of old, for the clever man to push his way to independence-if this be so, and (though a change is working) it is so at this moment, do you not see the danger to which I point? What say you to the probability of the near approach becoming nearer? What say you to the chance of a treading on the heels? and then, why not the jostle?-afterward, why not the quarrel and the struggle?-if the struggle, why not the bloodshed?—and if the bloodshed, whose shall be the victory?

Was there ever a time when politics were so much discussed as now? Women and boys talk politics, and furiously express their opinions. Debating societies and discussion classes are the rage. Grave questions are entered upon by the million, and not merely by the few. Years back, the task of considering, revising, correcting, or abrogating the laws, and of devising fresh enactments, was left, comparatively speaking, to a small number of individuals. The mass but little interfered. In the then state of education such matters were beyond them, and they lived and died, murmuring and discontented, mayhap, but otherwise quiet and peaceful. This is not so now; we have educated our poorer classes-we have invested them with vastly more power-we have not left them in that state of ignorance, and consequent impotence, that they had no choice but to go whither they were driven, no ability to turn upon their masters and free themselves from their yoke. The case is altered now; the poorer classes are educated, they are enlightened; they rest not under the old dark cloud-the sun has visited them, has cheered them, encouraged, strengthened, ennobled them. And what is the result? Why, that mere mechanical labour-labour involving only fatigue of body, affording not the slightest opportunity for exercising the mind, is now groaned under and hated by numbers, who, had they lived in former years, would have settled down to it as their inheritance, and been satisfied with it. And these men are struggling, and will struggle yet more hotly and energetically, to free themselves from this toil, and to strike into a path more suited to their powers, and more in accordance with

their inclinations. I say they will struggle; for, even at this time, what opposition have they to encounter-how are arrayed against them prejudice and pride-and even where these are absent, coldness and indifference. But they will struggle-the men who feel that they have something in them which constitutes a claim to be employed otherwise than in mere manual labour-these men will daily grow more desirous to be relieved from this labour, and to take the upper stations of life. To this period they might have struggled, and, in most cases, have struggled in vain. In an article which appeared in this magazine a short time back, entitled "Aid to Talent," I endeavoured to show how many were the chances against gifted men attaining worldly prominence, and displaying and exercising their talents for the welfare, far less of themselves than of their kind. But then I say that these are times when there is so growing a feeling that such a state of things ought not to be-that the majesty of mind, and the glory of intellect, in all gradations, are really and truly matters not to be flippantly talked about and lightly regarded, but to be weighed with solemn earnestness, to be nourished with fondest affection, to be encouraged with ardent love, and to be brought forward and displayed with hearty cheer and fervent grasp-no matter whether such intellectual strength be in the peer or the peasant, no matter whether it reside in the millionnaire or the pauper-I say there is now so stern and increasing a feeling, that in these dark and difficult times we ought to, we must, give homage and encouragement to talent wherever it may be found; that I am sure very soon the way of clever men to prosperity, proportioned to their ability, will be wonderfully freed from those obstacles and hindrances that heretofore have made their attempted journey almost hopeless.

I say I am satisfied this will be the result. Those who in former times would have only been born poor and insignificant, have so remained, will, having arisen in our days, by the circumstance of their intellectual superiority, be great among us. And who would not be glad if the wisest were the greatest and most powerful? Who would wish to stem the onward progress of those who have been gifted by God with more of mental ability than their fellows? Who would withhold the hand and not help them forward to their true position? Alas, that I should say it, multitudes there are who, if they would not absolutely throw obstacles in the way, would yet treat intellect so coldly, so indifferently, so carelessly, that they might be fairly charged with virtually doing battle against it. And to particularise;-by this I mean that, in the first place, there are men-men in this nineteenth century-who openly avow a distaste and dislike to the education of the poor, the simple, bare instruction in the commonest matters, and who would shudder at the notion of rendering any marked encouragement to a clever but poor man. There are but few such individuals, thank God. But, in the second place, there are men-and these constitute the majority-who would laugh scornfully at what I would suggest for the aiding of talent. I would propose that there should be an endeavour to make government appointments a means of assisting talent; that is to say, I think that, instead of these appointments being invariably given to relatives and friends of those in power, a portion of them, at all events (the portion that might, on consideration, be deemed most suitable), should be bestowed as premiums upon such