sition nor should that gospel be called impure which is held out by ready hands, though the washing, according to the pharisaical rites of ablution, should have been omitted."

"Your years of solitude have done much for you, my friend. What will be the result of the experience of the next nine years spent in society?"

"If I can obtain as distinct an apprehension of some other truth of equal importance," replied Helmer, "I shall not think that my time has been lost, or my experience wasted."

In nine years, Helmer was no more. The advocates of freedom in the senate were lamenting the loss of a strenu.ous defender of the national honor. The University prized the record of his name. His funeral hymn was chaunted on the banks of the Ganges, and the West Indian slave dropped a burning tear to his memory. The mirth of playful children was checked when they heard that their benefactor would smile upon them no more. The devotions of his household were now conducted by a voice which faultered at the words, "I am distressed for thee, my brother." In the house of prayer, his place remained vacant; and the pastor who had also been his friend, mourned that he must now turn to the records of memory for an illustration of the power of a sound mind tempered by love out of a pure heart,

THE EARLY SOWING.

ONE dreary winter's morning, a funeral, the preparations for which were of the most sordid kind, was made ready to set out from an alley in one of the lowest districts of the city of London. It was not regarded with any respect

:

by the gazers. They looked on with less curiosity than is observable in the country, where such a spectacle is less common but what curiosity there was testified itself in noise and bustle. Some few who passed by cast a glance at the coffin and went on. Some pushed their way as if they did not perceive what was doing but at every door stood one or more idlers making their remarks, and shrill voices from the garret-windows were heard above the tumult of the alley, and the rattling of carriages in the neighbouring street. The snow was all melted on the pavement, but some yet fell in dingy masses from the eaves, and the idle boys amused themselves with pelting each other, till one, ruder than the rest, flung his handful at the mourner who immediately followed the coffin. The example was presently imitated; and as the bearers turned the corner, the rusty pall was sprinkled with snow-balls.

It was soon observed that one who had been supposed to belong to the funeral-train had not departed with it. He wore a black coat, and was certainly a stranger in the place, and the neighbours therefore looked to see him go into the house where the death had taken place; but when they saw the door shut while he stood watching the boys at their rude play, they regarded him with suspicion, and many —— for good reasons doubtless closed their doors and retreat

ed from the windows.

connected with the police,"

"They suspect me to be thought M., perceiving this: "the first difficulty I have to contend with in all such places. I must begin as little in police style as possible."

"Your snow-balls don't hurt me to-day," said he, smiling, as one passed close by his shoulder: "but I should not like them if I were following a funeral."

"These don't hurt," said the boy who had flung the first handful at the mourner: and as he spoke, he looked round for a stone to put into the one he was making,

"Did you ever walk behind a coffin?" asked M.

"Not I," said the boy.

"" 'If you had, you would know what it is to be made game of at such a time. It is mischievous to throw stones in the shape of snow-balls; but it is cruel to mock people when they are in grief. Whose funeral was that?"

"I don't know."

"I bid you ask," said his mother, who had come out of her house on seeing the gentleman talking to her boy. 'Why don't you ask, as your father bid you!"

66

"You want to know whether they died of the fever," said the boy; "but what care I whether the dead dog was hanged or drowned?"

"You would like somebody to care when your turn comes," said M.

"No more than I should care for myself," said the boy. "What does it signify? I saw a man drowned once, and I have seen many a one hanged; and I would as soon be one as the other."

"Hold your tongue you wretch," cried his mother. "I hope, Sir, he does not know what he is talking about."

"I do though," said the boy: "and if I am hanged, remember you taught me the way. I saw you steal before ever I tried my hand at it; and so I'll say...

His mother had turned into the house before he finished, and M. followed her. When she perceived this, she turned fiercely round and asked him what he meant by making her own children betray her in the face of her neighbours.

66

"I came with no evil purpose," said M., nor is it my business or that of the neighbours to find out whether your son speaks truth or falsehood respecting you. I see that he is a trouble to you, and I should be glad to help or comfort you if I could."

woman.

"Never mother had such a trouble," replied the poor to have him in sight, treating us in the way he does, or to be dreading to hear of the wickedness he commits, day and night, when he is away from us."

"I don't know which is worse,

And then she went on to relate how her son often absented himself for days together, supporting himself she knew not how; but certainly by no honest means. There was no excuse of poverty for this at present, for his father brought in such wages as might keep the family above want. She did not believe that the lad would give over his evil ways if his father were ever so rich: he seemed to take to vice by

nature.

M. mildly reasoned against so hopeless a conviction, and urged that if the boy's bad habits were traced back to their origin, there might be hope of cure. The woman's back was turned towards him as he said this; but there was something in her silence, and in the expression of her whole figure, which impressed him with the conviction that she was suffering anguish of mind, and that it probably arose from the truth of what her son had said about his first lesson in theft. Respecting her feelings, whether of remorse or of any other nature, he paused. A new topic was presently supplied by the entrance of a child of much more promising appearance than any who were playing without. He was also the child of this woman, who gave her name as Harris. She said he was some comfort to them at present; but she did not know how long it would last, for while Ned's example was before his eyes, she was afraid nothing would prevent his turning out like both the others. Had she then another child? Yes the eldest, a girl, who, in the days of their extreme poverty, hired herself out as a porter in one of the markets. She had become more and more irregular in her earnings and in her return home, and had at length disappeared

altogether. Since then the family had changed their dwelling, which made her return to them more improbable than it would otherwise have been. Mrs. Harris had long opposed the removal; but her husband had taken a disgust to the place in which they had suffered so much, and being a stern man had little wish to see his daughter again; and all that the unhappy mother could do was to leave word with the neighbours where the family might be found, and to go among them, from time to time, to ask whether the wanderer had returned, and be disappointed.

Having no comfort to suggest respecting her, M. inquired what means were taken to prevent the corruption of the youngest boy. He was kept as much as possible from playing with the children in the alley, and employed by his mother's side. This was all.

"Do you not send him to school?"

"I never could part with him out of my sight, after what I had gone through with the other two."

"You take him to some place of worship?"

"I have no heart to go to any such place. We have never kept our Sundays since our troubles were at the worst. We left off going out then because we had not clothes to put on."

"But there is no such reason now."

'No, Sir; but every thing is so changed since the time when we used to make Sunday our resting-day, that we try, I scarcely know how, to make it as much like other days as we can. I have often wished we lived out of hearing of the church-bells."

Before M. could reply, Harris entered. He looked full at the unexpected visitor, and rather surlily asked what business brought him. He was but little softened by M.'s explanations of his purposes of kindness and peace.