I give thee, if THOU WILT FALL DOWN AND WOR

SHIP ME.'

"I considered the proposal. All the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them; and for what? For worshipping one devil. I reflected: evidently it must be a grievous service that deserves such a recompense; shall I be happier for undertaking it? Again: Has he not promised the same reward to some millions of men already, and would there not be some difficulty in recognizing the claims of so many servants? Still again, the devil is a liar from the beginning'- in confirmation of which, one has only to remember, that 'the earth is the LORD's,' and that He is the owner of the kingdoms, and the only Being who can bestow them.

"Thus I resisted the temptation to betray my office, though I felt, more and more, the necessity of resigning it, at no distant day.

"I had been lying upon my oars' some two months, when the opportunity presented itself for me to secure another location. The little parish in South Whiffleham offered me its support. It was not such a place as I desired, for several reasons. The salary offered appeared quite too meagre for the support of my family. The people were reported to be captious and fickle. And, moreover, many of them were in that state of ignorance that fosters the silliest prejudices, and gives to conceit its mulish invincibility.

"Still, at the dictation of necessity, and with a passiveness of spirit that comes only of exhausted

hope, I accepted the invitation, and moved to Whiffleham.

"My evil fortune pursued me, as I had half-expected. Consequences, like comets, carry tails of incalculable length. Bubbleton visited me with its vengeance, even in the retirement of Whiffleham.

"One of the parishioners chanced to visit this city, and to make the acquaintance of Mr. Fiscal and Mr. Arlington. Now mark the determined hostility of fate: Out of ten thousand human beings, assembled within the limits of Bubbleton, obstinate fate will select my two most powerful enemies to entertain my wayfaring parishioner. And, as a consequence, this man returns to Whiffleham, full of suspicion and apprehension. He regards me as a dangerous man, and feels it his duty to acquaint others with his impressions, and with the source of them, lest, unwatched, I run the parish into the Abolition vortex.

"Thus it happens that―ere I have had time to acquire the confidence of the people — that confidence is stolen away by misrepresentations, secretly insinuated into their minds. I am watched, like one who has shown signs of madness. Every sentence I utter in the pulpit is jealously criticized. Every ambiguous word I drop in conversation, receives an unfriendly interpretation.

"You may anticipate the result. The crisis came, but my experience had shown me the folly of resistThe kingdom was not worth the contest. Like

ance.

one dead to glory, I retreated from Whiffleham, and became once more a fugitive.

"Here ends my brief and troubled ministry. I have no wish to continue the experiment. I have come to be regarded as unfitted for the profession; and I believe that I am. Were I to offer my services to any society where I am known, they would be declined; and, as I think, wisely. Successful ministers shake their heads, significantly, when my name is mentioned, and count up against me the sad list of my failures. What can I do but accept their charitable reprimands, and betake myself to other fields of labor?"

XXXI.

A HEART IN RUINS.

I was not quite pleased with the tone Brother Stringent's voice assumed, or with the expression of his face, at the conclusion of his narrative; but I found enough in his ministerial history to account for the state of his feelings.

After a short silence by a transition habitual with him, and which marked the ever-changing temper of his feelings - he startled me by the pathetic energy of his utterance:

“Yet, Brother Chester, in resigning the ministry, I resign the hopes that, more than all things beside, encouraged and animated my youth. I disappoint the expectations of those who sympathized with my early resolutions, and seconded my manly endeavors.

"From my boyhood, it had been the cherished purpose of my heart to proclaim the Gospel, and to become endeared to my fellow-men by serving some of their higher needs, and soothing their severest afflictions. No employment appeared to me so truly glorious, as that of the faithful minister of Christ. To

be the servant of God's mercy, and the defender of virtue, here amid the allurements of the world, to represent and enforce the example of Him who is the way, the truth, and the life,—to be near the heart of man in its troubled moods, and within the shelter of God's spirit continually, and to devote all one's native gifts and laborious acquisitions to the advancement of human welfare, and receive in return the love and confidence of thousands of grateful hearts,— to grow old in this blessed service, and have one's white hairs venerated for the devotion they proclaim,- and to fall at last, at the end of the well-trodden course. with one's armor on, and his face lit up by a celestial glory this seemed to me the noblest destiny that God permits any of his children to achieve.

"I owed these views, as well as the resolution that gathered them into a living purpose, to my mother, whose spirit, I thank God, is beyond the regrets and disappointments of this world! I owe many of my strongest incitements to my wife, whose sympathy I have possessed from her girlhood, and who lives to share my regrets, and the yet more bitter uncertainties of the future.

"Such is the purpose, and such are the hopes I cherished, amid the illusions of youth; and these are the things I have resigned, on obtaining a more accurate knowledge of men, and on coming in contact with the realities of the world."

He paused again.

Throughout his narration, I had felt an uncomfort