sermons are supplied by other parts of his office, or his errors are contradicted by them.'

"Here is a long letter, dear Nigel! made up, too, you will say, of quotations; but you know such is my dull, slow way of writing, that I often like to express my own opinions, by the choicer language of those with whom I agree; and so, to conclude, in the same style, here is a wish and prayer:

"God grant that a Church, which has now for nearly three centuries, amidst every extravagance of doctrine and discipline which has spent itself around her, still carried herself as the mediator, chastening the zealot by words of soberness, and animating the lukewarm by words that burn — that a Church which has been found on experience to have successfully promoted a quiet and unobtrusive and practical piety amongst the people; such as comes not of observation, but is seen in the conscientious discharge of all those duties of imperfect obligation which are the bonds of peace, but which the laws cannot reach that such a Church may live through these troubled times to train up our children in the fear of God, when we are in our graves; and that no strong delusion sent amongst us may prevail to her overthrow, and to the eventual discomfiture (as they would find too late for their cost) of many who have thoughtlessly and ungratefully lifted up their heel against her!"*

* See Blunt on the Reformation, p. 233.

CHAPTER VIII.

Prayer is living with God; and, if founded upon right principles of religion, puts us upon searching the heart, leads us to the knowledge of our wants and weakness, and fixes us in dependence upon God. Prayer brings God into the heart, and keeps sin out."

ADAM'S PRIVATE THOUGHTS.

NIGEL closed his book; the sun was setting, and he rose up to leave his quiet study. The cool air felt delightful to him after the heat of the day; it came from the west, dimpling the clear calm waters of the lake, and gently agitating the flowers in his beautiful garden. They had hung their heads all the day long under the sultry sun, but the heat and the glare had passed away, and the gentle dews of evening were beginning to freshen every delicate blossom. Nigel walked onward by the terrace to the end of the garden; but, as he passed under the little archway of roses, which had been twined there by the hands of Miss Evelyn,

before he unlocked the garden-gate he stopped to gather a bouquet of musk-roses. They were just coming into blossom. Dora Vernon loved them, and they grew no where so luxuriously as in the rectory-garden at Dronfells. He hastened on, till he stood upon a lofty platform among the rocks. The grass had there been kept fine and short by the mountain-sheep, and the pure fragrance of many a bed of wild thyme scented the fresh breeze that blew around him. It was one of those evenings when there is no twilight; when the moon hangs in the sky, as a lamp already lighted, at first pale and white, and scarcely luminous; but as the last splendour of daylight passes away, brightening into clear and radiant lustre.

Nigel scarcely noted that the night was come, till he saw his own shadow opposed to a light, more lamp-like than that of the day; and then he looked up into the clear broad expanse of the darkened sky; he looked around on the mountains, and the venerable groves, and the calm surface of the lake, and his own pleasant dwelling-place; and his heart swelled with adoration and gratitude towards Him who made his lot so happy, causing his lines to fall in such pleasant places.' Not long before, his eye and his heart would have stopped here. They now passed onward, even with a deeper interest, to many a cluster of low mean dwellings, to the abodes of poverty, and wretchedness, and sin; and as he stood there, and thought upon Him who

gladly endured afflictions, and neglect, and insult, for the love he bore to sinners, Nigel prayed for more of His spirit, His love, His patience, His deep and heartfelt sympathy with the lowest and the vilest of his fellows.

Nigel was on his way to Castle Vernon. He had not seen Dora for many days. She had been paying a visit in the neighbourhood, and he had occupied himself with double diligence about his parish, during the whole morning, that he might give up the evening to her delightful society. His quiet musings were broken in upon by a voice that screamed after him. He turned his head, and beheld the toiling form and the heated face of a huge overgrown girl, who was ascending by the path from the parsonage, calling out to him at every step, in a voice as familiar in its expressions, as it was unpleasant in its sound, to stop and to come back. There are some young persons, from whose manner of addressing you, it is easy to discover that they have been brought up in the midst of a household reverencing neither God nor his ministers; and Nigel was now addressed by such a person. The girl handed to him a note, which, from its wet wafer, had been evidently written but a short time, and the note contained a request, which was almost a command, that he would come immediately to see the wife of the writer, for she had been ill during the last fortnight; it concluded by an expression of wonder, that Mr. Forester had so

long neglected Mrs. Bandon, and a hint that if he still delayed to visit Prospect Cottage, Mr. Bandon would certainly send for Mr. Smithson, the dissenting minister. Poor Nigel stared at the note, and at the bearer, who returned his stare. He gave a glance to the towers and terraces of Castle Vernon, and unconsciously tearing off the corner of the note, to which the wet wafer was affixed, he quietly walked forward in the direction of Prospect Cottage, a distance of three miles; its walls of glaring white, from their lofty situation, appearing in the distance far over heath, and wood, and valley. He found that he was not to be favoured with the company of Miss Bandon, who had some commissions to execute at the Shop, as it was called, par excellence, at Dronfells. Nigel had then heard, for the first time, of the serious illness of Mrs. Bandon. He knew, also, that she was a very difficult person to deal with. He had often visited her, but with little or no good effect. The only subject on which she liked to speak was her bodily ailments, and she had always endeavoured to turn the conversation, when Nigel spoke to her on the only object of a Christian minister's visits.

At length he stood at the door of Prospect Cottage, a tall comfortless dwelling, standing on the summit of a bare, bleak hill, with not a tree within half a mile of it, except the few weather-beaten saplings which had been planted when the house was built, and which would probably grow up to shelter it,