conduct, resolutions were passed that fully vindicated the Protestantism of the Merlington folk, and the rector's plan for restoring and rebuilding his church had, in consequence, to remain in abeyance.

All this was the making of Ebenezer. Next Sunday morning they had a sermon, according to previous announcement, on "The Glorious Doctrines of the Reformation." The building was crowded in every part, and such was the eloquence of the preacher, and the ardour of his Protestant zeal, that it was evident Ebenezer was destined to see better days. And soon many of the disaffected from the Parish Church came to take sittings at Ebenezer, as they considered Mr. James a safer guardian of their principles than Dr. Cooper with his unlit candles and becrossed altarfurniture.

At last it became necessary to set about enlarging the chapel itself, and as many of the congregation were in favour of putting a more modern and fashionable appearance on the place, it was resolved to repair and otherwise improve it; and this is how it came to pass that Ebenezer emerged from its retirement, and from an old-fashioned dull and gloomy meeting-house became the most important of all the Merlington sectarian places of worship.

CHAPTER II.

WIDOW PATTISON AND HER FAMILY.

AMONGST those who left the Parish Church when the innovations commenced was a widow-lady named Pattison, with her son and daughter, Henry and Lucy.

It is this Henry Pattison who is to be the hero of our story. Mrs. Pattison had retired to Merlington on the death of her husband, partly that she might nurse her heavy sorrow in secret, and partly that she might eke out her slender income in the seclusion of a country town, free from the necessity of endeavouring to keep up the more expensive style of living that Mr. Pattison's professional income had enabled them to support. Of a courageous and indomitable spirit, she bravely determined to live for her children; all else that was dear to her in life was gone; but was there not a noble life-work before her to educate and fit for doing battle with the world these orphans? for the little ones lost their father when still too young to know their loss. When death had robbed this family of its bread-winner, and the first wild anguish had subsided, and left the widow free to collect her thoughts and arrange her plans, she found herself possessed of an income that would give her something over 150l. per annum. Having resolved out of this sum annually to save a considerable portion, she wisely concluded to leave London and settle down in some quiet country place where she would be free to practise the strictest economy and develope the plans she had formed for training to habits of industry and virtue her youthful and allabsorbing charge.

It not unfrequently happens that even thoughtless and extravagant persons, when suddenly thrown upon their own responsibilities, become altogether changed, and the flood of sorrow that would have entirely overwhelmed weaker minds serves only to lift upon its breast and elevate to nobler things some whom we should have expected would have succumbed to its influence. It was so in this case. People said, when

the young and giddy Matilda Pattison was left to fight the stern battle of life alone, that it would break her heart. How could she live without her card parties, theatres, morning concerts, and autumn tours ? She who had been used to the comforts and even the luxuries of life, would never (so the world said) brave the storm and face the cold wind of adversity, and battle through it all with her little charge. But the widow mapped out her course, and trusted to Providence for the rest; and though she had no heavenly comfort to sustain her then, for hitherto the world alone had occupied her attention, and thoughts of God were the last thoughts that entered her mind, and prayer, that has saved so many millions of hearts from breaking, was a solace of which she was almost ignorant; yet she was not entirely godless; she was the child of parents who "professed and called themselves Christians." But, alas! the canker worm of Calvinism had done its evil work with them also. They had never taught their children to pray, had never trained their infant lips and minds to address the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth by the precious name of Father: they said if their children were "of the election of grace," as they termed it, God would have His own, and that it was sheer blasphemy to teach children who might be born reprobates to address God in words that must be left to the Holy Spirit to instil, if ever they were to learn them. So they let the little plants run wild in the wilderness of this world, trusting to God "to transplant them into the garden of His invisible Church, if He in His sovereign mercy should see fit to do so." No holy baptism enriched their souls with the privileges of the Christian dispensation, no priest of God signed their foreheads with the symbol of our common faith; they

were worse off than the children of the Patriarchs, and though the Christ of God had said, “Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not," and His Apostle, "The promise is to you and to your children;" these babes, with thousands more of their cold and stern sect, were deprived of their inheritance, and all knowledge of God's good will towards them. It was not unnatural, therefore, that Matilda Pattison should grow up with little love for religion as burlesqued before her. She knew nothing whatever of the pure and holy faith of the Gospel of Christ. The message that Jesus the Son of God's love gave to the world was perverted into a miserable, cruel, and unjust mockery of man's misery and ruin, by the teachers of her parents' creed, that was equally insulting to the blessed God, and destructive of all hope of reformation to the souls of men. A wretched fatalism that held up to her desire a heaven for which she dared not presume to hope, unless steeped in that overweening pride that seems the sine qua non of the "elect," had well nigh driven to despair one whom nature had formed well calculated, under better influences, "to adorn the doctrine of Jesus Christ." A liberal share of sound common sense fortunately entered into her composition, and convinced her that whatever system of religious belief was the true one, it certainly could not be that which cast a heavy pall of gloom over the parents' house, and forbade them to see in life anything but the "wretched land” and “waste howling wilderness" on which their favourite preachers loved to descant.

It is not to be denied, and neither can it be wondered at, that the children of parents who are followers of Calvinism pure and unadulterated, generally turn out either infidels or persons of notoriously bad

character. Setting at nought the Wise Man's advice. to "Train up a child in the way he should go," they leave their children to themselves; sin developes itself in them unchecked and unrestrained by any good influence or example, and it is no wonder that Satan makes an easy prey of them.

That it was not so in this case was a great mercy for which Matilda Pattison, in after-life, had cause for unfeigned thankfulness. No thanks to those who should have trained her soul in early life for God, it happened that the crushing blow she sustained in the loss of her husband eventually led her to think about that God whom she had never yet dared to love. She had no sooner escaped from her parents' influence, than she abandoned altogether the services of their religion, and when she entered any place of worship at all she had been in the habit of attending the parish church.

Soon after settling at Merlington she went to hear Dr. Cooper preach. He had many pulpit qualifications, was an earnest, and, as far as his light enabled him to be, a faithful preacher, in every way well calculated to be of service in combating and conquering the evil influences of the widow's early training. Under him she unlearned in some measure the soul-destroying doctrines of her parents' teaching; began to look upon God not as a Pagan deity, only to be propitiated with the destruction of the work of His hands; and dared to hope, that as the angels on that first and joyful Christmas-tide had announced, "Peace on earth, good will towards men," she might find a Saviour's welcome if sought at a Saviour's feet.

How she longed to unburthen her sorrowful heart into some sympathizing ear! She told her soul's sad