ing if after all there would be rest for the sole of his weary foot. He wrote and read but no light came, and having no longer faith, grew peevish and easily vexed with the cares of life.

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Without God and without hope in the world," without the softening influence of religion, without the soothing healing balm of prayer, was it wonderful that he grew morose, cynical, hypercritical, caustic, and severe? He was no longer the gentle, loving teacher of men, he ventilated his ever shifting opinions in his paper; there he photographed the last phase of his varying thought, and strove to make his readers as restless as himself. And now, having erased one clause after another from the creed of his earlier days, he found it was the task of Sisyphus to replace them with fresh. Is it not wonderful that the masters of the destructive art, should in matters of religion be esteemed by the world more highly than the master spirits who have constructed for us a system of theology that all the infidel forces will never uproot? As though we should praise the destroyer of the Temple of Diana, and think nothing of its architect. Yet so it is; let a man rise up and show the world a sufficiently plausible reason why he should reject for himself and his fellows an article of our faith, and straightway the world runs after him, and his name is written high on their fame roll.

From a merry, cheerful man, Henry Pattison had become a melancholy, distracted creature. Living without prayer, yet yearning after God; doubting everything, yet longing to believe; despising every kind of dogma, yet burning to give himself heart and soul to a faith that should be strong enough and Godlike enough to clasp him and carry him eagle-like aloft; such was the hero of our tale. Are there not many

whose eyes shall scan this page, whose hearts beat with sympathy for his condition at this time? Look at your scars received in that battle with unbelief which was well nigh your overthrow; at your wounded feet scarcely healed yet, injured in that wandering over thorns and briars, when scorning direction and antiquated ideas you waywardly struck out into the devious paths of error-remembering these things you may pity Henry. Though he had cut himself adrift from all connexion with religious bodies or churches, he did not cease to attend some place of worship on Sundays. Frequently he was an attendant at the Unitarian chapels, but more usually the ministrations of a semi-Socinian Independent clergyman claimed his attention. This gentleman was introducing a rather ornate style of service that bids fair to prove a success amongst Dissenters. Our museums and our increased taste for music and art have combined to introduce an æsthetic feeling amongst Dissenters, who would be very unwilling to allow that symbolism and ceremonial were true exponents of faith. So the religion of the Beautiful, came to supersede the worship of God in Henry's soul, and he became a mere pagan philosophizer. We may imagine he was ill-prepared to meet the affliction God was bringing upon him. His chastening hand had let him run the length of his tether, it was the time now to arrest his wanderings. When the leaves began to fall and the misty mornings of the Autumn of 18- came, Lucy grew alarmingly worse, her health began to fail visibly before all their eyes. Once the thought occurred to Henry, "Oh, if I were to lose her." He dismissed the idea as soon as it was formed, he put it from him as something that should not happen; "Not that," he said, "anything but that!"

The best advice that could be procured had always been obtained for her. Dr. Haslam, in whose judg ment they all had confidence, was attending her. He was one who bluntly told the truth without disguise.

"What is your opinion of my sister?" said Henry, after his last examination was concluded. "Tell me plainly, is she in danger?"

"My friend," was the reply, "you cannot count upon her living through the present winter!"

Still he would not believe he must lose her, though hour by hour he saw her fading from him with the shortening days. She was too necessary for his existence that she should leave him thus. And yet it came that long-gathering storm of woe; it burst upon him at last as he sat by her dying couch one day. What was to sustain him then? Would the cold philosophy, the sneering cynicism of his later history, make the parting easier than the faith that had helped him in his youth? Would his pretty theories on the usefulness of suffering and the spirit of self-sacrifice heal his breaking heart? No! he felt there was nothing to stem the tide of sorrow, no breakwater to turn aside its force-and he rebelled. If yet there were some remnants of his religion left, they served but to enable him to look heavenward and refuse to submit! And here it was he found the depth of his sorrow. "I am smitten in anger, not in love; my trouble is more than I can bear; I have not deserved it; there is no good end in it; I cannot accept it as from a Father's hand. My God is my enemy !" And so despair came nearer to him day by day; and Lucy saw it-saw how dear she was to him and knew she must leave him helpless in his

woe.

The death-day came at last. Every day of late, and

nearly all day he had been at her side. How she preached to him by her sweet patience-her resignation to God's holy will—and though she never reproached him in words for his defection from religion, her virtues, as her illness manifested them more grandly, pleaded with him to return.

“I am a weak and simple girl," said she; "all unused to scholar's talk and the philosophy you love, I cannot argue with you, for you would laugh at my weak reasonings; but, Henry dear, you will have to see me die, and if I had not the faith you have abandoned, I tell you in the face of death I dare not die! Yet I await my end without alarm other than is the common lot of mortals. I grieve that ever I offended my God, who has given Himself for me. I implore His pardon, and clinging to His cross, and sprinkled with His precious blood, commend my passing soul to Him who gave it. Henry, dear Henry, it is only as a little child you can live and be at peace with God, it is only as a little child you can dare to face Him who gave you the intellect you are making your idol."

No word of reply could he utter, he knew it was all true; he thought if she might live and teach him he would learn again the way back to the place that he had lost. She died in his arms as night came on. "You will meet me in heaven, won't you, Henry? I am at my journey's end. Come after me! Abandon your books, they lead you from our childhood's faith. You cannot live, you cannot die without it." And thus charging him, her sweet soul passed away, and Henry was crushed to the very earth in his utter sorrow, his utter sense of loss.

For weeks after the funeral he was as one out of the body; he lived and was dead; he wandered below,

yet seemed to be absent from earth; seeking the lost one in the shades, his only thought and hope to reunite his soul with hers. Time, the Assuager, gradually led him back to his former self. Yet no whit resigned nor humbled under the afflicting hand of God. As the assayer heats with ever increasing heat the crucible that holds the metal he must reduce till it yields and flows, so will God do for the soul He loves.

CHAPTER XXII.

AT DARKEST PART OF NIGHT THERE COMES THE DAWN.

WEARILY passed the days with the stricken man, study and his literary work alone supporting him. Just then a new star had arisen amongst the company of preachers, a novelty was the fashion in the Church of England; a young clergyman of wonderful elocutionary power, a charming face, and exquisite voice, had started a monastery and made himself its Superior. Brother Clement, O.S.B. (London), was the rising man now, and all the town was rushing to hear him. Henry had written against him in his paper; he had not yet heard him, so to give greater zest and point to his articles, he must perforce take the opportunity of hearing him preach one Sunday afternoon at St. Michael's Hall. So many who went to hear him embraced his teaching, that Henry jokingly said to the friend who accompanied him, "How droll it would be if Brother Clement made a monk of me." "More improbable things than that," said the other.