his being, and the great concerns of futurity, must be often wretched without a settled faith."

"It is true, then," said I, "what I have suspected, that your father is not a believer in the Christian religion?" 'It is," she replied; " and to you who know him, this will account for all his appearance and habits. For how can such a man, who longs and pants for the refuge of its truths, be happy without them? He may have every thing else; but the want of these will leave an aching void, which nothing else can fill. Oh what a blessed day it would be to us all, which should make him a believer! He has every thing else to render himself and us happy; but for want of this, there is a bitter taste to every enjoyment, and discontent in every scene."

"Is he not aware of the cause of his dissatisfaction?" I asked.

"He is," replied Charlotte, "and yet he is not. That is to say, he acknowledges the power of the Christian faith in others, and I believe is truly happy that we possess it. But he will not allow that it would do any thing for himself. He insists that in bis literary and philosophical pursuits, he has all the satisfaction that the human mind can attain, and that nothing could add to his happiness. But it is very seldom he speaks on the subject. Indeed, he is so strongly prejudiced, that we avoid any allusion to it altogether. For I think he is the more violently positive from the very feeling he has, that there is an essential thing wanting. He tries in this way to stifle his feelings, and to convince himself that he wants nothing."

"I have seen something like this," said I, "in other cases; but I should not suspect it in your father. How is it that he is thus prejudiced?"

"It is partly," she answered, "his misfortune, and partly his fault. His misfortune, because in early life he was thrown into the midst of fanaticism and bigotry, which disgusted him, and rendered the whole system incredible to him: his fault, because he suffered prejudice to sway him, and did not deliberately institute an inquiry which should separate the false from the true, and show him that the system itself may be true and excellent, notwithstanding the follies of its friends."

"Can you state to me at length," said I, "the circumstances under which these indelible impressions were made?"

Before Charlotte could more than commence a reply to this question, Mr. Garstone came in, and conversation took a different turn. I returned home, deeply interested in what I had heard, and anxious to hear more.

What I had now heard, interested me too much to suffer me to rest until I had learned more. The history of Mr. Garstone I found to be this:-He was the son of parents, whose religion partook of the character of austerity and superstition. He was educated in the most rigid restraint, and imbued diligently with the dogmas of the Assembly's Catechism. When he had grown to years of understanding, being of a strong mind and peculiarly susceptible feelings, his reflections on the subject of religion became earnest in the extreme, and occupied him day and night. A fear of God, rather dreadful than pleasant, as he expressed it, had always oppressed him, and it now made him miserable. The doctrines which he had learned in childhood, he now began to understand and reason upon, and apply to himself. He saw that if they were true, he was condemned by his birth to an eternal curse, which only the re-creating grace of God could remove. And this grace was appointed to visit only a chosen few. Was he one of those chosen? Should he ever taste this grace? Or was he abandoned by the discriminating spirit of God to his horrible destiny?

Beneath the agony of heart which this personal application of his creed produced, he struggled long and wretchedly. His misery, he told me, was indescribable. His life, for months, was a burden of terror and torture. Every thing lost its relish in the desperate attempt to gain satisfaction and hope, from what appeared to him the sentence of despair a sentence, which he was sometimes tempted to pronounce inconsistent with every attribute of justice and goodness. But this temptation he was taught to reject as blasphemous, and a foul instigation of the Devil. He strove to smother every feeling of this nature, and in spite of the clear demonstration, which the more he reflected the more strongly was forced upon him, he compelled himself to believe that all this might be so, and God still be just. In this tumult of contradictions, in this struggle of his mind to be reconciled to what he felt to be dreadful, and tried in vain to perceive to be right, two years of misery passed away, and health and cheerfulness passed away with them. Reading, reflection, tears, prayers, were

all in vain. The counsel of friends was also vain; for his state of mind was a cause of congratulation to them, being, as they supposed, the struggle of the natural man in the throes of the new birth, from which he would come forth regenerate and rejoicing. They rather increased than allayed his perplexity. They rebuked his attempts to reason on the subject, and told him it was vain to hope for satisfaction, except only in that prostrate faith, which God would give if he pleased, and when he pleased. They bade him therefore wait, and not be guilty of the blasphemy of trying God's ways by the rules of human reason.

He did wait, but to no purpose. He humbled himself, and strove to quell what was called his pride, and to believe the consistency of what appeared to him contradictory, and made it the burden of his prayer, that he might only find peace, and he would willingly sacrifice every other thing. It was all in vain. No peace came. But, not to prolong the story, the powers of his mind at last triumphed. He found it impossible, after every effort, to attribute to the government of God, what he had been taught to attribute to it. He gradually came to the determination that such a system could not be true, and he rejected it as contradicting almost every high and holy truth, which nature and common sense teach of the great Creator.

I could not help being deeply interested in this history. Unhappy man, thought I, thus driven away from the light and comforts of God's Word! How different might have been the result, if he had been blessed with early opportunities like mine! He would have found help in his difficulties, as I did; he would have learned, that the gospel of God's love is not implicated with any of those dogmas, "at which reason stands aghast, and faith herself is half confounded;" and he might have received it in its native beauty and uncorrupted lustre,

"Majestic in its own simplicity," the ornament, support, guide, and joy of his soul, conducting him tranquilly through life, to an everlasting hope. But of all this he had been deprived. He had come to reject the gospel, from never knowing truly its real character. He had thrown away its peace, from having a counterfeit offered in its stead.

But though he had rid himself of this cause of trouble, he was far from tranquillity. His religious propensities

were strong, and his education had been such as to associate ideas of the highest importance with the subject. His reverence for God was deep and habitual, his belief in a future state fixed, and his conviction that God had revealed himself to the world, was too deep-rooted to be easily removed. There was a great deal, too, sublime and beautiful and delightful in the history, character, and teaching of Jesus, which he could not reconcile with his imposture, any more than he could reconcile the doctrines he had been taught with his truth. Here, then, was another distressing embarrassment. At length he strove to escape from it by avoiding the subject altogether. He put away his Bible, he neglected public worship, he involved himself in other studies and active pursuits, and tried to forget all he had ever known or thought about revealed religion.

But he could not succeed. It came to his thoughts in spite of him, and never suffered him to be at rest. His mind often misgave him; he became anxious, melancholy, fitful, unsettled; an unbeliever, yet longing to believe striving to think himself wiser and happier than others, yet secretly hoping he should one day be like them; with a fixed abhorrence of what had been urged on him as the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, yet conscious that human wisdom could have no light, and human weakness no hope, except from the declared mercy of Heaven.

Such was Mr. Garstone when I knew him. And I may truly say, that I never have seen the man more deserving of compassion; nor can I imagine a more sad picture of the deplorable effects of unbelief. I bent my

knee in devout gratitude for the felicity I enjoyed in the glorious faith and hope of Christ; and breathed an earnest prayer, that I might be enabled to heal the errors and comfort the spirit of this unhappy and mistaken man.

My first object was to gain the confidence of Mr. Garstone; for it was above all important, that he should not be prejudiced against the person who would endeavour to remove his prejudice against the Christian revelation. In this attempt I had reason to think that I did not fail; and having secured his friendship, I laid in wait for opportunity to use it.

I was not long in finding one. It was after the death of Mr. Ellerton, his friend and my friend. I spoke of his character, and of the loss we sustained in his removal,

with the feelings of a friend, and of his prospect in a better world, with the hope of a Christian. I dwelt at 'some length on the assurance of our immortality, derived from the instructions and resurrection of Christ; and, with all the emphasis I could command, pictured the blessedness of a believer's hope. I could perceive that Mr. Garstone was moved. I had touched a string which vibrated powerfully to every word I uttered.

"These are delightful thoughts," he said, after a pause; "butHe hesitated and stopped.

I took the word from his mouth. But there is no assurance of this truth, except from the voice of revelation. All is doubt, except from the instructions of Jesus Christ. His resurrection makes all clear."

"Mr. Anderson," said my friend, "my respect for you and for the opinions of those with whom I live, has always prevented me from obtruding my own sentiments on subjects of this nature. You cannot, however, be ignorant of my mind, and it were better, perhaps, that we should be silent where we cannot agree.

I felt that this was the decisive moment; and with a violent effort said the first thing that occurred to me, lest I should be unable to say any thing. "I know," said I, "that you have doubts as to the Christian revelation; but I hope they do not extend to the immortality of the soul. And I see not why we should not converse on the subject. I do long to know on what your doubts are grounded."

"I do believe in the immortality of the soul," he replied; "and for this very reason I cannot believe in the Christian religion. For how can I suppose that immortal beings are formed by their Creator in a bondage so degrading and so hopeless, as that system teaches-from which only a small proportion of them can ever be rescued, and they only by the sufferings and death of the Creator himself in human form? How can I imagine him to be divinely commissioned, who proclaims to me such horrors -and yet calls them glad tidings and a message of peace, though only calculated to harass and torment the soul, as they once did mine? It is true, he teaches the doctrine of a future life; but how can I believe that life, suspended on so unequal conditions?"

He spoke with a deep and convulsive emphasis, that showed how strongly he felt. I asked him if he saw no evidence in favour of Christ's pretensions?