Yes, but I taught you," interrupted the captain, "I taught you when on board the William Henry."

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some watering place, or come to anchor, just outside some brandy harbour, or we shall get an addition to our crew, and so lose the story. after all."

The whole party responded to the sentiment of the captain, and Mr Romain commenced as follows:

"We were mutual teachers," said Mr Romain, gravely. “You taught me, Van Husan, many of the wonders of the sea; and as you, "My father was not religiously educated, in your sailor-like manner, quoted portions of and entered life, as many young men do, withsacred Scripture in your descriptions of the out any fixed religious principles. He consisublimity of the ocean, a chill of awe oftendered it a matter of very little importance what crept over me. I felt, in spite of my principles, that no language but that of inspiration could do justice to the sublimity of ocean into tempest wrought'-that it was Jehovah who commandeth and lifteth up the waves thereof that the Bible alone can describe the sea when it ceases from raging: He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still." The captain turned on him a look of surprise and contempt. "You talk of Scripture and inspiration, Mr Romain," said he; "pray, where did you learn your creed?"

"At the very threshold of heaven, the deathbed of a Christian mother."

"Pardon my mistake, sir," said the captain, with a very sober face, "I thought you were an infidel."

You thought right, Van Husan," said Romain, "I was one; I acknowledge it with a blush. Yet how could I be otherwise, educated as I was in the very lap of scepticism by a misguided father, who spared no efforts to infuse into my young mind the poison with which his own was so fatally imbued!-I say fatally, for he lived and died a professed disciple of Voltaire.”

a man believed, or whether he had any system of faith, provided he did not commit any overt act of wickedness. He saw some professors of religion who did not live better than himself, in his own opinion, and he was willing to risk the interests of his soul'on his own supposed goodness. At an early age he entered the army; he was a man of tact and talents, and so distinguished himself, that he rose in office and in the estimation of his superiors, and prided himself much on his patriotism.

"It was amidst the corruptions of the camp that he imbibed those deistical sentiments to which he ever afterwards adhered.

"Unhappily for my father, after the conclusion of the war, several of his former companions settled near him, and their intimacy continued. Their nocturnal revels were usually held at our house; and the scenes of these infidel meetings are embodied among my first and most vivid recollections. I was the oldest child, and was often called in to display my dexterity in military exercises, and show how fearlessly I could use profane language, as taught by my father. Often have I heard my mother pleading to have me excused from such a display, but she plead

silent usually closed the argument; for my father was one of those who look upon woman as inferior, as an object capable only of serving man, made to be in subjection, but having little to do as a companion or intellectual being.

Ah, Mr Romain, you did not use to talked in vain—a command from my father to be thus," interrupted the captain, "when on board the William Henry, bound to France; divine, beautiful France,' as you sometimes called it." "Too true, my good friend," said Romain, "I did cast off fear, and, young as I was, I laughed you out of your principles, and taught "My silent, uncomplaining mother, thereyou my own dark infidel creed; and the fear fore, had no voice in these domestic arrangethat I can never undo what I have done to de- ments, but only to obey in whatever my father stroy your soul, and the souls of others, is the enjoined; and, strange as it may seem, he often most bitter ingredient in my present painful urged upon her the duty of submission, by aremotions; but," he continued," at some pro-guments drawn from those very Scriptures per opportunity, I hope, by a relation of my own emancipation, to break those chains I riveted upon you."

which he professed to disbelieve and despise." "I wish," said the young lady before him, "that your father were a solitary example of "I wish that proper time were the present," such an incongruity; but I fear there are many said the young man on the front seat." I most such." Her brother coloured, and begged his heartily respond to the wish of my brother," sister not to interrupt the gentleman's narsaid his sister. "We should be highly grati-rative. She bowed assent, and Mr Romain confied by such a relation," said one of the sisters tinned :behind him The old gentleman expressed a similar desire, provided Captain Van Husan did not object.

"Pray, don't stand about a preface," said the captain, "but come at the story at once; for I expect that our pilot, helmsman, captain, or what you call him, out here, will luff up to

"The society to which I was introduced on entering life was of the most dangerous kind. It was composed of young men from families in high life, but destitute of religious principle. The Sabbath was a day of worldly pleasure and hilarity. Bad as my principles were, my circumstances had kept me from the more open

vices. But now an opportunity was furnished for the appearance of the legitimate fruits of those principles.

"No sooner was my daily routine of business performed, than some wily associate stood ready' to allure me to scenes of riot and dissipation, under the specious pretext of amusement or recreation. The gambling-house, the card or billiard-table, were a common resort.

"For a long time I had to contend with the force of habit, a sense of propriety, the upbraidings of conscience, and a guilty fear of detection. But I gathered strength with the repetition of the act, and grew bold as I advanced in vice, till, in the face of the world, I could play away my last piece of money, my coat from my back, or hat from my head, without compunction or shame. Nor did the evil stop here. Gambling is the parent of a host of kindred vices. Intemperance follows or accompanies it almost inevitably. The destruction of property was one source of amusement with us, especially in moments of drunkenness and frenzy.

"But this course of dissipation soon affected my health, and my father became alarmed: physicians prescribed a voyage to sea, and my father determined on sending me to France for my restoration. It was on board ship that I exerted those baneful influences over your mind, Van Husan, that I now so deeply regret." The captain seized his hand, but did not utter a word, and he proceeded: My residence in France with my father's infidel friends restored my health, but did not mend my principles. I returned home as full of selfishness and infidelity as I went forth.

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"On my arrival at New York, I learned that my mother was in the last stage of consumption, if alive. My mother was the only being on earth who had a hold on my conscience. She had made an impression on my heart which infidelity itself could not eradicate. The idea of seeing her no more, was agony; I therefore hurried on towards home, agitated with a thousand fearful apprehensions.

"The sun was just rising over my native hills when I alighted at my father's door. All was still! I was just about to give a loud rap, when my sister opened the door, and bade good morning to the nightly nurse who was just departing. My brother, have you come!' was all she could articulate, and, weeping, led me the way to my mother's room.

"She stepped lightly in, withdrew the curtain slightly from her bed, and left the room. I walked softly to the bed; my mother seemed dozing: her face was turned from me, and so pale, so emaciated, that my first impression was, that she was dead. But a smile passing over her features, convinced me of my mistake. I saw her lips moving; I heard a whisper; I leaned over her. I come, I come,' said she; 'I come, I come.' Then opening her eyes, she

|

said, 'Am I here? Oh! I thought I was there.') 'Where, mother?' said I, tenderly. There, said she, pointing upward. I drew back, so that she supposed it was my sister who spoke. Hark!' said she again. I moved instinctively forward, and listened. 'I come,' said she again, to join your everlasting,song.' A placid smile now lighted up her features. I gazed at her a moment; and, in spite of my infidelity, conscience, reason, my better judgment, whispered unitedly, These are the consolations of the religion of the Bible!

"Alarmed at my own thoughts, I drew the curtain close, and walked to the window. Deep awe came over me. I felt for once how awful goodness was; I seemed to be in the presence of some all-pervading spirit. I looked out; the sun was climbing up the blue horizon, and pouring his beams over the face of nature. Who made that sun? seemed whispered in my ear. 'He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good,' busy memory replied. I twirled my watch-key with trembling fingers. I caught up a book, and turned over the leaves with a trepidation and haste that showed how deeply I was agitated, and how absent my mind was; for I had not the most distant idea what book I held in my hand. I heard again my mother's voice, and hastened back to her bed just to hear her repeat

Then shall I see, and hear, and know,
All I desired or wish'd below.'

"Still more agitated, I wiped away the tears which I thought it weakness to shed; and with a secret and repelled conviction of the reality of vital godliness, was about to leave the room, when, recollecting the book in my hand, I went back to lay it down on the table, when, casting my eye, for the first time, on the open page, I read

'Lorenzo, dost thou feel these arguments?

Or is there nought but vengeance can be felt?' Lifting my eye to the top of the page, I read, The Infidel Reclaimed.' I dashed the book from me, and hurried out of the room.

"On entering the breakfast room I met my father, who welcomed me with more than his usual paternal kindness, and inquired if I had seen my mother. I replied that I had seen her, but had not spoken with her. She is a poor, weak, bewildered woman,' said he. 'In her wild moments, she is eloquent and touching in many of her appeals; but we know she is not herself. My sister, with surprising firmness, said, that whatever her father might think of her mother, she had the clearest evidence that she had the most perfect use of her reason; and that, while her body was fast wasting away, her inward man was renewed day by day.'

"I turned a look of inquiry on my sister; her features were lighted up with the same glow of feeling which I had seen in the face of

THE INFIDEL.

The smile, the look of peace, and hope, and joy, still rested on her features. My father was pale, he trembled, and sunk into a chair. My sister calmly closed my mother's eyes.

"I stood awe-struck; I looked first at the peaceful clay, then at my father, then at my beloved, pious sister. I saw infidelity in all its deformity. I saw the religion of the Bible, in its proper fruits, giving support and joy in this hour of affliction. I had seen the triumphant departure of a believer to a brighter, better world. I saw myself as a lost sinner. I saw my remedy-it was the Saviour of sinners revealed in that long neglected and despised book, the Bible. Can you, then, dear Captain Van Husan, blame me, that I resolved to forsake the foolish, and live, and go on in the way of understanding?"

commentators, he was unwilling to appear as a vain and lying prophet." And Dr Adam Clarke, whetting the matter a little more sharply upon poor Jonah, says, "He had more respect to his high sense of his own honour than he had to the goodness and mercy of God. He appeared to care little whether 620,000 persons were destroyed or not, so as he might not pass for a deceiver, or one that denounced a falsity." This, indeed, is the view that very naturally suggests itself on a somewhat hasty and superficial consideration of the subject; and yet there is something about the circumstances of Jonah, something even in the very account given of his vexation, which can scarcely fail to beget a conviction of there being a still deeper ground for the painful feelings that agitated his mind. For, if Jonah was so greatly to blame here, if his own credit with the world stood so high in his esteem, that he would rather have seen the largest city on the earth buried in ruins, than that he should be exposed to the taunt from thoughtless and inconsiderate persons (for such alone in the circumstances The captain's head had sunk on the shoulder could express it) of having spoken what had not of his young companion, and he sobbed audi-literally taken place, he must have belonged, we shall not say to the lowest class of saints, but to the bly. Tears were in the eyes of our comworst specimens of humanity: he must have had the panions. breast of a demon rather than of a man. And such Dr Clarke not obscurely insinuates was the case, when he asks, “Who but he who is of a fiendish nature will be grieved because God's mercy triumphs over judgment?

The stage-coach stopped where they were to separate. The old gentleman lifted his hands, and with the same serene countenance and gentle voice, said, "Father in heaven, we thank thee that we have met; sanctify to us this interview; bless us in parting; prepare us to meet in heaven." As they stepped from the coach the young man before mentioned seized the hand of Mr Romain. "You have saved me," said he, with great emotion; "I am on the verge of ruin, temporal and eternal; I resolve in the strength of Him who giveth power to the faint, to profit by your example. Farewell."

The whole party shook hands in silence, and their paths in life probably diverged for ever.

JONAH.

THE DISPLEASURE OF JONAH AT THE PRESERVATION
OF NINEVEH.

(Continued from p. 198.)

FROM the effect produced on the mind of God by the repentance of Nineveh toward him, we now pass to the effect produced on the mind of Jonah by the repentance of God toward Nineveh. This at first sight appears strange, so strange as to seem almost inexplicable in a man who had passed through such singular experiences, and had been so peculiarly honoured in his work. "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry (or rather he was very much grieved or vexed). And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, Doest thou well to be angry? The marginal reading here is nearer the proper meaning, but it should be, as the Septuagint correctly renders it, Art thou very much grieved?

Why should Jonah have been so displeased and vexed, and rendered even weary of life, by an event which one would think fitted to inspire thankfulness and joy into every well-constituted mind? cause," says Calvin, expressing the general view of

"Be

But this is plainly to give a darker view of Jonah's character and conduct than the circumstances of the case warrant, or than is borne out by the later allusions of Scripture respecting him. Had such been really the ground of Jonah's uneasiness he would have deserved the severest rebuke and chastisement, especially considering what he had already suffered from warring against the mind and purposes of God. And yet the Lord does no more than mildly expostulate with him, and, by a course of treatment much more remarkable for its gentleness and condescension than for its severity, tries to convince him of his mistake. Not only so; but, when we come down to New Testament times, we find such honourable mention made of Jonah, and such a close resemblance! drawn by our Lord himself between his own mission as a prophet and that of Jonah's, that we cannot rest with satisfaction in the view suggested above. We cannot believe such marked and honourable reference would have been made to him, if he had been the selfish, perverse, unreasonable creature he is represented to have been; but are rather driven to the conviction, that deeper views and less discreditable feelings gave the tone to his behaviour here, than such as a hasty glance might naturally dispose one to imagine.

Besides, viewing the matter even on the lowest ground, and with reference to the prophet's repute in the world, it must surely have appeared to any one but the most depraved or childish being, a far more ennobling distinction to have been, under God, the reformer of a great people and the saviour of their city, than simply to have been known as the herald who had truly announced its doom, Though what he proclaimed had not literally taken place, his preaching was still the instrumental cause of saving the city from ruin; and if carnal ambition had wrought in his bosom-if worldly honour, in reality, was the jewel so dear to him-it seems hard to understand why he should have wished an opposite result, at least so passionately wished it as to have longed for death because he had been disappointed in the object of his desire.

But what reason have we to suppose that Jonah's vexation and concern turned at all upon the point of