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a social scene by the firesides of his people, when a glass of wine or a brandy sling had concluded the festivity, "just to guard against the cold." And when all these considerations crowded imploringly before him, pointing him to his probable loss of popularity and consequent influence, he finally threw aside the tortuous, mutilated composition, and decided not to meddle with the subject; lest, he pretended, he should annihilate every hope of future usefulness in other less dif ficult departments. And how many of these "blind watchmen," "ignorant, dumb, and sleeping dogs," (Isa. lvi. 10-12,) still exist, who thus dare to trample upon positive commands, thinking to heal a wounded conscience with a plaster of expediency! But as Jonah found it safer to confide in wisdom from above, so will every one sooner or later realize, if they thus trust to the suggestions of a selfish, deceitful heart.

At noon, while at the table, my relative spoke of the meeting which was to be held on the evening of that day. He mentioned, in the conversation which the anticipation of that event excited, that he had called that morning to see a lady in the village, whose husband had become intemperate.

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A DRUNKARD'S FAMILY.

He represented that she was rapidly declining; but as her cheek grew more like the lily in paleness, she looked with increasing resignation upon her fate.

Her sad relation may soon be told. It is that of thousands in this world of wo. Her husband had been a merchant-had dealt in the fatal beverage had himself been prostrated by its power. Though once a kind and amiable man, his presence had become even dreadful to his family. He appeared anxious to revenge his wilful losses of property and reputation, upon every individual with whom he met, and especially upon his own household. One child, the youngest, a pale, feeble, innocent thing, seemed in particular to be the object of his rage. Perhaps it was because it seemed most to agonize its mother, when he was cruel to this helpless, unoffending one; but whatever was the cause, it would have made any but drunkards to weep, to have seen the poor thing, clothed even scantily with rags, shivering with the cold, as it stood out of the back door, in obedience to its mother, till she should persuade the brutal husband to go to bed. Sometimes he would find it in this situation; and then, instead of being

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warmed and consoled upon her bosom, unsparing would be the punishment maliciously inflicted; and long after it had found rest there upon his retiring, would it sob forth its sorrows in that only refuge, and remain sleepless from its blows. His wife, naturally retiring, unable to endure such a termination to her hopes, was sinking to the tomb, daily subject to the curses of her partner, and grieving most at the thought of leaving her children defenceless in his power-though it would seem that her persecuted infant was destined, in death as well as in life, to slumber in her arms.

My relative remarked that he had thought temperance societies were productive of evil as well as good; but must admit, that if they had ever prevented the evils of one such case as he had related, it more than counterbalanced all the injury they had ever produced. But he had known several instances in which they had actually averted such calamities; while, to be candid, he never knew any evil to be charged against them, which was not caused directly by the opposition of the intemperate. He added, that the popular voice had been opposed to such organizations-he had found it easier to float on with the multitude,

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THE GREAT RESOLVE.

than to stem the current of opinion—and therefore had adopted their arguments and prejudices in opposition, without much examination. He feared his example had aided to ruin the husband of that lady, but determined it should ruin no more. "To-night," said he, "I put my name, in black and white, upon the Temperance Pledge, let the world say what it will; for if all would do so, there would never, after to-day, be such a scene presented as that which I witnessed this forenoon."

CHAPTER XV.

"Those evening bells!-those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells

Of youth, and home, and native clime,
When I last heard their soothing chime !"

THE sun was slowly sinking near the verge of the Western sky, as we stood upon the brow of the hill on the Eastern part of the plain, watching the golden sun-beams burnishing over the forests which partially intercepted their light, and admiring the vast, magnificent scenery beneath us in an opposite direction, where mountain and ravine, sunshine and darkness, with the varied optical illusions caused by difference of distance, spread abroad their ample, contrasted splendors to our view. Who, thought I, but Omnipotence, could have originated such sublime realitiesthrown up, in towering grandeur, these huge hills,

2

"Aeriaque Alpes, et nubifer Apenninus,"

as everlasting mementoes of his power-and