quite a unique object; but in the extreme north, and in the Orkney and Zetland islands, there are other ancient fortalices of the same form and character, usually called duns or burghs, and attributed to the Picts. In Cordiner's Antiquities is given the groundplan of one called Dunalishaig, on the Firth of Dornoch, in Ross-shire, precisely resembling Eetin's Hald, as far as its base is concerned, but having also a second story similarly chambered, which of course may have been the case with Eetin's Hald also, for anything we can tell. It is understood that the most entire of all the duns now standing is that of Moussa, on a small island in the Zetland group. As there are no such buildings in Scandinavia, it is considered as tolerably certain that they were the production of a people holding the north of Scotland before the invasions of the Northmen in the ninth and tenth centuries-in short, of the Celtic people, or Picts, for to them is the latter term now found applicable. When these Celts occupied the whole of Scotland, they would raise such buildings everywhere; but of all south of Inverness-shire, Eetin's Hald alone survives. It must therefore be deemed a great curiosity, and we cannot but recommend that measures should be taken to clear it of rubbish, and preserve all that remains with scrupulous care. Were the interior court trenched for a few feet, there would probably be found weapons of stone, flint and bone implements, and other relics of the primitive inhabitants. But now the westering sun, streaming down in powerful radiance upon some of the distant hills of Selkirkshire, admonishes us that we must hie to the good town of Dunse, in order to dine with the anglingclub, for such is the fixed arrangement. Horses and the car help us to make out this point, and we reach Hownam's Inn just in time. We need scarcely add, in the paragraphist's phrase, that the evening was spent in the utmost hilarity. I could not but reflect afterwards-trivial as was the occasion for the idea arising-how much benefit one may derive on an excursion like this from a certain preparedness of mind. Even with a very small amount of scientific knowledge-and I can pretend to no more -how much better off are you than in a state of entire ignorance. A person altogether unacquainted with geology and its kin science archæology would have, on this occasion, lacked many enjoyments which, as it was, fell to my share. Nearly at every step along the valley, I had objects to gratify curiosity, to elevate and expand the view of the mind, to connect the immediate with the remote, and often to send the heart in grateful adoration to the source of all good. The very forms of the hills-the ground everywhere prominent in simple proportion to the hardness of its composition -led the imagination to a wondrous crisis in the history of the globe, when the temperature of Prince Regent's Inlet must have prevailed as far south as Vienna, and but a small part of the surface was fitted to be a theatre of life. Even when, turning from the distant silent ages of the geologist, we came to the early lisping days of our own race, what a curious theme of meditation! The hill-fort, representing a state of society like that of Caffreland-the ring-castle, without mortar or the arch, speaking of a time when the people of our land were just advanced in arts and means about as much as the Peruvians when discovered by Pizarro; these objects, in contrast with the Britain of our own age, were calculated to awaken most interesting trains of reflection. Now, of all this the holiday excursion of the ignorant man gives nothing. Things are to him merely what their surface tells to his eye. He can but hear the birds sing and the waters tinkle; and, literally The primrose by the water's brim, A LIVING PICTURE. 'Her children arise up and call her blessed: her husband also, and he praiseth her.' No, I'll not say your name.--I have said it now- Still, let us smile; Or Pocahontas, noble child o' the sun, But I'll not prate : Fair seemeth fairest, ignorant 'tis fair; Nay then, fade, Why, you're flown After those wild elves in the flower-beds there! Ha, ha! you're human now. So best-so best: Mine eyelids drop, content, o'er moistened eyesI would not have you other than you are. A SPIDER'S WEB. On stepping out of the house, my attention was attracted by a spider's web covering the whole of a large lemon-tree nearly. The tree was oval, and well shaped; and the web was thrown over it in the most artistic manner, and with the finest effect. Broad flat cords were stretched out, like the cords of a tent, from its circumference to the neighbouring bushes; and it looked as if some genius of the lamp, at the command of its master, had exhausted taste and skill to cover with this delicate drapery the rich-looking fruit beneath. I think the web would have measured full ten yards in diameter.—Herndon's Valley of the Amazon. Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 3 Bride's Passage, Fleet Street, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers. POPULAR LITERATURE Science and Arts. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. No. 24. SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1854. THE DRUNKARD'S BIBLE. BY MRS S. C. HALL. "THERE is more money made in the public line than in any other, unless it be pawn-broking,' said Martha Hownley to her brother; and I do not see why you should feel uncomfortable; you are a sober man: since I have kept your house, I never remember seeing you beside yourself; indeed, I know that weeks pass without your touching beer, much less wine or spirits. If you did not sell them, somebody else would. And were you to leave "the Grapes" to-morrow, it might be taken by those who would not have your scruples. All the gentry say your house is the best conducted in the parish' 'I wish I really deserved the compliment,' interrupted Mathew, looking up from his day-book. 'I ought not to content myself with avoiding beer, wine, and spirits; if I believe, as I do, that they are injurious alike to the character and health of man, I should, by every means in my power, lead others to avoid them.' 'But we must live, Mathew; and your good education would not keep you-we must live!' 'Yes, Martha, we must live! but not the lives of vampires; and he turned rapidly over the accounts, noting and comparing, and seemingly absorbed in calculation. Martha's eyes became enlarged by curiosity-the small low curiosity which has nothing in common with the noble spirit of inquiry. She believed her brother wise in most things; but in her heart of hearts she thought him foolish in worldly matters. Still, she was curious; and yielding to what is considered a feminine infirmity, she said: 'Mathew, what is vampires?' PRICE 1d. week the score was eighteen shillings-besides what he paid for.' 'He's an honourable man, Mathew,' persisted Martha. 'It is not long since he brought me six tea-spoons and a sugar-tongs, when I refused him brandy (he will have brandy). They must have belonged to his wife, for they had not P. C. on them, but E.-something; I forget what.' Mathew waxed wroth. 'Have I not told you,' he said— 'have I not told you that we must be content with the flesh and blood, without the bones and marrow of these poor drunkards? I am not a pawn-broker to lend money upon a man's ruin. I sell, to be sure, what leads to it, but that is his fault, not mine.' 'You said just now it was yours,' said his sister sulkily. 'Is it a devil or an angel that prompts your words, Martha?' exclaimed Mathew impatiently; then leaning his pale, thoughtful brow on his clasped hands, he added: 'But, however much I sometimes try to get rid of them, it must be for my good to see facts as they are.' Martha would talk: she looked upon a last word as a victory. 'He must have sold them whether or not, as he has done all his little household comforts, to pay for what he has honestly drunk; and I might as well have them as any one else. My money paid for them, and in the course of the evening went into your till. It's very hard if, with all my labour, I can't turn an honest penny in a bargain sometimes, without being chid, as if I were a baby.' trator of so many good and glorious intentions. 'I am sorely beset,' murmured Mathew, closing the book with hasty violence-' sorely beset; the gain on one side, the sin on the other; and she goads me, and puts things in the worst light: never was man so beset,' Mathew made no reply; so Martha-who had been he repeated helplessly; and he said truly he was 'beset' 'brought up to the bar' by her uncle, while her brother-by infirmity of purpose, that mean, feeble, pitiful fruswas dreaming over an unproductive farm-troubled as usual about 'much serving,' and troubling all within her sphere by worn-out and shrivelled-up anxieties, as much as by the necessary duties of active life-looked at Mathew as if speculating on his sanity. Could he be thinking of giving up his business, because of that which did not concern him!-but she would manage him.' It is strange how low and cunning persons do often manage higher and better natures than their own. 'Martha,' he called at last in a loud voice, 'I cannot afford to give longer credit to Peter Croft.' It is at once a blessed and a wonderful thing how the little grain of 'good seed' will spring up and increase-if the soil be at all productive, how it will fructify! A great stone may be placed right over it, and yet the shoot will forth-sideways, perhaps, after a long, noiseless struggle amid the weight of earth-a white, slender thing, like a bit of thread that falls from the clipping scissors of a little heedless maid-creeps up, twists itself round the stone, a little, pale, meek thing, tending upwards-becoming a delicate green in the wooing sunlight-strengthening in the morning, when birds are singing-at mid-day, when man is toiling-at night, while men are sleeping, until it pushes away the stone, and overshadows its inauspicious 'And more!' replied Mathew-'more! Why, last birthplace with strength and beauty! 'I thought he was one of your best customers: he is an excellent workman; his wife has much to do as a clear-starcher; and I am sure he spends every penny he earns here'-such was Martha's answer. Yes! where good seed has been sown, there is always hope that, one day or other, it will, despite snares and pitfalls, despite scorn and bitterness, despite evil report, despite temptations, despite those wearying backslidings which give the wicked and the idle scoffers ground for rejoicing-sooner or later it will fructify! All homage to the good seed!-all homage to the go in or out without her knowledge. good sower! the drunkard's fever on his lips, tapped at the door of the room off the bar, which was more particularly Martha's room-it was in fact her watch-tower-the door half glazed, and the green curtain about an inch from the middle division; over this, the sharp observant woman might see whatever occurred, and no one could And who sowed the good seed in the heart of Mathew Hownley? Truly, it would be hard to tell. Perhaps some sower intent on doing his Master's business-perhaps some hand unconscious of the wealth it dropped perhaps a young child, brimful of love, and faith, and trust in the bright world around-perhaps some gentle woman, whose knowledge was an inspiration rather than an acquirement-perhaps a bold, true preacher of THE WORD, stripping the sinner of the robe that covered his deformity, and holding up his cherished sins as warnings to the world; perhaps it was one of Watts's hymns, learned at his nurse's knee (for Mathew and Martha had endured the unsympathising neglect of a motherless childhood), a little line, never to be forgotten a whisper, soft, low, enduring-a comfort in trouble, a stronghold in danger, a refuge from despair. O what a world's wealth is there in a simple line of childhood's poetry! Martha herself often quoted the Busy Bee; but her bee had no wings; it could muck in the wax, but not fly for the honey. As to Mathew, wherever the seed had come from, there, at all events, it was, struggling but existing-biding its time to burst forth, to bud, and to blossom, and to bear fruit! The exposure concerning the spoons and sugar-tongs made Mathew so angry, that Martha wished she had never had anything to do with them; but instead of avoiding the fault, she simply resolved in her own mind never again to let Mathew know any of her little transactions in the way of buying or barter-that was all! : Mathew, all that day, continued more thoughtful and silent than usual, which his sister considered a bad sign he was reserved to his customers-nay, worse-he told a woman she should not give gin to her infant at his bar, and positively refused, the following Sunday, to open his house at all. Martha asked him if he was mad. He replied: 'No;' he was 'regaining his senses.' Then Martha thought it best to let him alone he had been 'worse'-that is, according to her reading of the word, 'worse' before-taken the 'dumps' in the same way, but recovered, and gone back to his business like a man.' Peter Croft, unable to pay up his score, managed, nevertheless, to pay for what he drank. For a whole week, Martha would not listen to his proposals for payment 'in kind;' even his wife's last shawl could not tempt her, though Martha confessed it was a beauty, and what possible use could Mrs Peter have for it now? it was so out of character with her destitution. She heard no more of it, so probably the wretched husband disposed of it elsewhere: this disappointed her. She might as well have had it; she would not be such a fool again; Mathew was so seldom in the bar, that he could not know what she did!-Time passed on, Martha thought she saw one or two symptoms of what she considered amendment in her brother. 'Of course,' she argued, he will come to himself in due time.' In the twilight which followed that day, Peter Croft, pale, bent, and dirty, the drunkard's redness in his eyes, She did not say, 'Come in,' at once; she longed to know what new temptation he had brought her, for she felt assured he had neither money nor credit left. And yet she feared-'Mathew made such a worry out of every little thing.' The next time he tapped at the window of the door, her eyes met his over the curtain, and then she said, 'Come in,' in a penetrating sharp voice, which was anything but an invitation. 'I have brought you something now, Miss Hownley, that I know you won't refuse to lend me a trifle on' said the ruined tradesman; 'I am sure you won't refuse, Miss Hownley. Bad as I want the money, I could not take it to a pawn-broker; and if the woman asks for it, I can say I lent it, Miss Hownley-you know I can say that.' Peter Croft laid a BIBLE on the table, and folding back the pages with his trembling fingers, shewed that it was abundantly illustrated by fine engravings. Martha loved 'pictures:' she had taken to pieces a Pilgrim's Progress, and varying the devotional engravings it had contained with abundant cuttings out from i illustrated newspapers, and a few coloured caricatures, had covered one side of a screen, which, when finished, she considered would be at once the comfort and amusement of her old age. After the drunkard had partially exhibited its contents, he stood by with stolid indifference, while she measured the engravings with her eye, looking ever and anon towards the screen. Very well,' she said, uttering a deliberate untruth with her lips, while her mind was made up what to do-' very well; what did you say you wanted for it?" He repeated the sum: she took out exactly half, and laid the shining temptation on the table before him. 'Have you the heart, Miss Hownley,' he said, while fingering, rather than counting the money—‘have you the heart to offer me such a little for such a great ⠀ deal?' 'If you have the heart to sell it, I may have the heart to offer such a price,' she answered with a light laugh; and it is only a DRUNKARD'S BIBLE.' Peter Croft dashed the money from him with a bitter oath. 'Oh, very well,' she said; 'take it or leave it.' She resumed her work. The only purpose to which a drunkard is firm, is to his own ruin. Peter went to the door, returned, took up the money- Another shilling, miss? it will be in the till again before morning. Martha gave him the other shilling; and after he was fairly out of the room, grappled the book, commenced looking at the pictures in right earnest, and congratulated herself on her good bargain. In due time, the house was cleared, and she went to bed, placing the Bible on the top of her table, amongst a miscellaneous collection of worn-out dusters and tattered glass-cloths 'waiting to be mended.' That night the master of the Grapes' could not sleep; more than once he fancied he smelt fire; and after going into the unoccupied rooms, and peeping through the keyholes and under the doors of those that were occupied, he descended to the bar, and finally entering the little bar-parlour, took his day-book from a shelf, and placing the candle, sat down, listlessly turning over its leaves, but the top of the table would not shut, and raising it to remove the obstruction, Mathew saw a large family BIBLE; pushing away the day-book, he opened the sacred volume. It opened at the 23d chapter of Proverbs, and, as if guided by a sacred light, his eyes fell upon the 29th verse, and he read: 6 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? "They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. 'Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder!' He dashed over the leaves in fierce displeasure, and, as if of themselves, they folded back at the 5th of Galatians: 'Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall NOT INHERIT THe kingdom of GOD.' 'New and Old, New and Old,' murmured Mathew to himself I am condemned alike by the Old and the New Testament.' He had regarded intoxication and its consequences heretofore as a great social evil; the fluttering rags and the fleshless bones of the drunkard and his family, the broils, the contentions, the ill-feeling, the violence, the murders wrought by the dread spirit of alcohol, had stood in array before him as social crimes, as social dangers; but he did not call to mind, if he really knew, that the Word of God exposed alike its destruction and its sinfulness. He was one of the many who, however good and moral in themselves, shut their ears against the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so wisely; and though he often found wisdom and consolation in a line of Watts's hymns, he rarely went to the Fountain of living waters for the strengthening and refreshing of his soul. He turned over the chapter, and found on the next page a collection of texts, written upon a strip of paper in the careful hand of one to whom writing was evidently not a frequent occupation. Proverbs the 23d chap.-' For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.' 1 Corinthians, 6th chap. 10th verse-Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.' 'Again that awful threat!' murmured Mathew; and have I been the means of bringing so many of my fellow-creatures under its ban?' 1 Samuel, the 1st chap.- And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.' Luke 21—' And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.' 'Ay, THAT DAY,' repeated the landlord that day, the day that must come.' Ephesians, 5th chap. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.' Proverbs, 20th chap.- Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.' Woe to thee who selleth wine to thy neighbour, and mingleth strong drink to his destruction.' He rose from the table, and paced up and down the little room; no eye but His who seeth all things looked upon the earnestness and agitation of that man; no ear but the All-hearing heard his sighs, his half-muttered prayers to be strengthened for good. He said within himself: Who will counsel me in this matter?-to whom shall I fly for sympathy?-who will tell me what I ought to do?-how remedy the evils I have brought on others while in this business, even when my heart was alive to its wickedness?' He had no friend to advise with-none who would do aught but laugh at and ridicule the idea of giving up a good business for conscience' sake; but so it was that it occurred to him-You have an Immortal Friend, take counsel of Him-pray to Him-learn of Him-trust Him; make His Book your guide;' and opening the Bible he read one other passage. Keep innocency, and take heed to the thing that is right, for that shall bring a man peace at the last.' Pondering on this blessed rule of life, so simple and so comprehensive, he turned back the pages, repeating it over and over again, until he came to the first flyleaf, wherein were written the births, marriages, and deaths of the humble family to whom the Bible had belonged; and therein, second on the list, he saw in a stiff, half-printed hand, the name-EMMA HANBY, only daughter of James and Mary-Jane Hanby, born so-andso, married at such a date to PETER CROFT! 'Emma Hanby '-born in his native village; the little Emma Hanby whom he had loved to carry over the brook to school-by whose side in boy-love he had sat in the meadows-for whom he had gathered flowers-whose milk-pail he had so often lifted over the church-stilewhom he had loved as he never could or did love woman since-whom he would have married, if she, light-hearted girl that she was, could have loved the tall, yellow, awkward youth whom it was her pastime to laugh at, and her delight to call 'Daddy'—was she then the wife- the torn, soiled, tattered, worn-out, insulted, broken-spirited wife of the drunkard Peter Croft! It seemed impossible; her memory had been such a sunbeam from boyhood up; the refiner of his nature-the dream that often came to him by day and night. While passing the parochial school, when the full tide of girls rushed from its heat into the thick city air, his heart had often beat if the ringing laugh of a merry child sounded like the laugh he once thought music; and he would watch to see if the girl resembled the voice that recalled his early love. 'And I have helped to bring her to this,' he repeated over and over to himself; 'even I have done this-this has been my doing.' He might have consoled himself by the argument, that if Peter Croft had not drunk at the Grapes,' he would have drunk somewhere else; but his seared conscience neither admitted nor sought an excuse; and after an hour or more of earnest prayer, with sealed lips, but a soul bowed down, at one moment by contempt for his infirmity of purpose, and at another elevated by strong resolves of great sacrifice, Mathew, carrying with him the Drunkard's Bible, sought his bed. He slept the feverish, unrefreshing sleep which so frequently succeeds strong emotion. He saw troops of drunkards-blear-eyed, trembling, ghastly spectres, pointing at him with their shaking fingers, while, with pestilential breath, they demanded 'who had sold them poison.' Women, too-drunkards, or drunkards' wives - in either case, starved, wretched creatures, with scores of ghastly children, hooted him as he passed through caverns reeking of gin, and hot with the steam of all poisonous drinks! He awoke just as the dawn was crowning the hills of his childhood with glory, and while its munificent beams were penetrating the thick atmosphere which hung as a veil before his bedroom window. To Mathew the sunbeams came like heavenly messengers, winging their way through the darkness and chaos of the world for the world's light and life. He had never thought of that before; but he thought of and felt it then, and much good it did him, strengthening his good intent. A positive flood of light poured in through a pane of glass which had been cleaned the previous morning, and played upon the cover of the poor Drunkard's Bible. Mathew bent his knees to the ground, his heart full of emotions-the emotions of his early and better nature-and he bowed his head upon his hands, and prayed in honest resolve and earnest zeal. The burden of that prayer, which escaped from between his lips in murmurs sweet as the murmurs of living waters, was-that God would have mercy upon him, and keep him in the right path, and make him, unworthy as he was, the means of grace to others to be God's instrument for good to his fellowcreatures; to minister to the prosperity, the regeneration of his own kind. Oh, if God would but mend the broken vessel, if he would but heal the bruised reed, if he would but receive him into his flock! Oh, how often he repeated: God give me strength! Lord strengthen me!' And he arose, as all arise after steadfast prayerstrengthened and prepared to set about his work. I now quote his own account of what followed. 'I had,' he said, 'fixed in my mind the duty I was called upon to perform; I saw it bright before me. It was now clear to me, whether I turned to the right or to the left; there it was, written in letters of light. I went down stairs, I unlocked the street-door, I brought a ladder from the back of my house to the front, and with my own hands, in the gray, soft haze of morning, I tore down the sign of my disloyalty to a good cause. "The Grapes" lay in the kennel, and my first triumph was achieved. I then descended to my cellar, locked myself in, turned all the taps, and broke the bottles into the torrents of pale ale and brown stout which foamed around me. Never once did my determination even waver. I vowed to devote the remainder of my life to the destruction of alcohol, and to give my power and my means to reclaim and succour those who had wasted their substance and debased their characters beneath my roof. I felt as a freed man, from whom fetters have been suddenly struck off; a sense of manly independence thrilled through my frame. Through the black and reeking arch of the beer-vault, I looked up to Heaven; I asked God again and again for the strength of purpose and perseverance which I had hitherto wanted all my latter life. While called a "respectable man," and an "honest publican," I knew that I was acting a falsehood, and dealing in the moral -perhaps the eternal-deaths of many of those careless drinkers, who had "sorrow and torment, and quarrels and wounds without cause," even while I, who sold the incentives to sorrow and torment, and quarrels and wounds without cause, knew that they "bit like serpents and stung like adders." What a knave I had been! erecting a temple to my own respectability on the ruins of respectability in my fellow-creatures! talking of honesty, when I was inducing sinners to augment their sin by every temptation that the fragrant rum, the white-faced gin, the brown bouncing brandy, could offer-all adulterated, all untrue as myself, all made even worse than their original natures by downright and positive fraud; talking of honesty, as if I had been honest; going to church, as if I were a practical Christian, and passing by those I had helped to make sinners with contempt upon my lip, and a "Stand by, I am holier than thou!" in my proud heart, even at the time I was inducing men to become accessories to their own shame and sin, and the ruin of their families. 'Bitter, but happy tears of penitence gushed from my eyes as the ocean of intoxicating and baneful drinks swelled, and rolled, and seethed around me. I opened the drain, and they rushed forth to add to the impurity of the Thames. Away they go!" I said; "their power is past; they will never more turn the staggering workman into the streets, or nerve his arm to strike down the wife or child he is bound by the law of God and man to protect; never more send the self-inflicted fever of delirium-tremens through the swelling veins; never drag the last shilling from the drunkard's hand; never more quench the fire on the cottage hearth, or send the pale, overworked artisan's children to a supperless bed; never more blister the lips of woman, or poison the blood of childhood; never again inflict the Saturday's headache, which induced the prayerless Sunday. Away-away! would that I had the power to so set adrift all the so perverted produce of the malt, the barley, and the grape of the world!' As my excitement subsided, I felt still more resolved; the more I calmed down, the firmer I became. I was as a paralytic recovering the use of his limbs; as a blind man restored to sight. The regrets and doubts that had so often disturbed my mind gathered themselves into a mighty power, not to be subdued by earthly motives or earthly reasoning. I felt the dignity of a mission; I would be a Temperance Missionary to the end of my days! I would seek out the worst amongst those who had frequented "the Grapes," and pour counsel and advice-the earnest counsel and the earnest advice of a purely disinterested man-into ears so long deaf to the voice of the charmer. I was a free man, no longer filling my purse with the purchase-money of sorrow, sin, and death. I owed the sinners, confirmed to lead the old life of sin in my house-I owed them atonement. But what did I not long to do for that poor Emma? When I thought of her-of her once cheerfulness, her once innocence, her once beauty-I could have cursed myself. Suddenly my sister shook the door. She entreated me to come forth, for some one had torn down our sign, and flung it in the kennel. When I shewed her the dripping taps and the broken bottles, she called me, and believed me mad; she never understood me, but less than ever then. I had, of course, more than one scene with her; and when I told her that, instead of ale, I should sell coffee, and substitute tea for brandy, she, like too many others, attaching an idea of feebleness and duplicity, and want of respectability to Temperance, resolved to find another home. We passed a stormy hour together, and amongst many things, she claimed the Drunkard's Bible; but that I would not part with. 'I lost no time in finding the dwelling of Peter Croft. Poor Emma! If I had met her in the broad sunshine of a June day, I should not have known her; if I had heard her speak, I should have recognised her voice among a thousand. Misery for her had done its worst. She upbraided me as I deserved. "You," she said, "and such as you, content with your own safety, never think of the safety of others. You take care to avoid the tarnish and wretchedness of drunkenness yourselves, while you entice others to sin. Moderation is your safeguard; but when did you think it a virtue in your customers?" 'I told her what I had done, that in future mine would be strictly a Temperance house; that I would by every means in my power undo the evil I had done. "Will that," she answered in low deep tones of anguish - "will that restore what I have lost? will it restore my husband's character?-will it save him, even if converted, from self-reproach?-will it open the grave, and give me back the child, my firstborn, who, delicate from its cradle, could not endure the want of heat and food, which the others have still to bear?—will it give us back the means squandered in your house?—will it efface the memory of the drunkard's songs, and the impurity of the drunkard's acts? O Mathew! that you should thrive and live, and grow rich and respectable, by what debased and debauched your fellow-creatures. Look!" she added, and her words pierced my heart-"look! had I my young days over again, I would rather - supposing that love had nothing to do with my choice-I would rather appear with my poor degraded husband, bad as he has been, and is, at the bar of God, than kneel there as your wife! You, cool |