libertine, but he was not troubled with too strict morality; his trial came and he fell; he proved to be no Joseph. 66 66 One day the judge entered his study, where sat the young man. To the surprise of the student, he immediately bolted the doors, and secured the windows; he next stepped before the young man, presenting at the same instant the well-charged pistol; Swear," said the stern and highly-incensed father, swear that you will immediately marry my injured daughter, or die." "I-I-" began the young man, but the indignant father only prepared the piece, and said, "No delay; swear, or die." There was no time to be lost, if life was to be saved. The student swore, and by a facility of law peculiarly adapted to such exigency, in a few hours the student was the son-in-law of the appeased father. Bitter in the student's bosom was the conflict between hope and despair; but his temperament was ardent, and hope conquered. He devoted himself with uncommon ardour and industry to his profession. He rapidly arose even unaided; but in addition to his own efforts he received assistance from one of his brothers. This brother having ended his struggle with poverty and obscurity, had recently by his eloquence won the highest praise in our Congress. Thus aided, our young lawyer won station after station. was prosperity. It was my fortune, or rather misfortune, says the narrator, to hear this great man once only in his palmiest days. Misfortune, I say, because the effort to which I refer was a plea for All American slavery-I will not attempt a description. In the midst of wealth, and titles, and distinction, and deference paid on every side, there was sadness in his countenance. He was unhappy. He was a stranger to domestic happiness. He was unacquainted with his heavenly Father. One morning he did not rise at his accustomed hour. His mother feared he was ill. At that moment the whole house was thrown into amazement by the discharge of fire-arms in his bedroom. rushed thither. over his frame. his own blood. They One gasp; one shudder passes All is over. The suicide lies in "There, there," exclaimed the mother, "Charles began married life with a pistol at his breast-and so it has ended." your own moral. A BROKEN HEART. Reader, make "The sorrows that follow the pathway of guilt, When earth's joys were all wither'd, and blasted its flowers. "Let VIRTUE be mine, and though stripp'd or bereft, Of friends, home, and all things the heart holds most dear, I'll rejoice that a treasure more precious is leftI will trust in my Saviour, and never despair." In a beautiful town not many miles from the busy city of stands a large mansion, whose antique appearance and costly construction proclaim both the wealth of its owners, and the lapse of many years since human beings first smiled and wept within its halls. Those halls still echo the sound of cheerful voices, the sunshine falls pleasantly as ever on tree and shrub and velvet lawn, the woodbine and the creeping rose still wander luxuriantly over lattice and bower, and fill the air around with their fragrance; but the hands that placed them in the soil by which their graceful beauty is nourished, and taught their first tender branches the direction in which they yet incline to grow,the eyes that looked for, and the young hearts that were made glad by the bursting of their earliest buds, have long since returned to the earth whence they were. Truly is it written, "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." Years have rolled away, since, in that house, a babe was born, whose history may furnish, if properly considered, a lesson which many have need to learn. The mother of that babe was young, and, until this time, an innocent and happy girl,—the idol of her parents-the delight of her friends-the fairest ornament of her beautiful home. The tempter had crossed her path, and deluded and then deserted her. To describe the anguish of her parents, the grief of her friends, and her own bitter repentance, would be a task beyond my power to perform. But even with the first tempest of sorrow, pride mingled its obtrusive strength, and prompted the removal of the evidence of that disgrace which had fallen on a wealthy and hitherto honourable family. In vain the poor young mother remonstrated; in vain she supplicated for the dear, though painful office of herself watching over her helpless infant; the voice of pride was more potent than the voice of humanity. The babe was removed, and its sorrowing mother wended her weary way through life alone. The family who had the infant in charge, removed to a distant State. Years passed on, and the child became a woman-was beautiful in person and highly gifted in mind. She married a gentleman who had early distinguished himself in the armies of his country, and who became at length very eminent as a brave and skilful officer. During the second war between the United States and Great Britain, he was at one time intrusted with the command of an important post, situated a few miles from the town in which his wife had drawn her first breath. accompanied him, and spent several months within a few hour's ride of the mother from whom she had been separated almost from her birth. Did she hasten to offer her desponding parent the cheering affection of a daughter? As a woman, jealous for woman's character and attributes, I grieve to record her conduct. I grieve to admit that her brilliant powers of mind were not accompanied by those gentler qualities of the heart, without which the most commanding intellect must ever fail to make woman what " woman should be." I am aware that much may be said-nay, has already been said -in extenuation of her conduct. She had not grown up under the holy influence of a mother's watchful eye, her loving smile, her guiding hand. Her ear She had never thrilled to the music of a mother's voice, nor the glad impulses of her young nature been regulated, softened, and purified, by those lessons of love from a mother's lips which fall like dew upon the gushing heart of childhood. Her birth had been a stain upon her mother's name-her mother's proud family had cast her from them, and left her to the care and the love of others. Could she be expected to proffer that affection which she had never been taught to feel? Perhaps not. But when her mother sought her-craved, even with earnest entreaty, but one interview with the daughter toward whom her heart still yearned,―ought she to have refused her parent the humble privilege of asking her child's forgiveness? Yet this she did. "We have hitherto been strangers-strangers let us remain," was her cold reply. Her mother received this reply from the friend who had conveyed her request, and her grief-worn heart, thus robbed of its last hope-that of seeing her child once more-bowed beneath its weight of woe; and in a few more weeks, the grave, that last earthly refuge for the wretched, received her to its faithful bosom. But was the daughter happy? Did she walk onward in her bright and proud path with a peaceful mind-an untroubled conscience? The revelation of the last great day alone will answer this question. We cannot. The sun of her earthly prosperity was not long unclouded. Her gallant husband fell in battle before the close of the war, and the bereaved widow retired, with her children, to |