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up the arrowy river, freighted with thousands of foreigners, who haunted the healing springs, the vine-clad mountains, the crumbling fastnesses, and romantic valleys of the lovely provinces. The pious Pastor Schmidt, now old and infirm, was one evening sitting dozing in his ample and high-backed elbow-chair, when the door of his little study abruptly flew open, and, uninvited and unannounced, an unceremonious visitor stepped boldly into the room. The eyes of the good Priest were somewhat dimmer than aforetime, but a single glance sufficed to recognize the unmistakable Roman features of the Centurion. He was clothed, however, in a costume very different to the old suit of black and his countenance had undergone a still greater alteration than his dress. Instead of the stern, settled melancholy that had darkened it at the close of his former visit, the expression of his countenance was now complacent, and even cheerful. After mutual salutations, being both seated opposite to each other, the Centurion began as follows, not, however, in Latin, but in passable German : Holy father, congratulate me! As I predicted, my ancient religion, in some degree, is still extant!" The Pastor pricked up his ears. He was a bit of an antiquarian, and a classical scholar to boot, and the announcement of the Pagan Polytheism being still in existence raised his curiosity to the highest pitch. "Was it in India, in Persia, or by the Egyptian Pyramids; in Numidia; at Timbuctoo; amongst the savage islands of the Pacific; or in Peru, the country of the Incas?" "Father,” replied the Centurion, very coolly, "I have not travelled out of Europe." The Priest was dumbfounded. Except one portion devoted to Mahomet, the whole spiritual empire of that quarter of the world was divided, he knew, between the Greek Patriarch, the Levitical Priesthood, Luther, and the Pope. The Centurion continued: "You told me, I think, that the people called Christians worship only one God? The Priest nodded an assent. "But I tell you they have almost or quite as many gods as we had in our ancient mythology." The Priest stared, and shook his head. "Yes, I tell you," said the Centurion, vehemently, "their altars and rites are as various, their divinities as numerous, as our own. Look, for example, at Britain." "The English are Protestants and heretics," said the Priest, making the sign of the "But they are Christians," retorted the Centurion.

cross.

"Yes, and as such," said the Priest, "they the one and indivisible,

God that I do,

errors otherwise belong to their doctrines.'

worship the same

whatever mortal "At least, so they

profess," said the Centurion. "But tell me, is the Deity whom one sect bows to in reality the very same that is reverenced by another? No, verily, with one God there would be but one worship, offered up in the same spirit!"

"Alas! alas!" said the pious Pastor, "it was the accursed schism of Martin Luther that led to such discordances! After separating from the holy Mother Church, the fallers-off became again split and subdivided amongst themselves!"

The Centurion took no notice of this lamentation, but resumed his discourse. "I have visited their temples, I have stood before their altars, I have witnessed their rites, and listened to their doctrines, and what wide diversities do they all present! In one temple, I heard groans and yells and female shrieks; in a second, a full-toned organ, and melodious choristers; in a third, I heard nothing, not even a word, and was I to blame if I looked round for a statue of Harpocrates? Then, again, in one temple I saw infant children sparingly sprinkled with water; in another, grown men and women were wading up to their chins in a sort of Frigidarium, or cold bath. Under one sacred roof the votaries leaped and shouted like the Bacchantes and Corybantes; in a neighboring fane, they stood, and sat, and knelt, by turns, with the steady uniform precision of soldiers at drill. In one rustic temple, standing amidst the fields, they played upon fiddles, obocs, bassoons, flutes, and clarionets; in another, in North Britain, Euterpe was dethroned, and all musical instruments were accounted profane, except the human larynx and the human nose. Then the sacred buildings themselves, how different! Here a very Temple of the Muses, adorned with painting and sculpture, and the most gorgeous architecture; there, a sordid structure, as plain and unadorned as a stable or a barn. Even the priests displayed the same incongruities. One wore an elaborate powdered wig and an apron ; another, the natural hair combed in long lank locks down the forehead and cheeks. Some prayed uncovered, some in a broad-brimmed hat; here prayed a minister in a white robe, yonder prayed another in a black one; a third wore his every-day clothes. In short, there was no end to these varieties."

"It is even so," said the Priest, shaking his gray head. "So many heresies, so many new modes. Yet these are mostly external matters. Whatever the form may be, the worship of all Christians is offered up to the same one and indivisible God!"

"The same! one and indivisible!" almost shouted the Centurion. "Tell me, and as thou art a religious man and a Christian Priest, answer me truly: Is it the same universal God that the parish pauper must only address from a wooden bench, and the proud noble can only praise from an embroidered velvet cushion? Is it the same Providential Being that the lowly peasant thanks for his scanty, hardly-earned daily bread, and the rich man asks to bless his riotous luxury and wasteful superabundance? Is the merciful Father, of whom the weeping child on bended knees begs the life of its sick and declining parent, the same, the very same, as the God of Battles invoked by the ambitious conqueror, on the eve of slaughtering thousands of his fellow-men? Is the Divine Spirit, who gave his only Son in atonement for the sins of the whole world, the same God of the Gospel, whose name is paraded as the especial Patron of exclusive pious factions,of uncharitable bigots and political partisans? Is there anything in common between the fierce, vindictive Creator wrathfully consigning the creatures he has made to everlasting and unutterable torments, as depicted by the gloomiest of fanatical sects, and the beneficent Jehovah, silently adored by the Quaker, as the God of peace and good-will towards men? Is it the same Divine Author Enough, enough," interposed the Priest, with a deprecating wave of the hand. “Nay, but answer me," said the Centurion. "Have I described one God, or many? In the list I have only partly sketched out, can you find nothing answerable to our plurality, Plutus, to Mars, to Mercury, and Jupiter Tonans? Is the Christian Deity indeed one and indivisible, or made multiform, like Jove of old, by the separate impersonation and worship of his various attributes?"

to

"You have at least broached a curious theory," answered the Catholic Priest, with great placidity, for his own particular withers were as yet unwrung. "But where," he asked, (6 would you find your great hosts of inferior deities, your Dii Minores, your demi-gods and demi-goddesses and the like?"

"Where!” cried the Centurion, "where else but close at hand? They are only disguised under other names. For instance, we had our Vertumnus and our Pomona, the patron of orchards; our Bona Dea; Hygeia, the goddess of health; Fornax, the goddess of corn and of bakers; Occator, the god of harrowing; Runcina, the goddess of weeding; Hippona, the goddess of stables and horses; and Bubona, the goddess of oxen. Now, we need only go into the Eifel

"Sancta Maria!" exclaimed the Priest, reddening to his very tonsure; "do you mean to adduce our blessed saints!" Exactly so," replied the calm Centurion. "They are your Dii Minores, your demi-gods and demi-goddesses, and so forth, answerable to our own, and appointed to much the same petty and temporal offices. Have you not St. Apollonica for curing the toothache, St. Blaize for sore-throats, and St. Lambert for fits? Is not St. Wendelin retained to take care of the cows and calves, and St. Gertrude to drive away rats?

The indignant Priest could bear no more: it was like being compelled to swallow the beads of a rosary, one by one. "Anathema Maranatha!" he exclaimed, in a paroxysm of anger. "Accursed pagan! libellous heathen! Begone! You shall no longer profane my dwelling! Hence, I say!" and extending his arm to give force to the mandate, the venerable Pastor thrust his attenuated fingers into the flame of the candle, and started up broad awake!

DEAR BECKY,

TO REBECCA PAGE.

Thenk hevin the storm I tould you of has blowed over; but I believe I may thank master for it, who was so kind as say I mite turn a Turk or a Hottenpot, if so be it agreed with my conshense. As for missus, she looks grumpy enuff at my new devotions but let her look, I may n't always be her servent to be tride xperiments on, as was the case this blessed morning. Complaining, as usual, of her weak state of nerves, she was advized by Mrs. Markhum to try the Rine Baths, as

being verry braceing; and missus was so considderrit as to let poor me make the fust trial. The Baths are kep in a floting house, witch is made fast to the Rine Bridge, of boats; and a pretty rushin and rampagin the river makes between them, like a mill race. But there was no help for it, as bathe I must; and was all crudling, and shakin, and shiverin in the tearing could water; when before one could say lawk deliver us, a nasty grate barge come spinning down the river, and by sum mismanigement the towin rope hung too low down, and jist ketching the Bath House, wipt off the hole roof in a jiffy! There was a hawful crash, you may suppose; and at that very minit I had duckt my head under, and wen I come up agin, lo, and behold! there was nothin at all up abuv, xcept the bare sky. In course it was skreek upon skreek from the other rooms; and thinks I, if tops comes off, so may bottoms, and in that case, down sinks the floting bath, and were all drownded creturs as sure as rats. So out I run on to the bridge of boats, jist as I was, with nothin on but my newdity; but decency's won thing, and death's another. The rest of the bathing ladies did the same; and some of them, pore things, fainted ded away on the boards. Luckly, none of the mail sects was passing by, for xcept won Waterloo blue bonnit, we were all in a naturalized state, like so menny Eves. Most fortunately, it was a hot sunny day, or we mite have kitcht our deths; howsumever, I was gitting more composed, wen hearing a tramp, tramp, tramp, I turned round my hed, and wat should I see but a hole rigment of Prushian sogers a marchin over the bridge. In such an undelicate case, staying was out of the question, so I giv a skreech, and roof or no roof, it was won generil skuttle back into the littel house. Then sich a skramble and hudling on of our close, there was n't a lady but looked as if her things had been put on, as the saying is, with a pitchfork! As for the ones in fits, the bath pepel carrid them back; and as the best and shortest way of bringin them to, popped them into the water agin, witch had the effect. Thenk gudness, there was no wus harm done; but Catshins says, wen the roof was took off, I ought to have crost meself; and to be sure, so I ought, as well as Sanctus Marius, instead of O Criminy!

So much for bathin afore missus. For my part, I don't admire boat bridges. Give me good iron or stone wons,