GUYON OF MARSEILLES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MAY YOU LIKE IT.'

He stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed Numbers, xvi. 48.

THE study of Marc Guyon seemed the very abode of cheerfulness; it was a large airy chamber at the top of his house, which being at the end of the street, the breeze was admitted on three sides of the chamber through windows opening upon what was the roof to the building beneath,‚—a little gallery enclosed by an open balustrade, and shaded by awnings of linen, forming a kind of verandha, after the eastern fashion. The apartment was simply furnished; its chief treasures were books and manuscripts; its chief ornaments were-what am I saying?—its chief treasure and ornament was the living being who inhabited it, Guyon himself. Who that was in his presence could have turned, either in thought or gaze, away from him? He was in the full freshness and vigour of manhood, with a glorious beauty about his countenance and figure, which is but seldom seen

among the fallen race of man. I do not speak of the beauty of form alone, but the beauty of form all bright and breathing with that of mind, and, what is better still, with that of heart and soul. With an intellect of a very superior order, he had too much kindness of heart, too much manliness, too much Christian lowliness, to feel superior to the infirmities of the humblest of his fellows. It might indeed be said of him, that " he had no proud looks." One might almost read his character in his fine open coun

tenance.

Guyon was sitting at a large table, his forefinger pressed to his brow, and his mind deeply absorbed in thought. He had been writing, and the pen was still between his fingers, but the morning breeze had blown away his manuscripts from the table, and scattered them about the room. He, however, perceived not the disorder of the books and papers which had a short time before engrossed his most serious attention. His mind was raised to higher contemplations. Gradually the thoughtfulness of his countenance melted into an expression of holy rapture, his lips parted with a smile, the rich blood flushed brightly over his cheek, and he raised his eyes from the ground; but then tears started into them, tears which he did not attempt to restrain. He rose up, and opening a folio volume which lay among many others upon a tall book-stand, he read with a rapid glance some few

pages. "Yes," he exclaimed as he closed the book, "I will do it-I, I alone am the proper person—I am determined-but now, O Heavenly Father, I need thy guidance, thy blessing! without thee I can do nothing." He knelt down and prayed. When his prayer was finished, he returned to the table at which he had been writing, and having taken a small roll of parchment from an old casket of sculptured brass, he made some alterations and additions to the writing thereon, and then replaced it. "There is but little beside for me to do now," said he to himself, and he looked wistfully and almost sorrowfully round the chamber. "Oh, how much true happiness have I found here!" he exclaimed-" how unwillingly my dull spirit seems to depart from this sweet tranquil home! and what a morning!" It was indeed a beautiful morning; the subdued sunlight shed a soft and golden glow throughout the room, and the loose folds of the awning flapped and creaked in the playful wind with a sound like the sails of a ship in a freshening gale. Guyon stepped out upon the gallery from the window which faced the east and commanded an extensive prospect of the country surrounding Marseilles. He bent over the orange trees and tuberoses, then in full flower, which were ranged along the front of the window, and thought that he had never so much enjoyed their sweetness before. He looked out upon gardens and fields, and mountains more

distant; and the calm blue sea reflected back he repose and beauty which it borrowed from a sky even more deeply blue, more tenderly serene. Men, women, and happy children, were at work or at play in the gardens and fields; herds of cattle were grazing upon the mountains ; many a white and graceful sail was gliding swiftly over the trackless sea; and in the clear free realms of the sky, birds were floating along with the sunshine gleaming on their outspread wings. I must not stand here, thought Guyon, or I shall begin to mourn over my captivity within this immense and frightful prison. He walked round the gallery to the side of the house which overlooked the street. The very air seemed to be changed there, as if sickened with its confinement to the narrow streets of tall dull houses. He looked around over the immense mass of buildings-Marseilles, not very long before one scene of bustling commotion, resounding with the ceaseless hum of varied and cheerful noises, was now hushed into a state of unnatural and gloomy torpor. It seemed a city of the dead, for the only sound which disturbed the horrid silence, was the measured tolling of a loud, deep-toned bell. As Guyon stood there, another well-known sound stole by degrees on his ear; he could hear it approaching with an increasing noise from street to street, till a faint and fetid stench came fitfully with the breeze that blew past him. He looked down and shuddered,

as he saw the plague-cart, heaped with putrid bodies, rumble heavily along over the grass-grown pavement beneath. He turned his head, but he only beheld, as he looked down the long street on the opposite side, the black flag upon the closed gates of the city, its heavy folds waving to and fro, as if with measured motion to the dismal bell of death.

Guyon was almost the last person to enter the Hotel de Ville. All the medical men of the town had there met to consult on some means of stopping the dreadful progress of the plague, by which half the city had already perished, and which still appeared to rage with increasing virulence. The conference was long, and it produced one general and decided opinion, that the corpse of a person who had died of the pestilence should be opened by some skilful hand, and a report of the exact state and effects of the disorder written on the spot. Hitherto there had been a mysterious character about the disease, which had baffled the skill and experience of all who sought to cure it. Many persons of distinguished talent were present: one young man in particular fixed the attention of the whole assembly to every word he uttered. He had once visited Smyrna, when the plague was raging there; and the illustrations with which he supported his opinions, were made with such clearness, and even eloquence, that they had entirely settled the general conviction that the opening