If not-if you cannot discover the vital principle, nor how it works-why believe that the seed has life and brings forth fruit? Would it not be more reasonable to deny both propositions, and plant no more seeds and eat no more fruit?

Mr. W. I don't see what you are driving at.

I. Your boasted reason cannot discern the vital principle of inspiration in the Bible, nor of supernatural power in Christianity, though it lives and germinates and bears fruit in countless human hearts. Deny that it exists, there fore, and refuse to yourself, certainly-to others, if you can -its health-giving, life-giving sustenance.

MR. W. So does Mohammedism live and bear fruit.

I. True, for Mohammedism is a religion and a worship, not a chill system of philosophy. It believes in God, and does not wholly reject Christ. The Koran borrows much that is good from the Bible. Its errors have their legiti mate fruit in the condition of Mohammedom to-day. Contrast it with Christian countries, if you would test the two religions by their fruits.

MR. W. Ah! I would like to read the Koran once!

I. Read something better, read the Bible! Read carefully one of the gospels, or an epistle, and then read two or three chapters of the "Age of Reason," and see if you do not get a faint glimmering, at least, of the reason why one lives indestructibly, while the other is on the high road to oblivion. Having done that, perhaps you will be willing to try still another plan. Instead of puzzling yourself with the mysteries, discrepancies, and obscurities of the Bible, see what light it can throw upon the dark places of your own nature, upon the follies, contradictions, and intricacies of your heart and life. Though you may not be able to understand and expound it, you will find that it very fully understands and expounds you. Thereby you may get a hint of the several offices of the Bible and the human mind: the latter was not put into the world to explain and harmo

nize the former, but the former to explain and harmonize the latter. Finally, if you still doubt the Divine origin of the Scriptures; try, for just one week, to live up to its simple, undoubted precepts. And if you find it even a harder task to practice its plain parts than to comprehend its difficult ones, perhaps you will ask yourself the question how a human mind ever happened to frame and enjoin a code of morals so irksome to human nature, so opposed to the human will, and so impossible of perfect human attainment!

"And now," I concluded, "I must really go. Where do you suppose I shall find Jack? He has not yet been asked if he will be my scholar."

"There will be no two words about that," said Mr. Warren, gruffly. "If I say he is to go, he goes."

"Nevertheless, I prefer to consult him. I want no unwilling disciples."

Not to make a long story longer, I bribed Jack, unscrupulously. He had longings unutterable, I learned, after a four-bladed knife. I did not hesitate to promise him the best one procurable at Clay Corner, so soon as he could repeat to me, without error, the whole of the Catechism; and with the most unhesitating fluency, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments.

XXXI.

THE STOLEN SKETCH.

OT more than a day or two after the expedition recorded in my last letter, I made one of a totally different character, in company with Ruth,-Alice being away on a visit. The day's programme comprehended: first, a diligent gathering and pressing of ferns, in the dense, dim wood at the foot of the glen, for use in winter decorations; next, the ascent of a neighboring hill, for the sake of the view from its summit; and, finally, a return up the glen to the shady, rock-barricaded nook long ago described to you, to which last point Mrs. Divine promised to send Leo, at noon, with a lunch-basket; and where, moreover, we purposed to spend as much of the afternoon as should seem good to us, resting, dreaming, chatting, or reading aloud, according to mood. Days thus spent out-of-doors, are especially good for Ruth; they are an important part of my crusade against her home-keeping, sedentary habits. Under their genial influences, the rose in her cheeks is deepening fast, the light brightening in her eyes. Needless to add that she grows more beautiful, day by day!

The first part of our programme had been faithfully car. ried out, our books filled with ferns, the hill climbed and the view enjoyed. We were now in the hollow, resting on the basin's bank of luxuriant moss; sometimes talking, but oftener listening in dreamy silence to the fresh, clear voices

of the foliage above and the water below. The hollow had the essential charm of such a spot-perfect solitude. We might linger there for hours, unseen and undisturbed, shut in by the interlacing boughs, the hoary rocks, the clear basin on which their heavy shadow ever fell, and wherein their forms were distinctly mirrored. In truth, so perfect was the reflection, so faithful the reproduction of every line, tint, and motion, that the basin seemed to hang between two forest solitudes, either of which might be taken for the reflected image of the other. Stooping over the water, we saw faces, too, bending forth from the green foliage of that under world to meet our gaze,-answering to our smiles, our gravity, our gestures,-moving their lips to the sound of our words,-and making us feel vague and visionary by their very distinctness; as if the truth and vividness of their representation were so much abstracted from our actuality. The notion made us gay, as became shadows and unrealities,-mirth being of so airy and evanescent a quality as to associate readily with whatever is illusive and unsubstantial; while grief is heavy and opaque, and must needs give an account of itself and justify its existence, before we give it leave to pass into our sympathies.

Ruth's eyes and cheeks were alight and aglow with gayety and color, yet she was weary, too; the long walk had been somewhat trying to her poor, little, crooked feet. Seeing this, I drew her head down on my lap, that she might rest the easier, and began reading aloud Tennyson's "Daydream"; whose fanciful theme and easy-flowing measure were well suited to the time, place and circumstance. For, as the fairy-prince entered the spell-bound chamber, I saw Ruth's eyelids droop slowly, and the long lashes rest upon the fair cheek: the rippling water, the musical rhyme, had lulled her to sleep. Nor could any "Sleeping Beauty" of fairy-tale or poet's dream have been lovelier than she!

For some moments, I read on softly; then, my thoughts. wandered, my voice died away, the book fell by my side,

with one finger between its leaves, external objects faded from my sight,-I had strayed as far into the Land of Reverie, as Ruth into that of Dream.

Thus, a half-hour, or more, stole by. I was roused by a rustling tread in the open meadow, on the other side of the stone fence; in a moment Leo came over, basket in mouth, and dropped, lightly enough, upon the soft moss. I raised my hand with a warning gesture; Ruth's slumber was still so deep that I did not care to break it. The dog understood and obeyed. He came noiselessly to my side, set down his basket, and rubbed his head lightly against my shoulder, by way of mute, yet cordial, greeting. He then surveyed Ruth, for some moments, with a curious, grave intentness; as if he were wondering what sort of thing was this sleep of mortals, which held them in such deathlike embrace. Possibly, he contrasted it with the lighter slumbers of his own race, broken by the softest tread, the faintest sound, —and, doubtless, greatly to the advantage of the latter. Suddenly, he raised his head, dilated his nostrils, and glanced suspiciously around. Then he ran quickly down the brook's bank, alternately putting his nose to the ground and lifting it in the air. I watched him idly, through the intervening boughs. At a point a little below, where the widening stream is crossed by stepping-stones, he seemed to strike a trail: his manner became more assured; he crossed the brook swiftly, smelling at the stones as he went; and I soon saw, by the waving of the ferns and bushes, that he was coming up on the other side. Some moments elapsed, and I was fast sinking into reverie again, when, suddenly, there was a strange commotion behind the screen of foliage which topped the steep bank opposite me. Partly by dint of straining my sight through the clustering leaves, partly by means of suggestive sounds from behind them, I made out that Leo had surprised some intruder upon the scene:—an acquaintance, however, it appeared, for the dog was leaping and fawning upon him, with short, quick