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if you can find the sherry; for I am almost certain there is an odd bottle left. The gentlemen shall have it and welcome. Many other indulgences were offered us by the old gentleman, invariably enhanced in value by a seeming indifference to his own interest and a professed concern for ours; but we prudently declined any other than common comforts, being very well satisfied with our accommodation. At last that most important inquiry, How we were to pass the night, became of necessity a subject of discussion.

It is wondrous what a change is produced in the mind by an hour's social converse! When we first entered the abode of Mr. Hollowblast, he appeared as if he would begrudge us a chair to sit upon; but afterwards he seemed to be lying in wait for opportunities of pressing upon us comforts and luxuries in abundance. Even the difficulty of providing us a place of repose for the night was overcome by his sympathy and commiseration.

"Mary," said he, "we must manage it somehow, that these gentlemen may not have to sit up all night; it grieves me to think of it. They are not accustomed to sit up; and besides, they are weary, and stand in need of a good night's rest. Go and ask our neighbour, Mrs. Williams, to step up here; tell her I want to see her particularly."

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In a short time, Mrs. Williams made her appearance, and then our considerate host made a most pathetic appeal on our behalf. Neighbour Williams," said he, "these gentlemen have walked a long way, and come unexpectedly to see the Abbey. It is a sad awkward time of the year, and late at night, too; but I have done all I can to make them comfortable, for I have seen something of life myself, and can feel for them. Now, neighbour Williams, we are at sad fault for a bed: you have got one, I know, that is at liberty; and if you will spare it for these gentlemen, I shall take it as a favour done to myself; it will be but for one night, and I shall be very, very much obliged to you. We ought to do what we can for one another; and I hope you will not refuse me the bed for these gentlemen, for I am sorry for them from my heart."

Mrs. Williams acted her part admirably, and after some natural remarks about the "very late hour,' room to make tidy,' ,""bed to air," "clean sheets,"

and a few other minor disadvantages and difficulties which a compliance with the request of Mr. Hollowblast would involve, gave in her acquiescence to the proposal made to her, and retired to prepare a dormitory for our accommodation.

The next requirement made was that Mary, the servant, should give up her bed; an arrangement to which no objection was made on her part, so that every impediment being removed, my companions stretched their weary limbs in the spare bed of Mrs. Williams, and I passed the night on the curtainless couch where Mary, the domestic, was wont to repose.

The morning came, and we assembled at the breakfast table of Mr. Hollowblast. The moans of the aged gentleman during the night, told me that he was labouring under some bodily affliction ; but he made no complaint to us. The winds were abroad, and the snow lay thick upon the ground, and we had arranged, after an inspection of the old Abbey, to ascend the Black Mountains; a substantial breakfast was, therefore, a very necessary preliminary to our undertaking.

And now came the winding up of our account with our sympathizing, hospitable, and generous host. He said that he made no charge; he could make no charge; we were gentlemen, and he well knew that we should act like gentlemen. It was, to be sure, an awkward season of the year, and a late hour at night at which we had come upon him; and he had no doubt that we should consider that it had put him about a good deal, but he would leave the matter entirely to ourselves. He hoped that he had done his best to make us comfortable; there was nothing in his house which he had not offered to us, for he had seen a good deal of the world, and knew what it was to be at a distance from home, and to come in wet and tired after a journey.

With these, and other observations, and not forgetting to remind us that he should have rather liberally to recompense his neighbour, Mrs. Williams, he contrived to get from us about double the amount we should have paid at a regular inn.

"What is man!" How clingingly alive to his real or supposed interests! When a new principle is implanted in his soul, he can practise self-denial and disinterestedness; till then, self! self! is but too apparent in all his deeds. The Christian character is a lovely one, and

rendered still more so by the strong contrast afforded by a worldly mind. It would be enough to make us yearn for heaven if it were for nothing else than to be stript of our selfishness.

When we parted with old Mr. Hollowblast, he rose from his arm- -chair to shake us all by the hand. The same cap which adorned his brows the preceding night, was on his head, and his legs were de fended from the cold, by the same ample, blue, broad-ribbed worsted stockings as we had before seen. We left him under an impression that we should meet no more till the last trumpet should sound, and that impression was correct; for soon after we heard that he was gathered to his fathers.

We visited the old Abbey, and lingered amid its snow-capped, ruined walls. We climbed the Black Mountains, and stood on their highest eminence, admiring the goodly prospect of the country around; but neither the ruined Abbey, nor the broad-breasted mountains are so vivid in my remembrance as the grotesque figure of old Mr. Hollowblast.

CONSCIENCE.

Ir is certain that all men are inevitably conscious of being the subjects of a supreme moral government. The sense of right and wrong, peculiar to us; our instinctive discernment of things, as virtuous or vicious, of good or ill desert; shows that we are positively subjected to moral law; that there is actually prescribed to us, by some_authority or other, a rule of conduct. Every law of our nature must have originated with Him who gave us our being; for the creature could no more give laws to its own being, than make itself. If we are the subjects of moral obligation, the Creator made us so that natural rule of our actions, which the sense of moral obligation implies, is a rule which he has enjoined. And there are circumstances which seem solemnly to intimate that we are under His constant discipline, and ultimately responsible for the use which we make of that rule. Especially does this seem to be intimated by that faculty of instinctive selfreflection peculiar to our nature: that secret, mysterious, authoritative, monitory power, which is seated within us. If upon the actions of others we find our minds constantly passing a moral judgment; with infinitely greater de

cisiveness, pungency, and force, do we find them passing it on ourselves. This, it must be admitted, is a striking feature of our constitution, and one that demands attention. What then, I ask, is the meaning and the import of that secret power which we call conscience; which, while it approves and affords pleasurable reflections when we have done good, admonishes us, on the other hand, of evil, upbraids and smites us when we have done wrong; punishes us, invariably, with inward smart and pang when we have yielded to our passions in opposition to our reason, when we have consulted present pleasure at the expense of known duty? What is this stern, this solemn voice that utters in the soul of man, when no one hears it but himself, "Man! thou art guilty ?" What is this which makes the heart to palpitate and tremble, while the aspect of the outward countenance is calm? What is it that haunts the culprit in the dark-that gives a suspicious eye and unsteady hand, even where detection seems impossible, and is not apprehended-that makes the thief to flee when no man pursueth him, and infests his bed with dreams and

images of terror? I tell you, and every man feels, that that voice is the echo of another; that that inward conviction is but the utterance of the verdict of a higher judge. Every man feels it, we repeat, that he is held within the grasp of a power from which he cannot disengage himself; that he is the subject of a government above, and independent of human arrangement and . convention. From all known facts of human history we are warranted to affirm, it is universal. No matter how obscure a man he is, he is sensible that the moral feelings and moral doings of his own soul are under the immediate ken of Heaven. No matter how great he is; he may preside in courts and seats of law, but on his own tribunal he is sensible, Felix-like, that he himself is before the bar of an unseen judge. No matter how famed he is, he is sensible that there is a judgment which is not arrested by public opinion, and whose awful verdict falters not amid the plaudits or reproaches of a world. Nor does it matter much what are his peculiar sentiments; this inward witness tells the truth, in spite of every modifying system, and against every falsifying creed. It matters little even how reck

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

Ir is said to be the custom, in some nations, to mourn at the birth of a child, because of the anticipated evils which it is destined to endure in this vale of tears. This is, doubtless, to form a false estimate of human life, in which, on the average, pleasure far predominates over pain; and surely the contrary custom of rejoicing when another rational and immortal creature is brought into existence, is much more justifiable. But I am not certain that the same principle will apply to the birth of a new year. There are so many recollections of past delinquencies and omissions, and of losses that can never be repaired, to unite with anticipations of the futureso much to regret as well as to fear, that the thoughtless levity with which this first day of another annual cycle is generally ushered in, seems to be altogether misplaced. We should certainly do, what is at once more reasonable and more edifying, were we to spend the first hours of a new year in solemn meditation, both on the past and on the future.

But in such an exercise, while there is cause for self-accusation and for sorrow, there is also ground for gratitude, for hope, and for enjoyment. The protecting care of an overruling Providence, is a fruitful source of these feelings, whether we regard external nature, or reflect on our own individual experience of the guidance and protection of a Father's unseen hand. It is to the former of these subjects, that the peculiar nature of this work seems at present to call our attention.

When nature lies in the sleep of winter, all seems dreary, and desolate, and hopeless. Day after day, the sun, whose beams had shed light and life over the world, takes a shorter and lower path in the heavens; his brightness and warmth decrease; chilling blasts sweep the plain; the flowers fade; the leaves fall; the grass no longer springs for the cattle; the sound of music is hushed; the earth becomes rigid; the surface of the waters is converted into crystal; the snow descends, and covers all with its cold and cheerless mantle.

Nature, however, is only in a state of repose. Rest was necessary to recruit her exhausted strength. But during her repose, the hand of Him who "slumbereth not," has been working in secret. The germs of future plants

and flowers have been wonderfully preserved insects, rèptiles, birds, and beasts, have all partaken of a Father's care; and his rational creatures have been enabled, by employing the higher powers with which he has gifted them, to provide for the supply of their more numerous necessities and comforts.

And now a new scene appears. The sun has changed his course, and begins again to take a wider circuit in the heavens. Soon his warmth, and glory, and genial influence will return. Nature will burst anew into life, and beauty, and joy. The husbandman will once more ply his labours, while hope cheers his toil, and

the lark, high-poised, Makes heaven's blue concave vocal with his lay; and, all around, the cattle browse on the tender herbage as it rises, and the bleating lambs play amidst the flocks scattered over the neighbouring hills.

As the year advances, summer will again begin to smile, and will cast from her green lap a profusion of flowers. The seed thrown into the bosom of the earth, will germinate and grow: the tender blade will rise and shoot, sometimes watered by the rain and dew; sometimes cherished by the genial heat of the sun's direct rays; sometimes shaded from his too fervid beams by the gathering clouds, and refreshed by the morning and evening breeze.

At last comes autumn, crowned with plenty. The orchards teem with golden fruit; the full ears of yellow grain wave in the fields; the busy reaper sings as he toils; the barns are filled with food for man and beast, and the hopes of the husbandman are fulfilled. Amidst a thousand varied and most bountiful preparations for the sustenance of animal and vegetable life, during the rigours of an ungenial sky, winter returns, and again prepares the earth, by a night of rest, for the labours of the coming year.

These wonders of divine Providence need only to be mentioned, to show with what consummate skill and goodness God accommodates the seasons to the comfort, the convenience, and the happiness of every thing that lives, and especially of the human family. The labour to which man is doomed strengthens his bodily powers, and rouses, exercises, and sharpens his mental faculties. The changes, too, which are continually taking place, are highly conducive to his improvement and happiness.

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