till the old clock on the stairs warned them that morning was fast approaching. Then they wished each other a "good-night," and retired to their chambers.

But Ellen's heart was too heavy to permit the body to take rest; and seating herself by her dressing table, she gave loose to her sorrowful emotions. It was not that her earthly future seemed dark and dreary,—that the path in life she would thenceforward have to tread was, to all appearance, rugged and strait, and self-denying and laborious. It was not only the thought that she was so soon to lose her only earthly comforter, that made her tears flow so freely, and her bosom heave with tumultuous sobs.

Ellen had a deeper trouble in her heart. For a very long time, as it seemed to her, she had felt the burden of sin, and had thought seriously and constantly about religion had wished she were a Christian had endeavoured to fix her affections on eternal realities-had banished from her mind, as far as she was able, all interest in surrounding objects so as to have become morbidly indifferent to them; but she seemed as far off as ever from that happy rest which is promised to the true believer. She knew or believed that rest and peace were to be attained, that they were no fictions of a fond imagination, that others had found both, so that the joy of the Lord was their strength: but they had not come to her.

Ellen had almost given up hope-almost, not quite. She had concealed her struggles from others-even from her brother; but they had been none the less real, and probably all the more painful, for the concealment; and now she was faint and weary through struggling. Of what use was it? Had she not better relinquish the pursuit which had cost her so much pains, and which so eluded her grasp, and abandon her soul once more to what enjoyment she could derive from the worldly pleasures in which she had once delighted? Was it worth while to sacrifice even the smaller, for the sake of what was so far above her reach?

You may see, reader, by this course of argument—if such vague wanderings of the mind can be called argument you may see by this, wherein Ellen's mistake consisted. She had been striving to work out her own righteousness. She had thirsted for the water of life; but had gone to a cistern of her own making, and there was 66 no water."

Her disappointment pressed sadly upon Ellen's spirit. She had, as I have said, borne up under the load while in her brother's society that evening, and had even ventured so to speak to him that he had called her his "little preacher." But now that she was alone, her courage failed.

To obtain a moment's relief from the distracting perplexities in which she was entangled, Ellen shifted the subject of her thoughts, and endeavoured to fix them upon her afternoon walk with her brother. And she so far succeeded that the image of her old home and the pleasant valley and the ever flowing river came again before her. And then her brother's earnest words seemed to sound again in her ears,

"It shall be mine, Ellen; it shall be mine.

In one moment Ellen's thoughts were turned back again into their former channel; but her painful, despondent feelings were gone. A bright beam of hope gladdened her heart, and her courage revived.

"It shall be mine!" She raised her drooping head as she whispered this to herself: "I will not give it up. If my poor brother is so intent on regaining his lost inheritance in this perishing world, that he looks upon no toils as too arduous, and no self-denial too severe, in order that he may attain the object of his ambitious desire, shall I give up my only hope of happiness and everlasting riches? Have I not a lost inheritance to regain-an 'inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away? Have I not the promise of Him who is the very Truth, that if I seek I shall find? It must be that I have not yet sought aright. But I cannot give it up. Pardon, peace, rest, deliverance from the bondage of sin-all, all these I want: I must have them, or I shall be for ever poor, wretched, and undone and all these shall be mine:

:

What other happy souls have found,
I'll seek, nor shall I seek in vain.'

I have God's promise for it.
mine unbelief."

Lord, I believe, help thou

We shall not follow further the current of Ellen's reflections; nor need we attempt to describe the heart struggles of a soul in earnest for salvation. It is enough to say that, with the open Bible before her, and with earnest humble prayer for Divine guidance, the conviction was at

that time brought home to her soul that her past failures in her anxious and longing desires for peace were to be traced to her own imperfect apprehension of the way of its attainment,-to her fond clinging to her own meritorious strivings, to her having looked to Christ as a helper only, and not as an entire Saviour.

"I understand it now," she said, as she arose from her knees, with a heart no longer heavy, and a countenance no more sorrowful. I see now what those words mean,Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by his mercy he saved us.' I think I can understand now why the blessed Saviour said to the proud Pharisees that publicans and harlots should enter into his kingdom before them. I have sought, but not humbly. I have tried to make a way for myself to God and happiness and heaven, and have not looked to Him who is the way and the life."

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Yes, it shall be mine,"-so Ellen continued to ponder, "it must be mine:-my lost inheritance, my Father's house in heaven. It will be mine; but not by my own winning back. It is mine; for my Saviour has already purchased it with his blood; and now he offers it to me, without money and without price: I see it now."

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Many years passed away; and Frederick Mowbray and his sister once more stood together on the same hill, with the same prospect spread before and beneath them. Time had wrought its changes, however, in some of the aspects of that scene, as also in the two spectators. The season, too, was different; for it was midwinter; and instead of the gay verdure and blossoming of spring, every tree was bare, and the meadows and fields were brown and barren. There was a cold, nipping frost; and if the water of the peaceful river had not ceased to flow, its current was unseen-hidden beneath a thick crust of ice.

The old mansion was still there; but a change had passed over that also. It was no longer desolate, uninhabited. Smoke curled from its tall turreted chimneys, and bright, comfort-speaking gleams of firelight shone through the frosted window panes.

And they were changed-the brother and sister. Ellen's slender form had become more robust, and her youthful charms had ripened into matronly comeliness. There was a pleasant look of contentment on her countenance, which

told of inward peace. The change was not a sorrowful change, there was no winter in her soul.

Her brother was changed. Time or toil or trouble had begun to blanch his dark hair, and exposure to extremes of temperature had cast a swarthy hue over his countenance : he was not old, but he seemed aged, and the tone of his voice, when he spoke, was desponding and almost reproachful.

They had been long parted. While her brother was seeking in distant lands the prosperity which seemed to be denied him at home, Ellen had meekly taken a more quiet but scarcely less arduous course; and as a school teacher first, and then as a private governess, had earned her bread. To be "a teacher of babes " is not always an enviable, although it is a highly important, employment: and Ellen had sometimes almost fainted in spirit. But God had been her helper and her comfort; and his providence had not only guided her steps but smoothed her pathway before her. Having sought first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and made these her own because sought in God's own appointed way, all besides that her heavenly Father knew she needed had been added.

Frederick Mowbray had been prosperous too-prosperous, that is, in a limited degree. If a man sets himself, heart and hand, in true earnest and honest endeavour, to achieve success, he rarely altogether fails. It is as true now, as it was in the day when it was written, that “in all labour there is profit," and that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich;" and the well-directed efforts of Ellen's brother had so far brought their reward, that, after twenty years of anxious thought and striving, he had returned to his native land, comparatively wealthy.

Why, then, the shade on his countenance, and the trouble in his heart? Let us hear him speak.

I wished to see the old place once more, Ellen. It is the last time I shall ever look upon it."

"You have quite given up all thought of making it your own, then, my dear brother?"

Ah, it was a romantic dream, Ellen: but the dream is over now. It will never be mine."

"And do you still wish for it, Frederick?" his sister asked.

"If I were to say No, would you believe me, Ellen? I dare say you would though, for you always did put faith in me. But I will not try your credulity. If I had not

wished for it, should I have toiled on as I have toiled these twenty years past, and denied myself almost all enjoyments while counting my gains day by day? I tell you, Ellen," he said, almost angrily, "it has been the great object of my life to return in triumph to this place, and lay down the purchase money for our old home. Would it not be affectation, then, to say that I no longer care for it? I am a disappointed man, Ellen."

"And would you have been quite happy if you had succeeded in that great object of your life, my dear brother?" Ellen asked.

'Quite happy? I dare say not. But, at any rate, my ambition would have been gratified; and if, as the doctors tell me, my constitution is broken, and if, as I sometimes feel and almost certainly know, I have but a few more years to live, at least I should have accomplished something worth living for."

"And then?—Oh, my dear brother!-and then ?"

Our story may end here; but suffer, reader, a few words of application. From year to year, the present writer has sought to win your attention by similitudes drawn from the things that are seen, to those eternal realities which lie beyond and above this perishable world; and once more the long used pen is employed to set before you the unspeakable importance of seeking those things which are at God's right hand. You, too, have a lost inheritance to regain; and it is for you to say now, whether or not it shall be yours. Many of your most ardent wishes remain unfulfilled, and many of your most earnest determinations have been thwarted and crushed. The objects you may have set before you in life, probably will never be yours. You cannot certainly say of the smallest of them, "It shall be mine." But the greatest object of all may, for all eternity, be yours, if sought with honest aim, and full purpose of heart; for they that seek shall find, those who ask shall receive; to them that knock, shall the door of infinite mercy be opened. For He-the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, who fainteth not, neither is weary,-"giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. The youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles;