Why should not I thank God, Jessie? You must consent to the publishment going up next Sunday."

"Not till I have consulted some one-remember, Archy, I am a church member-you Let me speak to Mr. West."

are not.

"No-no-no. He is supersti-scrupulous. I am not a member-on your account I wish I were."

"Oh! on your own account, Archy!" Archy assented. But when he learned that Mrs. Remington thought it more than probable that when the church were apprised of her intention of marrying out of their pale, she should be subjected to discipline, and delay would ensue, he proposed that they should forego the publication, and take advantage of their proximity to the state of New York, where the ceremony could be legally performed without the embarrassing prelude of a publication. This proposition she resisted. She felt in all simplicity of heart a reverence for the authorities of the church. To her it was the type of God's power and justice, and she trembled at the thought of incurring its displeasure. But her lover pleaded, her heart urged, and above all, the horror of being again brought into proximity to Bay terrified her, and she at last consented. The next day she, her little boy, and Archy Henry, drove over to a magistrate's on the border of New York, and the marriage ceremony was there duly performed. Thus the lamb was secured into the fold at the moment the wolf was sure of his prey. The Deacon's rage had none of the ordinary manifestations. To his good, unsuspecting pastor and to the church, he appeared the disappointed father, sorrowing after a godly sort.

A meeting of the church was immediately called. But before they met the pastor visited the offending member. He tried in vain to assume the tone of stern rebuke. His gentle heart failed him. Tears actually streamed from his eyes as he told poor Jessie that her violation of the laws of God and the known rules of the church, to which she had promised submission when she took the solemn vows of membership, rendered her liable to the censure of the church, and excommunication from it.

She made no excuse-she offered no palliation-she said she was conscious she had done wrong.

"Would she," he asked, "confess in the

middle aisle of the meeting-house, before the congregation of the people, that she had sinned, and gone in opposition to God's law, and the law of his holy church, in marrying an unsanetified man, one who lived in daily violation of God's law?"

"Oh no, sir, I cannot say that-that is not my view of my husband-he is not a member -that I am sure I grieve for, but he is better, sir, than some that are."

"That is not to the purpose, child; will you make the confession?"

"I cannot say, sir, that I am sorry to have Archy Henry for my partner for life; but for the manner of my marriage I am sorry, and I am willing humbly to confess it."

"That is not enough ;-solemn charges are before the church."

"What are they, sir?"

"That you received visits from your spark on Saturday nights."

"I did, sir, and I am not ashamed to own it."

"But, surely you know that Saturday night is held to be, and undoubtedly is, holy time."*

"Yes, sir, I know that Saturday night is a portion of the Sabbath, when we should not think our own thoughts. But, sir, I can truly say there was nothing dishonourable in the sight of man, or unholy in the sight of the Lord, that passed between Archy and me. Is this all?"

"No: it is said your husband habitually breaks the third commandment."

"But not blasphemously; thoughtlessly he does, but he knows it grieves me, and I think he will not again."

The good Doctor said there were other charges which had been confided to him, but as he trusted they would not be presented at the church meeting, he should not trouble her with them. He notified her that a meeting was appointed on a certain day near at hand, and he told her that she was expected to be present.

Poor Jessie! Her soul was disquieted-she reproached herself with not having walked worthy of her profession. The displeasure of the church was to her the sure sign of the displeasure of her Divine Master, and not all the arguments, the soothing, and the love of her husband could comfort her. She had two powerful reasons for making no disclosures in relation to the Deacon. She feared exciting the indignation of her husband, which once thoroughly provoked against the man he already doubted and disliked, could not be allayed; and she felt a religious reluctance to throw on the church the scandal of the Deacon's gross

*The Doctor's own words-still on his records.

The church met according to appointment. Mrs. Henry was present. Her youth and her docility conciliated many kind hearts in her favour. Her beauty, perhaps, told with some, -a beauty so softened and shaded by modesty, that not the oldest and most rigid thought it a duty to rebuke their instincts in its favour. Deacon Bay was present. He affected to take small part in the case, but he now and then craftily threw in an evil word that he meant to be lead in a wavering scale.

The meeting was divided. Some were for restoring her to full communion on her making the partial public profession she proffered. To this merciful party the pastor inclined. Deacon Bay and his few adherents were for immediate excommunication. Unanimity being unattainable, the meeting adjourned. While the clouds thus darkened over poor Mrs. Henry, she received a notice from Deacon Bay that she must remove from her present dwelling-house, and Henry was warned that the mortgage on his farm was about to be foreclosed, and that he must prepare to surrender it.

Temporal and spiritual ruin were raining down on the young couple, and to poor Mrs. Henry's susceptible conscience and excited imagination they came in the form of judgments for the violation of her church covenant. At this day, when old prestiges have melted away, it is as difficult to sympathize with Mrs. Henry as it would be to feel any serious concern for a child terrified at a shadow on his nursery wall. To her the trouble was a terrible reality. She was certainly more remarkable for tenderness of conscience than strength of mind. The austerest judgment of her brethren of the church was ratified by her own convictions. She seems, in concealing the wrongs of old Bay, to have forgotten the palliation they afforded her. She dared not take counsel or consolation from her husband. He was not a church-member, and therefore not qualified to give it. Still, as her truth was inflexible, she could not say she repented her marriage, and that she could not, to her diseased mind, was a sign of her reprobate state. Her health failed; she sunk into deep dejection; and when Deacon Bay came to notify her of another church meeting on her account, and said to her with a malignity worthy an inquisitor racking his victim, "God has put forth his hand against you"-" He has -he has!" she said,-hypocrisy had achieved its triumph over a pure and susceptible na

Henry driving out of it with a load of furniture. Deacon Bay was at the moment passing in his wagon. Henry, irritated and confused, did not drive accurately, and his heavy wagon hit the Deacon's in a manner just gently to tip it over, and give the Deacon a somerset. They were both moving slowly at the time, and no great harm was done. The Deacon was exasperated, and no doubt secretly vowed vengeance, and thought with diabolical satisfaction that when Henry arrived at his home with his wife's chattels, he would find a lawyer taking possession of the premises in his, the Deacon's, name.

There was a full meeting of the church-not a member absent. Intimation of the pastor's state of mind were given in the opening prayer. He prayed that though their erring sister passed through the fire, it might not consume her, and through deep waters, they might not overwhelm her.

In the conclusion of his prefatory address to the meeting he said, "It was safer to imitate the Divine Being in mercy than in judgment."

"Who shall presume to stay his judgments?" said the lugubrious Deacon; "whom the Lord smiteth is smitten.'"

And poor little Mrs. Henry seemed to verify his words. Attenuated, pale, and trembling, she sat beside the dignified and erect figure of the pastor's wife, looking like a condemned and self-condemned culprit, who would fain call upon the rocks and mountains to hide her.

As a minister of the everlasting Gospel, and a member of the Congregational Church of New England, Stephen West, our revered pastor, had the most unqualified reverence for its institutions, and no monk of the thirteenth century was more unquestionably submissive to the rules and requirements of his order. But within this stern, artificial form beat a heart as true to the instincts and offices of love as is the needle to its pole.

"Brethren and sisters," resumed the pastor, "it is known to you that there has not been that unanimity in the case before you that usually attends our deliberations. The division has been perhaps more in feeling than opinion. It is natural," he said, his voice trembling, and the tears of his ever-ready sympathy flowing down his cheeks, “to feel for one in evident and deep distress of mind, and who, though as far as yet appeareth, she hath not sufficient grace to make the required concessions, hath not resisted the rebukes of conscience.

And

as her fault has not been of an aggravated nature, but such as one still young was greatly liable to, we may consider how far, without sacrificing duty, we may concede to our distressed sister. She is not, as you see, in a

the fence. A hencoop was accidentally set upon it. There it was destined to lie, as safely as if it were filed away in a pigeon-hole, till, in the general upturning of the moving, it came into the right hands. That this was really providential, it takes no great amount of faith to believe.

"This note," continued Henry, "was written by that man who stands there-that Deacon Nathan Bay. With permission, I will read it. It appears to have been enclosed in a business letter and begins thus:

"This note is for more interesting matters. You were harsh yesterday, Jessie, but if you will come home, I will forgive and forget. It was not well to return a blow for a kiss-when one smiteth on the right cheek-you understand.""

At this startling refutation of the Deacon's calumny, uttered not fifteen minutes before, a low sound arose more resembling a hiss than any ever before heard in a meeting of that solemn nature. Henry smiled bitterly, and proceeded.

"You saw, Jessie, how bad example is followed. As crows the old, so crows the young. My head yet aches with the blow of that joint-stool. Your boy will be a limb, if he is not soon brought under nurture. Come back then, Jessie. The old woman is as good as nobody. You shall be true mistress of the house, possessor of heart and estate, and in due time, you and your boy heirs of all I possess. Isn't this better than marrying a penniless spark, beggaring your little chap, and drudging through your lifetime for a motherin-law, and her bedridden gal? Burn this.'

"When this precious note was written," continued Henry, "Mrs. Remington was living on a farm which by some sort of legal huggermugger Nathan Bay claims as his. By like crafty measures he has spun his web round all the other property belonging to this little woman and her late husband. He threatened to turn her and her boy homeless and penniless upon the world. And when he added insult to these injuries, she had no alternative but to marry a poor fellow whose father had been cheated out of house and home by this same Deacon Nathan Bay-church-member"—

"Stop, stop, Archy Henry!" cried the pastor, rising and striking his cane on the ground vehemently, "this is out of place-unseemlyit must go no farther"

Unseemly! Sir, should a villain be treated as one of the elect? Be patient with me one moment, sir-I do not-truly I do not meanany disrespect to you, or to any good person in this meeting; but, sir, is it not in place, and

my bounden duty to rescue my wife, who has been driven to the edge of insanity by this wolf in sheep's clothing-Deacon Nathan Bay?" Henry paused for a moment. His indignation was felt to be righteous, and he was suffered to proceed. "For weeks that should have been the happiest of our lives, she has been bowed down, sorrowing and self-condemnedfor what? for marrying me-not a churchmember to be sure-as Deacon Nathan Bay is but an honest man, and one that hates a scoundrel-for marrying a poor fellow without a penny, with an afflicted mother and sister to be trusted to her care. If the manner seem to you hasty and indecorous, this document," he held up the Deacon's note, "informs you that she was driven by insult and fear to forego the usual forms and ceremonies. If she has violated the letter of your laws, who has better kept their spirit? Not by word or look has she betrayed, even to me, the insults and wrongs of this Deacon Nathan Bay. She has taken meekly, and as if she deserved them, reproof and exhortation-she has borne patiently the persecution, the malice, and the fiendish revenge of this man, who dares to hold up his head here as her accuser and judge. I don't know about your rules here, but I am sure she is, and will remain in good standing and full membership with the church above. I am sure there is not one of you, but in his own home and in his own heart thinks the better, and not the worse of her now under dealing, for the whole transaction on which you are deciding. Sir," he concluded, looking round, and marking, with evident satisfaction, the convinced and acquiescing expression on the faces of the church-members, "I do not now fear to leave our cause with you."

The church-meeting before separating passed a vote of oblivion and restoration to full membership in favour of Mrs. Jessie Henry.

The Deacon's case was deferred to future consideration. He subsequently passed through a course of discipline, professed and confessed all that could be required, and was restored to nominal membership, but stripped of the honours of his office, and deprived for ever, as hypocrites are, by the universal law of God, of the faith of all good men and true.

His ejection of Henry from his paternal property was prevented by a sagacious lawyer, who detected excessive charges in the Deacon's accounts, and fraudulent advantages taken by him. The Deacon, not daring to expose the facts to litigation, was glad to make concessions which rendered it easy for Henry to redeem the property. His little wife restored to tranquillity, to self-esteem, and to her good standing in the church, realized a happiness rarely enjoyed in the married state.

WHOSE is the heart that never beat,
With all it fancied yet of joy,
Returning to that blest retreat

Where he so fondly roved, a boy; When, after years of wand'ring grief, Pursuing phantoms sweet but vain, His wearied spirit seeks relief

SIMMS,

In dear but homely haunts again? When the old rooftree fresh appears, The lowly cottage thatch and dome, Which sheltered well his boyish years, And taught the virtues sweet of home. The well-known plain, the ancient grove, In all unchanged, as when he sped, By Fate or Fancy taught to rove,

To worlds that gave him nought instead!

Ah! sicklied in the wasting chase,
By idlest hopes misled no more,
How fondly doth his thought retrace

The scenes that filled his heart before!
Here still the oak, whose spreading arms
Gave shelter from the noonday heat;-
Here still the maid, whose childish charms
His childish fancy felt were sweet:
Here still the mead, whose ample grounds
Gave scope to boyhood's eager flight:

And there, the "old-field school," whose sounds Spoke less for study than delight.

How natural do they all appear,

By time untouched, by age unbent;
The maiden still more bright and fair,
More wise, and yet as innocent.
The oak scarce lustier in its might,

With bearded moss, well known of old,
And groves that gladden green in sight,
With song-bird gay, and squirrel bold!
How swift the backward glance, which runs
O'er thousand memories still as new,

As if, unchanged by thousand suns,

The heart were fresh and changeless too! What loves, what strifes, what hopes and fears, Grow thick about the labouring thought, Until, unconscious of its tears,

The eye no longer sees the sought. Memory, triumphant o'er the past,

Restores each dear possession gone;
And the world's orphan, long outcast,

Deems each lost treasure still his own!
Oh! stay the dream! Let Memory sway,
Nor all too soon the truth unfold,-
The cottage rooftree, in decay,

The sire, the friend, the maiden, cold!