And then, when this unhappy man had turned his back on his former profession and his former friends, he began to speak exultingly of his new found liberty, and pityingly of those whom he described as being in bondage to each other and to superstition; then, too, did he ridicule in bitter terms-which betrayed in him some yet remaining compunctious feelings-the fanatical means (as he called them) which I declared could alone regenerate and remodel a fallen and guilty world; then also did he begin to indulge more unrestrainedly, though still secretly, those lusts of his which had never been subdued, because he had never sought Divine help in their subjugation.

Such, reader, was the creed of my new owner, and such had been his past history, when I entered his dwelling. He was a man of mature years, yet not having quite passed the vigour of youth. He was proud of his intellect, because words flowed glibly from his tongue; proud of his character, because he had never been proved guilty of gross immorality; proud of his escape from the tyranny of priestly domination, because he scorned to enter the house appropriated to the worship and service of God; proud of his courage, because he dared to lie in bondage to sin, and imagined himself to be free from the terrors of superstition.

Do you ask his name? Nay, let this owner of mine be nameless: but while pausing here, ere I speak of my further acquaintance with him, let my

readers who profess a better creed hearken to the words dictated to me by Him whose servant I am : "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates ?"* Diligent circumspection is needful for us all.

CHAPTER X.

DECEIT OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.

My readers will not have failed to perceive that, in the creed which my present owner had adopted as his own, was some resemblance to the temptation which, at one time, had assailed my former possessor, Albert Norton. And yet between the two persons, in their characters and their aims, was a marked difference, wide as the east and the west are asunder. In the soul of one, the deadly creed was permitted, for a time, to hold its unhallowed but uncertain sway, amid struggles for clearer light and purer knowledge and for holiness. And wisely and kindly was the temptation permitted to assail that soul, not only that the power and love of Jehovah might be more fully known, and that the tried one might emerge from his mental darkness into the celestial

* 2 Cor. xiii. 5.

light of God's own countenance, but that he might come out strengthened by the struggle.

But in the soul of my present nameless owner, the unholy dogmas he had embraced had found a fruitful soil in which they sprang up, and, like thorns and thistles, choked the good word of eternal life by their luxuriant growth. No strivings of heart had he to attain to a more perfect understanding of God's most holy word; but rather was he well pleased that he had, as he declared, risen above the foolish and ignorant prejudices of his younger days, and found out the kernel of truth amidst the husk of superstition which covered and concealed it. Unhappy man that he was, it was not truth that he sought; and the liberty he coveted was not the liberty wherewith my Divine Master makes his people free, but a lawless liberty to walk in the way of his own heart and in the sight of his own eyes.

My owner had many qualities which recommended him to the young and the unwary. His address was with a smiling countenance; and the thoughts of evil and disbelief which he instilled were clothed in well chosen words. He professed sympathy, also, with the feelings and desires and aspirations of youthful vigour; and charmed the ears of his listeners with the knowledge which he had acquired, while he instilled poison into their souls in the hidden falsehoods of his vain philosophy.

Many were they whom he invited to friendly

converse in the gloomy room in which I remained undisturbed by my owner: and it was instructive, though sad, to see how, without startling their prepossessions in my favour, he gradually led them, step by step, to doubt my supreme authority over the hearts and consciences of men, to despise my guidance, and to involve my plainest and most emphatic warnings and declarations in a false and delusive mist of equivocal meaning and counterexplanations. And yet, while thus undermining the very foundation of the immature credence and reverence of his disciples, did this teacher treat me with a form of respect and regard.

Like him who, in the form of a serpent, "peeping and muttering," crept into the garden of paradise, and softly insinuated into the ears of the unsuspecting woman his inquiry, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" so did this nameless owner of mine, with that mild smile of assumed superiority which he well knew how to wield to his hidden purposes, appear to pity the simple credulity of those who were willing to take on trust my declarations, not as the word of men, but of God; and, while still professing to regard me with respect, did he wrest my statements, explain away my doctrines, qualify my denunciations of wrath against every soul of man that sinneth, point out my fancied weaknesses, and make it appear that my light had been eclipsed by the brighter effulgence of human wit and reason.

T

And when, by words like these, this subtle hater of me-for in his heart he did hate me-when by words like these he had weakened the faith of the ensnared ones in my authority, then he would speak of those things which I am commissioned to call "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," with faint and faltering condemnation, as being inherent in man's nature.

Marvel not, reader, that the soft insinuations and gentle animadversions and evil tuition of my owner sank into the souls of some ensnared ones, and wrought their appropriate mischief there. "Can a

man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned ?” *

CHAPTER XI,

THE SCEPTIC'S HOME.

A PALLID female, of sad countenance and mournful voice, sometimes sat in the room in which I was imprisoned and doomed to perpetual silence. She was the wife of my owner.

Hers was a desolate life. Whatever smiles and flattering words the husband had for others, none beamed upon the eye or reached the ear of her whom he had vowed to "love and cherish." The

* Prov. vi. 20.