Discrimination as to whom, and what, and how we give, is also necessary in the distribution of private charity.-St. Giles, the patron saint of our city, in devout imitation of Him who made himself poor to make us rich, is said to have sold all his property for the benefit of the poor,―to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And what were the result if any of us should blindly follow his example, and pour our fortunes into the lap of the parish that bears the old saint's name? What good would it do the haggard men and women that there and elsewhere swarm so foul and thick from this rocky castle to yonder silent palace? We should make ourselves poor, but, alas! not them rich. They owe their poverty to intemperance and improvidence; and a stream of money turned on them being less like water poured on a sand-bed than oil on raging flames, would but increase their wretchedness, and feed the vices that have hung them in rags. "It came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom;" but now-adays rags are more frequently than otherwise the devil's livery.

The love of drink is "the root of all evil." In an obscure and wretched close you have lighted on a decent and devout widow, with no cordial by her dying bed but a cup of water. Happy to find such a person there as a flower blooming in the desert, you hasten to minister to her necessities; these words of Jesus sounding in your ears, -“Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of them, ye did it unto me." But the wine given to touch dying lips a wretched daughter turns to another purpose; so one day, when engaged in prayer, the opening of a door, thick and strange mutterings, a reeling step, the noise of one falling, induce you to open your eyes-and there, before you, on the same bed, lies a dying mother and a dead-drunk child. You have often climbed the stair to read and pray by the bed of a woman who talks religiously; and whose sickly husband, and pale, ill-fed, ill-clad children, have drawn out your bounty. Circumstances occur to excite suspicion,-suspicions darken, deepen; and one day, from beneath a pillow, on which her head and God's Word lie, you drag the evil to light,-draw out the drunkard's bottle. Away, high up in a garret room, you find a young man, sinking under a slow decline, and shivering beneath a thin, thread-bare coverlet, in the cold that blows keen through patched and broken window. You try to raise his thoughts to the Saviour and the house of many mansions; and leave to send warm coverings for his emaciated form. Before your return that wretched apartment has seen a terrible struggle. Turning a deaf ear to his pitiful cries, unmoved by the tears on his hectic cheek, his father and mother have pulled the blankets from his body;

and sold them for drink. I speak what I know; what my own eyes have seen, and ears have heard. These are examples of the difficulties that beset the feet of charity, and teach the necessity of discrimination, if we would not increase the evils we attempt to alleviate.

Nor is that all. What we bestow on idleness or on vice is so much taken from the worthy poor. They have the first claim on what we can spare; and to throw away our means on others is to defraud the widow, the orphan, and poor, innocent, suffering children. It is, therefore, our duty to meet improvidence and intemperance sternly—no doubt with Christian pity, but that mingled with the indignation due to those who are not so much robbing us, or the rich, as heartlessly plundering the worthy poor. There are such,—many worthy poor. We should seek them out; and it should be our happiness to contribute to theirs. Let us earn for ourselves what is better than gold that perisheth, the blessing of them that are ready to perish-a character such as his, who, at once the painter and the subject, has left us in this likeness of himself the most beautiful portrait of man, "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; when the eye saw me, it gave witness of me. I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. I delivered the poor that cried; the fatherless and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me; and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.”

Charity brings its reward-first in this world.While there is no class more tender-hearted than physicians, I have observed that people who live amid their comforts, and are seldom brought into relationship with suffering, are apt to grow selfish. In such circumstances our nature, like a single tree that stands out in the open field, grows dwarfed and gnarled. Indeed, just as without sin the character of God had not been fully developed, nor shone forth full-orbed—merciful, and gracious, as well as great and holy, it is difficult to see how without the presence of suffering, helplessness, and poverty, our nature could have been brought out in some of its most attractive aspects. Sympathy with suffering, as well as our sense of what is right and wrong, separates us by an immeasurable distance from the lower animals. It presents one of the truest and noblest characteristics of humanity. The pampered dog never turns a piteous eye on some lean, and hungry, and houseless fellow; but growling at his approach, and rushing open-mouthed to the assault, drives him from the door. It is fellow-feeling, not mere feeling that raises a man above a beast. It is that which allies us to the angels who take a lively interest in mundane affairs, and, watching the struggle between good and evil, fill heaven with joy as often as the battle goes for Christ, and a sinner

CHAP. XXV.-THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

THE reader is probably now disposed to ask a number of questions which, like many, are easily put, but may not be convenient to answer. He may inquire, for example, how Mrs. Campbell received the intelligence of the rejection of M'Dougal by her daughter, with her most unexpected acceptance of Ned Fleming? What said the bewildered Cairney about the captain of the "William Pitt," of whom he was so proud, and to whom he had hitherto been so attached? What said Mrs. M'Dougal and Jane, in their long letters upon the engrossing subject? What became of Floxy? What was that long conversation with Ned in Mrs. M'Kelvie's, when she discovered that she-Tom Revel's niece-had been the principal instrument in bringing about a union, the thoughts of which had never crossed her mind? How did the dear old Captain and his wife feel when they received Ned's letter? How did they pass that joyful evening in the cottage with old Freeman, and where are their speeches on that occasion reported? Why did M'Dougal join his regiment, and not sell out? By what conceivable ¦ process could Ned be ever welcomed as Mrs. Campbell's son-in-law? Now, reader, had I only time, it is quite possible that satisfactory replies might be given to these pertinent questions.

"The year is waning to its wane,

The day is dawning west awa;
Loud raves the torrent and the rain,

But

And dark the cloud comes ower the shaw." And so neither "time nor tide" permit of my telling you all you might reasonably wish to know, and all I should have much satisfaction in narrating about my old friends, whose story in all its phases is vividly before my mind's eye. But my readers are, I daresay, thankful for the restrictions imposed by time upon the continuance of the narrative.

"I am to understand, then," says the reader, "that, like all novels, the story ends with the marriage of Kate and Ned, and that they lived long and happy, etc." Now, good reader, you assume without any proof, as far as I know, that this is "a novel;" and you further assume that it must have a certain end? Why so? If I presumed to write so ambitious, and, in the opinion of not a few, so doubtful a production as "a novel," the probability is, that I, who am utterly unfit for such an artistic work, might, if attempting mere fiction, depict human life on paper such as those who, like myself, walk along in the jog-trot of every-day life, never see it to be in fact.

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I am aware, therefore, that according to all the rules of novel-writing, Ned should now be married, as the Americans say, 'right off," amidst music and sunshine. But the fact, as I have hinted, was otherwise in real life. Nor need we be surprised at this.

For, to write seriously when the thoughts are serious, human life is an education, a training up from right beliefs to right habits, and from right habits to right beliefs, and that by discipline administered in manifold wisdom by a living Person,

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ever varied and readjusted by Him to meet the changing circumstances of men, both without and within. And therefore just in proportion to the conscious subjection of any person to this discipline, and his willingness to be taught, may the lesson given him be more trying to flesh and blood, more mysterious," as the phrase is, than that which is given to another who will not open his ear to instruction, nor regard the hand that is stretched out, but who "sets at nought all the counsel," and "will have none of the reproof," and who consequently is permitted most righteously to "eat of his own ways, and to be filled with his own devices." The fact, therefore, need not seem strange to us, that noble and beautiful characters, whose personal and family life are so harmonious with the good and true, should often be subjected to trials and sufferings from which the heartless and selfish are exempted. Teaching is vain where there is no disposition to be taught. Gold, not clay, is purified by fire. On the other hand, there are apparent losses which are real gains; painful amputations which secure health; and a more liberal bestowal of good in a higher form, by the taking away of good in a lower form. Men crave for happiness from what "happens;" but God promises peace, happen what may, and bestows it often through unhappiness, so that in the midst of sorrowing there is rejoicing. To be made possessors, moreover, of the passive virtues-of patience, meekness, faith, and the like-through the knowledge of a Father, is our most glorious possession, by whatever labour or suffering it can be obtained. And, therefore, I do not wonder that Ned and Kate were soon called to endure trial. But I must return to life as it is, and tell the rest of my story as briefly as possible.

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Ned sailed immediately after his engagement with Kate. Never had he such a peculiar voyage. The winds seemed to baffle his return to port, although his old logs recorded as many days of strong and adverse storms. The weeks appeared longer than they used to do. He thought the "William Pitt" had lost her sailing powers. But in spite of all this he never was so happy; never did he and the crew get on better; never did they acknowledge more gratefully in the forecastle the kindness and consideration of the Captain. There was a life and heart in his meetings with them during divine service on board, which kept, as they said, all hands alive." The boys were taught daily by him to read and write, and, from his patience towards them, made rapid progress; while his new boatswain, Buckie,-who had lately joined the ship, after having been long sailing out of London in the East India trade,-seemed devoted to Captain Fleming, whom he boasted of having known since boyhood, and who was always declared by him to be "the tip-topest, as a man and seaman, he had ever knowed." Buckie, the old foe, had become long ago attached to Ned, who having been the means of humanizing the boy, was now rewarded by having the man under his command, as a firstrate, steady, brave sailor, and a most reliable link between the Captain and the crew.

It was after Ned's return that he was suddenly

cast into greater depths of sorrow than he had ever before endured. He had not been as yet received at the Glen by Mrs. Campbell. Cairney had held out to him his parental hand with unreserved good-will; and he often told some of his old friends, in confidence, "that Fleming was a gentleman born, a gentleman bred, the son of an officer of whom his country might be proud; that M'Dougal was too much of a puppy for his taste, though he never liked to say so; that he preferred an honest seaman to him; that the lassie, his daughter, liked him, and could judge for herself, but that Mrs. Campbell, who had her own feelings, was too proud to give in." Cairney had written to the same effect to the old Captain, but Mrs. Campbell had never acknowledged the letter which, in her warm affection, Ned's mother had written to her. In these uncomfortable circumstances it was difficult for Ned to have frequent and easy intercourse with Kate. But when the "William Pitt" entered harbour, Cairney, with a really loving wish to please his daughter, and with a less becoming wish perhaps to tease his wife, or to show his own independence, went one morning into Kate's room, saying, "Look here, lassie,' and he winked to her, the wink accompanied by a smile, made up of affection and fun, "if you are very good to your old dad, I will give you a treat to-day."

"No bribe is required to make me good to you, dear father!" said Kate, fondling the old man, to whom she clung with almost a new affection from his kindness to her during her late isolation and domestic trials.

Cairney taking her pretty chin between his finger and thumb, and bringing his large, red face close to hers, like a full moon looking into a clear fountain, said, "What think you, Kitty, of coming to my office to-day and shaking hands with an old friend of mine, the Captain of the 'William

Pitt?""

Kate's face flushed into scarlet; the fountain was full of light, and her heart throbbed like water bubbling from it. Throwing her arms about her father's neck, and concealing her confusion, she murmured in his ear, "Thank God for your goodness, and that you are not cold to me! Never, never, can I forget it !"

Cairney got soft about the eyes--an unusual event, which made him feel ashamed. So, with a short cough and chuckling laugh, he said, “Come to the office at two o'clock, my bonnie bairn."

What were Ned's thoughts and feelings when he met those two friends so unexpectedly in the office; and when Cairney left him and Kate alone to talk over whatever they pleased!

It was arranged by Cairney that they should visit the ship. They did so, and when Ned saw Kate in the cabin, the reality hardly seemed more a presence to him than the dream of past years.

When they both appeared on the quarter-deck, Kate was gazing up at the rigging, in which the men were busy making all fast. Strange to say, she had only been once before on board of a ship.

"I hope, Ned, that you never go up those dizzy masts, or out to the end of those yards in a storm," remarked Kate with a playful smile.

Ned, laughing at her ignorance of sea life, re

What

do you forget The fact is that

plied, "Of course I do. the scene with poor Tom Revel? I must go up now, as I have to give some orders about a top-mast we sprung. I see they are bungling it, as the mate has gone on shore, and the boatswain is working in the hold.”

"I beseech you!" interposed Kate, more seriously, "don't begin to climb in my presence-now Ned-I shall get sick and dizzy looking at you.”

"Ha ha ha! what would the 'Pitt' come to if you were always on board! I must go, Kate, but pray keep your eye on the compass, on the shore, or on the deck, or on," he whispered, "your new ring, till I come in a few seconds, for I see I must go aloft."

Kate accompanied him into the waist of the ship, where, getting confused with the bustle on board, she sat down until Ned could join her. In a few minutes, amidst a cry of alarm from the decks and from the sailors aloft, a body fell with terrible crash on the deck, rebounded, and rolled past her. A sailor, who was not killed however, had fallen from the yards. The conviction seized Kate's excited imagination that it was Ned, and with a loud scream she fell prostrate on the deck. In a moment Ned and her father, who both had witnessed the scene, were at her side, and lifted up her apparently lifeless form.

I shall not pain my readers by attempting to describe the occurrences of the weeks that followed

how she awoke from her swoon, but, oh, horrors! with a mind that seemed lost for ever; how the shock caused the delirium of a brain fever, and life and reason reeled, and for many a day, the horrible alternatives were presented of death, with all its desolation, or of life with lunacy. I remember only one picture described by Curly, who, from love to Ned, had come to Greenock to attend Kate. "Never," he said, "in my whole practice did I behold a spectacle more touching than on a stormy night when her danger had reached a climax, she seized Ned's rough hand, and prayed fervently for his return from sea! I shall never forget the sight of those two faces."

Ned never shed a tear. From the first moment he raised her up, his calmness was terrible to look on, and singularly affecting from the tenderness of his manner. Not an expression of alarm or grief escaped his lips. His wound was too deep for that. Every thought seemed to be occupied about others, chiefly about the father and mother of his beloved, next to herself the one great object of his earthly life. He only asked, in low and humble tones, to be permitted to sleep at the Glen in order to watch beside her. Some of the servants alleged that his bed was never disturbed, and that if he slept, it must have been in his chair or on the floor. The first time he gave way to tears was one night when in his room alone, and sitting beside the fire, Curly crept in, and embracing him, said, "Dear old Ned, I have now, for the first time, I am thankful to say, great hopes of ultimate, and, perhaps, of speedy recovery, thank God!”

Kate recovered slowly, but surely, until, at last, on an evening ever remembered in the family, she was laid on the sofa in the drawing-room, and Ned sat beside her, as he once had done on another night memorable in their lives. And then,