to whet the stomach, and to clear up the spirit when it is heavy, dull, and overcast with cares."

It is singular that those who have felt the strongest objection to hunting, as perhaps being unjustifiable sport in the sufferings of creatures not necessary to us, have looked complacently enough on fishing. Divines who would have been thought utterly degraded by the 'pink," have been esteemed none the less for devotion to the

fly." Run a fox,-and outrun reputation; play a trout, and be an innocent, meditative man. I am not much of a fisherman myself. Angling is, no doubt, an excellent art, and has the virtue of great antiquity; but it requires not only natural propensity, but very much of "the patience of hope," and I am greatly wanting in both. Indeed, I agree that it is not the poet only, but the angler also, who is born, not made. Yet how absorbing is the pleasure to those who indulge it, of the quiet watch on the bank, of taking the water, and of the last exciting minutes before the fish is landed. one of these old books on angling, written, I fancy, before "the ingenious Mr. Walton" had gained his fame, the antiquity and dignity of angling are gravely insisted on; and I remember it is suggested, that it is as old as the flood-perhaps as the only amusement with which Noah and his sons could relieve their long days aboardand that it is scripturally sanctioned, because both Job and Amos mention fish-hooks, and our Saviour

In

Paul's, and the incomparable Sir Henry Wotton, Provost of Eton College." If you are not satisfied with the origin of fishing at the Flood-no doubt an invention of that scapegrace Ham-I can yet offer you three other attributed originations, each of which has found favour of old, and from which you may make your choice :-Some say it is the invention of one Belus, "the first author of virtuous recreations;" others say that Seth left the knowledge of angling to his posterity, engraven on pillars of brass, with the elements of pure mathematics-on the principle, perhaps, that all work and no play would make Seth's son a dull boy ; and others, that Adam was taught to angle in the river that ran by the garden of Eden, in order that there might be a prearranged type of the calling of the apostles as fishers of men. And if you laugh or despise these ancient traditions of the angler's art, revenge is at hand in the saying of an early craftsmen of the rod, "Rivers and their citizens were made for wise men to contemplate, and for fools to pass by without consideration.” Of course the old gossiping writers on fishing would not admit any opportunity of prosing about "the watery element" itself; and so, if you are curious in such things, you may find very earnestly narrated in some of these odd little books, how there is a river somewhere which will ignite a torch never lighted before, and dout any torch already lighted; how, in the time of the wars of the Red and White Roses, the river Harwood, in Bedfordshire, stood still of a sudden, and divided itself asunder, leaving its bed dry, for men to pass through, for a space of three miles; and how there is a well to be seen in Munster,

ઃઃ "Within whose waters whoso'er hath been Once drench'd, his hair straight takes an hoary die:"

-while in Ulster is another of quite a contrary effect, for there

"Those that have washed once, how old soe'er,

Shall never after have an hoary hair."

"In

But I have got for you a genuine story of a merman, which is about the most definite and detailed that I ever found gravely narrated; to which, from its suggestion of church-going, Mr. Matthew Arnold's poem "The Merman" might owe a hint ; and which may be commended to Mr. Philip Gosse, who, though a scientific naturalist, believes in mermen and mermaidens, for insertion in any further "Romance of Natural History.' the year of our Lord 1180, near Orford, in Suffolk, there was a fish taken in the perfect shape of a man. He was kept by Bartholomew de Glanvile in the castle of Orford above half a year; but at length, not being carefully looked to, he stole to the sea, and was never seen after. He never spoke, but would eat any meat that was given him, especially raw fish, when he had squeezed out the juice. He was often had to church, but never showed any sign of adoration!" One might make a pretty moral out of it, treating it as a myth.

Our fathers, the godly and wise even, believed in astrology for common purposes, just as we believe in the barometer; and so there must be "astrological elections" for angling. Perhaps this old notion of an elected time," determined by a reference to the heavens, was, as some of our modern cant would put it, as testimony to a great truth, an unconscious witness for a hidden

Thence let her on the Paphian goddess shine

I' th' West, and greet her with a friendly
Trine.

Be sure you always fortify the East,
And let the Maiden-star possess the West:
However, let some aquatic sign ascend,
And let all power his happy Lord attend.
Then see the setting constellation be
Afflicted by some hateful enemy,

At least his Lord; the sixth with strength defend,

Let active power his radiant Lord attend. Then may you boldly venture to the flood, And catch whatever fishes you see good."

We

Just so. But the author assures us that "the ingenious will not despise these rules," and that he has himself "often experimented upon them, and found their truth." all know that that can be affirmed, on the evidence of many witnesses, of all old prejudices and absurdities: but, while old books, of dignified backs and unblemished page, assert to us the theory and practice of a world that has gone from us, and we measure our intellectual progress gratefully, we may be pardoned regrets for the loss of the simple faith and poetic feeling of the old country notions.

CHAPTER XX.

(Continued).

"March 18, Sunday. To-day the thoughts suggested by the conversation at Ashville have come back strongly upon me, and awakened serious doubts as to the wisdom of the course I have pursued. It is now some years since I first began to indulge in sceptical notions, and during that time I fear I have fostered instead of resisting them. The books I have read, the companions with whom I have associated, the train of thought to which I have accustomed myself, have all contributed to this. I have thus been led to a state of utter uncertainty. I have not been able to reject the authority of the Bible, and yet I have done nothing to test its claims. I am resolved to pursue a different course. I feel the subject is one on which I ought not to remain in doubt. I will devote myself to a searching examination of all Christian evidence; above all, I will read the Bible itself. To-day I opened it, the first time for I care not to remember how long. It must be from its strangeness that it has had so strong an impression upon me. I read the 23rd and 24th Psalms, and felt overpowered by their contrasted beauty and sublimity, their blended tenderness and strength. But I must commence a more systematic study of the book. I will begin with the life and words of Christ himself."

May 1. I cannot understand how it is that these religious questionings and speculations occupy so much of my thoughts. The subject is one which I vainly fancied I had finally settled, so far at least as my own relation to Christianity was concerned. I could not acquiesce in the conclusions of the extreme parties on either side, and fondly thought that I had found a quiet resting-place midway between the scoffings of the infidel and the superstitions of the Bibliolater. Paine's

6

Age of Reason' I had carefully read, but, though struck with the ingenuity of many of his objections, I was not more offended by his coarseness than I was repelled by the extravagance of his conclusions. The Bible, I have always felt, could not be a mere imposture, a confused mass of fables, invented by priests to cajole and enslave mankind— fables withal so absurd and contradictory that one is at a loss whether to condemn most the wickedness of the design or the unskilfulness of its execution. Such a theory has always seemed to me to carry with it its own refutation, not only in the internal character of the book, but, if possible, even more in the success which it has achieved; for no book answering to such a description could ever have attained the power which even its enemies must confess belongs to the Bible. The force of such a consideration too, is indefinitely increased by an attentive study of the history of Christianity -a right estimate of the forces

against which it has to contend, and a review of all that men have done and suffered on its behalf. The faith which it has secured has been obtained in defiance of the most determined efforts to disprove its truth. The keenest critical acumen has been employed to detect and expose its real or fancied errorsthe most plausible objections have been set forth with all the skill sophistry could command, yet the only result has been that the number of its adherents has been continually on the increase. But while, therefore, I could not believe the Bible to be a cruel and wicked imposture, I have been just as far from accepting the notion that it is the pure word of God-itself a revelation and the only revelation of the Divine will to us. I found in it much that was full of beauty and truth, but I discovered also traces of human ignorance, infirmity and passion. Nor was the Bible the only book of the ancient world, whose influence I felt to be strengthening and purifying to my soul. I could. not, therefore, concede to Moses, Isaiah, or even Paul, an inspiration and authority that I denied to Socrates or Plato, or that marvellous Eastern sage Confucius. While prepared to give the palm of superiority to the Bible, I could not recognize its exclusive claims, or believe what appeared to me the absurd theories of a great part of the Christian world.

"In all this I am now shaken.

I have been studying the New Testament, and especially the words of our Lord. Nothing is to me more manifest than that He, in His teachings, ascribed to the old Jewish scriptures that very authority which Christians now assign to the Bible. Moses and the Prophets were evidently, in this view, men commissioned to reveal the will of God, and in whose words men were required to believe. Is it possible that He could Himself have mistaken, or as

some have sought to put it, that He was merely using an argumentum ad hominem, accommodating Himself to the prejudices of His hearers? To me both these suppositions are dishonouring to Him and inconsistent with the view I have formed of His character and wisdom."

*

May 5. To-day I met, quite accidentally, my new acquaintance, Mr. Seymour. Business had called me to and as I was on my way home I stumbled upon him in one of the most miserable streets of the town, coming out of a cottage where, as he told me, he had been seeking to instruct and console a dying man. I found that I had had some slight acquaintance with him, having occasionally met him at political meetings where he had once been a prominent orator. He was a violent Chartist and daring infidel, and being fonder of political and religious discussions than work, and withal intemperate in his habits, had succeeded in reducing himself from comparative comfort to abject poverty. He was now lying in a state of pitiable feebleness, and had sent for Mr. Seymour to visit him. Much pleased and interested with the way in which the minister spoke of their interview. Led to a conversation on the fear of death and the influence of Christian faith in dispelling. Seymour had come straight from the bed-side of a poor but simple-minded believer to that of this wanderer-the contrast had deeply affected him, and its recital had its effect upon me. But I must not suffer it to have undue influence in determining my views of Christianity. A life such as this Chartist has led of discontented idleness, intemperance, and sensual indulgence, must itself be sufficient to fill the soul with remorse and trembling, in prospect of the future. Such fears are, doubtless, evidences of that instinctive faith in immortality which is found so strong in

the human soul, and which is to me one convincing proof of a future state. But this is a point on which I never had a doubt; and I do not see that there is any further conclusion that can fairly be drawn from such a case. Still there is force in the argument put by Mr. Seymour in our conversation, that, as a matter of fact, there is no other influence that has ever given such an amount of peace and comfort to the dying as Christianity. I do not see how to question the truth of the statement, and the phenomenon is, at least, a remarkable one-scarcely to be explained by the notion that priestly devices are best fitted to quell the fears which nothing but superstitious fancies have awakened.

"Found Seymour again frank, genial, and communicative, without anything of that official sanctimoniousness which is so common and so offensive in his class. I fear I must have put his patience sadly to the test, for I propounded some most extravagant notions, expressing, indeed, a scepticism which I was far from cherishing. But he was neither supercilious nor dogmatic in reply; there was no appearance of pious horror at such wicked sentiments, still less did he let fall a single word of anathema or bitterness. He spoke to me as a brother, earnestly, solemnly, decidedly, but kindly. I felt a secret craving to lay bare my whole thoughts on religious subjects, and ask his guidance on points that perplexed me. Some day I may come to this. Yet I know not how it is that I feel prepared to give such confidence to one who is all but a stranger."

more than those marvellous discourses in earlier chapters of this gospel which I have read recently. Is this story true or is it false? Rather would I ask myself, Is it possible that any one reading it can have the notion that it is false? It is not thus that writers of fiction concoct their narratives. They would have made the subject of such a miracle an individual of much greater importance, and thrown around the event itself much more of circumstance and eclat, the manner of performance would have been more mysterious, and the results more wonderful. Here there is something in the whole style that gives the impression of truth. If, indeed, I pronounce a miracle absolutely impossible, I must disbelieve. But on what grounds can I speak thus dogmatically? True, I have been in the habit of thinking and speaking but on what does such an assertion rest? Is it not, after all, as pure an assumption as any of which I have been wont to complain in the case of Christian advocates ? Does not the idea of an infinite God imply that He should have modes of operation which neither I nor any other finite creature can fully comprehend? Miracles, indeed, I have sometimes found spoken of as violations of law, and the conception was repugnant to me. not these phenomena still be realities, though such a definition be indefensible? May they not be revelations of some higher law to which the ordinary laws of nature with which alone we are conversant, are subject? At all events, I cannot read such a record as this and believe it to be a clever falsehood, or an accidental deposit of popular myth. My heart tells me it can be nothing but a faithful account of an actual occurrence."

But may

"May 12. Looking over these entries I am surprised to find how large a portion of them is occupied