or when even if we should sacrifice all, it will be un

availing."

"This is indeed an urgent reason," replied Miss Flemyng; "for curtailing unnecessary expences, and certainly a London season involves many such. I really feel as if I ought to give up the world."

"Do not allow yourself to use cant phrases, Beatrice: almost all of them involve some fallacy or other; and this phrase, which is a favourite with persons of the Evangelical school, is made to comprize two very different things which ought never to be confounded. If, by giving up the world,' you mean a strict renunciation of those pomps and vanities which you abjured in Holy Baptism, the sooner and more unflinchingly you do it the better, in every point in which you have not already done it. But if by 'giving up the world,' you mean that you are to shut yourself up, to seclude yourself from discharging the duties of that state of life to which it has pleased God to call you,-to hinder your light from shining before men,—to fail to avail yourself of the advantages which your rank and position give you of setting a good example, and influencing those around you and beneath you for good, then I should say that such a course instead of pleasing God would be an offence to Him. It would be a hiding in the earth, the talent which He has committed to your trust.

There is no necessary connexion between solitude and piety. There has been many a wicked nun: and many a holy ascetic in the crowd. It has been truly said, that when the Saviour Himself was to be led into temptation, the first thing the devil thought of, was to get Him into the wilderness. No, Beatrice, do not shrink from discharging your duties under any false notions of religion.* Your position is in the world, but you are not to be of it: you must live in it, but not for it. You must walk like the Children in the midst of the burning fiery furnace, and if you be not wanting to yourself, One shall walk with you, Who will protect you, so that neither an hair of your head shall be singed, nor the smell of fire pass on you; that is, you shall be kept unspotted from the world. Aye, and if you live in the paths of selfdenial, and sacrifice all that you have it in your power to sacrifice to God, you may humbly trust that He will remember you and your's for good in the day of His wrath,—in that tremendous hour of retribution, which He seems to be preparing against the rich people of this country, and the higher classes generally,

There is an expression made use of by that admirable man, Henry Martyn, which may be very appropriately repeated here: "The prospect of this world's happiness," said he, “ gave me rather pain than pleasure, which convinced me that I had been running away from the world, rather than overcoming it." See his life by Sargant (1837.) p. 63.

for their neglect of the temporal and spiritual wants of the working classes, and for leaving them an easy prey to wicked men and evil spirits ;-and when the poor, no longer patient and submissive, shall become in His hand, a scourge of thorns and scorpions on the backs of those who have forgotten in their day of pride, that whosoever hath refused to do his duty by the least and lowest of Christ's brethren, hath refused to do it by Christ Himself!"

CHAPTER IX.

Hints on Preserving.

-Thy comprehensive mind

Holds laws as mousetraps baited for mankind;
Thine eye, applausive, each sly vermin sees,
That baulks the snare, yet battens on the cheese;
Thine ear has heard, with scorn instead of awe,
Our buck-skinn'd justices expound the law,
Wire-draw the acts that fix for wires the pain,
And for the netted partridge noose the swain;
And thy vindictive arm would fain have broke
The last light fetter of the feudal yoke,
To give the denizens of wood and wild,
Nature's free race, to each her free-born child."
WALTER SCOTT.

THE Conversation recorded in the last chapter was so interesting to those engaged in it, that they entered the mansion at Beaulieu, as they had already traversed the park, without taking any thought about the pair who, nominally, at least, were of the party. On entering the old hall, however, Beatrice turned round

to look for her brother, but perceiving that he and his companion were at the bottom of an avenue, some hundred yards distant, she led the way at once into the room in which the luncheon was prepared.

By and bye, Sir Henry put his head in at the door. "Beatrice, Mary wants you for a moment if you are not busy.”

"She had much better come in, and eat her luncheon," observed the Warden,-" we won't look at the broken shoe ribbon, or the rent in the gown, or the misfortune, be it what it may."

But Mary came not in, and Beatrice rose to join her.

"A worse case than I expected, I fear," continued the Warden jokingly,-"not only will Miss Flemyng be forced to eat a cold luncheon, but, which is a far more awful matter, and may involve hasty resignations, or even domestic revolutions, the lady'smaid will certainly be called up from table in the middle of her dinner. Oh, Henry, Henry, I fear your stiles and gates have been doing irremediable mischief. Thais in the palace of Persepolis,-Diamond among Sir Isaac Newton's papers, never caused such a combustion in a quict household, as some thorn-bush, or splinter, or crooked nail is creating in your ménage at this moment. I shall never be allowed to trust Mary with you again."

Upon which termination of Dr. Clinton's speech,