tened by the prospect of a speedy meeting. The day before they set out, Lady Belfield made an earnest request to Mr. and Mrs. Stanley, that they would have the goodness to receive Fanny Stokes into their family for a few months, previous to her entering theirs as governess. "I can think of no method so likely," continued she, "to raise the tone of education in my own family, as the transfusion into it of your spirit, and the adoption of your regulations." Mr. and Mrs. Stanley most cheerfully acceded to the proposal.

Sir John said, "I was meditating the same request, but with an additional clause tacked to it, that of sending our eldest girl with Fanny, that the child also may get imbued with something of your family spirit, and be broken into better habits than she has acquired from our hitherto relaxed discipline." This proposal was also cordially ap proved.

CHAP. XLVI.

DR. BARLOW came to the Grove to take

leave of our friends. He found Sir John and I sitting in the library with Mr. Stanley. "As I came from Mr. Tyrrel's," said the Doctor, "I met Mr. Flam going to see him. He seemed so anxious about his old friend, that a wish strongly presented itself to my mind that the awful situation of the sick man might be salutary to him.

"It is impossible to say," continued he, "what injury religion has suffered from the opposite characters of these two men. Flam, who gives himself no concern about the matter, is kind and generous; while Tyrrel, who has made a high profession, is mean and sordid. It has been sail, of what use is religion, when morality has made Mr. Flam a better man than religion makes Mr. Tyrrel? Thus men of the world reason! But nothing can be more false than their conclusions. Flam is naturally an open warmhearted man, but incorrect in many respects, and rather loose in his principles. His natural good propensities religion would have improved into solid virtues, and would have cured the more exceptionable parts of his character. But from religion he stands aloof.

"Tyrrel is naturally narrow and selfish. Religion has not made, but found him such. But what a religion has he adopted! A mere assumption of terms; a dead, inoperative, uninfluencing

notion, which he has taken up; not, I hope, with a view to deceive others, but by which he has grossly deceived himself. He had heard that religion was a cure for an uneasy mind; but he did not attend to the means by which the cure is effected, and it relieved not him.

"The corrupt principle whence his vices proceeded was not subdued. He did not desire to subdue it, because in the struggle he must have parted with what he was resolved to keep. He adopted what he believed was a cheap and easy religion; little aware that the great fundamental scripture doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ was a doctrine powerfully opposing our corruptions, and involving in its comprehensive requirements a new heart and a new life."

At this moment Mr. Flam called at the Grove. "I am just come from Tyrrel," said he. "I fear it is nearly over with him. Poor Ned! he is very low, almost in despair. I always told him that the time would come when he would be glad to exchange notions for actions. I am grieved for him. The remembrance of a kind deed or two done to a poor tenant would be some comfort to him, now. at a time when every man stands in need of com, fort."

"Sir," said Dr. Barlow, "the scene which I have lately witnessed at Mr. Tyrrel's makes me serious. If you and I were alone, I am afraid it would make me bold. I will, however, suppress the answer I was tempted to make you, because I should not think it prudent or respectful to utter before company what, I am persuaded, your good sense would permit me to say were we alone!"

"Doctor," replied the good tempered, but thoughtless man, "don't stand upon ceremony. You know I love a debate, and I insist on your saying what was in your mind to say. I don't fear getting out of any scrape you can bring me into. You are too well bred to offend, and, I hope, I am too well natured to be easily offended. Stanley, I know, always takes your side. Sir John, I trust, will take mine; and so will the young man here, if he is like most other young men."

Such

"Allow me then to observe," returned Dr. Barlow, "that if Mr Tyrrel has unhappily deceived himself, by resting too exclusively on a mere speculative faith; a faith which by his conduct did not evince itself to be of the right sort; yet, on the other hand, a dependence for salvation on our own benevolence, our own integrity, or any other good quality we may possess, is an error not less fatal, and far more usual. a dependence does as practically set at nought the Redeemer's sacrifice, as the avowed rejection of the infidel. Honesty and benevolence are among the noblest qualities; but where the one is practised for reputation, and the other from mere feeling, they are sadly delusive as to the ends of practical goodness. They have both indeed their reward: integrity in the credit it brings, and benevolence in the pleasure it yields. Both are beneficial to society; both therefore are politically valuable. Both sometimes leads me to admire the ordinations of that over-ruling power which often uses as instruments of public good, men who acting well in many respects are essentially useful to others; but who, acting from motives merely human, forfeit for themselves that high reward which those virtues would obtain, if they were evidences of a lively faith, and the results of Christian principle.

Think me not severe, Mr. Flam. To be personal is always extremely painful to me."

"No, no, Doctor," replied he, "I know you mean well. 'Tis your trade to give good counsel; and your lot I suppose to have it seldom followed. I shall hear you without being angry. You in your turn must not be angry, if I hear you without being better."

I

"I respect you, Sir, too much," replied Doctor Barlow, "to deceive you in a matter of such infinite importance. For one man who errs on Mr. Tyrrel's principle, a hundred err on yours. His mistake is equally pernicious, but it is not equally common. must repeat it. For one whose soul is endangered through an unwarranted dependence on the Saviour, multitudes are destroyed not only by the open rejection, but through a fatal neglect of the salvation wrought by him. Many more perish through a presumptuous confidence in their own merits, than through an unscriptural trust in the merits of Christ."

"Well, Doctor," replied Mr. Flam, "I must say, that I think an ounce of morality will go farther towards making up my accounts, than a ton of religion, for which no one but myself would be the better."

"My dear Sir," said Doctor Barlow, "I will not presume to determine between the exact comparative proportions of two ingredients, both of which are so indispensable in the composition of a Christian. I dare not hazard the assertion, which of the two is the more perilous state, but I think I am justified in saying which of the two cases occurs most frequently."

Mr. Flam said, "I should be sorry Doctor Barlow, to find out at this time of day, that I have been all my life long in an error."

"Believe me, Sir," said Doctor Barlow," it is better to find it out now, than at a still later period. One