their desire to inculcate; and while they beheld him kneeling successively to receive their parting benediction, and saw the tears stealing along his cheeks, they claimed in faith the fulfilment of the promise*-that, as they had humbly endeavoured to bring him up in the ways of righteousness, they might find him, hereafter, in that country to which they lead.

Meantime, however, he contented himself with the appearance of what they possessed. Supposing, as thousands unhappily do, that religion consists rather in the decencies current and approved among mankind, than in that conversion of the soul to God, which can alone impart to it a vitality, he was not sensible of the necessity of separating himself from the world, and its amusements. Manifestly as they are calculated to dissipate the mind, and withdraw the heart from that holiness of communion with a reconciled Father, which constitutes the life of religion, and to interrupt its equal course, he was as yet unaware of its ten

Prov. xxii. 6.

dency: or, rather, destitute of that faith which works by love,' and consequently unactuated by its high and purifying principles, he neither saw, nor felt, that they were incompatible with the occupations befitting a candidate for heaven.

Under the influence of motives so little adapted to preserve in the hour of temptation, he bade adieu to Switzerland. The demise of his father had put him in possession of a considerable fortune, and he now thought himself at liberty to mix in that society, from which the austerer manners and maxims of his parents, who notwithstanding had ever regarded as sacred the rules of ancient hospitality, had in a great degree excluded him.

Yet, as he crossed the threshold of the abode of his fathers, his heart misgave him, and he almost regretted the resolution he had taken. He stopped for a moment, and looking back upon the scenes where the years of his childhood had stolen sportively away, and retracing in his mind the happy moments he had there spent under a guardianship which was now removed, the tear sprang involuntarily to his eye as he uttered a fervent

ejaculation, that he might be permitted once more to revisit the retirement of his native hills in peace. Little did he know, at that season of varied emotion, what the watchful care of a heavenly Parent was providing for him; and scarcely, perhaps, could he have then believed that that very spot, which he was now leaving in disgust, as incapable of procuring him the happiness he was in quest of, was to afford him at a future pe riod, under the blessing from above, enjoy. ments, for which all the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them,' would have been no equivalent.

Several years had already been consumed amidst those circles in France and Germany, where the rules of decorum were generally preserved inviolate, while, at the same time, the routine of fashionable amusement was looked upon as requisite to cheer, in the language of the day (alas! that such should be found in the lips of those, who are placed here as on a scene of active and useful employment) the dull and insipid monotony of life. Into this du Blesne entered at first

with all the eagerness which novelty inspires, and with the full assurance that he had at length discovered the secret of happiness. But, like every votary of the world who had preceded him on the stage of mortal existence, he was doomed to prove, by mournful experience, that, though for an instant he might lose himself in the giddy vortex of dissipation, its promises were fallacious, and its enjoyments empty and delusive. heart, while it had not drank at that source, of which whoso tastes shall never thirst again after meaner pleasures, had still enough of sensibility and consciousness, to sicken in the midst of such low and unsatisfying pursuits.

His

It was about this period, when he was beginning to confess in secret that all was ' vanity and vexation of spirit,' that he met with a young lady of German extraction, though a native of Dauphiny, in whom he found a congeniality of sentiment; and he felt himself drawn towards her by the irresistible impulse of esteem and love. He sued and was listened to: and, after an interval which served only to develop more

fully the similarity of their tastes, while it matured their attachment, she became his bride. In time, when she had given birth to a son, they mutually agreed to abandon the resorts of frivolity and folly. Naturally of contemplative dispositions, they had but for a very transient season cordially embraced the occupations, or participated in the imaginary delight of those who impelled them forward in their thoughtless career; and they were glad, at length, to retire beyond the reach of their still too-fascinating power. They had the prospect of other engagements before them, and these, they hoped, would furnish them with more substantial and rational employment. Nor, as the sequel of our story will demonstrate, were they deceived in these pleasing expectations.

But a few weeks had elapsed from the adoption of this resolution, when du Blesne once more beheld himself amongst the stillunforgotten hills of his childhood. His family mansion, now rather dilapidated, he repaired; and, exchanging ornament for utility, rendered it at once a neat and commo