flying from justice: and as he puts mile after mile of desolate country between him and the place from which he has fled, thinking that surely he is safe in this retreat. You can think of the forger, a few years since, who fled across the Atlantic: fled from the American seaboard and penetrated deeper and deeper into the backwoods, till he stopped in an utter solitude somewhere in the Far West. You can think how, as week after week went on, he began to feel as if he might breathe in peace at last : and think of the poor wretch, sitting one evening in his little log-house, when two London detectives walked in, having tracked him all this way! Did you ever see a foolish duck dive at a hole made in the ice; and come up again under the ice at a hopeless distance from the opening? It is a sad thing to see even that poor creature perishing, with only an inch or two of transparent ice between it and the air. You hasten to break a hole near it to let it escape: but by the time the hole is made the duck is twenty yards off. The duck I have seen: but it must be a fearful case when a human being gets into the like position. You may have lately read how a man was at the bottom of a deep well, when the earth near the top fell together and shut him in. There were ready hands to rescue him: and he was not so shut in but that his voice could be heard hurrying his deliverers. He told them that the water was rising: that it was at his knees, at his breast, at his neck: and the workers above were too late to save him. I suppose it is quite ascertained that in those wicked and cruel ages which ignorant people call the good old times, it was not unusual to wall up a nun in a niche of a massive wall, and leave her there to perish. Vade in pacem, were the words that sentenced to this doom; which the reader probably knows, mean not Depart in peace, but Go to rest. Such was the kindly repose provided in those happy days. And another dismal inside is that of which Samuel Rogers tells us the true story: the massive chest of oak in which a poor Italian girl hid herself, which closed with a spring-lock, and never chanced to be opened for fifty years. You can think of the terrible rush of confused misery in the poor creature's heart when she felt herself shut in, and heard the voices that seemed approaching her die away. But half a century after, when the chest was drawn out to the light and its lid was raised, there was no trace in the mouldering bones of the thrilling anguish which had been endured within that little space. It is a miserable story. Yet perhaps it has its moral analogies not less miserable. There are human beings who by some wrong or hasty step have committed themselves like the poor girl that perished: who have, in a moral sense, been caught, and who can never get out. Yes it is a great question, Outside or Inside: and now, my reader, you must let me remember, drawing these desultory thoughts to a close, that the testing : question which puts all mankind to right and left, is just the question, in its most solemn significance, which may be set out in that familiar phrase. There is the Christian fold: there is the outer world: and we are either within the fold of the Good Shepherd of souls, or without it. It is not a question of degree, as it might be if it founded on our own moral character and deservings. It is the question, have we confided ourselves to the Saviour or not: are we right or wrong: are we within or without? And the two great alternatives, we know, are carried out, without shading off between, into the unseen world. We know that there, when some have gone in to the feast, the door is shut and others may stand without, and find no admission. Let us humbly pray, that He who came to seek and to save that which was lost, may find each reader of this page, a lost sheep by nature, a poor wanderer in the outer wilderness; and draw all with the cords of love within his fold. And let us humbly pray that at the last, we may all, however our earthly paths have varied, find entrance into that Golden City, which has a wall great and high, whose building is of jasper, and which shall exclude all sin and sorrow: through whose gates, though not shut at all by day (and there shall be no night there), there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth :' and where the blessed inhabitants shall go no more out,' but be safe in their Father's house for ever! 251 CHAPTER IX. GETTING ON. EVERYBODY is Going On. We are all get ting through our little span of daylight. We are spending the time that is allotted to us, at the rate of three hundred and sixty-five days a year. We are all going on through life, somehow: not very cheerfully, if one may judge by the care-worn, anxious faces of most middle-aged people you pass on the street. But some people are not merely Going On: they are also Getting On; which is a very different thing. All are growing older: a man here and there is also growing bigger. I mean bigger in a moral sense. As and I, my reader, look round on those early companions who started with us in the race of life, we can discern that great changes have passed upon many of them. Some who started as cart-horses, of a very shaggy and uncombed appearance, have gradually assumed the aspect of thorough-bred, or at least of wellbred animals. Some who set out as horses sixteen hands high, have shrunk to the size of Shetland ponies you Certain who started as calves, have not attained maturity with advancing years: and instead of turning into consolidated oxen, they have only grown into enormous calves. But without going into such matters, I am sure you know that among your old companions there are those who are shooting ahead of the rest, or who have already shot ahead of them. There are those who are pointed at as Rising Men. They are decidedly Getting On. I do not mean that they are becoming famous, or that they are becoming great men. They have not had much chance of that. Their lot has circumscribed their ambition. Their hearts do not beat high for praise: but have known various perplexities as to the more substantial question of the earning of bread and butter. But they are quietly and surely progressing. They have now advanced a good deal beyond what they were five or ten years since. Every profession has its rising men. The Church, the Law, Medicine, Commerce, Literature, have their men who are Getting On: year by year Getting On. A great many men find their level rather early in life: and remain for many years much the same in standing. They are not growing richer, as they grow older. They are not coming to be better known. They are not gaining a greater place and estimation in their walk of life. Many a little shopkeeper at fifty-five is in worldly wealth much as he was at thirty-five. He has managed to rub on, sometimes with a hard struggle: it has been just enough to make the |