little perhaps with agitation. I can well remember, the strange satisfaction it seemed to give me at that moment, to think I had not destroyed the rest of those from whom I had so wantonly fled. The profound stillness within was a consolation, as it were, to my sense of transgression.

Oh! but there was one who both watched and wept. It was my mother! She had passed sleepless nights, and anxious days, during the absence of her wayward son. She had sought no bed that night; and heard, or thought she heard, sounds that told her of his return. Gently the door unclosed and pale and care-worn, my mother stood before me. The smile that brightened her pallid features was my welcome and my pardon. She folded me in her arms and wept for very joy. Nor then, nor ever, did an upbraiding word fall from her lips: but then and ever my own heart smote me, as I looked upon her wan, anxious face, or recalled its silent (and the keener because silent) reproaches. Those she could not spare me; but they were all that followed my offence. And they have followed me through life. Every other circumstance of this freak of mere boyhood, even the felonious taking of the tenpound note (of which, by-the-bye, I restored two pounds, seventeen shillings, and sixpence in the lawful coin of the realm, after my return), I can retrace without more compunction than I feel for all the many mischievous pranks that signalized those mischief-loving years; but the pang I had given my mother, left a wound behind it still sensible to memory, and which the

precious declaration of her dying hour, that I had been to her all a parent could wish, was not sufficient entirely to heal.

Miriam; or the Mother's Sacrifice.

A HEBREW TALE.

"He is the only one of his mother: he is the choice one of her that bare him."-Canticles.

They shall eat bread by weight and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment."-Ezekiel.

"Alas! alas! Jerusalem! How cometh it to pass that thou art brought thus low? The Gentiles have rule over thee-they raze thy walls, they cast thee down! Yea, they are in the midst of thee! Woe be to us for our sins! Thy might is gone from thee-thy sanctuary is trodden under foot-and made a sink for the blood of thy slain! Drink now of thy cup, O Jerusalem! drink with thy daughter Sion: drink, I say, thy cup of bitterness and grief, together with her; for thou art fallen, and vexation girdeth thee round. Thy soldiers are swifter than eagles, and fiercer than lions; but the scream of the eagle is faint, and the spring of the lion is feeble, when they are famished. Lo! we die, and there is no place to bury our dead, they are so exceeding many; we die unmourned, for all custom of mourning hath ceased, because of the famine, whose greatness cannot be told. Our sufferings are so manifold, that Titus who besiegeth us is

amazed with fear, stretching out his hands to heaven, and saying, 'Lord God of Heaven and Earth, in whom the Israelites believe, cleanse me from this sin, which surely I am not the cause of; for I required peace, and they refused it."" These were the lamentations of Gorion, the priest, who was in bonds and in prison. Gorion was a man of great age. A hundred and thirty years were upon him. In his dungeon no one could come unto him, nor from him. Joseph, his son, went, therefore, towards the tower that he might see his father, and comfort him; but as he approached, the soldiers hurled down stones at him, and struck him from his chariot.

When they perceived this, they would have rushed forth to seize him; but a great strength of friends gathered together, and his enemies were not able to do him wrong. At the sound of their brazen trumpets, as they issued from the gate, the mother of Joseph, who was in Simeon's house, inquired the cause of the tumult; and when they told her the soldiers had gone forth to take her son, though she was fourscore and five, she ran out, and climbed the walls of the city, as a young girl, weeping, and crying aloud to those who were present, "Is my hope then come to this! Could I have expected that I should outlive my son? Alas! I trusted he would have buried me, and been a help to me in mine age; for when my whole family almost were taken from me, yet, said I, this one remains to comfort me. Lord! that I might now die; for I cannot live, since my son Joseph is slain!" Then went she yet further on the walls, till she came to the

turret where her husband was in prison, and stretching her hands to heaven, she cried with a loud voice, "Oh, my son, my son, where art thou? Come and speak unto me and comfort me?"

The soldiers, who heard her piteous complainings, laughed her to scorn; and she said to them, "Why do ye not also kill me, that bare Joseph, my son, and nursed him with these breasts? God be judge between us, for ye have slain my son who is guiltless !"

One of the soldiers, a rough, pitiless man, said to her deridingly, "Canst thou not, if so thou wishedst, throw thyself from the walls and die? We will give thee good leave; and when thou hast done it, the Romans shall take thee up and bestow honorable burial upon thee, because thou art Joseph's mother, who is their friend."

"And if I were to do such violence to myself, should I have hope in the world to come? Or would they, of this world, give honorable burial to one who had destroyed herself?"

Now, when Joseph heard his mother speak thus to the jeering soldiers, he put on his armour, and being surrounded by many faithful and valiant Romans to defend him from the arrows of the Jews, he approached the walls.

"Fear not, my mother," said he, " nor have any thought of me, for you see God hath not suffered me to fall into the hands of mine enemies. I have heard the words of the wicked counsellors who bade thee kill thyself, and I have heard thy answer, which I knew would be thy answer. God forbid that thou, the wife of Gorion, the

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