of the insurrection as had the advantages of birth and fortune; and being consigned to a small but not comfortless chamber, in which a fire had been provided—he was left to his reflections. : In He sat by the glowing embers, and meditated on the approaching close of his career. thirty days he had lived his whole life; and the existence which might have deepened into many a distant year, he had contracted into the narrow space of a few hours. He had no hope of pardon the very fire was yet in the ashes of Barris-the very heath was yet ruddy with the blood that had been shed. But there was something beyond this earthly tribunal which rose like a dim and awful world gathering around him; he felt already as though the accusing spirit and himself were before a throne too bright to be visible; he heard the green earth whispering from its flowers, and winds, and voices, guilty; he heard the starry heavens say guilty, as they uttered to higher realms their midnight proclamation; he heard a voice moved from beneath him, and ever singing its low, and wild, and terrible chaunt, like an idiot's anthem, and saying guilty-guilty. Cease idle metaphors, which, even when they appear just or beautiful, only teach us the poverty of human language, and the dimness of human imagery compared with the glory that excelleth—the simplicity and sublimity of the words of revelation. He felt, and it was in a manner that no line can transcribe or symbol express he felt that he had sinned against heaven. If his creed were true, still he had no time to make any atonement for him. self. He could not trust to the prayers of others when he had suffered the last throb of pain in mortality; for it "cost these mourners more to redeem than their own souls, so that they must let that alone for ever." He turned from the intermediate state of second trial, as from the irrelevant page of some dark and monkish romance, unfit for a prison and the thoughts of a dying man. He heard the voice, "We shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." He knew that there was a mighty Power which, in that one moment, was able to change every body that had ever lived; that time was not required to fashion it unto glory; that to the dead there is time and trial no longer; that-in the grave no man shall G work. He thought of the aisles of the Redeemer; but unless HE was the atonement-the full atonement-the only atonement-even his altar was no place to flee unto. He thought of the saints and their manifold righteousness; but even among them "no man cared for his soul." He felt condemned, hopeless, and forsaken; yet was he not forsaken. He had scarcely breathed the wish that one friend might be permitted to attend him to the last-that he might not, until the fatal hour, be like one out of mind, and out of the sympathy and remembrance of the living when he heard a once dear voiceand looked upon a face never in its earliest bloom so beautiful,—and knew that it was his wife. CHAPTER XII. "HAST thou found me?" said the Roman Catholic; "hast thou found me in this tower of Siloam, to tell me that I am a sinner above all men that dwell in the religion of Luther? Art thou come to reproach my faith with my misfortunes, or to buy the widow's portion with a widow's tears? Be content: the moment of your dowry is at hand. You might have divided the substance with the household to-morrow by this time, had you tarried at home." "Oh! little do you know me," was the rapid but low reply; "little do you know me, if you can believe such things of my heart and its fruits. I come not to embitter this dark chapel with darker comparisons, nor to read homilies when life can be saved. I am come to deliver you from peril of death-to deliver or to die with you." "Say rather," he inter rupted her, "to acquire a romantic and interesting character in history-to emulate the matron memory of women who have loved their husbands so as to take up their chains and sit down in their cell whilst they escaped by flight. Poor dream! poor idle vanity! and by to-morrow it will be mingled with every market salutation, and every priest's sermon, and schoolboy's story-what the Protestant wife did in the prison of Wexford." "Be that as it may," said Emily, 46 your safety depends, not on the breath of their folly, but upon the will of Him who will hear the poor in spirit, whether he be Protestant or Roman Catholic, and deliver him out of his distress.' Your life hangs not on the love of a feeble woman, but upon the providence of Him who once sent his angel to his apostle in prison, and struck the chains from his hands, and led him through the iron gate of the city, which opened as though the King of Glory had gone out with the captive. If thou art saved, not unto me-not unto me, but unto Him be the praise." "Leave me to repose," rejoined Adrian. "We have lived alone-apart -as strangers; and now it is too late to love→→→ |