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dirt or water. His face was browned with walnut-tree leaves, and he carried a thorn stick in his hand. He reached his place of retreat in safety, and was lodged in a barn, and had straw for his bed.

By the kindness of friends he was conveyed to the house of a Mr. Lane, a Staffordshire magistrate, where he was hospitably entertained for a day and a night; and was then sent away on horseback with Miss Lane. A large reward had been offered for his apprehension; great caution was therefore required, in order that no one might suspect that he was the son of the late king. Miss Lane conveyed him to Bristol. Afterwards, Charles wandered through Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Sussex. He had many narrow escapes of being taken. At Lyme Regis he expected to have embarked in a vessel, which had been hired to convey him to France; but the captain refused to sail. From there he travelled to Brighton, and ultimately got on board a vessel which conveyed him to Normandy.

About nine years and six months after he thus fled from England, after the death of Oliver Cromwell, and when Richard Cromwell had renounced the Protectorate of England-Charles was recalled to occupy the throne. He then returned with great joy, and lived in all the pomp and luxury of royalty. Many of the great men who had taken a leading part against Charles the First were brought to trial and put to death. Charles the Second was a very wicked man; he had many wicked companions; gross immorality was encouraged in his palace; good men were persecuted during his reign; and the rights of conscience were trampled under foot.

Five years after Charles the Second became king, an awful pestilence broke out in London, and great multitudes died thereby. It is said that by the plague, in London, one hundred and thirty thousand persons died in one year. The following year there was a most dreadful fire in London, which destroyed thirteen thousand dwellinghouses, eighty-five churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, and many other public buildings. The value of the property con

sumed by this fire was computed to be seven millions pounds.

Charles the Second professed to be a Protestant King; but he was a Papist; and if the Protestant feeling had not been strong in the country, he would have re-established Popery. He died of apoplexy, after having reigned twentyfive years, and was in his dying moments attended by a Catholic priest, and by some of his wicked female companions.

"THE MAN THAT KILLED HIS NEIGHBOUR."

THE following very beautiful story is from a tract, of the above title, published by the Tract Society. We only extract the story, and refer our readers to the tract itself for the excellent reflections on the story, which are from the pen of the Rev. A. James.

It is interesting to observe how a man's moral character affects those with whom he is connected, and reaches to the animals under his care, and may be traced even in many of the creatures around him. Reuben Black was a torment in the neighbourhood where he resided. The very sight of him produced effects which may be likened to those said to follow a Hindoo magical tune, called Rang, which is supposed to bring on clouds, storms, and earthquakes. His wife had a sharp and uncomfortable look. His boys seemed to be in perpetual fear. The cows became startled as soon as he opened the barn-yard gates. The dog dropped his tail between his legs, and eyed him askance, as if to see what humour he was in. The cat looked wild, and had been known to rush straight up the chimney when he moved towards her. The description of a certain stage-horse was well suited to Reuben's nag-" His hide resembled an old hair-trunk." Continued whipping and kicking had made him so insensible that no amount of blows could quicken his pace, no cheering could change the dejected drooping of his head. All his natural language said, as plain as a horse could say it, that he was a most unhappy beast. Even the trees on Reuben's pre

mises had a neglected and desolate appearance. His fields were red with sorrel, or overrun with weeds. Every thing about him seemed hard and arid as his own countenance. Every day he cursed the town and the neighbourhood, because the people poisoned his dogs, and stoned his hens, and shot his cats. Continual lawsuits involved him in so much trouble and expense, that he had neither time nor money to spend on the improvement of his farm. Against Joe Smith, a poor labourer in the neighbourhood, he had brought three suits in succession. Joe said he had returned a spade he had borrowed, and Reuben swore he had not. He sued Joe, and recovered damages, for which he ordered the officer to seize his pig. Joe, in his wrath, called him an old swindler, and a curse to the neighbourhood. These remarks were soon repeated to Reuben. He brought an action for slander, and recovered very small damages. Provoked at the laugh this occasioned, he watched for Joe to pass by, and set his dog upon him, crying out furiously, "Call me an old swindler again, will you?" An evil spirit is more contagious than the plague. Joe went home and scolded his wife, boxed little Joe's ears, and kicked the cat; and not one of them knew what it was all for. A fortnight after, Reuben's dog was found dead from poison; whereupon he brought another action against Joe Smith, and not being able to prove him guilty of the charge of dog-killing, he took his revenge by poisoning a pet lamb belonging to Mrs. Smith. Thus feelings of ill-will were followed by misery and loss. Joe's temper grew more and more vindictive, and the love of talking over his troubles at the gin-shop increased upon him. Poor Mrs. Smith cried, and said it was all owing to Reuben Black, for a better-hearted man never lived than her Joe when she first married him. Such was the state of things when Simeon Green purchased the farm adjoining Reuben's. This had been much neglected, and had caught thistles and other weeds from the neighbouring fields. But Simeon was a diligent man, and one who commanded well his own temper, for he had learned of Him who is "meck and lowly in heart." He had been taught by the Holy Spirit

the evil of his own heart, and been led to a humble but sure trust in Christ for pardon and salvation; and, having this hope in him, he sought, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to purify himself even as God is pure, and to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he was called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing in love. Eph. iv. 1, 2. His steady perseverance and industry soon changed the aspect of things on the farm. River mud, autumn leaves, old bones, were all put in use to assist in producing fertility and beauty. The trees, hitherto overrun with moss and insects, soon looked clean and vigorous. Fields of grain waved where weeds had only grown before. Roses covered half the house with their abundant clusters. Even the rough rock, which formed the door-step was edged with golden moss. The sleek horse, feeding in clover, tossed his mane and neighed when his master came near, as much as to say, "The world is all the pleasanter for having you in it, Simeon Green!" The old cow, fondling her calf under the great walnut-tree, walked up to him with a serious friendly face, asking for a slice of beet-root, which he was wont to give her. Chanticleer, strutting about, with his troop of plump hens, and their downy little chickens, took no trouble to keep out of his way, but flapped his glossy wings, and crowed a welcome in his very face. When Simeon turned his steps homeward, the boys threw their caps, and ran shouting, "Father's coming!" and little Mary went todling up to him, with a flower ready to place in his button-hole. His wife was a woman of few words, but she sometimes said to her neighbours, with a quiet of kind of satisfaction, "Everybody loves my husband that knows him: they cannot help it."

Simeon Green's acquaintance knew that he was never engaged in a lawsuit in his life, but they predicted that he would find it impossible to avoid it now. They told him his next neighbour was determined to quarrel with people, whether they would or not; that he was like John Lilburne, of whom it was happily said, "If the world were emptied of every person but himself, Lilburne would still quarrel with John, and John with Lilburne." "Is that his

character?" said Simeon. "If he exercise it upon me, I will soon kill him." In every neighbourhood there are individuals who like to foment disputes, not from any definite intention of malice or mischief, but merely because it makes a little ripple of excitement in the dull stream of life. Such people were not slow in repeating Simeon Green's remark about his wrangling neighbour. "Kill me, will he?" exclaimed Reuben. He said no more; but his tightly compressed mouth had such a significant expression that his dog slunk from him in alarm. That very night Reuben turned his horse into the highway, in hopes he would commit some depredation on neighbour Green's premises. But Joe Smith, sceing the animal at large, let down the bars of Reuben's own corn-field, and the poor beast walked in, and feasted as he had not done for many a year. It would have been a great satisfaction to Reuben if he could have brought a suit against his horse; but, as it was, he was obliged to content himself with beating him.

His next exploit was to shoot Mary Green's handsome cock, because he stood on the stone wall and crowed, in the ignorant joy of his heart, a few inches beyond the frontier line that bounded the contiguous farms. Simeon said he was sorry for the poor bird, and sorry because his wife and children liked the pretty creature; but otherwise it was no great matter. He had been intending to build a poultry-yard with a good high fence, that his hens might not annoy his neighbours; and now he was admonished to make haste to do it; he would build them a snug warm house to roost in; they should have plenty of gravel and oats, and room to walk back and forth, and crow and cackle to their hearts' content; there they could enjoy themselves, and be out of harms way. But Reuben Black had a degree of ingenuity and perseverance which might have produced great results for mankind, had those qualities been devoted to some more noble purpose than provoking quarrels. A pear-tree in his garden very improperly stretched an arm a little over Simeon Green's premises; it happened that the overhanging bough bore more abundant fruit, and glowed with a richer hue than the other boughs. One day

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