ponder what he said to them in the course of conversation afterwards.

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'Any word lately of Holton, Brice?" asked one of the

party.

Well, yes," was the reply. "I had a letter from him about six weeks ago. He is still at Crozier's, in Liverpool, and he seems to say he is doing very well. But what do you think? He says he has turned over a new leaf, and become a Christian."

"A Christian!" said Mr. Prince, whose question had elicited this information; "why, we're all Christians, are we not? We were born in a Christian country, and baptized, and all that; if we are not Christians, what are we? At all events, we are not heathens."

'Well, perhaps we are," answered Brice; "but he means, I fancy, a good deal more than that. I suppose he means that he has become very religious, and reads good books, and goes regularly to church and to prayer-meetings, and such like. I confess it rather surprised me."

"I don't think," said another of the party, Mr. Cochrane, "that he's any better to be liked for that. I've seen and heard a good deal of your extra religious people, and I don't think they are any better than other people; many of them are even worse."

The opinion thus expressed was received with approval by most of the young men ; but, glancing round from behind his book, Mr. Senior thought that two or three of them looked scarcely satisfied with it, and as though, if they had not lacked courage, they would have said something at least in qualification of it.

"I think I see how it is," said he to himself. "At all events they know better, and if I speak I shall have their consciences on my side; but whether or not, I shall be unfaithful to Christ if I suffer such statements to pass unquestioned." So, lifting up a silent prayer for direction from heaven, he resolved to speak.

"You seem to have a very low opinion of Christians, sir,” said he, addressing Mr. Cochrane, "and to deem it a reason for special distrust if a man becomes decidedly religious. May I ask if all the religious people you have met with or heard of are such as you have described ?"

"Well," replied Mr. Cochrane, "I would hardly like to say that; and I must admit that I know religious people of whom I never heard any harm; but I have heard of

many bad things done by men who made large professions of religion. Just now, everybody in B is talking of the most dishonourable failure that has happened for years; and the man was a great professor, and gave lots of money to religious objects, and had ministers and that sort of people always at his house. He was a town-councillor, and a leading member of the Chamber of Commerce."

"I was deeply grieved to hear of Mr.'s failure," said Mr. Senior. "I read about it in the newspaper; and I regretted much to find that it not only involved many in great loss, but that it cast great discredit on religion. May I ask for what your Chamber of Commerce was established? I am aware that it exercises a watchful supervision over our commercial relations with other countries, especially as they affect the B-trade; but does it not also take up questions of commercial morality?-and has it not been specially severe in this very case?"

Mr. Cochrane admitted that Mr. Senior was right. 66 Then, may I ask you," resumed Mr. Senior, "if it would be a fair thing for me to say that the members of the BChamber of Commerce ought all to be deemed dishonourable men because Mr., who was one of its leading officers, has done the dishonest things of which we have been speaking? Or what would you think if, hearing that a young merchant had joined the Chamber, I were to say, 'A bad sign that. I thought very well of him before, but now I've lost all confidence in him?'"

The young gentlemen all saw at once the drift of Mr. Senior's argument, and every eye was turned on Mr. Cochrane, waiting his reply. It was rather a home-thrust, though Mr. Senior was unaware of it; for, singularly enough, Mr. Cochrane was the very last member who had been admitted to the Chamber.

"Well, sir," he replied, slowly, and with a somewhat conscious smile, "I must admit that it would be scarcely fair of you to argue in that way; but you see the cases are altogether different."

"The only difference appears to be this," said Mr. Senior, "that the one is religion and the other business."

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"But," interposed Mr. Brice, there are some other differences. For one thing, religious people make such large professions; and, for another, there are so many who come so far short of what they profess."

"I should like to know," replied Mr. Senior, "whether

they make larger professions of religious principle than commercial men who are not religious do of rectitude and honour in matters of business; and I should like to know further, whether religious men come short of what they profess in greater numbers than business men do of their professions of honesty and uprightness? If not, and if you give up your faith in religion and religious men, because some are inconsistent, you must give up your faith in all commercial probity and in all business men, because some are knaves."

No one seemed to have any reply to make to this, and for a few moments there was a dead silence.

66

"I have another thing to ask," resumed Mr. Senior. "Were all the professors of religion you ever knew such as you have described? Have none of you, gentlemen, met with Christians of a very different order? I have. I could give you the names of men, belonging to different churches, who are fighting a hard battle for life, some behind the counter, some as merchants, and who I believe would sooner sacrifice everything they have than do what they believe to be wrong. It has happened to me, too, to spend many years in India, and I met there with military men-and you all know that there are special temptations in the army-who have won by their Christian consistency the respect, not only of people who met them only now and then, but of their brother officers and of their soldiers, who saw them every day. I knew Havelock."

"The gentleman is quite right," said Mr. Potter, who had hitherto sat perfectly silent. "I have known some who were better even than they professed to be."

The young man who said this had good reason for saying it. His father and mother, who were both dead, had set him an example which he had scarcely followed as he should have done; and besides, they had in their circle of friends many whom he held in all but equal respect.

"A short time since," said Mr. Senior, "I had occasion to consult an eminent physician. I saw at once that he understood my case thoroughly, and by-and-by it came out that he had suffered from the same complaint with myself, and that he was liable to its frequent recurrence. He gave me minute directions both as to what I should do and what I should avoid; and I began to follow them at once, and found decided benefit from doing so. About a week after I had consulted him I met him at dinner in the house of a

friend, and there I saw him doing the very thing he had forbidden me to do. Would it have been wise in me, seeing his practice was so entirely at variance with his prescriptions, to resolve that I would follow them no longer? So, though all who profess to regulate their lives according to the rules of God's word were found to be habitual transgressors of it, that would scarcely disprove the Bible, or render it wise for any man to set it aside."

"Well, sir," said Mr. Brice, "these things are, after all, very much matters of opinion and taste. For my part, I could never see what better people were for being so very religious. They cut themselves off from a great deal, and I don't find that they get anything to compensate."

"I suppose, sir,” replied Mr. Senior, "that you believe the Bible to be true?"

Oh, of course; I don't mean to dispute that."

Then, if the Bible be true, the Christian is, and must be a great deal better than anybody else. For one thing, every sinner is exposed to everlasting condemnation and death; but, believing in Jesus, the Christian is forgiven. The heart itself is so changed by God's Holy Spirit, that there is produced in it an earnest desire to be and to do whatever is right; and that makes a wonderful difference in a man's life. I have seen Christian people in trouble, and I am sure of this, that none else are so calm and cheerful in the midst of trial as they are. I have seen Christians die, and I have seen men die who are not Christians; and whilst I have gone many a time from the death-bed of the Christian saying, 'Let me die the death of the righteous,' I never went from the death-bed of a man who was not a Christian with any desire to die like him. Now I am as certain as that I live that there awaits the Christian beyond the grave, instead of misery and despair, a blessedness which is inconceivable and everlasting."

Just then the long, shrill railway whistle announced that their journey was almost ended. So deeply had they all been interested in the conversation, of which we have endeavoured to give a brief epitome, that they were surprised to find that the time had passed so rapidly. At parting the young gentlemen shook hands cordially with Mr. Senior, and some of them expressed a hope that they might meet again.

I HAVE lived, ever since I was a little child, at High Ashworth. I'm getting an old woman now, and I forget many things that happened last month or even last week; but sixty years ago is as clear to me as the faces of the people that pass up and down the street. Ay, but when I was a girl we had no close street before our house; High Ashworth was but a village then, with one church, four or five shops, and a public-house where they took in the county paper, to let us know what was going on in the world. house, this very same that I live in now, stood in a leafy

AUGUST, 1867.

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