Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850.

"Dear papa, what a question."

"Did you ever know me, I say, to do one thoroughly generous, benevolent action, without regard to self in the slightest degree – such as I call – such as alone merits the name of a really good action? If you ever did, I can't easily forgive you."

"Dearest papa! what have I done? Did I ever say? Did I ever hint? Dear papa!" and she looked ready to cry.

"Did you ever? – no – I know you never did."

"Don't say so – don't think so badly of me, papa."

"I'm not thinking badly of you, child – God forbid; for well he knows if I ever did one really generous, benevolent action – one without reference to self… Heaven bless thee, thou dearest thing, thy life seems only made up of such actions; but I say again, did you ever? – No; I know you never did – and I'll tell you why I know it."

"Ah, papa! What can you mean?"

"Because," he went on without seeming to mind her emotion, "because, I observe, that whenever you want to persuade other people – your mother, or Edgar, or Lettice, for instance – to do something you've set your heart upon, you hussy – you always enlarge upon the happiness it will give to other people; but when you're trying to come round me, you only talk of how comfortable it will make myself."

She could only utter a faint exclamation. The accusation, if accusation it may be called, was not to be denied.

"Now, Catherine, since this young man came into the house, what with his conversation, he's a most gentlemanlike, agreeable converser as ever I met with … and the prayers, and the chapters, and such like; and, in short, a certain new tone of thought altogether; there has been gradually something new growing up in me. I have at times begun to think back upon my life, and to recollect what a nasty, mean, greedy, calculating, selfish fellow I've been throughout, never troubling myself about other people's comforts, or so on, but going on as if every body was only created to promote mine; and I'd have been glad, Catherine, before I went into my grave, which won't be long too – I own to you I would have been glad, for once in my life to have done a purely good, unselfish thing – made a sacrifice, as you pious folk call it; and, therefore, to own the truth, I have been very sorry, and could not help feeling disappointed, as here you've sat prosing this half hour and more, showing me what a great deal I was to get by this notable arrangement of yours."

"Papa! – dearest – dear papa!"

"Be quiet – I have indeed – I'd have liked to have had something to give up, instead of its being, as I verily believe it is, the most charmingly delightful scheme for your mother and me that ever was hit upon – for that man is the happiness of my life – my body's comfort and my soul's health – and Lettice is more like a dear child than any thing else to that poor mother of yours, whom I have not, perhaps, been so considerate of as I ought; and to have them thus fixed together in this house, is better luck than could be conceived, such as scarcely ever happens in this world to any body; and far better than I – almost better than your poor mother deserves. So you're a darling little courageous creature for planning it, when I'll be bound they all thought you a fool, so have it all your own way, and give your old father a kiss," which she joyfully did. "And now you go to Mr. St. Leger, and tell him from me, that if he consents to this scheme I shall esteem it the greatest favor and satisfaction that was ever conferred upon me in my life. I know what it is to be thus trusted by such a man – I know the confidence on his part which such an arrangement implies – and you may add, that if he will only extend to me his usual indulgence for human folly and frailty, I will do every thing that is in the power of an ill-tempered, good-for-nothing, selfish old fellow, to prevent him repenting his bargain. And tell Lettice she's a darling, excellent creature; and I have thought so long, though I have said little about it, and she has been like an angel of love and peace in our family; and if she will only go on as she has done, she will make us all as happy as the day is long; and tell your mother I wish I did not enjoy the thoughts of this so much myself, that I might have the pleasure of making an offering of my satisfaction to her."

"Dear! – dear beloved papa!"

"Stop a little, child; Edgar and you will have to pay the piper, you know."

"Oh, gladly! thankfully!"

"Because you see, my dear, if these two people marry and live with us, and become as children, I must treat them, in a manner, as children, and make a little codicil to my will; and you and Edgar will be something the worse for it. But, bless you, child, there's enough for all."

"And bless you, my honored, generous father, for thinking so; that there is. Edgar and I only earnestly desired this; thank you, thank you, ten thousand times."

I will only detain you for a few moments longer, to tell you that the scheme was carried into execution, and fully answered the hopes of the generous contriver.

Mr. St. Leger found, in the attachment of Lettice, a compensation for the cruel sufferings of his past life; and, under her tender and assiduous care, he speedily recovered his health and his powers of usefulness. She, while performing a woman's best and happiest part, that of proving the true happiness of an admirable and a superior man, contrived likewise to fulfill all her other duties in the most complete and exemplary manner.

It would be difficult to say, whether the happiness she felt or conferred was the greater.

Exceptional people may venture upon exceptional measures. Those who are a great deal more sweet tempered, and loving, and good, and reasonable than others, may venture to seek happiness in ways that the generality would be mad to attempt.

And sensible, well-principled, right-tempered human beings, one may take into close family intimacy, and discard that reserve, and those arm's-length proceedings, which people's faults, in too many cases, render prudent and necessary.

It was because the subjects of Catherine's schemes were so excellent, that the object of them was so wise.

I have now told you how perfectly they answered upon trial; and I am only sorry that the world contains so very few with whom one could venture to make the same experiment.

For a very large portion of possible happiness is thrown away, because people are not fit to take part in plans of this nature – plans wherein one shall give what he has, to receive back what he wants; and thus the true social communism be established.

[From the Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, Vol. II., unpublished.]

RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. CHALMERS

HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE IN THE PULPIT

The first sermon which Mr. Chalmers preached in Glasgow was delivered before the Society of the Sons of the Clergy, on Thursday the 30th day of March, 1815, a few months after his appointment, and a few months previous to his admission as minister of the Tron Church. The recent excitement of the canvass, the rumors strange and various, which crossing the breadth of Scotland were circulating in all quarters through the city, the quickened curiosity of opponents, the large but somewhat tremulous expectation of friends, drew together a vast multitude to hear him. Among the crowd which filled the church was a young Oxford student, himself the son of a Scottish minister, who had been surprised by hearing Mr. Chalmers's work on the Evidences of Christianity mentioned with high approval, within the walls of an English University, shortly after the date of its publication. The keen dark eye of the youthful auditor fixed itself in searching scrutiny upon the preacher, and a few years later his graceful and graphic pen drew the following sketch:

"I was a good deal surprised and perplexed with the first glimpse I obtained of his countenance, for the light that streamed faintly upon it for the moment did not reveal any thing like that general outline of feature and visage for which my fancy had by some strange working of presentiment, prepared me. By-and-by, however, the light became stronger, and I was enabled to study the minutiae of his face pretty leisurely, while he leaned forward and read aloud the words of the Psalm, for that is always done in Scotland, not by the clerk, but the clergyman himself. At first sight, no doubt, his face is a coarse one, but a mysterious kind of meaning breathes from every part of it, that such as have eyes to see cannot be long without discovering. It is very pale, and the large, half-closed eyelids have a certain drooping melancholy weight about them, which interested me very much. I understood not why. The lips, too, are singularly pensive in their mode of falling down at the sides, although there is no want of richness and vigor in their central fullness of curve. The upper lip, from the nose downward, is separated by a very deep line, which gives a sort of leonine firmness of expression to all the lower part of the face. The cheeks are square and strong, in texture like pieces of marble, with the cheek-bones very broad and prominent. The eyes themselves are light in color, and have a strange dreamy heaviness, that conveys any idea rather than that of dullness, but which contrasts in a wonderful manner with the dazzling watery glare they exhibit when expanded in their sockets, and illuminated into all their flame and fervor in some moment of high entranced enthusiasm. But the shape of the forehead is, perhaps, the most singular part of the whole visage; and, indeed, it presents a mixture so very singular, of forms commonly exhibited only in the widest separation, that it is no wonder I should have required some little time to comprehend the meaning of it. In the first place, it is without exception the most marked mathematical forehead I ever met with – being far wider across the eyebrows than either Mr. Playfair's or Mr. Leslie's – and having the eyebrows themselves lifted up at their exterior ends quite out of the usual line, a peculiarity which Spurzheim had remarked in the countenances of almost all the great mathematical or calculating geniuses – such, for example, if I rightly remember, as Sir Isaac Newton himself, Kaestener, Euler, and many others. Immediately above the extraordinary breadth of this region, which, in the heads of most mathematical persons, is surmounted by no fine points of organization whatever, immediately above this, in the forehead, there is an arch of imagination, carrying out the summit boldly and roundly, in a style to which the heads of very few poets present any thing comparable, while over this again there is a grand apex of high and solemn veneration and love, such as might have graced the bust of Plato himself, and such as in living men I had never beheld equaled in any but the majestic head of Canova. The whole is edged with a few crisp dark locks, which stand forth boldly, and afford a fine relief to the death-like paleness of those massive temples… Of all human compositions there is none surely which loses so much as a sermon does when it is made to address itself to the eye of a solitary student in his closet and not to the thrilling ears of a mighty mingled congregation, through the very voice which nature has enriched with notes more expressive than words can ever be of the meanings and feelings of its author. Neither, perhaps, did the world ever possess any orator whose minutest peculiarities of gesture and voice have more power in increasing the effect of what he says – whose delivery, in other words, is the first, and the second, and the third excellence of his oratory – more truly than is that of Dr. Chalmers. And yet were the spirit of the man less gifted than it is, there is no question these, his lesser peculiarities, would never have been numbered among his points of excellence. His voice is neither strong nor melodious, his gestures are neither easy nor graceful; but, on the contrary, extremely rude and awkward; his pronunciation is not only broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting almost every word he utters into some barbarous novelty, which, had his hearer leisure to think of such things, might be productive of an effect at once ludicrous and offensive in a singular degree. But, of a truth, these are things which no listener can attend to while this great preacher stands before him armed with all the weapons of the most commanding eloquence, and swaying all around him with its imperial rule. At first, indeed, there is nothing to make one suspect what riches are in store. He commences in a low, drawling key, which has not even the merit of being solemn, and advances from sentence to sentence, and from paragraph to paragraph, while you seek in vain to catch a single echo that gives promise of that which is to come. There is, on the contrary, an appearance of constraint about him that affects and distresses you. You are afraid that his breast is weak, and that even the slight exertion he makes may be too much for it. But then, with what tenfold richness does this dim preliminary curtain make the glories of his eloquence to shine forth, when the heated spirit at length shakes from it its chill confining fetters, and bursts out elate and rejoicing in the full splendor of its disimprisoned wings… I have heard many men deliver sermons far better arranged in regard to argument, and have heard very many deliver sermons far more uniform in elegance both of conception and of style; but most unquestionably, I have never heard, either in England or Scotland, or in any other country, any preacher whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect so strong and irresistible as his."[21 - Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, 2d edit, vol. iii pp 267-273.]

First Delivery Of The Astronomical Discourses. – At the time of Dr. Chalmers's settlement in Glasgow it was the custom that the clergymen of the city should preach in rotation on Thursday in the Tron Church, a duty which, as their number was then but eight, returned to each within an interval of two months. On Thursday, the 23d of November, 1815, this week-day service devolved on Dr. Chalmers. The entire novelty of the discourse delivered upon this occasion, and the promise held out by the preacher that a series of similar discourses was to follow, excited the liveliest interest, not in his own congregation alone, but throughout the whole community. He had presented to his hearers a sketch of the recent discoveries of astronomy – distinct in outline, and drawn with all the ease of one who was himself a master in the science, yet gorgeously magnificent in many of its details, displaying, amid "the brilliant glow of a blazing eloquence,"[22 - Foster.] the sublime poetry of the heavens. In his subsequent discourses Dr. Chalmers proposed to discuss the argument or rather prejudice against the Christian Revelation which grounds itself on the vastness and variety of those unnumbered worlds which lie scattered over the immeasurable fields of space. This discussion occupied all the Thursday services allotted to him during the year 1816. The spectacle which presented itself in the Trongate upon the day of the delivery of each new astronomical discourse, was a most singular one. Long ere the bell began to toll, a stream of people might be seen pouring through the passage which led into the Tron Church. Across the street, and immediately opposite to this passage, was the old reading-room, where all the Glasgow merchants met. So soon, however, as the gathering quickening stream upon the opposite side of the street gave the accustomed warning, out flowed the occupants of the coffee-room; the pages of the Herald or the Courier were for a while forsaken, and during two of the best business hours of the day the old reading-room wore a strange aspect of desolation. The busiest merchants of the city were wont, indeed, upon those memorable days to leave their desks, and kind masters allowed their clerks and apprentices to follow their example. Out of the very heart of the great tumult an hour or two stood redeemed for the highest exercises of the spirit; and the low traffic of earth forgotten, heaven and its high economy and its human sympathies and eternal interests, engrossed the mind at least and the fancy of congregated thousands.

In January, 1817, this series of discourses was announced as ready for publication. It had generally been a matter of so much commercial risk to issue a volume of sermons from the press, that recourse had been often had in such cases to publication by subscription. Dr. Chalmers's publisher, Mr. Smith, had hinted that perhaps this method ought in this instance also to be tried. "It is far more agreeable to my feelings," Dr. Chalmers wrote to him a few days before the day of publication, "that the book should be introduced to the general market, and sell on the public estimation of it, than that the neighborhood here should be plied in all the shops with subscription papers, and as much as possible wrung out of their partialities for the author." Neither author nor publisher had at this time the least idea of the extraordinary success which was awaiting their forthcoming volume. It was published on the 28th of January, 1817. In ten weeks 6000 copies had been disposed of, the demand showing no symptom of decline. Nine editions were called for within a year, and nearly 20,000 copies were in circulation. Never previously, nor ever since, has any volume of sermons met with such immediate and general acceptance. The "Tales of my Landlord" had a month's start in the date of publication, and even with such a competitor it ran an almost equal race. Not a few curious observers were struck with the novel competition, and watched with lively curiosity how the great Scottish preacher and the great Scottish novelist kept for a whole year so nearly abreast of one another. It was, besides, the first volume of Sermons which fairly broke the lines which had separated too long the literary from the religious public. Its secondary merits won audience for it in quarters where evangelical Christianity was nauseated and despised. It disarmed even the keen hostility of Hazlitt, and kept him for a whole forenoon spell-bound beneath its power. "These sermons," he says, "ran like wild-fire through the country, were the darlings of watering-places, were laid in the windows of inns, and were to be met with in all places of public resort… We remember finding the volume in the orchard of the inn at Burford Bridge, near Boxhill, and passing a whole and very delightful morning in reading it without quitting the shade of an apple tree." The attractive volume stole an hour or two from the occupations of the greatest statesman and orator of the day. "Canning," says Sir James Mackintosh, "told me that he was entirely converted to admiration of Chalmers; so is Bobus, whose conversion is thought the greatest proof of victory. Canning says there are most magnificent passages in his 'Astronomical Sermons."[23 - Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 343. The person known among his particular friends by the name of "Bobus" was Robert Smith, who had held the office of Advocate-General in Bengal, and who is not to be confounded with his namesake, the brother of the Rev. Sydney Smith.] Four years before this time, through the pages of the "Edinburgh Christian Instructor," Dr. Chalmers had said, "Men of tasteful and cultivated literature are repelled from theology at the very outset by the unseemly garb in which she is presented to them. If there be room for the display of eloquence in urgent and pathetic exhortation, in masterly discussion, in elevating greatness of conception, does not theology embrace all these, and will not the language that is clearly and appropriately expressive of them possess many of the constituents and varieties of good writing? If theology, then, can command such an advantage, on what principle should it be kept back from her?.. In the subject itself there is a grandeur which it were vain to look for in the ordinary themes of eloquence or poetry. Let writers arise, then, to do it justice. Let them be all things to all men, that they may gain some; and if a single proselyte can be thereby drawn from the ranks of literature, let all the embellishments of genius and fancy be thrown around the subject. One man has already done much. Others are rising around him, and with the advantage of a higher subject, they will in time rival the unchristian moralists of the day, and overmatch them." He was one of the first to answer to his own call, to fulfill his own prediction. No single writer of our age has done so much to present the truths of Christianity in new forms, and to invest them with all the attractions of a fascinating eloquence; nor could a single volume be named which has done more than this very volume of "Astronomical Discourses" to soften and subdue those prejudices which the infidelity of natural science engenders.

Effect of his Eloquence. – Sermon on Dissipation in Large Cities. – Dr. Chalmers returned to Glasgow on Saturday, the 27th December, and on the following day found a prodigious crowd awaiting his appearance in the Tron Church pulpit. His popularity as a preacher was now at its very highest summit, and judging merely by the amount of physical energy displayed by the preacher, and by the palpable and visible effects produced upon his hearers, we conclude that it was about this period, and within the walls of the Tron Church, that by far the most wonderful exhibitions of his power as a pulpit orator were witnessed. "The Tron Church contains, if I mistake not," says the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, who, as frequently as he could, was a hearer in it, "about 1400 hearers, according to the ordinary allowance of seat-room; when crowded of course proportionally more. And, though I can not attempt any pictorial sketch of the place, I may, in a sentence or two, present you with a few touches of the scene which I have, more than once or twice, witnessed within its walls; not that it was at all peculiar, for it resembled every other scene where the doctor in those days, when his eloquence was in the prime of its vehemence and splendor, was called to preach. There was one particular, indeed, which rendered such a scene, in a city like Glasgow, peculiarly striking. I refer to the time of it. To see a place of worship, of the size mentioned, crammed above and below, on a Thursday forenoon, during the busiest hours of the day, with fifteen or sixteen hundred hearers, and these of all descriptions of persons, in all descriptions of professional occupation, the busiest as well as those who had most leisure on their hands, those who had least to spare taking care so to arrange their business engagements previously as to make time for the purpose, all pouring in through the wide entrance at the side of the Tron steeple, half an hour before the time of service, to secure a seat, or content if too late for this to occupy, as many did, standing room – this was, indeed, a novel and strange sight. Nor was it once merely, or twice, but month after month the day was calculated when his turn to preach again was to come round, and anticipated, with even impatient longing, by multitudes.

"Suppose the congregation thus assembled – pews filled with sitters, and aisles, to a great extent, with standers. They wait in eager expectation. The preacher appears. The devotional exercises of praise and prayer having been gone through with unaffected simplicity and earnestness, the entire assembly set themselves for the treat, with feelings very diverse in kind, but all eager and intent. There is a hush of dead silence. The text is announced, and he begins. Every countenance is up – every eye bent, with fixed intentness, on the speaker. As he kindles the interest grows. Every breath is held – every cough is suppressed – every fidgety movement is settled – every one, riveted himself by the spell of the impassioned and entrancing eloquence, knows how sensitively his neighbor will resent the very slightest disturbance. Then, by-and-by, there is a pause. The speaker stops – to gather breath – to wipe his forehead – to adjust his gown, and purposely too, and wisely, to give the audience, as well as himself, a moment or two of relaxation. The moment is embraced – there is free breathing – suppressed coughs get vent – postures are changed – there is a universal stir, as of persons who could not have endured the constraint much longer – the preacher bends forward – his hand is raised – all is again hushed. The same stillness and strain of unrelaxed attention is repeated, more intent still, it may be, than before, as the interest of the subject and of the speaker advance. And so, for perhaps four or five times in the course of a sermon, there is the relaxation and the 'at it again' till the final winding up.

"And then, the moment the last word was uttered, and followed by the – 'let us pray,' there was a scene for which no excuse or palliation can be pleaded but the fact of its having been to many a matter of difficulty, in the morning of a week-day, to accomplish the abstraction of even so much of their time from business – the closing prayer completely drowned by the hurried rush of large numbers from the aisles and pews to the door; an unseemly scene, without doubt, as if so many had come to the house of God not to worship, but simply to enjoy the fascination of human eloquence. Even this much it was a great thing for eloquence to accomplish. And how diversified soever the motives which drew so many together, and the emotions awakened and impressions produced by what was heard – though, in the terms of the text of one of his most overpoweringly stirring and faithful appeals, he was to not a few 'as one that had a pleasant voice and could play well on an instrument,' yet there is abundant proof that, in the highest sense, 'his labor was not in vain in the Lord;' that the truths which, with so much fearless fidelity and impassioned earnestness, he delivered, went in many instances farther than the ear, or even the intellect – that they reached the heart, and, by the power of the Spirit, turned it to God."

"On Thursday, the 12th February, 1818," I now quote from a manuscript of the Rev. Mr. Fraser, minister of Kilchrennan, "Dr. Chalmers preached in the Tron Church before the Directors of the Magdalene Asylum. The sermon delivered on this occasion was that 'On the Dissipation of Large Cities.' Long before the service commenced every seat and passage was crowded to excess, with the exception of the front pew of the gallery, which was reserved for the magistrates. A vast number of students deserted their classes at the University and were present. This was very particularly the case in regard to the Moral Philosophy Class, which I attended that session, as appeared on the following day when the list of absentees was given in by the person who had called the catalogue, and at the same time a petition from several of themselves was handed in to the professor, praying for a remission of the fine for non-attendance, on the ground that they had been hearing Dr. Chalmers. The doctor's manner during the whole delivery of that magnificent discourse was strikingly animated, while the enthusiasm and energy which he threw into some of its bursts rendered them quite overpowering. One expression which he used, together with his action, his look, and the very tones of his voice when it came forth, made a most vivid and indelible impression upon my memory: 'We, at the same time,' he said, 'have our eye perfectly open to that great external improvement which has taken place, of late years, in the manners of society. There is not the same grossness of conversation. There is not the same impatience for the withdrawment of him who, asked to grace the outset of an assembled party, is compelled, at a certain step in the process of conviviality, by the obligations of professional decency, to retire from it. There is not so frequent an exaction of this as one of the established proprieties of social or of fashionable life. And if such an exaction was ever laid by the omnipotence of custom on a minister of Christianity, it is such an exaction as ought never, never to be complied with. It is not for him to lend the sanction of his presence to a meeting with which he could not sit to its final termination. It is not for him to stand associated, for a single hour, with an assemblage of men who begin with hypocrisy, and end with downright blackguardism. It is not for him to watch the progress of the coming ribaldry, and to hit the well selected moment when talk and turbulence and boisterous merriment are on the eve of bursting forth upon the company, and carrying them forward to the full acme and uproar of their enjoyment. It is quite in vain to say, that he has only sanctioned one part of such an entertainment. He has as good as given his connivance to the whole of it, and left behind him a discharge in full of all its abominations; and, therefore, be they who they may, whether they rank among the proudest aristocracy of our land, or are charioted in splendor along, as the wealthiest of our citizens, or flounce in the robes of magistracy, it is his part to keep as purely and indignantly aloof from such society as this, as he would from the vilest and most debasing associations of profligacy.'

"The words which I have underlined do not appear in the sermon as printed. While uttering them, which he did with peculiar emphasis, accompanying them with a flash from his eye and a stamp of his foot, he threw his right arm with clenched hand right across the book-board, and brandished it full in the face of the Town Council, sitting in array and in state before him. Many eyes were in a moment directed toward the magistrates. The words evidently fell upon them like a thunderbolt, and seemed to startle like an electric shock the whole audience."

Another interesting memorial of this sermon is supplied by Dr. Wardlaw, who was present at its delivery. "The eloquence of that discourse was absolutely overpowering. The subject was one eminently fitted to awaken and summon to their utmost energy all his extraordinary powers; especially when, after having cleared his ground by a luminously scriptural exhibition of that supreme authority by which the evils he was about to portray were interdicted, in contradistinction to the prevailing maxims and practices of a worldly morality, he came forward to the announcement and illustration of his main subject – 'the origin, the progress, and the effects of a life of dissipation.' His moral portraitures were so graphically and vividly delineated – his warnings and entreaties, especially to youth, so impassioned and earnest – his admonitions so faithful, and his denunciations so fearless and so fearful – and his exhortations to preventive and remedial appliances so pointed and so urgent to all among his auditors who had either the charge of youth, or the supervision of dependents! It was thrilling, overwhelming. His whole soul seemed in every utterance. Although saying to myself all the while, 'Oh! that this were in the hands of every father, and master, and guardian, and young man in the land!' I yet could not spare an eye from the preacher to mark how his appeal was telling upon others. The breathless, the appalling silence told me of that. Any person who reads that discourse, and who had the privilege of listening to Dr. Chalmers during the prime and freshness of his public eloquence, will readily imagine the effect of some passages in it, when delivered with even more than the preacher's characteristic vehemence."

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

THE OLD MAN'S BEQUEST; A STORY OF GOLD

Through the ornamental grounds of a handsome country residence, at a little distance from a large town in Ireland, a man of about fifty years of age was walking, with a bent head, and the impress of sorrow on his face.

"Och, yer honor, give me one sixpence, or one penny, for God's sake," cried a voice from the other side of a fancy paling which separated the grounds in that quarter from a thoroughfare. "For heaven's sake, Mr. Lawson, help me as ye helped me before. I know you've the heart and hand to do it."

The person addressed as Mr. Lawson looked up and saw a woman whom he knew to be in most destitute circumstances, burdened with a large and sickly family, whom she had struggled to support until her own health was ruined.

"I have no money – not one farthing," answered John Lawson.

"No money!" reiterated the woman in surprise; "isn't it all yours, then? isn't this garden yours, and that house, and all the grand things that are in it yours? ay, and grand things they are – them pictures, and them bright shinin' things in that drawing-room of yours and sure you deserve them well, and may God preserve them long to you, for riches hasn't hardened your heart, though there's many a one, and heaven knows the gold turns their feelin's to iron."

"It all belongs to my son, Henry Lawson, and Mrs. Lawson, and their children – it is all theirs;" he sighed heavily, and deep emotion was visible in every lineament of his thin and wrinkled face.

The poor woman raised her bloodshot eyes to his face, as if she was puzzled by his words. She saw that he was suffering, and with intuitive delicacy, she desisted from pressing her wants, though her need was great.

"Well, well, yer honor, many's the good penny ye have given me and the childer, and maybe the next time I see you you'll have more change."

She was turning sadly away, when John Lawson requested her to remain, and he made inquiries into the state of her family; the report he heard seemed to touch him even to the forgetfulness of his own sorrows; he bade her stop for a few moments and he would give her some relief.

He walked rapidly toward the house and proceeded to the drawing-room. It was a large and airy apartment, and furnished with evident profusion: the sunlight of the bright summer day, admitted partially through the amply-draperied windows, lighted up a variety of sparkling gilding in picture-frames, and vases, and mirrors, and cornices; but John Lawson looked round on the gay scene with a kind of shudder; he had neither gold, silver, nor even copper in his pocket, or in his possession.