His appearance was on the whole prepossessing; but there was something in the eye that marked consciousness of guilt: he could not look me in the face. I know not whether he be now living, but you shall hear his story, as I received it from himself.

His mother was of good family. She was still a girl at a boarding school, when she became an object of attention to a man of property, who cruelly deceived and deserted her. The man, he told me, was a nobleman; but I have some doubts on the subject: for, though often pressed, he would never communicate to me the name. And, indeed, I confess that I am not one of those who consider vice to be more prevalent among our peers than our peasants; nor though I do not regard a coronet as a test of moral excellence, do I attribute every kind of profligacy and immorality to its possessor. But I heartily wish that religious principles were more deeply impressed upon all boys and girls by their tutors and governesses: were that done, we should at least find fewer men so wicked as to seduce, and the voice of seduction would more frequently fail of success. Be the man, however, peer or commoner, the poor girl was disowned by her friends, lived miserable until her child was born, and soon after died in despair, not knowing, or not finding the way of repentance; nor having the courage to seek consolation where alone it is to be found.

The father took charge of the child, or rather he entrusted his son to nurses and teachers, who paid as much attention as could reasonably be expected, where no parental eye watched the progress of the infant, or the deficiencies of the instruction given. In time the boy had received what was called an education, and qualified with a certain quantity of medical knowledge, was sent as a surgeon to join a regiment serving in India.

I know little of his conduct in India, nor do I recollect the reason which he gave for quitting his regiment; but, whatever it was, he came to London with letters of recommendation, and some money in his pocket. Here, wholly unprepared to resist temptation, he became dissipated, neglected all who might have been of service to him, keeping back the letters which he brought with him, until he was ashamed to produce them at all: he exhausted every farthing, incurred great debts, and was as miserable as man could be who saw no hope of recovering the ground which he had lost, and felt himself completely ruined in character as well as fortune.

A violent illness at length seized him, and he was conveyed in almost a hopeless state to a hospital. The surgeon who attended him, moved with compassion, invited him to become his assistant, as soon as his health permitted him to exert himself. Here was a providential opportunity of repentance, and had there been in him any seed of religion, doubtless would it have sprung up. And, indeed, so painful had been his existence, even when it was most joyous, during his profligate career, that he rejoiced in the tranquillity of a regular family, and for a time derived a degree of happiness from living again an honest and a useful life. But this calm lasted not long, for there was no religious principle in his heart; he could not resist temptation. A connection with fraudulent money-lenders induced him to quit his benefactor, and to set up an establishment of his own. Pressed by his new friends for money, which he could not procure for them, he again became bankrupt, in character and fortune. But he was now more daring, and scrupled not to forge a recommendation, which introduced him to the house of another surgeon. He soon began to purloin the property of his new master; he was suspected, and the suspicions were expressed :

the next day poison was found in the cup of the master. He always endeavoured to throw the blame of this act on another; but circumstances, which he admitted to be true, led me decidedly to infer that he had meditated murder. Besides, there were other cases in which he was strongly suspected to have availed himself of his medical knowledge to do serious injury to those who had offended him. When a man has once given way to his passions, how hard is it for him to regain the mastery! When he has neglected God once, how soon does he set all God's laws at defiance!

How truly has it been said by the Apostle, that he who "offends in one point is guilty of all." He fled immediately on the discovery of the attempt to poison, but was soon overtaken by the officers of justice. The evidence, however, adduced before the magistrates, being too slight to establish a conviction, after two or three examinations he was set at liberty. But what could he now do? A suspected thief-a suspected murderer-he had not the courage to apply again to the members of his own profession. Sometimes he procured support by honest means, writing for law-stationers; but more frequently were his necessities supplied by fraud.

At length he answered an advertisement for a footman; recommended himself by his address; received in person a letter sent by the post to solicit information respecting him; answered the enquiries in his own hand, and was accepted. He was now in a new situation; but he was clever, and soon learned how to please. He never stirred out: in fact, he was afraid to appear; because of the frauds of which he had been guilty. But this was not known to his master; and so regular a servant was considered a most unexceptionable person to be left in charge of his master's house, when the family removed for the season into the country. But the moment that the coast was clear, keys were procured of all the closets, cellars, and drawers; another marriage was contracted with a female servant, and a scheme had been formed for a general and extensive robbery of all that was in the house. The master, however, had now returned, and a key was accidentally hampered in a lock, too prominently in sight to escape detection.

Intent was too visibly displayed to admit of palliation by the most artful lie: he knew it, and left the house: none but the basest of the base, forgers and swindlers, could now receive him. Within a few weeks he committed a forgery, which was detected and proved against him at the Old Bailey. Sentence of death followed, but was commuted for transportation.

I visited him several times in Newgate, and still feel an involuntary shudder whenever I reflect on the horrors which I witnessed in that prison under the old system. I believe much has been done of late years to improve the moral condition of its inmates; but I never pass its walls without thanking God that I was blessed with honest and religious parents, who took care of me in my childhood, and taught me something more than mere professional knowledge; nor without a hearty prayer that my own children may be enabled by the grace of God, to resist temptation, to grow up useful members of society, and finally may receive the blessings which God has promised to those who obey his commandments. R.

Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.-DRYDEN.

IN the Book of Joshua there is a very interesting account of the wily artifice by which the Gibeonites prevailed upon Joshua to make a covenant of peace with them, when he was drawing near to their country in the course of subduing the lands in which the people of Israel were to be settled. A party of Gibeonites were sent to meet Joshua, pretending that they had come from a far distant land as ambassadors, on behalf of their countrymen. They took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles old and rent and bound up. They had also old shoes and garments, and a few remains of stale and dry provisions, to give the appearance of having just finished a long journey. When they came before Joshua, they informed him that their home was far distant, and that having heard of his great victories, they had been sent to entreat that he would make a league with them. Wherefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spake unto us saying, take victuals with you for your journey, and go to meet them, and say unto them, We are your servants, wherefore now make a league with us. This our bread we took hot for our provisions out of our houses on the day we came forth to go unto you, but now behold it is dry and it is mouldy-and these bottles of wine which were filled were new and behold they be rent-and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey."

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The bottles here spoken of were not like those now used in European countries, but were bags made of the skin of animals. The same kind of bottle is frequently referred to in Scripture, both literally and figuratively, but the mention of it occurs with peculiar interest in the three following instances. A bottle filled with water was given by Abraham to Hagar, when he sent her away from his house, (Genesis XXI.) When "Sisera took shelter in the tent of Jael, she opened a bottle of milk and gave him drink. (Judges IV.)" And in I Samuel XVI, we are told that "Jesse took an ass laden with bread and a bottle of wine and a kid, and sent them by David his son unto Saul."

In the East, water and other liquors are to this day carried and kept in skin bags, of which the construction is exceedingly simple, and thus we are enabled to illustrate, by the present practices of a people in our own day, one of the customs so frequently referred to in the clear and familiar language of Holy Writ.

In making the bottles here described, the hide is stripped off entire, except at the openings where the head and feet of the animal have been cut off: these openings are sewed up, except one which is left for a spout and secured by a string removable at pleasure. While the skin is being prepared, it is filled with hot sand to stretch it to its proper size, and the hides of different animals being used, as the kid, the sheep or goat, and the ox, the bottles or bags are of various sizes, some scarcely larger than our ordinary bottles.

Our plate represents the water carrier of India who loads his bullock with a large skinful at the well, either to accompany travellers, or to sell the water to those who live at a distance. Whenever troops or other large bodies of people proceed upon a march into the interior of the country, a number of water carriers of this description accompany them.

Bags of skin are also used in Spain to carry wine from the vineyards to the places where it is sold, and sherry wine is very often observed to retain the flavour of the hides in which it has been transported.

Such bottles as those which have now been described were of course strongest when they were new. Our Saviour says to his disciples, no man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine will burst the bottles and be spilled, and the bottles perish; but new wine must be put into new bottles and both are preserved." He meant leathern bottles.

There is a passage in the hundred and nineteenth Psalm, which becomes peculiarly and powerfully beautiful to the reader who clearly understands what sort of " bottles" were used in the East. The Psalmist is describing the depth of his tribulation and grief-and the comfort he derives from reflecting on the certainty of God's promises. He likens his outward appearance to that of a skin bottle or bag, which, when not in use, is hung up near the fire, and becomes withered and blackened by the smoke. "I am become like a bottle in the smoke, yet do I not forget thy commandments."

THE HUNTERS OF THE ALPS. AN excellent account of the perilous employment of Chamois Hunting among the Glaciers of the Alps is given in M. SIMOND'S Switzerland, from which we extract the following particulars.

The hunter must have an excellent constitution, to enable him to bear the extreme of cold after being heated by exercise, sleeping on the damp ground, hunger and thirst, and every other hardship and privation. He must have great muscular strength, to climb all day with a heavy gun, ammunition, and provisions, and the game he kills; he must have a keen sight, a steady foot and head, and patience equal to his courage.

Chamois goats are very fearful, and their sense of smell and sight being most acute, it is frequently difficult to approach them. They are sometimes hunted with dogs, but oftener without, as dogs drive them to places where it is difficult to follow. When a dog is used he is led silently to the track, which he never will afterwards lose, the scent being very strong. The hunter either lies in wait in some narrow pass through which the game will most probably take its flight, or follows his dog, with which he keeps pace by taking a straighter direction, but calls him back when he judges the chamois to be inclined to lie down to rest. An old male will frequently turn against the dog, when pursued, and while keeping him at bay, allows the hunter to approach near him.

Hunters, two or three in company, generally proceed without dogs. They carry a sharp hoe to cut steps in the ice, each his rifle, hooks to be fastened to his shoes, a mountain stick with a point of iron, a short spy glass, barley-cakes, cheese, and brandy made of gentian or cherries. Sleeping the first night at some of those huts, which are left open at all times, and always provided with a little dry wood for a fire, they reach their hunting grounds at day-light.

The utmost watchfulness and patience are requisite on the part of the hunter, when approaching his game; a windward situation would infallibly betray him by the scent. He creeps on from one hiding rock to another, with his shirt over his clothes, and lies motionless in the snow, often for half an hour together, when the herd appears alarmed and near taking flight. Whenever he is near enough to distinguish the bending of the horns, that is, about the distance of

two hundred or two hundred and fifty steps, he takes aim; but if at the moment of raising his piece the chamois should look towards him, he must remain perfectly still, the least motion would put them to flight, before he could fire, and he is too far to risk a shot otherwise than at rest. In taking aim he endeavours to pick out the darkest coat, which is always the fattest animal. Accustomed as the chamois are to frequent and loud noises among the glaciers, they do not mind the report of the arms so much as the smell of gunpowder, or the sight of a man. There are instances of the hunter having time to load again, and fire a second time after missing the first, if not seen. No one but such a sportsman can understand the joy of him, who, after so much toil, sees his prey fall. With shouts of savage triumph he springs to seize it, up to his knees in snow, despatches the victim if he finds it not quite dead, and often swallows a draught of warm blood, deemed a specific against giddiness! He then guts the beast, to lessen its weight, ties the feet together, in such a manner as to pass his arms through on each side, and proceeds down the mountain, much lighter for the additional load he carries!

At home the chamois is cut up, and the pieces salted or smoked; the skin is sold to make gloves and leathern breeches, and the horns are hung up as a trophy in the family. A middle-sized chamois weighs from fifty to seventy pounds, and when in good case yields as much as seven pounds of fat.

Our engraving represents the perilous situation of John Fellmann and Gabriel Schitts, two chamois hunters on the Finsteraarhorn in Switzerland, on the 14th Oct. 1822. In the eager pursuit of their prey, they had both slipped down to a narrow shelf of the mountain, overhanging a precipice of fearful depth. Behind them was an almost perpendicular rock, up which it appeared impossible for any human being to climb. After remaining in this alarming situation for some time, one of them bent down with his foot overhanging the precipice, so that the other might step on his shoulder and thus reach a small projection of the rock, by means of which he contrived to arrive at the top, and then let down a rope to his companion.

Not unfrequently the best marksman is selected to lie in wait for the game, while his associates, leaving their rifles loaded by him, and acting the part of hounds, drive it towards the spot. Sometimes when

the passage is too narrow, a chamois, reduced to the last extremity, will rush headlong on the foe, whose only resource to avoid the encounter, which on the brink of precipices must be fatal, is to lie down, and let the frightened animal pass over him. It is wonderful to see them climb abrupt and naked rocks, and leap from one narrow cliff to another, the smallest projection serving them for a point of rest, upon which they alight, but only to take another spring.

The leader of the herd is always an old female, never a male. She stands watching, when the others lie down, and rests, when they are up at feed, listening to every sound, and anxiously looking round. She often ascends a fragment of rock, or heap of drifted snow, for a wide field of observation, making a sort of gentle hissing noise when she suspects any danger. But when the sound rises to a sharper note the whole troop flies at once, like the wind, to some more remote and higher part of the mountain: the death of this old leader is generally fatal to the herd. Their fondness for salt makes them frequent salt-springs and salt marshes, where hunters lie in wait for them. The hunters sometimes practise a very odd scheme. The chamois being apt to approach cattle in the pastures, and graze near them, a hunter will crawl on all fours, with salt spread on his back, to attract the cattle, and is immediately surrounded and hidden by them so completely, that he finds no difficulty in advancing very near the chamois and taking a sure aim. At other times, when discovered, he will drive his stick into the snow, and placing his hat on the top of it, creep away, and while the game remains intent on the strange object, he will return by another way.

In May the young are brought forth, which walk from the moment of their birth, and are very pretty and tame. When caught, they are easily reared, but cannot live in a warm stable in winter. The age of each individual is known by the number of rings marked on its horns, each year adding a new one. In winter, they subsist on mosses, which are not unlike Iceland moss, and on the young shoots, and the bark of pines. By scratching away the snow, they also come at the grass and moss on the ground, and it frequently happens that a whole bed of snow, sliding off a steep declivity, lays bare a great extent of pasture. Those that frequent forests are generally larger and better fed than those which live mostly on the high and naked parts of the mountain, but none of them are lean in winter. In spring, on the contrary, when they feed on new grass, they become sickly and poor.

Who would suppose that the French Revolution and invasion of Switzerland could have affected chamois among the glaciers of the Alps? Yet so it was; all restrictions on hunting having been set aside, they were in a few years almost annihilated. Where herds of fifty chamois used often to be seen together, scarcely more than ten were afterwards met, and the species would by this time have been extinct, if the former restrictions on hunting had not been re-established. It is not uncommon in the spring, to see on the glaciers the bodies of chamois, killed during the winter by avalanches, by stones rolling down upon them, and occasionally by unsuccessful leaps. Sometimes they are attacked by the lämmergeyer, and a stroke of its powerful wing is sufficient to dash them down precipices, where the ravenous bird follows them, and feeds at leisure on their flesh. Those who hunt the chamois also meet with dreadful accidents; in 1799, on the Wetterhorn, a falling stone carried off the head of one of them, and threw his body down a precipice, while the companion of the nfortunate hunter, three steps off, escaped unhurt. This continual exposure to danger and hardships, and the solitary life they lead,

SUNDAY AT SEA.

WRITTEN BY THE LATE BISHOP TURNER,
on his Voyage to India.
Bounding along the obedient surges,
Cheerly on her onward way,
Her course the gallant vessel urges

Across thy stormy gulph, Biscay!
In the sun the bright waves glisten.

Rising slow with measured swell,
Hark! what sounds unwonted!-Listen,
Listen! 'tis the Sabbath bell.
Hushed the tempest's wild commotion,
Winds and waves have ceased their war,
O'er the wide and sullen ocean

That shrill sound is heard afar.
And comes it as a note of gladness,

To thy tried spirit? wanderer tell: Or rather does thy heart's deep sadness, Wake at that simple Sabbath bell?

It speaks of ties which duties sever,

Of hearts so fondly knit to thee; Kind hands, kind looks, which, wanderer, never Thine hand shall grasp, thine eye shall see. It speaks of home and all its pleasures,

Of scenes where memory loves to dwell; And bids thee count thy heart's best treasures: Far, far away, that Sabbath bell.

Listen again; thy wounded spirit

Shall soar from earth, and seek above
That kingdom which the blest inherit,
The mansions of eternal love.
Earth and its lowly cares forsaking,

(Pursued too keenly, loved too well) To faith and hope thy soul awaking,

Thou hearest with joy the Sabbath bell.

ON THE DUTIES AND ADVANTAGES OF SOCIETY.

No. II. BENEFIT SOCIETIES.

In a former paper, (page 30) we introduced the subject of BENEFIT SOCIETIES, and we now proceed to a more particular discussion of the principles applicable to such associations, previously to entering into the details of their management.

It has been said that where practicable, self-relief is always the best; but in some cases it is not possible, and in others it is not perhaps, even desirable. Doubtless it is true that every man should provide against the evil day,-that he should not-as we are all too apt to do take the sunny hours of life for the average of it. The hour of fame is but too often the rock upon which the lovers of glory split; the smiles of fortune delude the merchant; and the labourer but too often buys poverty and misery, while his sinews are strong and his labour in great demand. There is, indeed, so much of self-flattery in our composition, that our own anticipation of life is seldom a safe guide to us, unless we take with it our experience of the fate of others.

But there are dangers on both sides. A rock as well as a quicksand. We must provide against the evil day; but we must provide honestly against it. Not merely honestly in the common sense of the word; but honestly, so that we may keep the heart pure and the affections warm; and thus enjoy life as well as acquire the means of supporting it. The man whose thoughts are wholly occupied about getting money, and who through fear of want some day, lives in want every day, is far more to be pitied than the more generous man who has not a penny. He is also in some danger of defeating his own object, because he is not so free to apply his mind to the doing of that which he is called upon to do. That cold love of money