"The old man had risen from his chair, and paced the room with rapid strides as he gave utterance to the last sentences of this prophetic vision of his future history, and it was some time before his eye, which was sparkling with pious gratitude to GOD for all His blessings, caught that of the stranger, as it was fixed on him with the expression of a cold and quiet sneer. His countenance immediately changed, and he coloured slightly at having thus exposed himself, in his open-heartedness, to the charge of a vanity which was surely, in this case, of a most pardonable nature. Sir,' said he, 'I have become a fool in glorying-you have compelled me. I have shown you that, on your own selfish principles, I have indeed much to be thankful for. But we must bring this matter to a close. I look for a promise from you, which you must see it would be useless to withhold, that you will vex this quiet district no longer with your presence.'

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"I go,' said he, father; but I go not alone! You, and this simple youth shall know that there is at least one heart here which sympathizes with my feelings, and will not shrink from sharing my fortunes. Love, father, is stronger than’—

"I RENOUNCE HIM!' exclaimed poor Martha, rushing forward from behind the screen under which she had been sheltered during this remarkable conversation, and standing erect in the middle of the room with her eye boldly fixed on the face of the wondering stranger 'I renounce him, now and for ever! Oh Frederick!'

"I shall never forget her expression at that moment. 'Father,' she continued, 'I love him

"Loved him, you would say, my child.'

"Nay, father, love him still dearly, and will for ever love him!'

"Then fly with me,' said the stranger, 'to a land less inhospitable than this'

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No, Frederick! that cannot, shall not be. At my baptism I was married to Another, and with one who has stained his baptismal robes will I never be united !'

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This is some plot.'

'No, Frederick, believe it not.

All is honourable, except-oh, Frederick, why did you not tell me the truth? Begone; if you can, be happy; but never see me more!'

"And they parted, and they never did see each other more!"

(To be continued.)

THE NEW BIRTH.

NOR can any thing better represent Regeneration or New Birth, which our SAVIOUR requires of us before we can become Christians, than washing with water. For as that is the first office done unto us after our natural births, in order to cleanse us from the pollutions of the womb; so when we are admitted into the Church, we are first baptized, (whereby the HOLY GHOST cleanses us from the pollutions of our sins, and renews us unto GOD,) and so become, as it were, spiritual infants, and enter into a new life and being, which before we had not. For this reason, when the Jews baptized any of their proselytes, they called it their New Birth, Regeneration, or being born again. And therefore when our SAVIOUR used this phrase to Nicodemus, He wondered that he, being a master in Israel, should not understand Him. And even among the Greeks this was thought to have such virtue and efficacy, as to give new life as it were to those who were esteemed religiously dead. For if any one that was living was reported to be deceased, and had funeral solemnities performed upon his account, he was afterwards, upon his return, abominated of all men, as a person unlucky and profane, banished and excluded from all human conversation, and not so much as admitted to be present in the temples, or at the sacrifices of their gods, till he was born again, as it were, by being washed like a child from the womb. And thus in the Christian Church, by our SAVIOUR'S institution and appointment, those who are dead to GOD through sin, are born again by washing of Regeneration, and renewing of the HOLY GHOST.- Wheatley on the Common Prayer.

JOHN STIGGINS AND HIS SON.

"The thing that hath been, it shall be.
The self same pride this hour

Bids headstrong myriads round us flee
The Church's sheltering bower.

Man still unchanged, and still afraid

Of Power by human hands unmade,

For all her Altar's rights divine,

Will name his Priest, will chuse his shrine;

And votaries, doomed in other days to bow

Within the Idol's fane, throng the false Prophet's now."
LYRA APOSTOLICA.

"BILLY, you young dog, come here, what have you got in your pocket?" "Nothing," said Billy.-"Nothing!" echoed his father, old John Stiggins, well known in all the neighbourhood of Bolton as an honest and good tempered fellow, who had a kind word, and good humoured joke for every body, "nothing indeed!-well, if there's nothing, there cannot be much harm in taking it out;" so diving his huge hand into the capacious pocket of Billy's unmentionables, he pulled out, amid a mass of marbles, lollypops, and other matters of like kind, a book, which from the thumb-marks and dogs-ears about it, appeared to have occupied a good deal of Master Billy's leisure moments. "So this is what you call nothing," said his father, "I should like to know what you call something!" Billy looked very wistfully at the lollypops, one of which old Stiggins, after having carefully eyed it, put in his mouth, as though he thought they were something. "And what have we here?" said John, conning over the heading of this very suspicious-looking pamphlet, and at the same time reading aloud, "The New Moral World, as discovered by Beelzebub Kruel, Socialist Missionary." "What!" exclaimed John, as soon as he had run his eye over this promising title, "you young scapegrace, call this nothing, a detestable, horrid piece of blasphemy like this, call it nothing? Ah!" he exclaimed, as with a shudder, he threw it in the fire, "go thou beastly thing, where I fear

me but too many of thy readers will at last find themselves. And where did you get this precious document?" asked John, addressing his son. "A man in the street gave it me," said Billy. "How long since?” asked his father. "A week agone," said Billy. "And pray, who was the man?" inquired John. Billy hesi tated a little time, and blushed very deeply, and looked ashamed at what he said when he replied, that it was "the Socialist preacher."

know

"The Socialist preacher," said John,“ upon my word these fellows are getting on; I suppose they will call themselves clergymen soon, as the Dissenting teachers call themselves ministers, there is no telling the impudence of these people. But how did you he was the preacher?"-Billy hesitated,-John added, "pray, have you ever been to their den, the Hall of Science, as they call it?" Billy admitted that he had,"I really did not think of doing harm," he added, whining, as he saw his father's usually good-tempered countenance gradually grow darker and darker, whether from anger or sorrow, or both together, he could not tell. "I did not mean to do wrong," he continued, Mr. De Lusion met me in the street one day, and took me to his shop, where he played me a pretty tune on the fiddle, and then said,"-Billy stopped, he felt he was on dangerous ground," Well," said his father, "and what then?" "Why, why, then"-" Well, what then?" asked John, rather impatiently. "Why then," said Billy, drawling out the words as slowly as possibly, "why then, he told me, if I would not tell you, I might come again on Sunday night, and he would take me to the Hall, where I should see some fine things." "And you went, did you?" asked John. "Y-e-8,"-simpered Billy. "And you did not know that was wrong, I suppose?" said John. "Did not I tell you, a long while since, never to go into that horrid place? Did I not say, that their blasphemies were so horrid, that I wondered almost that the roof did not fall down and crush them? Did I not tell you what God, did to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and warn you against falling into such a fearful

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fate, by going along with wicked men, that deny His very Being? Were you not also guilty of a lie when you went, as you must have given me some false account of the way in which you spent that Sunday, for I have always taken account of where you spend your Sundays, and never heard of this?"- "Yes," said Billy, "I did tell a lie, and I have told more than one about it, I said that I was going to spend the evening with aunt Betty; but instead of going there, I went to the Hall." "And pray, what did you see," asked his father. " Oh," said Billy, "I saw lots of men and women dancing and singing, and I saw the Devil; and Mr. De Lusion gave me plenty of nice cakes and wine, and asked me to come again, and told me to read this book, but not to show it to you, or any body else." "Well," replied his father, as soon as he had finished his confession, you have certainly made a rapid progress in the Devil's ways, lying, deceit, Sabbath breaking, disobedience to parents; oh, Billy, Billy, thou hast almost broken thy poor old father's heart; I little thought that thou wouldst thus have repaid all the tender love and care I have shown thee. I would rather see thee laid under the churchyard sod to-morrow then that thou shouldst grow up in these horrid ways. It is a cruel thing," said the old man, the tears flowing plentifully down his weather-beaten cheeks, "it is a cruel thing, indeed, that these ravenous wolves should come in and tear in pieces our poor little lambs; what, not spare the son of my old age, my Benjamin, who in his birth deprived me of my Rachael, the dearly beloved wife of my youth; he too to go. To have his faith shaken in his Church and his GOD, and to believe, I shudder to think of it, a doctrine of Devils." Billy was very much attached to his father, and when he saw the unusual sight of his tears, he sobbed passionately as though his heart would break. "Oh! father," he exclaimed, "I will never go near them again, never." hope not," said John, whose feelings had so overpowered him that he could scarcely speak. "I hope not Billy, I hope thou wilt never put thy head within their accursed den again. You think little of this now, perhaps; you

"I