CHAPTER XIV.

,

that Mr

IT was in the summer of Garstone took up his residence in our village. It occasioned no little surprise and speculation in that retired place, to find a stranger of education and property, selecting it for his abode. He built a commodious but small house upon a little hillock by the side of a beautiful pond, which lay about a mile from the meeting-house. I never had seen him, but as soon as he had taken possession of his place, I felt it my duty to call and bid him welcome.

The room into which I entered, impressed me at once with respect for the owner of the mansion, and as I cast my eyes round on its neat and elegant comforts, I thought I saw indications of taste and refinement beyond any thing to which I had been accustomed. A piano forte, a rarer luxury then than now, stood open on one side, and opposite to it a book case, well and handsomely filled. I could give but a hasty look when Mr Garstone entered. He was ap

parently about fifty years of age, thin and pale, with a settled melancholy upon his countenance, which sometimes approximated to sternness; and a manner reserved and cold. His appearance rather repressed the warmth with which I was disposed to greet him; and after several ineffectual attempts to throw off the restraint his manner imposed, I left him, disappointed and sad.

I soon

I looked in vain for his entrance to the meeting house on Sunday, though his two daughters were there. They were dressed in deep mourning; and this I thought accounted for their father's manners, though he had made no allusion to any affliction. visited him again, and gradually we became a little acquainted. His wife, I found, had died about ten months previous; he had lost his only son just before, and had now bid farewell to the world, intending to spend the remainder of life with his daughters in retirement. He attended to their education, he studied and read, and amused himself with the cultivation of his lands. He had an extensive acquaintance with

books and subjects, and oftentimes would delight me with his animated and intelligent conversation. I derived much instruction from his society, and he seemed to take pleasure in mine. But all attempts to introduce religious conversation he uniformly set aside; and never attended public worship. This made me uneasy; and I longed to know why it was, that a man who was evidently unhappy, was yet willing to be a voluntary stranger to the consolations of religion.

It was not so with his daughters. They were uninstructed in religion, but they took an interest in it. Indeed, as far as they had been taught, they felt its great truths deeply, and exercised a profound piety. They were glad to converse, when it happened-which was very seldom-that their father was not present; and I often thought that their countenances expressed sorrow, that the subject must be dropped on his entrance. I one day expressed my surprise to them, that their father should habitually absent himself from public worship. They replied that it had been so ever since their memory;

and that they believed he did it from principle.

"Has he no sense of its importance and value," said I; "does he feel nothing, think nothing, of the great truths of religion ?"

"Alas,” replied the eldest, whose name was Charlotte, "I fear he thinks but too much, and feels too much. I have reason to suppose, although he never speaks of it, that it is this which lies at the bottom of his unhappiness, and that if this burden could be removed, he would be a cheerful and happy man.'

I looked at her for explanation. "Unreflecting men," said she, "may be happy without religious faith; for their habitual thoughtlessness excludes the subject from their minds. But a man who is in habits of reflection, and who cannot keep from his mind the thoughts of the Author of his being, and the great concerns of futurity, must be often wretched without a settled faith."

"It is true, then," said I, "what I have suspected, that your father is not a believer in the Christian religion ?"

"It is," she replied; " and to you who

know him, this will account for all his appearance and habits. For how can such a man, who longs and pants for the refuge of its truths, be happy without them? He may have every thing else; but the want of these will leave an aching void, which nothing else can fill. O what a blessed day it would be to us all, which should make him a believer! He has every thing else to render himself and us happy; but for want of this, there is a bitter taste to every enjoyment, and discontent in every scene." "Is he not aware of the cause of his dissatisfaction?" I asked.

"He is," replied Charlotte," and yet he is not. That is to say, he acknowledges the power of the Christian faith in others, and I believe is truly happy that we possess it. But he will not allow that it would do any thing for himself. He insists that in his literary and philosophical pursuits, he has all the satisfaction that the human mind can attain, and that nothing could add to his happiness. But it is very seldom he speaks on the subject. Indeed he is so strongly prejudiced that we avoid any allusion to