Halbert has reached the noisy town again, and is threading his way through its busy streets, among as it seems the self-same crowd he traversed on his departure; but how differently he looks on it now; then he noticed none but the poor, the aged, the diseased; and thought in the selfishness of engrossing care, that the burdens which they bore were light in comparison with that which weighed him down. Now he embraces them all in the wide arms of his new-born and sympathetic philanthropy, and is as ready in the fulness of his heart to rejoice with them that do rejoice, as to weep with those that weep. His was a true, an early love, which flies to make its master’s presence known to those who are out of the way; who see him not, or seeing understand not; and laden with its own exceeding joy, yearns to share it with all who stand in need of such peace and rest as he himself has found. But now he has entered his own dwelling, just as the sudden gloom of the American night, unsoftened by gentle twilight, falls thick and dark around. It is a place where many like himself in years, station, and occupations, engaged in the counting-houses of that great commercial city, have their abode. Young men gay and careless, with little thought among them for anything beyond the business or amusement of the passing hour. A knot of such are gathered together in the common sitting-room when Halbert enters; but they scarcely interrupt their conversation to greet him: he has kept apart from all of them, and almost eschewed their society or companionship. The night is cold, it has grown chilly with the lengthening shadows, and a glowing fire of logs burns brightly and cheerfully upon the hearth, and Halbert, wearied and cold, seats himself beside it. The conversation goes on, it flags not because the stranger is an auditor; one young man there is in this company, a merry scoffer, whose witty sallies are received with bursts of laughter, the rather because just now, and indeed usually, they are directed against Scripture and holy things. There is another who inveighs against the fanaticism and bigotry of some portion of the Church, which is, according to his foolish notion, righteous over much, and therefore, in his clear and conclusive logic, the Church universal is only a piece of humbug; and there is a third whom Halbert has long marked, a cold argumentative heartless sceptic, who, emboldened by the profane mirth of the other young men around him, has begun to broach his infidel opinions, and for them finds a favourable auditory. Look at Halbert’s face now, how it beams in the fire-light, as he hears the cold-blooded insinuations, and words of blasphemy, the dead negations, the poison of his own heedless youth, from which he has suffered so sorely, again propounded in the identical guise and semblance which bewitched himself of old. See him! how his dark eyes sparkle with righteous fire; how his bent form grows erect and stately, and his features expand in