winding paths in the cliff, and got clear off." "Oh! James," said Mary, "how many risks do you run since you've taken to this free-trading, as you call it." "Nonsense," replied Waldron, "a seaman's wife must never talk of danger." "I feel," replied Mary, "as if I could almost consent to your braving any danger in a good cause; but the cause that you are now engaged in is not a good one." "Not a good one! Why where's the harm, I should like to know, in buying in France a little brandy, or a few silks, or cambric, or laces, or what not, and selling them cheap in England, without going through all the trouble and expense of the custom-house?" "There _must_ be harm," said Mary, "in constant opposition to the laws of the land; there _must_ be harm in living with such wicked men, as you now keep company with." "Why, to be sure," replied Waldron, "the consciences of some of our free-traders are not over-scrupulous, but there are indifferent characters in all professions; and as for breaking the laws, I don't see much harm in that--I'm sure the laws do me no good." "And what else but the laws," said Mary, "protect your house from plunder, and your wife and children from violence, when you are far away? But I don't pretend to argue the matter, nor is it necessary that I should; you know the word of God." "Come, come," retorted James, with a good deal of quickness and ill humour, "don't be trying to come over me with your lecturing and cant." "Oh! my dear, dear James," said Mary, with much earnestness, "if you love me, do not let me again hear you call the mention of the word of God by the name of cant. You used formerly to keep your church, and you still sometimes read your Bible; surely the evil men with whom you have associated lately have not taught you to deny the authority of the Scriptures?" "Why no," said James, "it's not quite so bad as that; but what do the Scriptures say about the laws, or about smuggling?" "Why, in one place the Scriptures tell us to _submit to the powers that be_, that is, to the laws and constitution of the country, not only from fear of punishment, but _for conscience sake_, and from a sense of the advantage derived from them by society. In another place they bid us _to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake_. And with respect to smuggling, they command us to _render tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom_. Therefore, whenever you smuggle goods into the country without paying duty at the custom-house, you directly fly in the face of this injunction of the Scriptures. And at the same time that the smuggler thus breaks the laws of God and the laws of his country, he also injures the regular trader by underselling him; for, of course, the man, who conscientiously pays duty, cannot sell so cheap as he who pays no duty at all."