irrecoverably gone, and he roamed abroad far from his native land—a wandering outcast. Of what avail were now to him the common blessings of nature? the light to him was as the darkness—the very air was heavy, and laden as with the vapors of a dungeon—the world itself was one vast prison-house. Did he sleep—frightful phantoms would haunt his couch, and drive away repose; supplicating hands of beggared orphans and stricken widows would rise in airy forms, while strange, unearthly voices would cry aloud, and pierce the air in wail and lamentation, then die away as if in mock and derision. Afar from country, relatives and friends, lived the Defaulter. Bitter was the cup which that man drained to the very dregs. Providence had set its sure seal of condemnation on his destiny, and although the laws of man were impotent, the great law of the Omniscient failed not. There was no retreat from that _presence_, which hath so solemnly declared “thou shalt not steal.” At length news was brought to him from afar—it told him that the wife of his bosom was dead—his children dependant upon the charity of strangers. It was upon the receipt of this intelligence that I met Morris, who was dwelling in a retired part of one of the chief cities upon the Continent. I dared not think upon what might be the probable result of my interview. Conflicting emotions were agitating my breast, but I had fully resolved on the meeting, and on my arrival accordingly, sought out his residence. It was about eight o’clock, of a summer’s night, that, in an abstracted mood, I sauntered leisurely toward the house. Having presented myself, I was admitted to a small chamber, neatly furnished, where I found him alone. I knew not how to begin, how to address myself to my early friend—so altered. He was lying on a couch, evidently in the last stage of a fever. You felt at once he was a dying man. His presence bewildered me; the hollow and glassy eye riveted my gaze, until recollecting myself, in a subdued tone I spoke of the country I had left—my object in travelling—my desire to obtain tidings of himself; and then ventured to recall his memory to the many happy days we had spent in each other’s society. “Gone, gone!” said he, groaning aloud, and seeming to awaken from a listless reverie. In a moment he continued. “Will not one human creature compassionate George Morris?—a stranger in a strange land! My Julia—my wife—the mother of my little ones, they tell me is dead; and I, who loved her so, poor thing, they say was her destroyer. Oh, God! have mercy on thy creature, I feel thy indignation, and am smitten in the dust. Come death, come the grave—welcome your embraces! But I cannot—cannot endure the iron that is now thrusting itself in my soul.” There is something grand and terrible in the moral subjugation of man.