loveliness, and sighed in his bewilderment and guilt, for the season of his infancy, that he might be again a child and play amongst those garden flowers. It could not be! And sealing his brow with the stamp of determined hardihood, he turned from the retrospect of his boyhood’s purity, and gave his hand to the fair-faced queen, who welcomed him more gladly that he came from the rival path. How wildly did he enter now into all the scenes of that gay place! He sought to drown his angel’s whisperings in revels, and at first he succeeded well, for the parties he joined were of those, who, like himself, were neophytes to the reigning queen, and were not yet quite slaves to the hideous form so shrouded in flowers. But the innocent joyfulness grew more evil at every step, for in this gay kingdom there was no restraining power, and the poor misguided youth who had left the quiet walk where every onward step induced to purity, now saw the ruin which came by unsuspected agencies upon the hearts and forms of these thoughtless travelers. Guilt grew more familiar at every turn. He could see that his companions grew old before their time, and almost imperceptibly changed their careless mirth and slight indulgences to wicked merriment and love for evil practices, which they would have once despised. Palaces rose up on every side, filled with sparkling drinks, which drowned the voices of grieved angels, and gave exulting life to the dread demon of Human Will. The laughter which had come faintly to his ears when he was by his lost sister’s side, like the sound of a joyful stream, now was like a raging river, wild and ruinous. Gay women fluttered on with “Vanity” written in jewels upon their foreheads, and the beauty of their girlhood lost under the weight of fashion’s charms. How the heart of that lost wanderer turned to his sister’s memory, and read there how chaste, how simple, how lovely she walked, unmindful of the garments her body wore if her spirit shone in the garb of holiness. He looked toward the path she was now treading alone, and could tell her untiring step, and see the light of her high brow as it was at times uplifted to the throne—praying for him! Those gay women looked like painted sepulchres as he turned back; and though they shook their jeweled fingers at him playfully, and tried to win his admiration by outward charms, his heart compared them with the gentle presence of his sister in the heavenly path, and it learned to lothe the beings whose souls were unadorned and dark. They had been beautiful, but had lost the roses of their cheeks, the jewels of their eyes, the sweet sign of modesty upon their brow, and now owed Art a debt which grew with every year.