“You said that experience is the growth of time. Lawrence, I have, then, lived an age in the last forty hours. A wide view of both heaven and earth is gained from the terrible height that I reached!” “Common experience is the growth of time,” said the vicar; “but spiritual experience—” “Give it in the words of inspiration,” interrupted Augustine; “I shall no longer ask you to put aside that solemn evidence, even for a moment. _Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience._” “_And experience, hope_;” cried the vicar. “Oh, my brother!—that blessed hope shed abroad in the heart by the knowledge that Christ _died for the ungodly_, that hope that alone _maketh not ashamed_, is it—oh! is it your own?” Augustine silently pressed the hand that had been unconsciously extended towards him; it was his only reply to the question. Without another sentence being uttered the brothers turned their steps in the direction of the cottage. But while pacing the shingley beach, Augustine was mentally subscribing to the confession of one of the brightest geniuses of earth,—that he had hitherto been but as a child gathering pebbles on the shore of the great ocean of truth; while the vicar was raising to God, from the depths of a grateful heart, a thanksgiving for prayer answered at the very time when, and through the very trial by which his earthly happiness had appeared crushed and destroyed! He was proving, as so many saints have proved, that— “God’s purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower!” As no object could be answered by the prolonged stay of Mr. Aumerle and Mabel in the over-crowded cottage, they departed on that day for their home. The countess could not endure to quit the spot, and Ida remained to bear her company, while Augustine resumed his watch by his suffering friend. Day after day the once proud Earl of Dashleigh lay on a pallet-bed in the fisherman’s rude hovel, mind and body alike prostrated by the fever induced by the fearful trials which he had endured. He was passing indeed through a burning fiery furnace, but its flame was consuming the dross which had largely mixed with a nobler metal. When the powers of good and evil contend together for the dominion over a human soul, it is as in the battles of earth; dark and painful traces are often left behind of the conflict, conquest is not attained without suffering. Never, perhaps, is the strife more painful than when the enemy to be subdued is pride! Then how often a merciful Providence sends humiliation, anguish, disgrace, first to rouse the soul to a sense of its danger, and then to aid it in the perilous war! From how much of suffering is exempted the _meek and quiet spirit_ that has calmly laid down the shackles of pride, not left them till some loving yet terrible dispensation should wrench them away from the bleeding soul!