To avert the misfortune which menaced him, he had neglected no rational and _conscientious_ means. To retain the advantages of fortune and station to which he had believed himself born, he had made the most strenuous exertions consistent with a rigid sense of honor. What, indeed, _could_ he have done, that he _had_ not done? He had caused the claims of his opponent to be subjected to as severe a scrutiny as the wit of man could suggest; _and they had stood the test_. Those claims, and his own, had been each of them placed in the scales of justice; those scales had been held up and poised by the pure and firm hands to which the laws of God, and of the country, had committed the administration of justice: on what ground could a just and reasonable man quarrel with or repine at the issue? And supposing that a perverse and subtle ingenuity in his legal advisers could have devised means for delaying his surrender of the property to the individual who had been solemnly declared its true owner, what real and ultimate advantage could have been obtained by such a dishonorable line of conduct? Could the spirit of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION tolerate the bare idea of it? Could such purposes or intentions consist for one instant with the consciousness that the awful eye of God was always upon every thought of his mind, every feeling of his heart, every purpose of his will? A thorough and lively conviction of God's moral government of the world secured Aubrey a happy composure--a glorious and immovable resolution. It enabled him to form a true estimate of things; it extracted the sting from grief and regret; it dispelled the gloom which would otherwise have settled portentously upon the future. Thus he had not _forgotten the exhortation which spoke unto him, as unto a child: My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him_. And if, indeed, religion had not done this for Mr. Aubrey, what _could_ it have done, what would it have been worth? It would indeed have been that which dull fools suppose it--a mere name, a melancholy delusion. What hopeless and lamentable imbecility would it not have argued, to have acknowledged the reality and influence of religion in the hour of prosperity--and to have doubted, distrusted, or denied it in the hour of adversity? When a child beholds the sun obscured by dark clouds, he may think in his simplicity that it is gone forever; but a MAN knows that behind is the sun, magnificent as ever; and that the next moment, the clouds having rolled away, its glorious warmth and light are again upon the earth. Thus is it, thought Aubrey with humble but cheerful confidence, with the Almighty--who hath declared himself _the Father of the spirits of all flesh_-- "Behind a frowning Providence He hides a smiling face! Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan His works in vain! God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain!"