matters for yourselves, and why not _mine_? Have I any interest, have I any wish to deceive you? Does not my salvation rest upon my securing your own? Have I not given my nights and my days to the study of the truth? Has not the Bishop, my spiritual head, commissioned me to preach it to you? Have I any thing in this world that I can desire in comparison with the salvation of your souls? Do not my hoary locks, and shrinking frame, proclaim that here I have no continuing city, but must soon give an account of my stewardship to Him that sent me? Has not the Bible been my companion, and the wisest and best of all ages its interpreters for me, for nearly a century? If these things cannot be spoken against, take my word for it, till you have that of one whom you have more reasons for believing, that if you take the Bible as your law, and the Prayer Book as your practical rule of life, living up to both with a good conscience, then, my life for yours—my _eternal_ life for yours—you will at last find the path I now point out to you,—the path that leads to heaven!’ “The venerable preacher gave utterance to these words with a passionate earnestness which went to the hearts of all present, and very few who heard them will ever forget either their sound or their meaning. He then proceeded more calmly to press on his hearers their several duties to GOD and to each other, and dismissed the vast assembly with his blessing, given with all the dignity of a patriarch. I need not relate to you how crowded was his mid-day meal,—how attentively listened to his evening sermon. Suffice it to say, that we were instructed in every point of the solemn vow which we were about to take, on our own behalf, before the Bishop, in such a manner as might be expected from ROBERT WALKER. I must, however, mention two events more, connected with this little history of our Confirmation, the one very ridiculous, the other almost sublime; because they have each their proper moral attached to them. Among the other candidates for Confirmation was our old friend Tom Hebblethwaite, whom I have long since forgiven for the sound beating he gave me at Hawkshead, but whom I never _can_ forgive for cutting off the old cock’s tail! Tom was stupid and sullen as usual, but at the same time, thanks to old Bowman’s birch, had acquired information enough about his catechism to prevent Mr. Walker from absolutely refusing him his ticket. Accordingly, he was one of the party who started off together from YEWDALE to ULVERSTON on the morning on which the confirmation was to be held in the church of that town, by the Lord Bishop of Chester. We were a sober and steady young party, attended by our parents, and one or two god-fathers and god-mothers who knew their duty; and the mirth, which generally attends such meetings of the youth of both sexes, was sobered down into quiet and decorous conversation by the seriousness of the occasion which had brought us together.