form--pure and spiritual, breathing her own spirit, speaking her own language, delivering her own precepts and her own promises, advancing her own claims, and offering her own celestial gifts, on her own humiliating and changeless conditions, and they will treat her, as the Jews did her illustrious Author, with contemptuous scorn; and would rather have her driven from the face of the earth, than be enrolled as her devotees, or retained as her advocates. Be it so. But this you regret, on _their account_, as you know that they who believe not, will die in their sins and perish for ever, even though superior intelligence be blended with the fascination of the most distinguished accomplishments. And you also regret this terrible calamity on your _own account_, as the pardoned criminal necessarily feels an abatement of his joy when set free, by knowing that others are left for execution. But you, Christian brethren, believe on Him, and have the witness within. You believe on Him, and love Him; and to you he is precious. You believe on Him, and know that all is safe for time, safe in death, and safe for eternity." "Really," said Mr. Gordon, as we were walking away, "I am almost tempted to believe in the truth of the Christian theory, on two accounts--it brings us into such close contact with beings of a superior order, so that in passing into the invisible world, we shall find that we are known there; and then it gives such security to the mind against the horrors of death." A sudden storm of heavy rain prevented any reply to these half-serious, half-ironical remarks; but on taking leave, as we were getting into our separate hackney coaches, he added, "I will call to-morrow evening, after business hours, and chat over those grave questions; and perhaps I can prevail on Newton to accompany me. Have patience; I may become a believer in the course of time." THE SCEPTIC'S VISIT. Just after Mr. Lewellin had left home, to meet a friend on a matter of business, Mr. Gordon called, agreeably to his promise on the previous day, and we spent the evening together. "I had a lucky escape yesterday," said Mr. Gordon, "but I did not know of it till I took up the _Times_ this morning." "From what did you escape, Sir?" "I had an engagement, for yesterday morning, to go with a pleasure party on an excursion up the river, but I over-slept myself; and it was well for me that I did so, for the boat upset, and I regret to say that a very excellent and accomplished lady, whom I much admired, was drowned." "As I was passing Blackfriars' Bridge, in going to Surrey Chapel, I witnessed an accident such as that to which you refer." "Indeed! It no doubt was the same, for it was just as they were setting out from Blackfriars' stairs that the disaster happened; it must have been an appalling sight!"