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Hans; and whether the grog which had given him such an honied utterance had also, Sampson-like, shaken the pillars of his understanding, or whether the sudden compression of Sorchie's hands produced a paralysis of his senses, certain it is, that he knew little of what was passing, until he had been safely lodged in bed, and had snored, for some two or three hours, like the boiler of a steam-boat.

It was near the dread hour of midnight, when horror sometimes steals over the firmest breast, that Hans seemed to be disturbed from his broken slumbers by a slight rattling at the door of the apartment. The dor slowly opened, and by the dim, flittering light of the embers on the hearth, he seemed clearly to distinguish the outline of a human being on the threshhold. It entered, and was followed by another and another, each more horrid than his fellow. It was in vain that Hans attempted to scream, or to spring from his recumbent posture. Terror, like a night-mare, bound him down, with its indescribable yet agonizing helplessness. The ruffians cautiously approached the bed side. A dagger gleamed in the right hand of the foremost, and the dark outline of a pistol was seen in his left hand. In this moment of dreadful suspense, what would Hans have given to hear even the grating voice of Sorchie! But she was slumbering with hearty breathings by his side, unconscious of the approaching danger. Ætna's self was a light burden on Enceladus, compared with the weight at that moment on the breast of Hans. At length, the haggard assassin, motioning his fellows to halt, approached the bedside, bent slowly over the trembling victim of his wrath, and in a low, distinct tone, said: 'Wretch, I come for thee! Rise, and follow me!' As if warned by the last trump, Hans sprung, stark naked, upon the floor. The figure pointed to his under garments, and these were almost as soon in their proper places. There were no suspenders in those days, and the dimensions of this article at that period made its ready adjustment much less difficult than the lacing, and buttoning, and strapping, of degenerate modern pantaloons. The figure then led the way to the door. Hans followed like an automaton, and the two attendants brought up the rear. The night was one of those in which the spirits of a darker world appear to be revelling in the upper regions; burying the moon's face at intervals in dark clouds, and forcing the fleet winds in cross currents through the mountains and valleys.

It were tedious to describe the dark ravines and pathless summits traversed in the remainder of the night, by that triad and their obsequious prisoner. Not a word escaped them, as they proceeded on their solemn and silent march. Rivers were crossed on decayed trunks of trees, precipices were passed, and chasms leaped, of such desperate width as to astonish Hans at the sudden agility of his cumbrous limbs. All the horrors of darkness enveloped the forest. Beasts of prey, startled from their lairs by this unearthly procession, howled along its flank, in fearful anger. A cold clammy sweat ran down the weary limbs of the wretched Dutchman. He toiled, and puffed, and struggled, to keep up the rapid gait, and each effort of his exhausted frame seemed to be the last which it was possible to make.

At length, streaks of light shot up in the eastern sky, and a ray of hope penetrated the breast of poor Hans, that he might once more see the blessed sun with living eyes. But this hope endured but for a moment. Turning suddenly from their course, the black mouth of an infernal cavern yawned fearfully upon them; a sulphurous blast issued from its jaws; and, immensely far within, flickering flames made visible hideous recesses and hanging precipices! Hans shrunk back in terror. 'Enter!' said his guide, in a voice of thunder. It was done, and the falling crash of a large rock, balanced above, shut out the miserable mortal from the light and the world for ever. Fatigue and terror had done their worst; exhausted nature could no longer endure. Hans sunk upon the ground, near the entrance, helpless and immoveable. Still his eyes were open, and the dark glimmerings of the vaulted caverns around him added a tenfold horror to his situation. The demons of the place seemed peeping out upon him from their dark recesses; they began to approach on every side; he saw their glaring eyes, he heard their flapping wings, he felt their hot breath upon his cheek, and their talons in his living flesh! He uttered a piercing shriek. It awakened - not the awful echoes of the cave, but the shrill voice of ' aunt Sorchie!' The fiery eyes were hers; the talons were her lank fingers in his hair. Wake up from your drunken night-mare! You've frightened all the dogs by your screaming!' Hans found himself in bed. Like Bunyan's pilgrim, 'he awoke, and behold it was a dream!'

I HAVE NO WIFE.

BY AN OLD AND INCORRIGIBLE MEMBER OF THE BACHELOR'S CLUB.

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It may or may not be a melancholy task to follow the history of man into the declining years. To be old, is generally to be respectable. Gray hairs and feeble limbs teach us our mortality more impressively and certainly, than the passing hearse and funeral bell. That coffin may enclose the young, the middle-aged, or the old; but the changing form, the failing sight, and tottering step, tell us that there must be a final point to human life - a wasting and wearing out of the corporeal frame - which, though we escape disease and accident, will come upon us at last, be we never so strong, and rich, and good, and happy, now. And gray hairs are respectable for this lesson they teach; and in assemblies of men, they repress undue levity; in churches, they preach to us along with the minister; and in all places, they soften our feelings toward one another, because of a sentiment of a common fate that nothing can avert save early death. As we look upon an old man, our pride of life is chastened; and we regard with a proper mistrust the glitter and show so apt to turn our thoughts from any regard to the future. What lessons are there in that household, where is smiling infancy and infirm old age!

Age always has its peculiarities. Its character is fixed, its tastes decided. The world is changing, a step forward or back, and the old man with the cue, the white-topped boots, cocked hat, and powdered hair, looks strange because every body else is fickle and unstable. It is this very fixedness and decision that makes us so willing to rely upon the counsels and opinions of the old. The respect due to age, so often enjoined upon us in Scripture, is not unsafe, and without good reason. By respecting the advice of an old man, we not only gratify the individual, by making him feel that he is not living in vain, but we insure to ourselves a great chance of success in the matter in hand; for age advises from experience, and not from untested theory. Its counsels do not come to us with any taint of self. Its ambitions are over, its battles ended, and its wisdom mellowed and freed from the harsh pride of party opinion. 'Old men resemble old books, that contain excellent matter, though badly bound, dusty, and worm-eaten. Do not neglect the society of old men.'*

To an intelligent and kind-hearted old man, all the young are his children. He feels almost a father's joy in the success of any one. In the love of life, so strong in all, he may sometimes wish himself young again; but, then, more for the sake of improving by his experience,

VOL, XIL.

* Garganelli's Letters. 15

than from any desire for the emulation and contest over again. He has noenvy, no jealousy, to blind his eyes to merit; his course is nearly finished, and now he looks back upon the succeeding generation with an honest sympathy in their fate. In them he lives over again his own life; and as youthful ardor leaps a gulf, or surmounts a dangerous obstacle, in no heart is there excited a readier or more generous interest than in that which quickens in the bosom of that old man with the cane. With the zest of some veteran actor on the scenic stage, he observes the new candidates for public favor in his old parts. To-day, some Romeo, breathing sighs, attracts his notice, and almost a youthful smile lights his features; some cruel Richard or some weak Macbeth calls to mind his own temptations, passions, sins; and the interest deepens, but the smile is gone. If any of our readers have seen Kilner watch the progress of a love scene on the stage, himself acting father or uncle, they will not mistake our meaning.

What though the sage counsels of age lack the pomposity of wisdom? What though the 'big manly voice' of command, of contention and pride, are become the 'childish treble? What though the tenement of the mind begins to look shattered, the soundness of the limbs to shrink, the eye-sight to grow dim? All these are atoned for, by kindliness of heart, disinterestedness of motive, and paternal regard. The good old man feels that the 'play' is nearly over to him. He has enacted his 'part' well, and is now waiting for the curtain to fall, when he shall hear the plaudit of, Well done, good and faithful servant.' Time, which invests every thing with reverence, and hallows the past with the sacredness of immutability, has covered over the events of his life with the moss of remembrance, which softens the rugged, and makes green the passage of an otherwise too bleak old age. The early struggles of his youth, the masculine energies of his manhood, come to mind, not associated in the one with its poverty, want, mortifications, and disappointments, nor in the other with its mad ambitions, its enmities, strife, and discord; but altogether, assuming the character of a divine dispensation to the soul, ordered, in the providence of God, to fit it for a higher existence. This is the way with the good old man; and if the reader wishes to follow our train of reading and devotion, as we dwell upon the page of this true history, he must sing, as we do, the following hymn, to the tune called 'Missionary Chant,' found in many collections of sacred music:

'As when the weary traveller gains

The height of some commanding hill, His heart revives, if o'er the plains He sees his home, though distant still; So when the Christian pilgrim views By faith his mansion in the skies, The sight his fainting strength renews, And wings his speed to reach the prize.

The hope of heaven his spirit cheers;
No more he grieves for sorrows past;
Nor any future conflict fears,

So he may safe arrive at last.
O Lord! in thee our hopes we stay,
To lead us on to thine abode;
Assured thy love will far o'erpay
The hardest labors of the road.'

But how shall we describe the old age of the bad old man? Is there such a being as a gray-haired sinner? We do not wish to believe it. Few men pass through this world of trial and temptation unscathed; and is it unfair to conclude that all profit by experience, and that when the violence of the passions subsides, many a man who has been too ambitious, too grasping, more a lover of pleasure than a lover of God, in his old age comes, by reflection, to a knowledge and love of goodness, and repents, and feels a hearty contrition for his errors? Is this too soothing a view for man in a vale of tears? It is not our intention to offend any creed or scheme of theology, but it may be, that the highest appreciation of a pure and religious life is felt by him who has suffered the pains of sin; as the celebrated John Newton, afterward a pattern for the world, according to accounts, notoriously lived a youth and manhood of profligacy and crime. The sailor, by shipwreck, learns the shallows and rocks. Men do not learn virtue any better than they learn other things, except by experience. We are not the apologists of vice, but it is true, that a large part of the error and wickedness in the world, results from a perversion of the understanding, and early inculcated habits of evil; and that many sins, which at all times deserve disapprobation, are more objects of pity than malediction. We forget, unless we are sitting in judgment upon our own faults, that we are made weak, that through our weakness we may become strong.

It is a great pity that moralists find it necessary to address the world in such exaggerated language. Our first moral teachers, our nurses, frighten us into quiet, by stories of bears and old black men coming to catch us; the school-master then incites his pupils to diligence, by threats of whippings he would not dare to give a dog he valued; and so upward, ministers preach of misery they cannot believe possible, and almost all appeals to the world, upon any subject not demonstrable by physical experiment, are rendered exaggerated, swollen, and unnatural, by pictures of awful alternatives. Human character is debased by this course, and motives of action degraded.

Pride conceals real goodness almost as often as it conceals vice. With the old this is especially true. Old men are averse to making professions of goodness. They have got to know, by this time, the hollowness of such stuff. As their interest in the bustle of the world ceases, as they learn how little true happiness rests upon what men say or think of them, they rely more upon God in private, than upon forms and observances. They settle these matters in the secret places of the heart, and, without doubt, have their seasons of prayer for divine aid, and of contrition for their past offences. They are not entirely dependent upon the opinions of inexperienced young theologians and preachers, who are often swayed more by private ambition, and sectarian pride, than any deep regard for the souls of their hearers. They have learnt that religion is an affair of the heart, and that our public services are a means and not an end. They have not passed through the age of wisdom for nothing.

Men of violent passions and evil habits are not often suffered to disgrace this respectable age, by ever arriving at it. Such persons

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