the

age

in which he lived-an age when "Love your friends and hate your enemies" had taken the place of "But I say unto you, love your enemics; bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."

2. Ten knights as brave as Sir Guy, and possessing as many noble and generous qualities, had fallen beneath his superior strength and skill in arms; and for this the bright eyes of beauty looked admiringly upon him—fair lips smiled when he appeared, and minstrels' sang of his prowess, in lady's bower and festive hall.

3. At a great tournament, given in honor of the marriage of the king's daughter, Sir Guy sent forth his challenge to single and deadly combat; but, for two days, no one accepted this challenge, although it was three times proclaimed by the herald. On the third day, a young and strange knight rode, with visor' down, into the lists, and accepted the challenge. His slender form, his carriage, and all that appertained to him, showed him to be no match for Guy de Montfort-and so it proved. They met-and Sir Guy's lance, at the first tilt, penetrated the corselet of the brave young knight and entered his heart. As he rolled upon the ground his casque' flew off, and a shower of sunny curls fell over his fair young face and neck.

4. Soon the strange news went thrilling from heart to heart, that the youthful knight who had kissed the dust beneath the sharp steel of De Montfort, was a maiden! and none other than the beautiful, high-spirited Agnes St. Bertrand, whose father Sir Guy had killed, but a few months before, in a combat to which he had challenged him. By order of the king the tournament was suspended, and rampant knights and ladies gay went back to their homes, in soberer mood than when they came forth.

3

1 Min' strels, poets; bards; singers.-2 Tournament (tårn' a ment), a military sport or exercise on horseback; a mock fight. Her' ald, au officer whose business was to make a solemn declaration, or challenge, or give public information.-- Visor (viz′ or), that part of the helmet which covers the face; it was perforated or pierced with holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth.- Lists, ground inclosed for a race, or field of combat. Corse' let, light armor for the fore-part of the body.-Casque (kåsk), helmet; armor for the head.— Råmp' ant, wanton; eyond restraint.

6

5. Alone in his castle, with the grim faces of his ancestors looking down upon him from the wall, Sir Guy paced to and fro with hurried steps. The Angel of Mercy was nearer to him than she had been for years, and her whispers were distinctly heard. Glory and fame were forgotten by the knight-for self was forgotten.

6. The question—a stränge question for him--" What good?" arose in his mind. He had killed St. Bertrand-but why? To add another leaf to his laurels as a brave knight. But was this leaf worth its cost-the broken heart of the fairest and loveliest maiden in the land? nay, more— -the life-drops from that broken

heart?

7. For the first time the flush of triumph was chilled by a remembrance of what the triumph had cost him. Then came a shudder, as he thought of the lovely widow who drooped in Arto Castle of the wild pang that snapped the heart-strings of De Cressy's bride, when she saw the battle-ax go crashing into her husband's brain-of the beautiful betrothed of Sir Gilbert de Marion, now a shrieking maniac'-of Agnes St. Bertrand!

8. As these sad images came up before the knight, his pace grew more rapid, and his brows, upon which large beads of sweat were standing, were clasped between his hands with a gesture of agony. "And what for all this?" he murmured. "What for all this? Am I braver or better for such bloody work?"

9. Through the long night he paced the hall of his castle; but with daydawn he rode fōrth alone. The sun arose and set; the seasons came and went; years passed; but the knight returned not.

FAR

113. THE HERMIT.—PART SECOND.

2

AR from the busy scenes of life dwelt a pious recluse, who, in prayer, fasting, and various forms of penance, sought to find repose for his troubled conscience. His food was pulse, and his drink the pure water that went sparkling in the sunlight past his hermit-cell in the wilderness. Now and then a traveler

1 Ma'ni ac, an insane person.- Re clàse', a religious devotee; one shut out from society.

who had lost his way, or an eager hunter in pursuit of game, met this lonely man in his deep seclusion.' To such he spoke eloquently of the vanities of life and of the wisdom of those who, renouncing these vanities, devote themselves to God; and they left him, believing the hermit to be a wise and happy man.

2. But they erred. Neither prayer nor penance filled the aching void that was in his bosom. If he were happy, it was a happiness for which none need have felt an envious wish; if he were wise, his wisdom partook more of the selfishness of this world than of the holy benevolence of the next.

3. The days came and went; the seasons changed; years passed; and still the hermit's prayers went up at morning, and the setting sun looked upon his kneeling form. His body was bent, though not with age; his long hair whitened, but not with the snows of many winters. Yet all availed not. The solitary one found not in prayer and penance2 that peace which passeth

all understanding.

4. One night he dreamed in his cell that the Angel of Mercy came to him, and said: "It is in vain-all in vain! Art thou not a man, to whom power has been given to do good to thy fellow-man? Is the bird on the tree, the beast in his lair, the worm that crawls upon the earth, thy fellow? Not by prayer, not by meditation, not by penance, is man purified; not for these are his iniquities washed out. 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' These are the divine words thou hast not yet learned. Thou callest thyself God's servant; but where is thy work? I see it not. Where are the hungry thou hast fed?—the naked thou hast clothed?-the sick and the prisoner who have been visited by thee? They are not here in the wilderness!"

5. The angel departed, and the hermit awoke. It was midnight. From the bending heavens beamed down myriads of beautiful stars. The dark and solemn woods were still as death, and there was no sound on the air save the clear music of the singing rill, as it went on happily with its work, even in the darkness.

1 Seclusion (se klu' zun), retirement; solitude; the state of being separate or alone.- Pên' ance, suffering imposed or submitted to as an atonement or a satisfaction for sin.- Myr'i ad, the number of ten thousand; an immense indefinite number.

6. "Where is my work?" murmured the hermit, as he stood with his hot brow uncovered in the cool air. "The stars are moving in their courses; the trees are spreading forth their branches and rising to heaven; and the stream flows on to the ocean; but I, superior to all these—I, gifted with a will, an understanding, and active energies-am doing no work! 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' Those blessed words can not be said of me."

7. Morning came, and the hermit saw the bee at its labor, the bird building its nest, and the worm spinning its silken thread. “And is there no work for me, the noblest of all created things?" said he.

8. The hermit knelt in prayer, but found no utterance. Where was his work? He had none to bring but evil work. He had harmed his fellow-men--but where was the good he had done? Prayers and penitential deeds wiped away no tear from the eye of sorrow-fed not the hungry-clothed not the naked. 9. "De Montfort!—it is vain! there must be charity as well as piety!" Thus murmured the hermit, as he arose from his prostrate attitude. When night came, the hermit's cell, far away in the deep, untrodden forest, was tenantless.

A

114. THE MAN.-PART THIRD.

FEARFUL plague' raged in a great city. In the nǎrrōw streets, where the poor were crowded together, the hot breath of the pestilence withered up hundreds in a day. Those not stricken down, fled, and left the suffering and the dying to their fate. Terror extinguished all human sympathies.

2. In the midst of these dreadful scenes, a man clad in plain garments a stränger-approached the plague-stricken city. The flying inhabitants warned him of the peril he was about encountering, but he heeded them not. He entered within the walls, and took his way with a firm step to the most infected' regions.

1

3. In the first house that he entered he found a young maiden,

Plague, a dreadful disease, causing almost instant death.—” In fåct' ed, visited by disease.

alone, and almost in the agonies of death; and her feeble cry was for something to slake her burning thirst. He paced to her lips a cool draught,' of which she drank eagerly; then he sat down to watch by her side. In a little while the hot fever began to abate, and the sufferer slept. Then he lifted her in his arms and bore her beyond the city walls, where the air was purer, and where were those appointed to receive and minister to the sick who were brought forth.

4. Again he went into the deadly atmosphere, and among the sick and the dying; and soon he returned once more with a sleeping infant that he had removed from the infolding arms of its dead mother. There was a calm and holy smile upon the stranger's lips, as he looked into the sweet face of the innocent child ere he resigned it to others; and those who saw that smile said in their hearts-"Verily, he hath his reward.”

5. For weeks the plague hovered, with its black wings, over that devoted city-and during the whole time, this stranger to all the inhabitants passed from house to house, supporting a dying head here, giving drink to such as were almost mad with thirst there, and bearing forth in his arms those for whom there was any hope of life. But when "the pestilence that walketh in darkness and wasteth at noonday" had left the city, he was nowhere to be found.

6. For years the castle of De Montfort was without a lord. Its knightly owner had departed, though to what far country no one knew. At last he returned-not on mailed' charger, with corselet, casque, and spear-a boastful knight, with hands crimsoned by his brother's blood,- -nor as a pious devotee from his cloister, but, as a man, from the city where he had done good deeds amid the dying and the dead. He came to take possession of his stately castle and his broad lands once mōre—not as a knight, but as a man-not to glory once more in his proud elevation, but to use the gifts with which God had endowed him, in making wiser, better, and happier his fellow-men.

7. He had work to do, and he was faithful in its performance.

1 Draught (dråft), a portion to drink; that which is drank at once.-Mailed, clad in armor.- - Clois' ter, an inclosure; a place of religious

Ietirement.