after some hours from this trance, it was only to exchange this state for the raving of the maniac. Weeks passed by, months rolled away, summer changed into winter, but Aristos' mind seemed for ever gone. From the paroxysm of violent ravings he had lapsed into a deep melancholy. His brain inert and poring only over one event; his heart closed to every sensation but the longing for death, by whose means he expected to be reunited to his love.

During Egeria's last illness Aristos had learnt to believe, but the demand made upon him at the very beginning of his career in faith had been too heavy a one. "The affliction laid upon him was greater than he could bear." Faith survived, but it was an inoperative faith as lacking its_principal element, namely that of love. Certainly there is a God; but is this God a loving father, or a stern governor merely? It is difficult to say how long this phase would have lasted, had it not been for the following circumstance, which put a sudden period to an unprofitable and impious frame of mind. One night our friend was roused from his fitful slumber by a fire alarm. Whether led by curiosity, or any other motive, Aristos whose physical health had quite returned, rushed into the street, and found his way to the scene of the conflagration. A large dwelling house was enveloped in flames, and though water was thrown on it, there remained not the slightest prospect of saving the shell or its contents. Roused from his usual state of torpor and despondency, Aristos eagerly enquired whether any lives had been lost. lives had been lost. The crowd answered that the inmates had been all saved; when suddenly there rose a shout from the multitude, drowning for a moment, the roaring of the element, the crackling of the flames, and every other noise. The eyes of all were fixed upon a window in the second floor, where could be seen, surrounded by a frame of fire, the shape of a female. No one dared make the attempt to rescue her; the boldest drew back aghast from meeting an inevitable doom. The female wrung her hands, and one could hear, in the breathless silence that had fallen upon the crowd, her agonized shriek : "For the love of God save me!" Aristos half crazed with the hopelessness of the situation, heard only the word "love," and a mightly revolution took place in him. A moral revulsion. He imagined he saw Egeria preaching love in the hour of her death; and snatching up and covering himself, with some wet blankets, he lifted a ladder against the wall with the strength of a giant, and rushed into

the arms of certain death. The excitement of the spectators was truly extraordinary; the situation appalling. Every hand sought to assist the hero, who seemed bent on self-destruction. The latter reached the balcony, lifted the woman out of the fiery furnace, and slid down to the ground, where featherbeds had been spread, to break the violence of the fall. All this had been done in much less time than it required to describe the occurrence. But both saviour and saved were in a pitiful state. Their garments in cinders, their hair singed off, the body covered by dangerous and unsightly wounds! Aristos was carried home, and a month passed before he rose from what had been to him a bed of excruciating physical suffering, but a couch of happy contentment and peace, such as he had never felt before. Aristos had become an altered man; for the principle of love had commenced operating on him ; he now comprehended Egeria's teaching, he had now apprehended the object of virtue; so true it is, that reason alone is incapable of becoming an operating force in us; but that it must co-operate with the impulses of the heart, and that no sensation can be understood that is not experienced individually.

It little matters what became of the female saved by Aristos, for we do not write a romance, but a biography of Aristos' heart. Enough, to know the effect which his act had on him, by reclaiming him to God and humanity, and rousing him from the state of spiritual and mental sloth into which he had fallen. During the many days that he was confined to bed, the experiences and events of his former life being passed in review, Aristos drew near unto God, and became very intimate with Him. He walked with God from this time forward and until the hour of death, whatever his sourroundings, he heard the still small voice in his heart: "Love is life!" In laying plans for his future life on earth, he refrained from formulating any ruling principles, by which to shape his conduct, but one. Man cannot be happy unless one with God; he cannot be one with God unless he be god-like. To be one with God we must love Him; to be god-like we must love the brethren. And acting thus man must of necessity be happy here on earth and throughout all eternity! Aristos ceased mourning for Egeria, rather her memory was inexpressibly sweet to him. He remembered her death with more than resignation: He thanked God for having called her away. His life henceforth might be compared to the waters of a river, beautifying and fertilizing the

landscape through which they pass, but hurrying joyously towards the ocean, in which to mingle with the sister waters.

As soon as Aristos had regained his health, he set to work as a minister of the divine love in him, devoting his energies and the rare faculties of his mind to his fellowmen, and great and multiform were the tasks he took upon himself. The great lazar houses of moral, mental, and physical misery, the goals, the lunatic asylums, the hospitals, were his especial province; and the influence which he exercised soon became manifest in a thousand improvements, which, undertaken originally at his own charge, soon found imitators, first in the country of his adoption, and afterwards in all the more civilized states of the world. In the senate and in the press he worked for the suppression of capital punishment, for the settlement of national disputes by means of arbitration, and a fair division of advantages between capital and labor. He was the first to introduce the system of "joint profit companies," through which he certainly experienced a heavy pecuniary loss, which was however counterbalanced in his mind, by the results achieved for others. His perfect and unaffected piety, his wholly blameless life amidst all the filth of selfish politics and corrupt speculation, exercised a healthy influence on, not individuals merely, but on state-life itself; and thus he represented one of the noblest specimens of man, made after the image of God; and this he effected by nothing more or less than by abandoning himself to the impulses of love.

But even such he was not without his enemies, and this is not surprising, for has not even God Himself also enemies? All that class of politicians and speculators who enrich themselves at the cost of others by means of the most incredible peculation, found him an obstacle in their way, and they counteracted him in every direction, and played their game so expertly, that the very beings, who had benefited most by Aristos, turned upon him; and there was yet another class of enemies, whose influence was even more invidious, who, though apparently sympathizing with his aims, objected to the ways he chose to arrive at them. The disciple of the "creed of love" was ridiculed as a fantastic adventurer by the partisans of the creeds of the day.

It would be extending this sketch of Aristos' life to too wide a limit, were we to attempt following him in his crusade against error, in his schemes and experiments for the benefit

of the human race. Enough, that he had passed thus about twenty years in different countries, always engaged and earnestly occupied, with the improvement of his species, when, at last, wearied with the often unthankful task, and impoverished by his unstinted generosity, he had found a new home at the foot of the Himalayas, where we met him at the beginning of this narrative. Here, though wearied, yet not exhausted, though disappointed yet not soured, he circumscribed his task within a narrower circle, trusting that the work he had accomplished, must bring forth some good fruits, although he might not live to perceive them and to delight in their beauty. Here he cultivated, in silent dignity, both the soil of his garden and the garden of his mind; living in retirement without shunning man, doing the work which God offered him, without going in search for it. His library was stocked with the finest products of the human intellect and sentiment, and his garden abounded with the choicest plants. He revelled in the contemplation of the lovely world around him, in the melody of sound, in the scent of flowers, and in the study of the greatness of God, and of the problem of the human heart. He was a happy man, and discountenanced the misanthropy of the poet, who, elated by the wondrous fairness of nature, and disgusted with the wickedness of man, exclaimed :

"Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile."

Aristos was too charitably disposed, to make a sweeping assertion like this, with regard to the rest of the human race; and avoiding Heber's extreme on the one hand, he steered clear also on the other hand, of Paul's assertion of doubtful sincerity: "I am the chief of sinners.'

Aristos lived thus for years, his time evenly apportioned between the duties he owed to God, his fellowmen, and himself; and though "the eccentric recluse," as he was styled in the beginning by his neighbours, was sometimes sneered at by the more lively section of the community; nobody could remain long insensible to the charms of his amiability, refinement, and spirituality. Admiration replaced contempt, and the cognomen "eccentric recluse," made room for the better adapted one of "venerable recluse." His excellency of character made him even popular in one sense; for when any of his neighbours wished to spend a few days in quietude, meditation, and repose, it was to Aristos' bungalow they

turned their horse's head; if any one sought help or advice, Aristos was resorted to, for:

"Great was his bounty, and his heart sincere."

His benevolence was only limited by his means; and his wisdom was one, especially adapted for the advancement of human happiness and for support in adversity. By general consent he had become, in the course of time, the mediator in disputes, the peace-maker in quarrels, the oracle of the doubtful and tempted, and the banker of the needy; and he held these offices without arrogance or pride. He was the means, through which many useful and philanthropical institutions were established in the district, and so great was the confidence he enjoyed with his neighbours, that for some benevolent object, he commanded their purses as freely as they commanded his own. His influence tended to establish truly brotherly feelings among all men, to blend the prejudices of caste and creed, and to conquer selfishness. Initiated in the mysteries of Freemasonry, he was dissatisfied with the limited character of this institution; it was his utopian scheme to establish a really effective brotherhood embracing the whole human race; and he was convinced that by this means most of the sufferings of mankind would be done away with. National and sectarian hatred, caste, purse, and station-pride are in reality the manifestation of that selfishness, that is the rock against which our happiness suffers shipwreck. This scheme bore a resemblance to communism, and was styled so by detractors, but it was entirely different in principle. In the one, love is the moving cause, in the other, force. The change, which he sighed to see effected, must be produced by the conversion of individuals, not of masses; the submersion of the old landmarks of society must be the result of individual conviction, not of violent and blind proselytism. Aristos thought he recognised in the signs of the times a tendency of blending of individual opinions through our increased tolerance for the views of others, and he regarded it as the duty of the apostle of the new gospel, to direct this tendency into the proper channel, and accelerate its current by example and instruction, rather than by the authority of power.

Thus Agathos, the writer of these lines, found Aristos situated and engaged, when he became his guest. The former, whose spiritual life had been a continual conflict, intuitively recognised in Aristos the beau ideal of a man