it is rather alarming-he may not be an eagle after allbut something worse-" Hurra! ye sky-scraper! Christopher is upon you! take that, and that, and that"—all one tumbling scream, there he goes over the edge of the cliff. Dashed to death-but impossible for us to get the body. Whew! dashed to death indeed! There he wheels, all on fire, round the thunder-gloom. Is it electric matter in the atmosphere-or fear and wrath that illumine his wings?

We wish we were safe down. There is no wind here yet-none to speak of-but there is wind enough, to all appearance, in the region towards the west. The main body of the clouds is falling back on the reserve-and observing that movement the right wing deploys-as for the left it is broken, and its retreat will soon be a flight. Fear is contagious-the whole army has fallen into irremediable disorder-has abandoned its commanding position-and in an hour will be self-driven into the sea. We call that a panic.

Glory be to the corps that covers the retreat. We see now the cause of that retrograde movement. In the northwest, “far off its coming shone,” and “in numbers without number numberless," lo! the adverse host! Thrown out in front the beautiful rifle brigade comes fleetly on, extending in open order along the vast plain between the aerial pine-mountains to yon fire-cliffs. The enemy marches in masses-the space between the divisions now widening and now narrowing-and as sure as we are alive we hear the sound of trumpets. The routed army has rallied and reappears-and, hark, on the extreme left a cannonade. Never before had the Unholy Alliance a finer park of artillery-and now its fire opens from the great battery in the centre, and the hurly-burly is general, far and wide over the whole field of battle.

All this may be very fine-but these lead drops dancing on our hat tell us to take up our pole and be off, for that by and by the waters will be in flood, and we may have to pass a night on the mountain. Down we go.

We do not call this the same side of the mountain we crawled up? If we do, we lie. There, all was purple,

except what was green-and we were happy to be a heathered legged body, occasionally skipping like a grasshopper on turf. Here, all rocks save stones. Yet out of the way, ye ptarmigans. We hate shingle from the bottom of our oh! dear! oh! dear! but this is painful sliddering on shingle away down what is any thing but an inclined plane-feet foremost-accompanied with rattling debris-at railroad speed-every twenty yards or so dislodging a stone as big as oneself, who instantly joins the procession, and there they go hopping and jumping along with us, some before, some on each side, and we shudder to think of it, some behind-well somersetted over our head thou Gray Wackè-but mercy on us, and forgive us our sins, for if this lasts, in another minute we are all at the bottom of that pond of pitch.

Here we are-sitting! How we are brought to assume this rather uneasy posture we do not pretend to say. We confine orselves to the fact. Sitting! beside a tarn. Our escape appears to have been little less than miraculous, and must have been mainly owing, under Providence, to our pole. Who's laughing? 'Tis you, you old witch, in hood and cloak, crouching on the cliff, as if you were warming your hands at the fire. Hold your tongue and you may sit there to all eternity if you choose you cloud-ridden hag! No-there will be a blow-up some day-as there evidently has been here before now-but no more geology-from the tarn, who is a tarnation deep 'un, runs a rill, and he offers to be our guide down to the low country.

Why, this does not look like the same day. No gloom here-but a green serenity—not so poetical perhaps, but, in a human light, far preferable to a "brown horror." No sulphurous smell" the air is balm." No sultriness -how cool the circulating medium! In our youth, when we had wings on our feet-and were a feathered Mercury -cherub we never were nor cauliflower-by flying in our weather-wisdom, from glen to glen, when we have made one day a whole week-with, at the end, a Sabbath. For all over the really mountaineous region of the Highlands, every glen has its own indescribable kind of dayall vaguely comprehended under the one day that may

happen to be uppermost-and lowland meteorologists, meeting in the evening after a long absence-having, perhaps, parted that morning-on comparing notes lose their temper, and have been even known to proceed to extremities in defence of facts well-established of a most contradictory and irreconcilable nature.

Here is an angler fishing with the fly. In the glen beyond that range he would have used the minnow-and in the huge hollow behind our friends to the southeast, he might just as well try the bare hook-though it is not universally true that trouts don't rise when there is thunder. Let us see how he throws. What a cable! Flies! Tufts of heather. Hollo, you there; friend, what sport? What sport, we say? No answer; are you deaf? Dumb? He flourishes his flail and is mute. Let us try what a whack on the back may elicit. Down he flings it, and staring on us with a pair of most extraordinary eyes, and a beard like a goat, is off like a shot. Alas! we have frightened the wretch out of his few poor wits, and he may kill himself among the rocks. He is indeed an idiot-deaf and dumb. We remember seeing him near this very spot forty years ago and he was not young then they often live to extreme old age. No wonder, he was terrified-for we are duly sensible of the outrè tout ensemble we must have suddenly exhibited in the glimmer that visits those weak red eyes-he is an albino. That whack was rash, to say the least of it-our pole was too much for him-but we hear him whiningand moaning-and, good God! there he is on his knees with hands claspt in supplication-" dinna kill me-dinna kill me 'am silly-'am silly-and folk say 'am auldauld-auld."

The harmless creature is convinced we are not going to kill him-takes from our hand what he calls his fishingrod and tackle-and laughs like an owl. "Ony meatony meat-ony meat?" "Yes, innocent, there is some meat in this wallet, and you and I shall have our dinner." "Ho! ho! ho! a smelled, a smelled! A can say the Lord's prayer." "What's your name, my man?” “ Daft Dooggy the Haveril." "Sit down, Dugald."

A sad mystery all this-a few drops of water on the

brain will do it-so wise physicians say, and we believe it. For all that, the brain is not the soul. He takes the food with a kind of howl,-and carries it away to some distance, muttering "a aye eats by mysel!" He is saying grace! And now he is eating like an animal. 'Tis a saying of old, "Their lives are hidden with God!"

We leave the harmless—not unhappy wretch—and refreshed by the fowl, pursue our journey down the glen. There ought to be a kirk not far off, but, perhaps, it has been pulled down-yet we hope not-let kirks that need repairing be repaired-but 'tis a sin to pull one downat all events let the new be always built on the old foundations. There it is-and the plane-trees. Why should we know it again even to the very size of the slates! They are the same slates-their colour is the same-the roof neither more nor less weather-stained than it was forty years ago.

After a time old buildings undergo no perceptible change any more than old trees. And when they have begun to feel the touch of decay, it is long before they look melancholy-while they still continue to be used, they cannot help looking cheerful—and even dilapidation itself is painful only when felt to be lifeless!

But there we three sat on the churchyard wall! The wittiest of the witty-the wildest of the wild—the brightest of the bright-and the boldest of the bold-he was, within a month, drowned at sea. How genius shone o'er thy fine features, yet how pale thou ever wast! thou who satst then by the sailor's side, and listened to his sallies with a mournful smile-friend! dearest to our soul! loving us far better than we deserved; for though faultless thou, yet tolerant of all our frailties-and in those days of hope from thy lips how elevating was praise! Yet seldom do we think of thee! For monthsyears not at all-not once-sometimes not even when by some chance we hear your name-it meets our eyes written on books that once belonged to you and that you gave us—and of you it recalls no image. Yet we sank down to the floor on hearing thou wast dead-ungrateful to thy memory for many years we were not—but it

faded away till we forgot thee utterly, and we have never visited thy grave!

It would seem that many men desire to doubt the immortality of the soul. Why-why? Argue the question as low as you choose-yet you cannot be brought to a conviction of its mortality. Let the natural persuasion of a man's mind be that in this world he perishes, then this world is all to him, his reason gives him over to sense and passion. Let the persuasion, the hope, the mere desire of his mind be to the belief in worlds of future life, and all his higher mind becomes moral together. We are not to conceive of it merely as a belief to be deliberately, and with calculation, acted upon; but as a belief infusing itself into all our thoughts and feelings. How different are my affections if they are towards flowers, which the blast of death will wither, or towards spirits which are but beginning to live in my sight, but are gathering good and evil here, for a life I cannot measure. We urge the morality of the question not as if we spoke to men who held vice to be their interest, and who are to be dragged back from it by violence; but to men as beings holding virtue to be their highest interest, but feeling how weak their nobler moods are against the force of their passions, and wishing for every assistance to the pursuit of their higher destination. To those who I wish to feel their nature rise, not to feel it sink, this belief, in any degree in which they can find reason to embrace it, is an immense blessing. In all morality the disposition to believe is half the belief, and the strong inducements of opinion, to all good men, arise out of their own life. It is much to be able to say to the sceptic, "The great reason of your disbelief is not the force of the arguments on which you seem to yourself to rest your convictions, but the inaptitude of your mind for a better belief; and that inaptitude arises from habits and states of mind, which, when they are distinctly exposed to you, you yourself acknowledge to be condemnable." Take first out of the mind every thing that is an actual obstruction to the belief-obtain perfect suspense-and let then the arguments weigh. Surely, if morality means