and elegance of language. When a Fellow of Eton College, he addressed a series of Discourses to the scholars, and the effect of his winning and impres sive eloquence was a marked improvement in the moral habits of the whole school. The standard of thought and action was raised by the exhortations of a man of high talent thoroughly in earnest.]

My brethren, we are now, upon earth, masters of our own conduct, and accountable to no one here for the tempers which we cherish, or the dispositions we show. We may hate our enemies, and refuse to forgive an injury; we may pass by on the other side, while our neighbor is in grievous want; we may spend our substance in selfish gratifications, or lay it up for our children, and refuse meanwhile to bestow any portion of it upon the bodies or the souls of our poorer brethren; and, at the same time, none have a right to call us to account, except by a friendly warning: God leaves us to follow our own bent: no fire comes down from heaven to consume the churlish or the malicious; the sun shines alike on the merciful and on the uncharitable; and the rain fertilizes alike those fields which spread their bounty upon God's needy creatures, and those which enrich no one but their covetous We are free to use as we like the gifts of Providence ; and this freedom affords the opportunity by which our characters are formed and displayed.

owner.

But it will not be always so. There will be a time when we must render an account; when all superiority of strength, or talent, or influence, or place, or fortune, will be levelled; when the strongest, and the cleverest, and the greatest, and the richest, must yield up and return their several gifts to Him who lent them; and with their gifts must return an account of the way in which they have used them. The question will be, have you used your strength to injure, your wit to insult, your power to oppress? Have you, like the rich man in the parable, kept to yourself your good things, and taken no care to lay up for yourself a good foundation against the time to come? Have you never thought or spreading around you, as far as your opportunities allowed, temporal comfort and religious knowledge? Have you suffered the fatherless and widows to lie unfriended in their affliction, when you might have supported or consoled them? Has the ignorant man, as far as concerned you, continued in his ignorance, and the

wicked died in his sin? Then you have shown yourself wanting in that quality which most certainly distinguishes the followers of Jesus: you have borne the name, but you have not possessed the spirit of a Christian: you have not been merciful in your generation; and now you have no claim to mercy, when nothing else can snatch you from the wrath to come.

No doubt the scrutiny of the great day will extend much farther, and relate to other qualities, besides the grace of charity. Those on the right hand, which shall hear the summons, Come ye blessed children of my Father, must be humble, and penitent, and meek, and pure in heart, as well as merciful. But the very prominent place which our Lord has assigned to charity in this awful description of the tribunal, where he will himself appear in his glory as Judge, and, before him shall be gathered all nations, shows thus much, at least, that this virtue is indispensable; is one by which the Christian must often examine himself, and prove his own soul; inasmuch as, without it, his Saviour will not acknowledge him he shall not obtain mercy. Not that charity, or any other virtue, can redeem us from the punishment of sin, or entitle us to the reward of heaven; eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ. It would be a miserable error for a man to suppose that by giving an alms he could atone for a crime, or by excusing his debtor here, clear his own account with God. Forgiveness and pity are necessary parts of that character which Christ will save, but cannot alone save us, or be placed in the stead of Christ. But, as I observed, they are necessary features of that character which Christ will save. Without these it will be in vain for a man to cry unto him in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not been called by thy name? He will still answer, you could not have a proper sense of the mercy which I showed, in bearing your sins in my own body on the tree, when you showed no mercy towards your own brethren, who had not offended you by ten thousand times as heavily as you have offended against your Almighty Father. Neither could you value your knowledge of my Gospel, when you have employed no pains to give others that knowledge: neither could you love your brethren, as I commanded you to love them, when you refused to do unto them as ye would they should do unto you: therefore, yours is not the

character which shall obtain mercy, nor the character for which my heavenly kingdom is prepared.

My brethren, if any of you are conscious that you have not forgiven a neighbor when he trespassed against you; if any of you are conscious that you have taken a malicious pleasure in making a brother's offences known, and injuring his credit; if any have pushed your rights to an extreme, and insisted on a severity of justice when you might rather have shown mercy and pity; if any have no feeling for their fellow-creatures' wants, and are contented to enjoy themselves, without bestowing a thought on those who have in this life evil things; you plainly perceive that the blessing bestowed on the merciful is not addressed to you: you must expect judgment without mercy, if you have shown no mercy. Pray therefore to the Lord Jesus Christ, that He who first set the most beautiful example of charity, and displayed his almighty power, not by removing mountains or destroying cities, but went about doing good, reforming the sinner, and curing the diseased, and relieving the distressed, and blessing those who persecuted him, may "pour into your hearts that most excellent gift of charity, without which all other qualities are nothing worth." Whenever you are tempted to resent an injury, reflect with yourselves, has God no account against you? When you are inclined to speak, or to think, hardly of your neighbor, who may have fallen into sin, reflect, Am I so without sin that I can venture to cast the first stone against another? When you are unwilling to take some trouble, or to spare some little of your substance, to relieve another's wants, remember the sentence of your Lord and Judge, Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me.

100.-ESCAPE FROM THE BASTILLE.

DE LATUDE.

[IN the year 1749, De Latude, who was of a respectable family in Languedoc, and intended for the engineers, came to Paris, and being unsuccessful in obtaining an appointment, he formed a scheme to gain the good-will of

Madame Pompadour, the king's mistress, by disclosing to her a pretended plot for poisoning her. This artifice being detected, he was seized and confined in the castle of Vincennes, from which he escaped after nine months' confinement, but was retaken and imprisoned in the Bastille. He had for a fellowprisoner a young man of the name of D'Alegre, who had been in confinement, at the instance of Madame de Pompadour, for three years. These two unfortunate men occupied the same chamber. The then governor of the Bastille, Monsieur Berryer, treated them with humanity, and used his best endeavors to procure their discharge by forwarding and backing their memorials and petitions. At length, however, he was under the painful necessity of announcing to them, that, in consequence of Madame De Pompadour's positive orders never to be spoken to on their behalf, there was no prospect of their release, but with the death or disgrace of that implacable woman. D'Alegre was reduced to despair; but the courage of De Latude was raised by this intelligence, and he resolved to escape or perish in the attempt. We will now let him tell his own story:]

"To any man who had the least notion of the situation of the Bastille, its extent, its towers, its discipline, and the incredible precautions which despotism had multiplied more surely to chain its victims, the mere idea of escaping from it would appear the effect of insanity, and would inspire nothing but pity for a wretch so devoid of sense as to dare to conceive it. A moment's reflection would suffice to show that it was hopeless to attempt an escape by the gates. Every physical impossibility was united to render this impracticable. We had no resource but by the outside. There was in our chamber a fireplace, the chimney of which came out in the extreme height of the tower-it was full of gratings and bars of iron, which in several parts of it scarcely left a free passage for the smoke. Should we be able to get to the top of the tower, we should have below us a precipice of great height, at the bottom of which was a fosse or broad ditch, surrounded by a very lofty wall, to be got over. We were without assistance, without tools, without materials, constantly watched night and day, and guarded besides by a great number of sentinels, who surrounded the outworks of the Bastille. So many obstacles, so many dangers, did not deter me. I hinted my scheme to my comrade; he thought me a madman, and relapsed into despair. I was obliged alone to digest my plan, to anticipate the frightful host of difficulties which opposed its execution, and find the means of remedying them all. To accomplish our object we had

to climb to the top of the chimney, notwithstanding the many iron gratings which were opposed to our ascent; and then, in order to descend from the top of the tower into the fosse, we required a ladder of eighty feet at least, and another ladder, necessarily of wood, to get out of the fosse. If I could get these materials I must hide them from every eye, must work without noise, deceive all our spies, and this for months together. Now for the details of my operations. Our first object was to find a place of concealment for our tools and materials, in case we should be so fortunate as to procure any. By dint of reflecting on the subject, a thought struck me which appeared to me a very happy one. I had occupied several different chambers in the Bastille, and had always observed, whenever the chambers either above or below me were inhabited, that I had heard very distinctly any noise made in either. On the present occasion I heard all the movements of the prisoner above, but not of him below; nevertheless, I felt confident there was a prisoner there. I conjectured at last that there might be a double floor with a space between each. I took the following means to satisfy myself on the point. There was in the Bastille a chapel, at which, by special favor of Monsieur Berryer, we, as well as the prisoner below, in No. 3, were allowed to hear I resolved to take advantage, when mass should be over, of a moment before the prisoner below was locked up, to take a view of his chamber. I pointed out to D'Alegre how he was to assist me. I told him to put his toothpick case in his pockethandkerchief, and when we should be on the second floor, by pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, to let his toothpick case fall all the way down stairs, and then to request the turnkey to go and pick it up. My little plan succeeded. While the turnkey was going after the toothpick case, I ran quickly up to No. 3. I drew back the bolt of the door-I examined the height of the chamber from the floor, and found it about ten feet six inches. I shut the door, and from this room to ours I counted thirty-two steps, measured the height of one of them, and making my calculation, I came to the conclusion, that there must be between the floor of our chamber and the ceiling of that below a space of five feet six inches, which could not be filled up either by stones or wood on account of their weight. As soon as we were shut up, and bolted in, I

mass.