appears, also, that it was not uncommon to paint both the outside and inside of such buildings, especially the pillars, mouldings, and cornices, the principal tints employed, being blue, red, and yellow.

OUR LIVING LETTERS.

CHAP. III.—THE OLD CHRISTIAN'S SCHOOL.

Although it was evident that our venerable friend Paternus was any thing but desirous that Mr. Montague should continue his narrative, he nevertheless presently proceeded to the following effect:

:

"When I left the house," he said, "on the following morning after breakfast, with Mr. Sandford, the region of smoke appeared to me even more dreary by day light than it had done when glowing with flames the evening before. I saw no men among the cottages amid which we passed; but the women and children looked more grim and savage than I had supposed them to be in the dusk in which I had first seen them.

"Mr. Sandford threaded his way through the labyrinth of houses, ravines, pits, and ash-heaps, like one who perfectly knew his ground; but what certainly rather surprised me was, that few, if any, civilities were shown him by the persons near to whom we passed: indeed, so far the contrary, that the women in general, and many of the children, carried on their discourse in the grossest terms in several instances as we came close to them, as if really anxious to shew that they cared as little for us, as they did for the volumes of smoke which rolled over their heads.

"I felt my indignation most strongly excited by this treatment, not only of my friend, but of myself; and, in high disgust, I at length said, 'This is hopeless: it is offensive, and revolting in the greatest extreme! How you can live amongst these people, and suffer such treatment, year after year, my dear Sir, is beyond my comprehension! Here have you been working for years, and have not even prevailed in superinducing common decency!'

666 "Neither should I, were I to live here, under the same circumstances, twenty or thirty years more,' replied Mr. Sandford,

'the influx into this place of evil persons and evil influences being stronger and, for the time being, more prevalent than the contrary; but this does not prevent the progress of a glorious hidden process of which, through the Divine favor, I believe myself and my humble brethren to be the unworthy and inefficient ministers, by which from these vile specimens of dust and ashes, the fairest, richest, brightest jewels may be brought out and separated. I should not have said may be,' he continued, for, as I have seen, they actually are so elicited from day to day, so that few weeks, I might almost say few days, are allowed to pass, in which I am not filled with joy in seeing the bright rays of some fair diamond shining forth from amid the ashes of the charred wood; and though it may be yet half covered with those ashes, rendering incontrovertible proofs of that glory in which hereafter it shall appear. Oh my son!' he added, 'you must be with me some time before you will be enabled to comprehend the extent and the beauty of that work which is going on here, unseen and unsuspected by every carnal apprehension. I am about now to visit, perhaps for the last time, a poor boy, the child of a most ungodly family, to whom one kind statement of redeeming love given by me, at a chance meeting on a little bridge hard by, was so blessed that, with no other than the occasional instruction of myself and Stephen, he has been enabled to endure pain and unkindness for many months with the most beautiful submission; and now, in his dying hour, to make manifest that spiritual glory which belongs only to those who drink in, and are enabled to pour forth the splendours of the Almighty Spirit. But,' he added, 'he desires to see me alone: we are near his dwelling, and here too is old Stephen.' So saying, he begged me to wait without, with the venerable man who came up at the instant with his knotted staff and blue bundle, whilst he went in to the dying boy.

“I had just returned the salutation of the old christian, after he had been introduced to me, when a tall woman, with a basket of coals on her head, came forward along the causeway, and was addressed by Stephen, with a 'good day, how is your mother?'

"How is my mother?' she answered bitterly, 'she was none the better for your call the other day, I can tell you; and

you had best not cross our door-sill again, or you will learn how unwelcome comers is visited;' and the woman set her arms on her sides, and stood waiting his answer with an air of most unfeminine defiance.

""I must go where my Master bids me go,' replied the old man, quietly.

"Your Master!' she repeated, sarcastically, using a horrid imprecation, intended for Mr. Sandford.

“Mind what you say, Esther,' replied Stephen; ‘it is not Master Sandford that ordered me to visit your mother, but my Master, and your Master, which is in heaven; so don't say another word. I should rather say, Father, Esther,' he added,— 'your Father, and my father,—and a good Father he is;' and he proceeded at once to point out where the strongest evidence of the Divine love to man is exhibited--in the work of salvation by the incarnate Son of God.

“The woman evinced such strong tokens of displeasure, that I almost feared she would have struck him, and several persons came out of the adjoining house with such looks of defiance as convinced me that they would not have taken part with the old man, had the tall woman attacked him. But, perhaps, my presence might have some effect, for after a few more mutterings she passed on, and the other persons retreated.

"Being left with Stephen, I asked him, 'Do you think it answers any purpose to address such sort of people on these subjects?'

"We are told,' he answered, in his quiet way, 'to exhort sinners in season, and out of season; and it is promised also, that not one word of the Lord shall fall void to the ground. It is not every word of reproof which one man may use to another which is a word of the Lord; but when a man is blessed in being able to speak of what the Saviour has done, he speaks the word of the Lord, and they that hear it may storm, aye, and blaspheme, but they can't forget it,-it will stick by them, like a burr in the hair.'

“ ́Oh, young Sir!' he added, how many an opportunity is lost through the faithlessness and fearfulness of man, in waiting for what he supposes to be a convenient season. Does the wind await man's pleasure, when and where it shall blow, and

would our fields be more fruitful if it did so? When God in his mercy sent that worthy Mr. Sandford amongst us, He did not put it into his heart to wait for a fair opening or a convenient opportunity, for proclaiming the truth as it is in our Lord Jesus; no, he gave him the courage and the strength to speak the word in season and out of season, without staying for any open encouragement, and had he done so he might have waited till now, since it is of no use to look for a decent, settled population in working, mining districts like this, into which there is a constant rush of godless people from all parts of the land. So to work he went, straight to the point, as soon as he came here, proclaiming salvation through Christ to those who will, and those who will not hear, from first to last, through ill report and good report.'

“And with what success?' I asked, assuredly not putting the question in the spirit of one who hopeth and believeth all things, for I had certainly seen no signs of Mr. Sandford's success with his people that morning, and I was in a state to require a sign of some sort; adding, I have indeed heard of some happy deaths and conversions since I came here, but assuredly no symptoms of general amendment have come before me.'

senses,

6

“Visible and general amendments of manners and condition, Sir,' he replied, such as man can appreciate by the carnal and a child of God may rejoice in, are the work of circumstances; they are but the washings of the cup, and whitening of the sepulchre, which worldly men receive as a sign, and which when they see not, they deny the existence of the substance. But the real work of regeneration is a hidden one, under the present order of things, and cannot be understood by the world because it must be spiritually discerned. Therefore, my good Sir, I wonder not that you, being as yet so young, and necessarily inexperienced, should, when you walk amongst the many lawless ones who fill this district, be full of misgivings as to any enlarged blessing which may have been shed upon the labors of good Mr. Sandford in this place. But I can assure you, that they have been as water shed upon the parched ground. Who shall number the multitude of those souls whom, through the blessing of the Divine Spirit, he has been enabled to instruct and comfort on their dying beds, assisting them to look from their

dark abodes on earth up to the glories which are prepared above for those who die in faith? Who shall count the numbers of the old, and middle-aged, and young, who are scattered through the pits and forges, and in the wretched cottages of this black country, who know and love their Saviour, through his means, and who, from their very nature, as being born again, can take no lead in worldly matters, but are divinely constrained to follow their respective callings in silence and humility. Who but God shall number these, for they are hidden ones? Has Mr. Sandford worked in vain; if in this region of outward and inward darkness, he has been enabled through the Divine favor, to gather many from the ways of sin and death, if this were all? But he has done more; and what he has been enabled to do in this way can only be computed by those who know the history of the ore ere yet it has been committed to the fusing furnace.'

"My master,' continued the venerable man, 'came in amongst us in the very first weeks of his ministry, a mere youth in appearance; but he lost no time in declaring the words of truth in many ears. He has many a time forced even the blasphemer to hear the words of salvation; he has spoken them to scoffing and reprobate children, and to old and hardened sinners of every description; and has borne, with that meekness which is only inspired of God, the rebukes and tauntings of every order of men. And we who believe should remember that if one cast his bread on the waters, after many days, it shall be found by him again.' Old Stephen then proceeded to give farther and most striking examples of various particular exertions of patience and faith which had been made manifest, through the power of the Divine Spirit, by his master,-for such he denominated this Mr. Abel Sandford."

At this point of Mr. Montague's narrative, to our astonishment, Paternus suddenly broke in impatiently, with, Well, well, my friend, we have had enough of Abel Sandford. Believe me that it is always dangerous to expatiate largely on the praises of any man, even supposing that he is what we conceive him to be. In doing this, we but too often lose sight of that one only source of light, which no created being can ever do more than reflect so suppose we vote that we have had enough for the present of Abel Sandford ?"