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a strong friendship with a boy younger than himself, who, from some resemblance in character to a child of that name whose history in his after life he had found in some old book of martyrology, he always designated to me as Abel Sandford.

"My father having married early," continued Mr. Montague, "he was scarcely forty when I was eighteen, and at the university; and when he engaged for me to take a journey of some length, to spend the Christmas vacation with Mr. Sandford. He had never seen his old friend since their college days. Providence had cast their lots far apart; my father on a benefice in the north, and his friend on a small cure as to emolument, in a mining district in the west of England. Mr. Sandford had located himself in that smoky region, whilst still in deacon's orders, and had already been in that situation some years.

"It is my intention," continued our friend, "to trouble you with but little more than an account of the first twenty-four hours which I spent after my entrance into the region of pits and sooty exhalations, into which I plunged after a long journey under the clear and open sky, in the pursuit of this old friend of my father's. After passing through a large manufacturing town in the afternoon of a December day, I almost immediately on leaving the suburbs found myself in a sort of region which reminded me of nothing so much as the inferno of Dante, or the pandemonium of Milton. The clear heavens were wholly shut out by a dense cloud of grey smoke, stretching from one end of the horizon to the other, seemingly most depressed towards the centre, under which rolled our heavy-laden vehicle, whilst beneath, on each side of the road, as far as the eye could reach, every object which is hateful in landscape appeared in seemingly endless interchanges and groupings, These objects consisted of dwellings of the most ordinary kind of stone or brick, all grey or grim, if not quite black with soot, standing either in dirty gardens or on a bare heath, to which were added broken, jagged, and dark chaotic ravines; a few blasted trees, heaps of cinders, and the refuse of furnaces, looking as if the whole region had at some time past been all on fire. These unpleasing sights were diversified with odd-shaped, and to me, incomprehensible portions of buildings, half taken and half fallen down--such as on the banks of the Rhine I might fairly have supposed to have

been the remnants of ancient castles destroyed by fire; but which, in this situation, no imagination could have converted into any thing so fraught with heroic memories.

"This region of soot and smoke appeared to be occupied by a very dense population of human beings, of whom, of course, I could form no very accurate opinion, excepting that they wore the same grim livery with the places of their habitation, as one might say, being all grey and grizzly together; though I saw no appearance of that sort of misery which proceeds from want. As we proceeded, the evening closed in rapidly, and fresh wonders opened to my unaccustomed eyes as we plunged more deeply into the land of pits. Vast, inexplicable, and horrible machines, furnished with wheels and levers, and gigantic hammers rising and falling, with a force which might displace the strongest bulwark ever fabricated by man, occurred at intervals on each side of the road, with open sheds all glowing with fierce flames, in which the dark forms of men shewed as it were amid the fires; and banks of glowing cinders, and huge caldrons, and trams of iron, and wheels, and pumps, and all sorts of strange machines. I had never even dreamed before of what then passed before my astonished gaze, and caused me to fancy myself almost in a trance, and to feel so confused, that when the coach stopped, and the guard opened the door, with a 'Now, Sir, if you please,—this is the Rev. Mr. Sandford's,'-I could hardly command my attention to see after my luggage, and to give the needful bonus to the coachman.

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'A minute more, and my trunks were in the small passage of a neat house, and my hand within that of my father's ancient friend. In a few more minutes I was seated with him at his tea table, in his only convenient sitting-room, a large study lined with books, all arranged with the greatest order, and every thing as neat and commodious as if they had been under the pure heaven in the fabled Fortunate Islands. Of course I could not enter upon any other subject till I had discharged my mind of some of the strangely-new ideas with which it had been laden during the last few miles of my journey, concluding my peroration by asking Mr. Sandford how he could possibly bear to live in such a region of sulphur, flames, and smoke?

"Bear to live! my dear boy,' he exclaimed, 'why the place

is remarkably healthy; smoke may not be agreeable, but the smoke of our fires is any thing but insalubrious.'

"I was not referring to health,' I replied, "I was referring, first to the effect which the presence of all these natural and created deformities must have on a mind accustomed to fairer views of nature; and next, to the painful feelings which must be produced on a pious mind, especially of a minister, in finding himself mixed up with such an overwhelming population of human beings, of whom, I must take it for granted, the coarse and sooty exterior is not the worst part.'

"He did not say that I had formed a false judgment of the people around him: their habits he allowed were extremely coarse, it was scarcely possible that they should be otherwise; 'Yet I do not assert,' he added, 'that they are worse than other men, take them in the aggregate ;-the world lieth in wickedness, and it is not for man to judge his brother: neither you nor I can decide which of the component parts of this terrestrial globe are most essential to the support of man's existence, or which is able to contribute most of that which is precious and beautiful in the estimation of God; but this we know, that in the charred wood which we tread under the soles of our feet, are found the very same principles which compose the finest diamond, though no alchymist on earth has skill to bring these particles together out of the dust, and fit them to blaze in the regal diadem.'

"I was left to meditate for a few minutes on this remark, as philosophically true, as it was beautiful in its application, by the interruption of a gentle rap at the study-door, followed by the entrance of a weather-beaten, middle-aged man, clad in homely grey from head to foot, and carrying a bag in his only hand, for the man had lost one arm. 'Come in, James,' said Mr. Sandford, for the stranger was withdrawing when he saw me; this young gentleman is come to see and hear all our odd ways: speak as if he were not present.'

“'Well, sir,' replied the man, ́I was coming to say where I have been to-day.'

“As I was thinking of the diamonds, and did not at once catch his mode of speaking, which was very peculiar, I heard several anecdotes, about Johns and Bettys, without gathering more

than that these persons were sick or in trouble, till suddenly hẻ added, with increased interest, You must go to-morrow, sir, if you please, to William Losely's; he is moaning to see you, sir; and he won't be long, I am sure he won't, and he wants to tell you how comfortable he is. He is for ever repeating that same text―The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,’— the text that you said to him when you first catched him on the canal-bridge, when some fellow had been frightening him, because he had found him a picking and stealing of some bits of iron, and told him he was sure of trouble in this world and the next; and he is always saying, poor fellow, how that one verse worked on him, and worked on him; and that he hopes once more to talk to you about it, whilst he is on this side eternity, and to tell you how true he has found it; for he feels, he says, as sure of heaven, through that blood, as if he was in heaven already. You must go up there to-morrow, sir, indeed you must; and, if you please, I will go down towards the dead pits and up by the ash holms and take the books, and see them on that side, shall I, sir?' The man then stroked down his hair in front, made a bow and a scrape, and left the room.

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That man,' said Mr. Sandford, as he went out, 'that man was the first specimen I was permitted to see in this place of the power of the Divine Alchymist, in bringing the diamond out of the dust. The poor fellow, when a youth, had his arm crushed by a machine, and suffered months of pain, during which I visited him daily. My labors with him were blessed ten thousand fold, for I believe there are not many learned clerks on earth who have a greater, truer, and more ready knowledge of Scripture than that with which he arose from his couch of pain. He could no longer work at his calling, having but one arm; so I took him into my service, and employ him to go about to visit any one into whose house sickness, or want, or trouble have opened him the way. He does not mind going into the pits, encountering the foulest tongues, when duty calls; and not having been brought up with those feelings of sensitive delicacy which belong to our condition as gentlemen, he is better able to hear and answer only when he thinks it prudent, than such as we should be; at least, he suffers less in so doing, and it is marvellous how this poor humble man has assisted me for many years, and how

ready he is to rejoice in my joys, and weep with me in my

sorrows.

"Nor is he the only poor humble mind whom my God has supplied to me, as an assistant in my ministry in this place. I must introduce you to old Stephen,-probably to-morrow. If you will accompany me in my visit to the dying youth of whom James spoke, we may meet the venerable man in his rounds: you would recognize him by his long white hair, his bent back, his parcel of books tied in a blue handkerchief, and his knotted staff, together with his steady straight-forward step, and the notice which he takes of the little children as he passes; for I believe that he never crosses the path of any of these, whether in groups or single, whether occupied in play or in mischief, but he offers up a prayer for their adoption into the family of their Redeemer, and his is the prayer indeed of faith. I cannot flatter myself,' continued my host, that I administered in any way to the conversion of this venerable man; the utmost that I can congratulate my self-love upon in his case is, that I was permitted to find him out in the dark nook to which he had retreated, from the strife of blasphemous and taunting tongues, to encourage him, and to give him a purpose for exertion, by employing him to aid me in my visits to the sick and afflicted, and other matters of the same kind, which were too heavy for me. There are others, younger and perhaps more active men, who are now lending their shoulder to the wheel, so that I am rejoiced continually in thinking that the lights which now shine in various parts of our dark region are not, as aforetime, the products of earthly fires, which every accident may extinguish, but such as will burn brighter and more brightly until they open out to perfect and eternal day.'

"In conversation such as this, we spent the remainder of the evening, and did not separate till I had engaged Mr. Sandford to let me accompany him in his walk amongst his people the next morning."

Here Mr. Montague paused, whilst we took occasion to make our remarks on the condition and circumstances of a minister situated amid such an overwhelming, gross, and corrupt population as that presented by the district just described. One of our number said, that such a situation was enough to make a

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