astaway. It was only too apparent that Reuben had not derived
the desired improvement from attendance at the Fulton-Street Church.
That attendance had been punctual, indeed, for nearly all the first year
of his city life, in virtue of the inexorable habit of his education;
but Dr. Mowry had not won upon him by any personal magnetism. The city
Doctor was a ponderously good man, preaching for the most part ponderous
sermons, and possessed of a most imposing friendliness of manner. When
Reuben had presented to him the credentials from his father, (which he
could hardly have done, save for the urgency of the Brindlocks,) the
ponderous Doctor had patted him upon the shoulder, and said,--

"My young friend, your father is a most worthy man,--most worthy. I
should be delighted to see you following in his steps. I shall be most
glad to be of service to you. Our meetings for Bible instruction are on
Wednesdays, at seven: the young men upon the left, the young ladies on
the right."

The Doctor appeared to Reuben a man solemnly preoccupied with the
immensity of his charge; and it seemed to him (though it was doubtless a
wicked thought of the boy) that the ponderous minister would have
counted it a matter of far smaller merit to instruct, and guide, and
save a wanderer from the country, than to perform the same offices for a
good fat sinner of the city.

As we have said, the memory of old teachings for a year or more made any
divergence from the severe path of boyhood seem to Reuben a sin; and
these divergencies so multiplied by easy accessions as to have made him,
after a time, look upon himself very confidently, and almost cheerily,
as a reprobate. And if a reprobate, why not taste the Devil's cup to the
full?

That first visit to the theatre was like a bold push into the very
domain of Satan. Even the ticket-seller at the door seemed to him on
that eventful night an understrapper of Beelzebub, who looked out at him
with the goggle eyes of a demon. That such a man could have a family, or
family affections, or friendships, or any sense of duty or honor, was to
him a thing incomprehensible; and when he passed the wicket for the
first time into the vestibule of the old Park Theatre, the very usher in
the corridor had to his eye a look like the Giant Dagon, and he
conceived of him as mumbling, in his leisure moments, the flesh from
human bones. And when at last the curtain rose, and the damp air came
out upon him from behind the