matters. They gave no weight to
research, and thought, about religious facts; and dreamed that each one
among themselves gained a kind of spiritual knowledge by inspiration. It
was a time of conceits and quackery; but there was a better spirit
abroad, of which this good man Host was the representative. He began in
the pestilence, and went to all houses indifferently, whether they were
princes or peasants; and there was a common-sense in what he did and
said, a universal character in his religion, which struck men in these
evil days. They drew nearer to each other under his influence; and I
recollect this great building thronged in one of the last months that
men continued here, with a congregation of all orders and all divisions
of opinion, who met to pray together, and listen to Host. He stood
yonder, Charles, as nearly there, I think, as I can tell from the ruins;
he was rapt by his own discourse, and his face was as the face of an
angel. And truly three days after, he was dead; and here they buried
him--the last sound of the organ, the last service of this church, being
for him. Here is his name still on the tombstone--

'Host.
Pio. dilecto. beato.
Populus miserrimus.'"

Charles's memory was deeply impressed with this history, and he followed
his father, much engrossed and animated by what he had heard. Not so
Paulett; for the ruins of London occupied his mind, and filled him with
deep pity and regret for the fair world destroyed: and so they returned
to their temporary habitation, the father sorrowful, the son exulting;
one full of the old world, one dreaming great actions for the new.

After another day's rest, the sole surviving family of mankind set forth
again on their pilgrimage. Paulett again carried his Alice, and Ellen
and Charles walked hand in hand with such a basket of necessaries as
they could support. Paulett secured about his person a large packet of
diamonds, collected in palaces and noble dwellings near London, and the
apparatus he required for transmuting them into water; and searching for
and finding the remains of the railroad to the coast, at Dover, they
kept on in that track, which, from its evenness, offered facility to
their journey. But in several places it had been purposely broken up,
during the commotions which preceded the final triumph of the drought,
and the tunnel near Folkestone had fallen in the middle from want of the
necessary attention to the masonry. These dif