st the advantage over myself; I can only
read the former. Well, I am rejoiced to find that thou hast
other pursuits beside thy fishing. Dost thou know Hebrew?'

'No.'

'Thou shouldest study it. Why dost thou not undertake the
study?'

'I have no books.'

'I will lend thee books, if thou wish to undertake the study. I
live yonder at the hall, as perhaps thou knowest. I have a
library there, in which are many curious books, both in Greek
and Hebrew, which I will show to thee, whenever thou mayest
find it convenient to come and see me. Farewell! I am glad to
find that thou hast pursuits more satisfactory than thy cruel
fishing.'

And the man of peace departed, and left me on the bank of the
stream. Whether from the effect of his words or from want of
inclination to the sport, I know not, but from that day I
became less and less a practitioner of that 'cruel fishing.' I
rarely flung line and angle into the water, but I not
unfrequently wandered by the banks of the pleasant rivulet. It
seems singular to me, on reflection, that I never availed
myself of his kind invitation. I say singular, for the
extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight
interest for me: and I had discernment enough to perceive that
yon was no common man. Yet I went not near him, certainly not
from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to which I had long
been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps, for I
might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those
calm, quiet lips, and my after-course might have been widely
different. As it was, I fell in with other queer companions,
from whom I received widely different impressions than those I
might have derived from him. When many years had rolled on,
long after I had attained manhood, and had seen and suffered
much, and when our first interview had long been effaced from
the mind of the man of peace, I visited him in his venerable
hall, and partook of the hospitality of his hearth. And there
I saw his gentle partner and his fair children, and on the
morrow he showed me the books of which he had spoken years
before by the side of the stream. In the low quiet chamber,
whose one window, shaded by a gigantic elm, looks down the
slope towards the pleasant stream, he took from the s