ncentrations of virtue and merit, which
are none the less real because they are imperceptible.

The giving up of my appointment was the finish of my mad career.

I awoke now to a consciousness of all my foolishness and wickedness; the
revelation of the misery, present and future alike, which my conduct had
prepared for me, coming to mind, with a sudden, sharp stroke of painful
distinctness that prostrated me into an abyss of self-torture and
repentance.

Ah! There is no use in repining, unless one mends matters by deeds, not
words. Repentance is worth little if it be not followed up by
reformation. But, how many of us rush madly, headlong to destruction,
without a thought of what they are doing; never mindful of their course,
till that dreadful refrain, "Too late!" rings in their ears.

As the poetical author of the ode to the "Plump Head Waiter at The
Cock," has philosophically sung,--and, as many a weather-beaten sufferer
has cruelly proven,--

"So fares it since the years began,
Till they be gather'd up;
The truth, that flies the flowing can,
Will haunt the empty cup:
And others' follies teach us not,
Nor much their wisdom teaches;
And most, of sterling worth, is what
Our own experience preaches!"

I remembered now having come across a passage in Massillon's _Petit
Careme_, some two or three years before, during a varied course of
French reading at the library of the British Museum,--an old haunt of
mine long previously to my ever knowing Min; and this passage occurred
to me in my present condition, expressing a want I had long felt, and
which I was now all the more bitterly conscious of. It is in one of the
sermons which the seventeenth century divine probably preached in the
presence of the Grand Monarque. It is entitled "Sur la Destinee de
l'Homme;" and might, for its practical point and thorough insightedness
into human nature, be expounded to-morrow by any of our large-hearted,
Broad Church ministers. In its truth, I'm sure, it is catholic enough
to suit any creed:--

"Si tout doit finir avec nous, si l'homme ne doit rien attendre apres
cette vie, et que ce soit ici notre patrie, notre origine, et la seul
felicite que nous pouvons nous promettre, pourquoi n'y sommes-nous pas
heureux? Si nous ne naissons que pour les plaisirs des sens, pourquoi
ne peuvent-ils nous satisfaire, et laissent-ils toujours un fond
d'ennui et de tristesse dans notre coeur? Si l'homme n'a ri