ally as it excluded memory. When, at length, as time went on, and
his companions dropped off around him, a severe and cheerless melancholy
settled down upon him, and he lived on in a state of dreamy unreality,
less like sleep than death itself! And yet, through this dense cloud a
ray of light pierced and fell upon his cold and darkened spirit, like
day descending into some cleft between the mountains!

He was sitting at the door of his hut one evening, to taste the few
short moments of sunset, when, unwrapping the piece of paper
which surrounded his cigar--the one sole luxury the prisoners are
permitted--he was proceeding to light it, when a thought occurred that
he would read the lines, for it was a printed paper. He opened the bit
of torn and ragged paper, and found there three verses from the Gospel
of St. John. Doubtless he had often sat in weariness before the most
heart-stirring appeals and earnest exhortations; and yet these few lines
did what years of such teaching failed to do. The long-thirsting heart
was refreshed by this one drop of clear water! He became a believer,
firm and faithful! His liberation, which he owed to the clemency of
the Emperor Alexander, set him free to wander over the world as a
missionary, and this he has been ever since. How striking are his
calm and benevolent features among the faces which pass you in every
street--for we live in times of eager and insensate passion. The volcano
has thrown forth ashes, and who knows how soon the flame may follow!

How long this night appears! I have sat, as I believe, for hours here,
and yet it is but two o'clock! The dreary vacuity of weakness is like a
wide and pathless waste. I see but one great spreading moorland, with
a low, dark horizon; no creature moves across the surface--no light
glimmers on it. It is the plain before the Valley of the Shadow of
Death.

Poor Gilbert!--how soundly he sleeps, believing that I am also sunk to
rest! The deep-drawn breathings of his strong chest are strange
beside the fluttering hurry of my respiration. He was wearied out with
watching--wearied, as I feel myself: but Death comes not the sooner for
our weariness; we must bide our time, even like the felon whose sentence
has fixed the day and the hour.

Three o'clock! What a chill is on me! The fire no longer warms me, nor
does the great cloak with which I braved the snows of Canada. This is
a sensation quite distinct from mere cold--it is like as though my body