eaders may understand, that although we have ourselves
taken the liberty of insinuating that little Solomon, as M'Loughlin
called him, was not precisely--but we beg pardon, it is time enough
to speak of that yet. All we have to say in the mean time is, that
Solomon's character, up to the period we speak of, was not merely
spotless, but a burning and a shining light in the eyes of all the
saints and sinners of the religious world, not only in Castle Cumber,
but in the metropolis itself. Solomon was an Elder of his congregation,
in which Sabbath after Sabbath he took his usual prominent part as
collector--raised the psalms--sang loudest--and whenever the minister
alluded to the mercy that was extended to sinners, Solomon's groan of
humility--of sympathy with the frail, and of despair for the impenitent;
his groan, we say, under these varied intimations of Gospel truth,
was more than a sermon in itself. It not only proclaimed to the
whole congregation that he was a sinner, but that he felt for
sinners--rejoiced in their repentance, which he often did in a
nondescript scream, between a groan and a cackle of holy joy, that
alarmed the congregation; but also wept for their hardness of heart,
when he imagined that it was likely to terminate in final reprobation,
with such a pathetic fervency, that on many such occasions some of those
who sat beside him were obliged to whisper--"Brother M'Slime, you are
too much overcome--too piously excited--do not allow yourself to exhibit
such an excess of Christian sympathy, or there will be many instances
among the weaker vessels of relapses and backslidings, from not
understanding that it is more for others thou art feeling than for
thyself."

Solomon then took his hands from before his face, wiped his eyes with
his handkerchief on which they had been embedded, and with a serene and
rather heavenly countenance looked up to the preacher, then closing his
eyes as if in a state of ethereal enjoyment, he clasped his hands with
a sweet smile, twirling his thumbs and bowing his head, as the speaker
closed every paragraph of the discourse.

These observations account very plainly for the opinions touching
Solomon which were expressed by M'Loughlin. Solomon was at this time an
unadulterated saint--a professor--in fact one of the elect who had cast
his anchor sure. But as the proverb gays, time will tell.

That night M'Loughlin and his family retired to bed for the first time
overshadowed, as i