gular anomalies in character. In the
ordinary affairs of life he was the gentlest and most yielding of men,
but in all that related to strictness of religious principle he was the
sternest and the most aggressive of fanatics. In the pulpit he was a
preacher of merciless sermons--an interpreter of the Bible by the letter
rather than by the spirit, as pitiless and gloomy as one of the
Puritans of old; while, on the other hand, by his own fireside he was
considerate, forbearing, and humble almost to a fault. As a necessary
result of this singular inconsistency of character, he was feared, and
sometimes even disliked, by the members of his congregation who only
knew him as their pastor, and he was prized and loved by the small
circle of friends who also knew him as a man.

Those friends gathered round him more closely and more affectionately
than ever after his marriage, not on his own account only, but
influenced also by the attractions that they found in the society of
his wife. Her refinement and gentleness of manner; her extraordinary
accomplishments as a musician; her unvarying sweetness of temper, and
her quick, winning, womanly intelligence in conversation, charmed every
one who approached her. She was quoted as a model wife and woman by all
her husband's friends, and she amply deserved the character that they
gave her. Although no children came to cheer it, a happier and a more
admirable married life has seldom been witnessed in this world than the
life which was once to be seen in the rectory house at Penliddy.

With these necessary explanations, that preliminary part of my narrative
of which the events may be massed together generally, for brevity's
sake, comes to a close. What I have next to tell is of a deeper and a
more serious interest, and must be carefully related in detail.

The rector and his wife had lived together without, as I honestly
believe, a harsh word or an unkind look once passing between them for
upward of two years, when Mr. Carling took his first step toward the
fatal future that was awaiting him by devoting his leisure hours to the
apparently simple and harmless occupation of writing a pamphlet.

He had been connected for many years with one of our great Missionary
Societies, and had taken as active a part as a country clergyman could
in the management of its affairs. At the period of which I speak,
certain influential members of the society had proposed a plan
for greatly extending the sp