him and fled for their lives. At length, and it was near the hour of midnight, one came to Benoni-he knew not who it was, and said, "Awake, thou that sleepest!" and he started up, and behold it was dark, and there were doleful cries of wild beasts sounding in his ears, the leopard and the panther, and other fearful creatures; and he looked for his sheep and they had fled; they were scattered, and there was none to search and seek them out; and the dog that was near to him was dumb, he would not bark, and the mountains were dark; they stood round about him, encompassing him as the bars of the earth; he knew not whither to fly, or in what direction lay his security; and the ravenous beasts cried out upon him, and he was without weapon or means of protection. He could not save himself from the leopard and the wolf, how much less could he save his flock!

Then did he cry out in his affliction, "Now do I see the wisdom of my prince, in that he commanded my father to feed his flock on the banks of the river of the living waters, for were not these waters our bond of union? Could the shepherd have strayed had he felt himself bound to draw water for his sheep from these wells of salvation? But I must needs seek other cisterns-I must needs purpose to myself to dig other wells-I must needs be for slaking the thirst of my flock from other sources than that which proceeds from the Rock which is higher than I! Oh! had I hearkened to the counsel of my father, when he said unto me, Ah! my son! would you commit two offences? Would you forsake the Fountain of living waters, and find out for yourself cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water?" "

Then Benoni threw himself on the ground, and cried, Father, I have sinned against my prince, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." And yet, while he cried, one came up to him, and lifted him up, and set him on his feet, and took him by the hand, and led him by a way he knew not of, and brought him again to where he beheld the White Rock gleaming in the light of the morning, and heard the sweet rushing of the living fountain; and where he saw the tabernacle of his father spread beneath the shade of the rock, and the flock resting quietly around it. And he that led him was not visible to him, yet he apprehended his

presence by a sense which seemed new to him, and he knew him to be the prince-even the Chief Shepherd to whom appertained the flocks, of whom his father and brothers were the appointed overseers.

But Benoni had scarcely shown himself in the valley, when all his friends came running out to embrace him, weeping, and thanking their prince, who alone had the power to bring him back, and to restore the sheep which he had misled, for this had he done; for although Benoni knew it not, yet his father knew it, that it was impossible for any wild beasts to pluck these sheep out of the hand of the Chief Shepherd; nevertheless, the sin of those who would mislead those sheep is not the less.—John, x., 27, 28.

So Theogenes and Sophia embraced their son, who had been lost and was found, and he fell at their feet and wept, and confessed his sins against their prince, his Saviour, and against his tender parents, and they lifted him up and brought him into their tent, and they feasted him with his brothers and sisters; and they called him no more Benoni, but Benjamin: and his sisters took harps after supper, and they all sang together in one accord, and the burden of their song was this-" As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered, so does our prince seek out his sheep, and deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day."-Ezekiel, xxxiv., 12.

Thus, Theogenes and Sophia rejoiced in the return of their Benjamin, and they dwelt with their children, till in the end of their time they were taken to dwell in the presence of their prince; and my history adds, that their descendants still reside upon the Mountains of the Leopards, which are in Asia; and that they may always be distinguished from other families dwelling on that vast range, because they are careful to give their flocks to drink from the fountain which flows from the White Rock, never willingly suffering them to taste of the waters which proceed from any other source; hence, their family, which has multiplied to thousands of thousands, and a thousand times ten thousand, through the lapse of ages, have never been suffered to wander from each other. Nay, how should they do so, when every individual of that family comes daily to draw water from the same fountain?

THE HOURS OF INFANCY.

In order to give my reader a clear view of the tendency of what I wish to say, I must present him with a short outline of the principal events of my life.

I was born in the East, and was an eldest son. My father was an indigo-planter, residing in the jungles near Mahda in Bengal. Both my parents were English, and, consequently, though by birth an Asiatic, by pedigree I was entirely European. Being an extremely sickly infant, the lady of a civilian returning to Europe took charge of me (and no small charge it was), and brought me to England before I was two years of age. When arrived in London she sent me into the country to an aunt of my mother's, who lodged (for she did not keep house) in the parsonage of Adbaston in Staffordshire. The parsonage at that period, and for some years afterward, being occupied by farmers.

I arrived at Adbaston before I had entered my third year, a poor little pale creature, not having strength to support my delicate frame without assistance, and speaking a sort of jargon which was wholly unintelligible to every person in the parish. I was no doubt received very kindly by the old lady my aunt, for I remember nothing of her but repeated acts of affection; yet, as she never left her chamber, and never travelled farther than from her bed to her fireside in winter, and from her bed to the window in summer, I was of course left much to the mercy of other persons, and might have suffered severely had not Providence in my case fulfilled the words of the prophet, "He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.”—Isa., xxvii., 8.

An attendant was provided for me as soon as I arrived at Adbaston, a young woman, and, as far as I can recollect, one of a very sweet and engaging aspect. Her name was Margaret Hartland; and had I the means, I would erect such a monument to her memory, and engrave on marble or brass such a durable record of her humble merits, as future ages and generations yet unborn should contemplate with wonder and admiration. But I am forgetting myself, and departing from that

simplicity of style which befits the narrative of the hours of infancy.

I remained at Adbaston under the protection of my aunt, and under the care of Margaret Hartland, for seven years. When I was nine years old my poor aunt died, and I was torn from the scenes of my childhood, and removed to a public school-I will not say where. There I learned some Latin and some Greek. I was chiefly distinguished as being a remarkably active and light-minded boy. Here I did not imbibe so many wicked ideas as might have been expected, considering the examples which were continually set before me.

When I was fourteen, the lady who had brought me to England procured me the situation of a midshipman in a vessel of the line, and I was transferred from school to the Nore, where my ship was at that time stationed. In the meantime I had heard very little of my father, who still remained in India, my mother having departed this life while I was yet an infant, and her place having been taken by one of the daughters of the land, who had filled her husband's house with a numerous flock of sons and daughters, who, as they grew up, seemed as little inclined to acknowledge me as I could be to solicit any intercourse with them.

Some years ago there was not that attention paid to the morals and education of the little midshipmen as is now exacted by the governors of the navy; I and my companions were therefore allowed to follow what devices we chose in the hours of recreation, on condition that we never neglected our professional duties and we availed ourselves to a considerable extent of the license allowed us. My reader will not be surprised if I say that there was a sort of emulation among some of us, the object of which was, who should be the most wickedly daring.

Promotion in the navy is seldom rapid; mine proceeded in the usual routine, and I have now been a lieutenant for several years; and having seen much service and suffered considerably in my health, I have left my ship for a short time with permission, and am now recruiting myself in the very place where the seven happiest years of my life were spent, being an occupier of my aunt's apartments in the parsonage-house at Adbaston, where I have the leisure, as I thank God I have the inclination, to take such a review of my life as I

trust may prove beneficial to me through the remainder of my sojourn on this earth; for I was scarcely arrived at Adbaston, before I found my mind constrained to reason and meditate in a manner almost entirely new to

me.

Being in bad health, I was glad to retire to my chamber immediately on my admission to my lodgings; and there I sat down by the open window, to inhale the evening breeze, and enjoy a calm so entire and so refreshing.

My window was open, and it was a new delight to me to meditate on the peaceful landscape, to mark the shades of night stealing over the beautiful tower of the church directly opposite to me, and to listen to the mingled murmurs of rural sounds, as they approached or died away in the breeze. Being thus situated, many touching recollections stole over my mind, and I began to consider the tendencies of my whole past life, with its various changes, and the principles by which I had been actuated; and was presently brought to this assurance, that, bad as my life had been, I had not sinned in ignorance or darkness, but against conviction.

I felt that I was well acquainted with many of the most important doctrines of the Christian religion, and had ever been convinced of their truth; and more than this, I felt that all my ideas of redemption, of death, of a blessed and unblessed resurrection, &c,, were all associated with the scene before me, and that so intimately, that whenever these subjects had recurred to my mind at any time of my life, the images I then beheld had presented themselves in some way or other to my fancy.

The question then arose in my mind, were the views I had of these subjects correct? I believed they were; but when had I acquired this knowledge of the true doctrines of our blessed religion? Careless and vicious as my life had been, I knew that I had always, at least as long as I could remember, possessed an acute sense of what was not orthodox, and had always felt myself offended when our chaplain gave us a moral essay instead of a solid discourse.

The next question which then suggested itself was this. Where had I acquired these correct views which I had always entertained (though often to my own condemnation); not at school, for I had never heard any VOL. XIII.-C

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