Captain Loveday, at length spoke, and spoke deliberately, and in a deep voice, “Is it true what your aunt writes to me, Emmeline, that you and she have had some difference of opinion?"

“Only, papa,” began Emmeline in reply, "with respect to—" but before she could add, to what, she was cut short by the paternal voice in as dictatorial a style as Mrs. Lutterell had ever used—“I did not ask you, Miss Loveday," he said, “in what respects you differed from your aunt, or your aunt from you; I asked you simply whether such differences had or had not occurred? You must learn to give strait-forward answers, and to reject all extraneous matter from them. I repeat my question, 'Is it true that you and your aunt have had some differences of opinion?"" Then, after a short pause, he added, “You are silent: I suppose that I am to take your silence for assent? But I must have a more decided answer to my next enquiry. Are you, or are you not disposed upon reflection, to give way to your aunt?"

“Indeed, papa, thinking as I do," returned Emmeline, “I may not-I cannot—”

"One monosyllable, Emmeline," said the Captain, “would have answered yours and my purpose much better than such vague expressions as 'may not,' and 'cannot.' But I presume you mean me to understand that you do not choose to give way in this matter, whatever it may be, to your aunt? Don't interrupt me, but listen to my statement of the alternative which is presented to you in case you do not choose to give way to Mrs. Lutterell's ideas of what you ought to do. She will not receive you again unless you submit! You shall not be placed on any pension-at least at present, but you must abide with me. No comment, if you please.”

"Miss Mitchell, I beg you to spare your observations just now," he added, addressing that lady, who had already given tokens of being about to speak, "I wish to despatch the business now in hand as soon as possible, and thus provide for its never being again discussed. I have said that, if my daughter does not choose to do as her aunt desires, that aunt very properly refuses to receive her again; and that the alternative is that she must be subjected to my personal guardianship, until

I have made up my mind what farther plans to pursue with her. The Hebe,' the frigate commanded by me, is in need of thorough repair; she must be brought into dock, and it may be months before she is sea-worthy again; in the mean time, rest and sundry needful attentions to health will be grateful to me. I have already consulted the most eminent medical man in town, and to town I must again repair as soon as I can arrange my affairs in Plymouth. I shall stay in London all the winter, and I shall take furnished lodgings in some genteel situation, and then Emmeline must be with me, if, in the mean time she does not make proper submission to her aunt. She shall have a suite of rooms for herself and her maid; but as I shall seldom be able to go out with her, and shall forbid her to go out by herself or with a servant, as I have no female acquaintance in town and shall never allow of her sitting at the head of my table when I have gentlemen-visitors, she must judge whether she prefers the prospect of the home which I offer, to that of the other, which is still in her power."

Here he ceased to speak, looking at his daughter for her decision; and on her answering this look by saying, “I will go with you, papa," he merely added, "It is enough - we will not go back on the past if you please." Then resuming the conversation, he added, "I return this evening to Plymouth, and if Miss Mitchell will do me the favor of remaining in this place with Emmeline till I can come for her, she will find, I trust, that her services will not be thrown away."

During the remaining hours of his sojourn at Linton, Captain Loveday, being unconsciously led by the politic Miss Mitchell, whom however he heartily despised, became animated, amusing, and even almost urbane, in going over his adventures, his alarms, and triumphs on the ocean, in so much so, that when he was driven away, the elderly dame actually congratulated Emmeline on having such a father, whilst that poor girl had the utmost difficulty to restrain her tears till she was alone.

But so far had her heavenly Father enabled her to be a faithful channel of that Living Rill which had been committed to her, and though its course had been through the very heart of the town of vanity, as old John Bunyan would have said, yet had no enemy as yet been permitted to disturb or divert it.

M. M. S.

(To be continued.)

THE THREE WORDS.

THE idea of a sound, scriptural, efficient system of education had been gradually developing itself. I knew that I was right in two of the three elements, to which I had reduced the business of teaching; but of the other, I felt considerable doubt. The "Season" of Instruction appeared to be but part of some greater idea-it was the mere when, without the how. The problem of thick and thin sowing, which I had already entertained, now came back again in aid of my difficulty, and I set about finding out some word that would express at once the proper time and manner of education. Like an absent man who looks everywhere for his spectacles, while he actually has them on his nose, I searched the very depth of my memory for a word which I had actually had again and again upon my tongue within the last few hours. The wonder-working words were no other than— Seed-Soil-and Sowing.

I told my discovery to my wife, and having been rewarded by her own commentary on the question, proceeded thus to develop my own ideas in reference to the experience recorded in the preceding papers.

The Seed is the Word, and every one who regards education as a means only, and not an end, must see the necessity for implanting this seed in the minds of all. The object of teaching is to make men not only wiser, but better; and an educated man is no better than an uneducated one, if he have not learned those first great principles of truth, to fear God and keep his commandments. How often are we told that education will keep men from the gallows or the hulks, without the previous question having been settled as to what education really is. He is not educated who is taught to read and write, but education “is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." Statesmen may contend interminably and to little purpose, as to the comparative numbers of the taught and untaught who end life disgracefully in our prisons or penal settlements. It is only those who compile their statistics with reference to the amount of religion, or religious privileges, possessed by these unhappy creatures, who can hope to understand the question. And taking this view of it there need be none of that clashing and crossing of swords, and measuring of

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lances in which the advocates of mere teaching, as teaching, waste their time. An American writer, well conversant with the subject, assures us that out of five hundred convicts with whom he was brought in contact, only three had ever entered a Sabbath school; and in a work entitled, England's Exiles," by a surgeon in the Navy, it is stated that out of nine hundred similar offenders, seven only had enjoyed that privilege. Others tell us that out of a thousand and sixty-five, only fourteen had been Sunday scholars; and out of eleven hundred and twenty-nine, but one was at all conversant with Scripture. Can it be doubted, after this, that, if the improvement of the world be the object of instruction, every system that excludes religion is unworthy of the name? Nor is it only in what are called the lower classes of society that we see the necessity of Bible-teaching. If individuals in the middle ranks are not able to "give a reason for the hope that is in them,” if hope of any kind they have—what wonder if they fall an easy prey to the cunning craftiness of those who lie in wait to deceive?

These thoughts led me back to the incidents I have before recorded-to John Curtis and his simple wife, who, though they lived in a respectable sphere, had no sound, settled principles of action, but were entirely at the mercy of Socinianism, Arianism, Puseyism, Romanism, or any of the other "isms" which bristled round them

"Like lim'd twigs set to catch the wingéd soul."

Then there was poor Emma, "highly educated” as they called her, but untaught in the great fundamental truths of Scripture, actually beguiled into all the idolatry of downright Romanism; and the whole family of the Walkinshaws flitting and hovering over the showy fields of Puseyism, whilst the strange and stern Major Goode was just sipping the specious but deadly mixture of gospel and opinion prepared by the ball-hunting incumbent of Springclose.

But why should all this excite surprise? They who sow the wind, must reap the whirlwind: the fruit is but the natural development of the seed, and just as the breeze rises into a hurricane, does the bare grain ripen into that body which God gives it as it pleases him. As I thought thus, it was with feel

ings of no feeble gratitude that I called to mind the position of my own little flock. Not one of them had wandered into the thorny ways of heterodoxy. I had, indeed, been under no apprehension upon the subject, for we had each prayed with the noble army who translated our authorised English Bible, "Let the Scriptures be my pure delight," and God had heard our prayers, and enabled us to rest satisfied in the assurance that we needed nothing more. This was the substance of my remarks upon the subject of our first word-Seed, though originally delivered in a more colloquial form.

"But you speak, Charles," said my wife, interposing a remark at this point-" you speak as if the Bible were the only requisite for a liberal education. Surely there must be other seed worth putting in? History, art, science, and literature of all kinds, go to make up a thorough system of teaching."

"-Of intellectual, but not of moral training," said I. "Intellect without religion is not only valueless, but highly dangerous. Satan himself has been rightly called Intellect without God.' I am not undervaluing mind, I am only anxious to place it in its true position. It matters little how gorgeous may be the superstructure, if the foundation be unsafe. Precious stones, if bedded upon wood, hay, or stubble, though set in gold and silver, will be sadly misplaced, and neither use nor beauty must be looked for in such an incongruous and unsatisfactory arrangement. And therefore I should say, 'Seek first, but not only, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other needful things shall be added unto you.' Besides I think, Charlotte, we have seen that the good seed of the word alone can sometimes produce great men, as we know it did in the case of Bunyan."

"Perhaps we have; and now then let us hear something about your Second Word-the Soil?"

"I am no philosopher, Charlotte, though I agree with those who call themselves such, when they tell us that 'the final cause of Mind is to know.' There is an aptitude in the soil of the human mind to receive instruction, just as in the natural soil there is a power to stimulate and nourish the seed you cast into it. But all soils are not equally calculated to feed the same plant; and in a certain sense this is true of all minds. It is not every one who can excel as a mathematician, a philosopher, or a