to know what temptations would be most available, and where to place them. It is the depravity that reigns within-the love of sin in man's own heart-that induces him to coincide with these temptations, and act under them.”

"Why do you apply temptations when you know, from the knowledge of the character, that they will be inefficacious?"

"We know no such thing. We know nothing of the permanent character, except what we see in the life and actions. We can form a conjecture respecting that character from the habitual run of the thoughts. We have better means of judging, it is true, than the living have; for they look at the actions merely, and we at the thoughts. We can only tell that there is a governing change of character from an habitual change of thought; but how permanent that change may be, we know not. In placing temptations before those that are called good men, we have the hope that we may make them so sin, as to lose their characters for goodness and their evidences of regeneration. But, even if we know that our solicitations will be unheeded, there is a malicious pleasure in tempting, in order to give the holy man as much trouble as possible."

form 410

CHAPTER XXII.

THE WANDERER.

It was a summer noon, and on the dusty highway a woman, holding the hand of a little boy, was seen plodding along with wearied frame and wasted look.

All day long had she been traversing that dreary, dusty road. The night had seen her take her rest on the hay of a neglected barn, and the day again to resume her journey. She had fared but hardly. The charity of New England towards strangers and trampers, as they are termed, is but cold. The national character has altered in this particular; altered from the great influx of foreigners among us. So many unworthy objects have solicited the charities of the New England poor farmer-so much deception has been practised upon them, by which they have supported vice, instead of poverty, that, owing to the natural and growing caution of their race, they reject the solicitations of all strolling beg

gars; and, if they have any thing to give, bestow it rather on the suffering poor around them, whom they know.

Poor Lucy Woods had fared but hardly. Here and there, a draught of milk, a crust of bread, the remains of a mutton bone, had been ungraciously bestowed upon her, with the usual question, "Why do you not work, as we do?"

It was now noon; and she had walked without intermission since early morning; anxious to be as far as possible from all the scenes and persons she once knew. She stopped at a small farmhouse, by the way-side, and asked for food, for bread and milk, the easiest article for the charitable farmer's wife to place before a beggar, and the one that will administer the most and the best nourishment. It was rather grudgingly given her, and the usual question put, "Why she did not work."

She replied, humbly and quietly, that she was going to the neighbouring town for work.

"Why did you not stop at the tavern below for food?"

"I have no money, and the landlord never gives, lest he should encourage beggars.”

"The wiser man, he. Our country is covered

with these foreign beggars, who will live upon the charity of us poor folks, or steal, sooner than work."

"I am no foreigner; I am seeking for work, and am ready to do any thing, that I may earn an honest support."

"Is that your boy?" "It is, madam."

"Where is his father?" "His father is dead."

"You are a widow then?"

"I never was married, madam," was the calm reply, without even a struggle of heart to repress the bitter truth, advantageous as it might have been.

"Out of my house, you wanton trollop! Out of my house!-To think that I have been wasting my good food on such a hag as you!"

"I am ready to go, for I have done you no wrong:"

"Take your bastard with you, and don't darken my doors with your presence again: a wanton hussy, tramping around for lovers!"

"Madam, you belie me. I am seeking for work. Were I now the wanton you suppose me, should I not have other means than work for sup

port? The very fact that I am begging at your door for food, and am desirous of labour, ought to show you that what I may have been, I am no longer. But I go." Taking her son by the hand, she again commenced her journey.

As night drew near, we find Lucy Woods at the door of a well-built white house, in a pleasant village, a trim garden, arranged in rectangular precision, stretched to the south of the house along the public road; a small yard, enclosed by palings, (or pickets, as they are called in New England,) separated the house from the street, through which an unused path led through the lilac-bushes to the front door. Lucy chose not that entrance; but, passing around the side of the house, entered. the kitchen in the rear; and remarked, when entering, that she had been directed to the reverend owner of the house, as one who needed help.

The minister and his lady were called to the kitchen, and Lucy's appearance scanned with rigid scrutiny.

"Have you any recommendations from your last place?"

"I have never served as yet; my father died but very lately; I had been his assistant for a long time."