TIME, THE AVENGER.

CHAPTER I.

Must I then forward only look at death?
Backward I turn mine eye, and find him there.
Man is a self-survivor every year.

THE enterprise I am about to undertake is the most difficult of any one I have as yet attempted, and possibly to the mere novel-reader may prove the least interesting and attractive.

But as Milton, in the deep seriousness of an earnest mind, invoked for aid before he commenced his divine song-not the Muses who preside over the fine arts; not those powers of grace and beauty which fascinate the imagination of mankind, but that heavenly influence, whose still small voice persuades the reason and strikes the inner heart. That spirit,

Which on the secret top

Of Oreb or of Sinai did inspire

That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed,

In the beginning, how the heavens and earth
Rose out of chaos.

So I, in my humble, but I trust as honest purpose, invoke the same high power for assistance in the delineation of a yet more mighty work, than that of reducing the rude voices of chaos into harmony. The work by which the chaos of the inner soul-its dark contention of warring

tempers and undisciplined desires is reduced to order; and the new man, in his beautiful perfection of moral symmetry, issues forth from amid the confused strife of thought and passion. Springing into fresh being under the influences of the great spiritual power; that "Sun of Righteousness,' who hath risen upon this earth "with healing on his wings."

A mighty task, indeed.

Shall my attempt, in all humility, to perform this, be rewarded by the affectionate indulgence which I have hitherto met with? That sympathy of simple, ingenuous hearts, which has cheered me through tasks, executed to the best of my feeble powers; though in a manner so far, far below what was required by the adventurous song.

It is a rather gloomy evening, and the sun has just set in that somewhat solemn pomp of purple and gold, when dark, heavy, lowering clouds give to the western sky a sublime expression of majestic seriousness. Seeming as if the dark curtains of the heavens were falling round the departing luminary, in order to typify to the imagination that awful day when they shall close over his beams for ever.

It was now twilight, and the majestic trees which_hang over the beautiful lake in Kensington Gardens, rose darkly against the soft sky, in which from time to time, as if summoned to their watches of the night, one star after another began faintly to appear.

The banks upon the sides of the water which are so beautifully shaded by those magnificent trees, were silent and deserted. Not a creature was to be seen, where such numbers of gaily-dressed women and lovely children, in all their bright fantastic attire, making them to me look like troops of Midsummer night fairies, had been lately crowding. The brilliant forms and colours which, like those of tropical birds, had been glancing up and down among the deep green had vanished.

All was solitary, silent, calm, and shadowy. Majestic, almost awful was the dark shadow in its deep repose.

The hum of the great city, like the noise of some vast distant waterfall, was heard, filling the air of the night with its sound. Heard at this distance, the confused murmur of this immensity of human life and action is very solemn. It was only now and then interrupted by the sound of a bird among the leaves, or of the wind gently swaying the

branches; thus contrasting the soft voice of tender but most expressive nature with that of the rush and storm of human existence not far off. I made use of the word deserted, in speaking of the gardens at this moment, but they were not altogether deserted.

Do you see that man? He has been buried in the thickets for some hours, as if he shunned the face of every living being; but now that everybody is going away he comes forth, and walks alone lost in deep thought, by the side of the calm glassy lake, into which the stars of evening are just beginning to gleam.

His life had been as one confused, striving, tumultuous, hurried, darkened dream of death. It had been a long tale, without much connection or definite purpose; with little, perhaps no preparation for the momentous termination. One day had succeeded to another as one incident succeeds to another in an ill-managed tale-directed to no apparent purpose, or to no main purposes. Thus had one day followed another in a long history of many years. Not absolutely purposeless, but unguided by principle, and without unity of aim or action. But the force of circumstances had at length pushed it to a crisis-there had been a great catastrophe, and it was just past.

Not a mere catastrophe as regarded his outer circumstances; such a vicissitude in the vulgar exterior of life, and of which this man had had his full share; but that catastrophe, that crisis in the inner man, which is indeed the most solemn of things. When, as by the call of the last trumpet the dead are awakened-the slumbering being within-the immortal soul which dwells beneath this outward crust, not only of flesh and sinews and muscles, but of appetites, desires, ambitions, and passions-is suddenly awakened. Starts as from a death-trance; gazes astonished and appalled at this summons to account, and, as if before the last judgment-seat, takes a terrified glance at its true condition.

Yes, awakens from the seeming, unsubstantial, futile shadows which had surrounded it, to truth, reason, reality -to the perception of that truth, that substantial reality, which lies under these fleeting things.

He had been aroused-dead as he had seemed to bedead, as to all appearance he utterly was-lost and buried under the secular, every-day, material habits of material life -he had been awakened-suddenly, violently-providentially, to the perception of a new life, a better life-to the real new birth of another, and a far superior man.

And how had this been done?