knowledged the utter impossibility of proceeding farther. It was already night: we sat down in the midst of an extensive plain, where we could not even find a tree to shelter us. Her first care was to dress my wound, which she had bandaged before our departure. I in vain entreated her to desist from exertion it would have only added to her distress if I had refused her the satisfaction of seeing me at ease and out of danger, before her own wants were attended to. I allowed her therefore to gratify herself, and in shame and silence submitted to her delicate attentions.

:

But when she had completed her tender task, with what ardor did I not enter upon mine! I took off my clothes and stretched them under her, to render more endurable the hard and rugged ground on which she lay. I protected her delicate hands from the cold by my burning kisses and the warmth of my sighs. I passed the livelong night in watching over her as she slept, and praying Heaven to refresh her with soft and undisturbed repose. You can bear witness, just and all-seeing God! to the fervor and sincerity of those prayers, and thou alone knowest with what awful rigor they were rejected.

You will excuse me if I now cut short a story which it distresses me beyond endurance to relate. It is, I believe, a calamity without parallel. I can never cease to deplore it. But although it continues, of course, deeply and indelibly impressed on my memory, yet my heart seems to shrink within me each time that I attempt the recital.

As

We had thus tranquilly passed the night. I had fondly imagined that my beloved mistress was in a profound sleep, and I hardly dared to breathe lest I should disturb her. day broke, I observed that her hands were cold and trembling; I pressed them to my bosom in the hope of restoring animation. This movement roused her attention, and making an effort to grasp my hand, she said, in a feeble voice, that she thought her last moments had arrived.

I at first took this for a passing weakness, or the ordinary language of distress; and I answered with the usual consolations that love prompted. But her incessant sighs, her silence and inattention to my inquiries, the convulsed grasp of her hands, in which she retained mine, soon convinced me that the crowning end of all my miseries was approaching.

Do not now expect me to attempt a description of my feelings or to repeat her dying expressions. I lost her, — I re

ceived the purest assurances of her love even at the very instant that her spirit fled. I have not nerve to say more upon this

fatal and disastrous event.

My spirit was not destined to accompany Manon's. Doubtless, Heaven did not as yet consider me sufficiently punished, and therefore ordained that I should continue to drag on a languid and joyless existence. I willingly renounced every hope of leading a happy one.

I remained for twenty-four hours without taking my lips from the still beauteous countenance and hands of my adored Manon. My intention was to await my own death in that position; but at the beginning of the second day, I reflected that after I was gone, she must of necessity become the prey of wild beasts. I then determined to bury her, and wait my own doom upon her grave. I was already, indeed, so near my end, from the combined effect of long fasting and grief, that it was with the greatest difficulty I could support myself standing. I was obliged to have recourse to the liquors which I had brought with me, and these restored sufficient strength to enable me to set about my last sad office. From the sandy nature of the soil, there was little trouble in opening the ground. I broke my sword, and used it for the purpose; but my bare hands were of greater service. I dug a deep grave, and there deposited the idol of my heart, after having wrapped around her my clothes to prevent the sand from touching her. I kissed her ten thousand times with all the ardor of the most glowing love, before I laid her in this melancholy bed. I sat for some time upon the bank intently gazing on her, and could not command fortitude enough to close the grave over her. At length, feeling that my strength was giving way, and apprehensive of its being entirely exhausted before the completion of my task, I committed to the earth all that it had ever contained most perfect and peerless. I then lay myself with my face down upon the grave, and closing my eyes with the determination never again to open them, I invoked the mercy of Heaven and ardently prayed for death.

You will find it difficult to believe that during the whole time of this protracted and distressing ceremony not a tear or a sigh escaped to relieve my agony. The state of profound affliction in which I was, and the deep-settled resolution I had taken to die, had silenced the sighs of despair, and effectually dried up the ordinary channels of grief. It was thus impos

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sible for me, in this posture upon the grave, to continue for any time in the possession of my faculties.

Synnelet having been carried into the town and skillfully examined, it was found that, so far from being dead, he was not even dangerously wounded. He informed his uncle of the manner in which the affray had occurred between us, and he generously did justice to my conduct on the occasion. I was sent for; and as neither of us could be found, our flight was immediately suspected. It was then too late to attempt to trace me, but the next day and the following one were employed in the pursuit.

I was found, without any appearance of life, upon the grave of Manon; and the persons who discovered me in this situation, seeing that I was almost naked and bleeding from my wounds, naturally supposed that I had been robbed and assassinated. They carried me into the town. The motion restored The sighs I heaved on opening my eyes and me to my senses. finding myself still amongst the living, showed that I was not beyond the reach of art: they were but too successful in its application.

I was immediately confined as a close prisoner. My trial was ordered; and as Manon was not forthcoming, I was accused of having murdered her from rage and jealousy. I naturally related all that had occurred. Synnelet, though bitterly grieved and disappointed by what he heard, had the generosity to solicit my pardon: he obtained it.

I was so reduced that they were obliged to carry me from the prison to my bed, and there I suffered for three long months under severe illness. My aversion from life knew no diminution. I continually prayed for death, and obstinately for some time refused every remedy. But Providence, after having punished me with expiatory rigor, saw fit to turn to my own use its chastisements and the memory of my multiplied sorrows. It at length deigned to shed upon me its redeeming light, and revived in my mind ideas worthy of my birth and my early education.

My tranquillity of mind being again restored, my cure speedily followed. I began only to feel the highest aspirations of honor, and diligently performed the duties of my appointment, whilst expecting the arrival of vessels from France. I resolved to return to my native country, there to expiate the scandal of my former life by my future good conduct.

THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION TO THE COURSE OF

NATURE.

BY JOSEPH BUTLER.

[JOSEPH BUTLER, English theologian, was born at Mantage, in Berkshire, May 18, 1692. At first a Dissenter, he joined the English Church when a youth, and graduated at Oriel College. As preacher at the Rolls Chapel, he delivered the famous Sermons important in theological writing. After holding several rectorates he retired and wrote the "Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature" (1731). He was made bishop of Bristol in 1738, of Durham in 1750. He died at Bath, June 16, 1752.] OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD BY REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS, AND PARTICULARLY OF THE LATTER.

THAT which makes the question concerning a future life to be of so great importance to us is our capacity of happiness and misery. And that which makes the consideration of it to be of so great importance to us is the supposition of our happiness and misery hereafter depending upon our actions here. Without this, indeed, curiosity could not but sometimes bring a subject, in which we may be so highly interested, to our thoughts; especially upon the mortality of others, or the near prospect of our own. But reasonable men would not take any further thought about hereafter than what should happen thus occasionally to rise in their minds, if it were certain that our future interest no way depended upon our present behavior. Whereas, on the contrary, if there be ground, either from analogy or anything else to think it does, then there is reason also for the most active thought and solicitude to secure that interest; to behave so as that we may escape that misery and obtain that happiness in another life which we not only suppose ourselves capable of, but which we apprehend also is put in our own power. And whether there be ground for this last apprehension certainly would deserve to be most seriously considered, were there no other proof of a future life and interest than the presumptive one which the foregoing observations amount

to.

Now, in the present state, all which we enjoy, and a great part of what we suffer, is put in our own power. For pleasure and pain are the consequences of our actions; and we are endued by the Author of our Nature with capacities of foreseeing these consequences. We find by experience He does not so

much as preserve our lives, exclusively of our own care and attention, to provide ourselves with and to make use of that sustenance by which He has appointed our lives shall be preserved, and without which He has appointed they shall not be preserved at all. And in general we foresee that the external things, which are the objects of our various passions, can neither be obtained nor enjoyed without exerting ourselves in such and such manners; but by thus exerting ourselves we obtain and enjoy these objects in which our natural good consists, or by this means God gives us the possession and enjoyment of them. I know not that we have any one kind or degree of enjoyment, but by the means of our own actions. And by prudence and care we may, for the most part, pass our days in tolerable ease and quiet; or, on the contrary, we may, by rashness, ungoverned passion, willfulness, or even by negligence, make ourselves as miserable as ever we please. And many do please to make themselves extremely miserable-i.e. to do what they know beforehand will render them so. They follow those ways, the fruit of which they know by instruction, example, experience, will be disgrace and poverty and sickness and untimely death. This every one observes to be the general course of things; though it is to be allowed we cannot find by experience that all our sufferings are owing to our own follies.

Why the Author of Nature does not give His creatures promiscuously such and such perceptions, without regard to their behavior, why He does not make them happy without the instrumentality of their own actions, and prevent their bringing any sufferings upon themselves, is another matter. Perhaps there may be some impossibilities in the nature of things which we are unacquainted with. Or less happiness, it may be, would upon the whole be produced by such a method of conduct than is by the present. Or perhaps divine goodness, with which, if I mistake not, we make very free in our speculations, may not be a bare single disposition to produce happiness, but a disposition to make the good, the faithful, the honest man happy. Perhaps an infinitely perfect mind may be pleased with seeing his creatures behave suitably to the nature which he has given them, to the relations which he has placed them in to each other, and to that which they stand in to himself, that relation to himself which, during their existence, is even necessary, and which is the most important one of all. Perhaps, I say, an infinitely perfect mind may be pleased with