"It is impossible," continued he, "that I can ex-ject so honourable an offer, from a man whose name press the grief which I felt at your strange determination, to remain constant to your deceased husband; there is no object in it; and it appears to me to be without any rational grounds."

"I really am truly sorry for you," replied he, "but she was indeed, an excellent and most amiable lady." "You will not understand me, Annette," continued As he spoke these words, up came the new Madame Richard, "what I would say to you, Madame Helvetius Helvetius, and I recognised in her-guess who? No and Mr. Franklin might unhesitatingly hear. You can other than Mrs. Franklin, my old, faithful American go and call your father, if you will, I would not object

to speak in his presence. I want nothing improper Annette, I only wish to marry you."

The girl dropped her head, and made a movement by which Richard came only the nearer to her; there was no need for her answer.

"Well, then!" continued the young man, "we will be married. I will mention it to Mr. Franklin, he will speak about it to Madame Helvetius, and both of them will arrange it all with your father."

"Is it really your serious meaning, Richard, that you will marry me?"

your forests; I love the little duck-pond at Auteuil, on whose banks I was born. As a child I played by its waters, and every sickly tree, of which you speak so contemptuously, was a witness of the happiness of my youth. Fare-you-well, Mr. Richard! I must go and water my father's sugar-peas, and go and make the cheese and cream the milk for Madame Helvetius."

Annette rose up from the stone-bench, arranged her dress a little, and then, evidently disconcerted, went with streaming tears into the kitchen-garden, where her father had been walking about all the morning with the watering-can.

"Most certainly! We will set off to America, and then you will see that it is the most beautiful country My dear friend," said Madame Helvetius to Franklin, in the whole world, dear Annette! Mr. Franklin will" you are a better citizen than Richard, at least you are give us some land, which we will cultivate, and thus much more useful and necessary to your country than will we live free and happy. Oh, dear Annette, if you he is; could you decide wholly to give up your Ameriwere only acquainted with my glorious native land, if ca? Would you be willing to end your days in France, you only could see how magnificently the sun rises over near the duck-pond of Auteuil, far from your great riour forests, you would then say as yearningly as I do, vers, your immense lakes; your sun which rises over the sooner we go to that " enchanting" country the the undisturbed forests? I, for my part, think as Anbetter. In comparison with our rivers your Seine and nette does, I prefer to that new world which you are Rhone are only miserable little brooks, and you might making free the little insignificant duck-pond of Autenil. sink your whole city of Paris in our lakes, without per- The story which you told me,” added she, “is a most ceiving in the least what had become of it. Only say charming one, but what do you say to that which we one word Annette, and then before Mr. Franklin leaves have just now heard?" the house we can have everything settled!

"Are there really such gloriously beautiful things in your native country?" asked the girl, full of an astonished curiosity, in hearing him speak of lakes in which Paris might vanish without leaving a trace behind. "Most certainly, Annette; God knows that I have spoken the truth!'

"But is there then a duck-pond there like ours at Anteuil?" enquired she.

"How, the duck-pond at Anteuil!" said Richard disparagingly, "what that little muddy hole, that one passes in coming into the place! that sort of ditch planted round with sickly trees, and where frogs and toads live!"

Yes, yes, a duck-pond like this at Auteuil," repeated the girl, and gently withdrew herself from Richard's em

brace.

"But, Annette," remonstrated he, "how can you think about nothing but this duck-pond? Certainly you have no love for me, and there is some young fellow in the village that you like better!"

"No," returned the girl, “there is not! But still the duck-pond of Auteuil pleases me better than your great lakes in which you would so willingly sink the whole of Paris, or than your rivers against which the Seine, my beloved Seine, the river of my native land, is only an insignificant brook! Richard, we will be married, but then you must stop at Auteuil!"

Franklin made no reply; he kissed the hand of the lady whom he loved, and then went immediately to Cabanis to consult him on the best means of regulating his health during his long voyage.

A few days afterwards both Richard and himself set sail from Havre to America, where, as is well known, shortly after his arrival in Philadelphia he was chosen Minister of State, and shortly afterwards President.

Annette neither left France nor the duck-pond of Auteuil. The next year she married one of her neighbours, who took up arms in the year 1798. During the power of Napoleon Annette greatly distinguished herself, and in 1812 her husband fell on the bed of honour,” highly renowned for his military achievements.

As regarded Madame Helvetius, she also remained steadfast and true in her attachment to Auteuil. She always attracted to her the most distinguished men of the age, and Turgot, Garat, Destüt-Tracy, and Bernardin St. Pierre, succeeded to Benjamin Franklin. One day when Buonaparte, at that time First Consul, was walking with her in the garden, she said to him, "General, you can have no idea how happy one can be on a little plot of ground not above three acres in extent!"

That was very true as coming from the lips of a woman who had refused to marry Franklin, and who out of love to her native land chose to end her days in the quiet retirement in which she had passed thirty happy years.

"How! you encourage me to leave Mr. Franklin, and never again to see my native land? That would be just the same as deserting my own flag! anything as impossible as this you cannot ask from me, Annette! Only consider, that my native land needs all her subjects, FACTS FROM THE FIELDS.—THE DEPOPULATING that England, which has not been able to subdue us, threatens us without intermission! Good Heavens! what would Mr. Franklin say if I should tell him that I was not returning to America! I love you, I would very

POLICY.

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

THE MELDRUM FAMILY.

gladly give up my life for you if my country did not re- EXTENSION OF THE ENGLISH MANUFACTURING SYSTEM, quire it. Annette, beloved Annette; there is, after all, BY WHICH MEN ARE WORKED UP INTO MALEFACTORS. something higher even than love, and that is duty. You on the contrary,-what is there to keep you here? France does not need you; you may leave your country without its remarking the loss of one girl whose name it perhaps does not know, and who never can be useful to her country."

(Continued from page 311.)

THE HISTORY OF ZEALOUS SCATTERGOOD.

"You are under a mistake, Richard," replied she, "I Having got Meldrum into such respectable employtoo love my country, and I should wish that my child-ment, let us now take a somewhat closer view of the ren, if I ever had any, should love it as I do. Duty friends who thus interested themselves on his behalf. calls you back to America; my happiness and my peace In the first place, the old preacher, Zealous Scatterattach me to France. You love your lakes, your rivers, good, was, perhaps, unlike any other man of his profes

1

sion throughout Great Britain. He stood alone, both in character and position. Though he was a Baptist, yet he belonged not to that sect, held no communication with any of its ministers. He pursued his way alone, and voluntarily sought out the poor and the neglected, and became their minister. There was scarcely a part of England in which he had not pursued his labours. He had been at work amongst the miners of Cornwall, and the colliers of Durham; amongst the clod hoppers of Wiltshire, and the stockingers of Nottingham. He might be truly called a wanderer and a sojourner, having no abiding city here. There were some parts of his history that no mortal could penetrate into, but there was enough came to the light to shew that he had at one time, many years ago, been the happy head of a happy family. That family was now all dispersed or dead; he was a solitary pilgrim on the earth. There was a flitting, shadow-like character about him. He shrunk from the 'broad way and the green,' into the narrow paths, the obscurities of life. He avoided the wealthy and the proud, and seemed at home only amongst the poor, for whom he laboured incessantly, subsisting on the meagre pittance of their subscription. With tastes of a high and refined order, and having read and thought much, yet he never seemed at ease amongst the wealthier classes who could better understand his higher tastes, and estimate his uncommon acquirements. If he unexpectedly found himself amongst them, he became silent, shut up, and as soon as possible, stole quietly away. It was only when you could get him out into a country walk, or when in his pulpit, or labouring to enlighten the dark minds that only too thickly abound everywhere, that he seemed to forget a kind of timidity, a suspicion, an embarrassment, and became the man and the valiant Christian.

More than one of our men of literary fame have come across this singular man, in one part or other of the country. They have met him with his "Quarles' Emblems," his "Milton," or "Herrick" in his hands, and have been equally astonished and delighted at the beauty of his conversation, and his enthusiastic love of nature. One poet has recorded such a meeting in verses, which have fallen into our hands.

TO ZEALOUS SCATTERGOOD.

My friend!-there have been men
To whom we turn again

After contemplating the present age,
And long, with vain regret,

That they were living yet,

Virtue's high war triumphantly to wage.

Men, whose renown

as built

Not through resplendent guilt;

Not through life's waste, or the abuse of power;

But by the dauntless zeal,

With which, at Truth's appeal,

They stood, even to the death, in some eventful hour.

But he who now shall dream,

Because among us scem,

No dubious symptoms of a realm's decline,
Wealth, mad with its excess,

Mid far-diffused distress,

And Luxury sapping, where it should refine.

He who deems hence shall flow
The utter overthrow

Of this most famous, and long happy land,
Little knows he what lies

Even beneath his eyes
Slumbering in forms that round about him stand.

Little knows he the zeal
Myriads of spirits feel

In love, pure principle, and knowledge strong,
Little knows he what men

Tread this dear land again

Whose unambitious hearts invigorate the throng.

My friend?-I lay with thee
Bencath the forest tree,

When spring was shedding her first sweets around;
And the bright sky above

Woke feelings of deep love,

And thoughts which soared into the blue profound.
I lay, and as I heard

The joyful faith thus stirred,

Poured in warm words from thy experienced breast,
Such was the buoyant thought

That in my bosom wrought,

And rising in its strength, my native land I blest.

had occupied the rural musers, but it is not so easy for It is easy to perceive from these stanzas what topics any one who did not know him, to imagine the zeal and eloquent ardour of the old man on such occasions. Once out in the fields and woods he was a boy again. He actually ran and leapt, and some beautiful scene, some flower, as that of the blushing wilding in the early spring, would fill him with rapture, till the old Puritanic leaven of his sectarian education, would make him fear lest it were sinful to be so happy. On one occasion, wandering in the Peak of Derbyshire, he met with a young evangelical clergyman in Dove Dale, and the young man struck, as was no wonder, at the venerable aspect of the old pilgrim father, and seeing him gazing with evident enthusiasm on the different objects in that beautiful valley, entered into conversation with him, and was soon as much struck by his literary knowledge, his deep religious experience, and his profound love of the great and beautiful. The old man and the young traversed the whole Dale together, and spent nearly the whole day in its caverns, sitting on the green sward beside its clear swift waters, engaged in absorbing talk on many topics of the life and the prospects of man; and, ever and anon, again starting forward, and noting the ever-changing and singular features of the place. To such a pitch of enthusiasm did they work themselves by these means, that they sung a hymn together in one cavern, knelt down and prayed together in another, and then by mutual agreement returned each to his own home, from the conviction that they had filled themselves as full of spiritual and intellectual enjoyment as man was capable of, or was good for him.

Such was old Zealous Scattergood where he had only God and nature to stand face to face with, for he knew that they are both charitable, and never misinterpret, and never indulge malice under the show of godly zeal. With them, and some noble-hearted being in their presence, and where the voice of slander could not come, there was Zealous Scattergood bold, open, poetical, and wise. But meet him in the city-had this young clergyman met him there afterwards, he would have seen with astonishment-the same old man timidly recognise his greeting, and as soon as possible steal away and begone.

And how was this? What occasioned this extraordinary phenomenon? It may be explained, and we have it in our power to explain it. Zealous Scattergood in the course of a long life had made one lapse in the path of strict rectitude--and its consequences pursued him, and he knew that they would pursue him to the grave. Bitterly had he repented of that one weak act, fervently and for years had he prayed the God of mercy and love to forgive this one error--and believed that it was forgiven. God and Christ in his own heart had said to him long ago-"Go thy way and sin no more-thy sin is forgiven thee." But his fellow men, each of whom had been bade-if without sin to cast the first stone-had not, like the sinners of old, retired ashamed from the presence of the divine judge. Full of sins themselves, they had not hesitated a moment, each to fling his stone of accusation and injury, but they had continued to fling their stones to the last hour, whenever they could meet with him. Zealous Scattergood knew that the love and

1

faith-professing world would never cease to pursue him with its calumny shaped as a righteous scorn, and he slunk away from before it, and sought to work amid the shadows of the earth where he could at once hide himself, and render them less black.

together. He now seemed to see all the foulness of his
crime himself. He believed himself lost for ever. He
loathed and despised himself. Where he hid and whi-
ther he went, no one knows; but he did not venture
home. There came the news like a blast of death, and
it was one.
stretched in her coffin; and his family was left utterly
In a very few days Zealous's wife was
destitute.

Zealous Scattergood was educated for a Baptist minister. For many years he was located as the minister of a populous country village, and the hamlets around, to which he made his periodical visits. He was married, Zealous could not be very distant from his home, for and had a numerous family. The income was meagre at this news he entered the village at midnight, and and did not grow with his family. For some years he flung himself in a paroxysm of grief on his wife's grave. laboured and struggled on, but the long-continued sick- A poor woman who was nursing a sick child, and whose ness of his wife, and the necessity of getting his great window overlooked the churchyard, was standing at the boys out into trades, pressed on him to a degree that open casement giving the feverish little creature air, became insupportable. He had been compelled to bor- when she saw a dark figure come up the churchyard row money of one of the members of his congregation-path, and looking here and there, at length spring rawho, when he was least able to pay, came to have press-pidly forward to the new-made grave of Mrs. Scattering need of it himself. Zealous was driven to despair. good, and dashing himself down upon it, begin to tear He looked round and pondered all means and prospects his hair, and groan and cry terribly. The woman at of help. He saw none.

At this moment he resolved to look out for a better location. He conned the advertisements on the fly leaves of their religious magazines, and saw that a pulpit was vacant in a populous town, and that a call was made for ministers to officiate on trial. There was, however, one serious obstacle. The vacancy was in an Independent congregation-and Zealous was a Baptist. It was a terrible temptation. In all points of religious faith the two sects were exactly alike, except in some particulars regarding the right of baptism. Zealous said to himself. "On every great moral and religious point, I could preach to them from my heart-and this baptismal difference-what is it? He hung upon the advantages of the higher salary, the more extended field of labour--and the pressure of his necessities, more cloquent than a host of arguments-made him persuade himself that he could accept and conscientiously fulfil the office. He wavered, and he fell. He wrote to offer his services, went on trial, and succeeded. His services were declared most satisfactory, and he was formally elected by the congregation.

light, though wild and cloudy in the late autumn, and once comprehended who it was. The night was moonthe grave was not many yards from her window. She described the scene as the most terrible imaginable. That the poor man tore up the very earth in his agony, and called, as she said, on both God and Devil to annihilate him. The woman was rivetted by horror to the spot, but she gave a wild cry at what she saw and heard, and the unhappy man suddenly started to his feet, and fled away without once looking back.

some miles distant in a state of utter derangement. He Poor Scattergood was found wandering in the fields was a wild maniac, and was fled from with horror by those who first saw him, but was afterwards captured, and conveyed to the parish workhouse. In this place he continued for many months, and passed from a condition of furious madness to one of childish imbecility. It was only after he had in some degree recovered his mind, and an outward degree of serenity, that he contrived to escape, and disappeared for some years. How and where he lived during this period is not known. in a distant part of the kingdom, where he was labouring When he was again recognised it was in a sea-port town amongst the lowest poor, as he had ever since continued to labour.

How it happened that he had obtained credentials of recommendation from his own old congregation-how they had come to imagine it a Baptist church to which Zealous had this call, and how the Independent congregation in the town had been so uncircumspect as not to both sons and daughters were now in good though humHis children had been assisted by some relatives, and ascertain that it was a Baptist people from whom Zen-ble situations earning their livelihood. For Zealous himlous came, are points unknown to us, but the fact is certain, that by some means these particulars were not nicely scrutinized-and that Zealous was installed the minister of a large congregation, with a salary triple in amount to that on which he had been starving.

But it was not long before the fatal discovery was made. There came a rumour-then came a man, who to make sure placed himself just in front of Zealons's pulpit during one Sunday morning service-there was a closetting with the elders afterwards in the vestry, and never was there such a sudden stir, buzz, and alarm. It was like the swarming of a bee-hive. The whole congregation was in a tremour and agitation of astonishment and indignation. There were terms flying from mouth to mouth of "Oh! the vile monster-the Judas! the impostor! Oh! the abominable hypocrite! the Ananias and Sapphira both in one! the wretch! the demon! the brazen serpent of damnation-lying thus before God himself. Oh! what perjury and perfidy, and perdition. It was the awful, unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Many wondered that the pulpit had not been struck by a thunder-bolt as the vile reprobate was in it, and the whole chapel and congregation been consumed with him. They rushed away out of it at the very idea.

self he had repented in dust and ashes. He had truly passed through the fiery furnace of affliction and selfcondemnation, and he felt now that he was forgiven in heaven, but that he never should be on earth. He knew that the one evil hour of his life would embitter the whole of his existence-that the fame of that deed would follow him to the ends of the earth; and he resolved to bear as a just punishment all the evils that it could bring him, and go on labouring for those who had none else to help them, so long as he should continue on earth. His checks were become thin and colourless, his eyes dim and deep set, and his hair as white as snow.

secution he was doomed to suffer. He had fixed And he had not been deceived in the amount of perhimself down in various neglected spots, and was be ginning to draw the moral chaos into some degree of light and order, to disentangle the elements of truth and virtue, from those of crime and gross sensualism, when some accident was sure to arrest him in his labour, and drive him forth with ignominy. Some stranger recognised him, and gave his account of him; some letter, arrived to put the people on their guard. The doers and writers of these things thought they did God serIn the mean time poor Zealous had fled before the the frail brother had not suffered, and been baptized in vice. They took no time or pains to ascertain whether tempest. He had gone, heaping as many maledictions on affliction to genuine repentance, and newness of life. his own head as all the exasperated congregation had done | With them he was a hypocrite and an impostor, and it

was a work of virtue to unmask and chase him forth. God saw and approved of all his humble contriteness, and his work of love, but man saw only, and would see only, a minister of hypocrisy and deceit, doing the works of God for a bit of bread. It was in vain that he appealed to those works which he did, and the life which he led. They never stood a moment against the breath of calumny-those who had seen him and known him for years progress-shrunk from him, and gave him

up.

what Zealous Scattergood had done, and not listen to his
enemies of what he had done somewhere, some forty
years before. She asked who amongst them there was,
who, at some moment of their life, had not done what
they repented of, and who amongst them could point to
a constant life of labour and care for others? Where
could they look for a man who would instruct and
comfort them, and educate their children like Zealous
Scattergood? Were there not times and seasons of dif-
ficulty in which they had to look back for their deli-
verance to his disinterested and indefatigable kindness?
The tide of feeling was turned into the channels of
charity and gratitude. Their memories were awoke to
acts of sympathy and zeal, which cast out and made
innocuous the venom of slander. The crisis was passed,
a triumph was achieved, and Zealous Scattergood had
at length found real friends and a resting-place.
(To be continued.)

Once did the old man imagine that he had found a firm hold of true hearts, and a harbour for life. An aged and worthy pair in a stern wild region of Yorkshire, had built a chapel, and given a salary for a minister. This oflice Zealous had succeeded in obtaining. Here all was to his taste, a simple people, a wild country, whose bold features seized on his imagination, and soothed his mind; and the old worthy couple growing daily more attached to him, and putting the deepest trust in him. For twelve months had he continued here; the old people congratulated themselves on the acquisition of such a friend, and Zealous not only taught well from the pulpit, but taught the children in the chapel, which he made a school of in the week. The neighbourhood was rapidly improving-but here even penetrated the eye of the slanderous enemy. Some one, on a journey of business, hearing in a neighbouring manufacturing A VOICE went forth from the Treasury-bench, town, of the labours and success of the minister, thought he recognised who it was,-came over-and found it | And it cried “ Give me armies, our rights to entrench,

even so.

Even here all that Zealous had done, availed nothing. Many a time had he thought of opening his past life, and shewing his own fatal error to his aged patrons-but the misery of the subject had prevented him. Now the enemy did it for him, and effectually. There was a cloud on the faces of his friends the next time that he saw them; they upbraided him with deceiving them-and demanded the keys of his cottage and the chapel.

Zealous resigned them on the instant, but it was with a pang. He explained with tears, and words instinct with repentance, his whole history, but it was too late. He had again lost a home, a people, and friends, such as he did not hope to meet with again.

Some time afterwards he was found by one of the few of those who had known him before, and who gave him credit for being all that he was, in a rude hamlet amongst the hills of Durham. It was in the midst of a collier population. He had again drawn round him a poor but zealous congregation, and was living like an old prophet in a sort of chamber on the wall.

At the end of a close court of houses, you ascended by a ladder to his abode, and proceeding round to the other side of the dwelling, where the entrance was, it was found that the ground there was the height of the second story, and that the old man's cottage faced into a garden, which was bounded by high, wild uplands. Here in one little room the old man lived. There were his "Quarles," his "Milton," his " Herrick," and his bed. On a line in the garden hung his old thread-bare suit of black, which had been rubbed with some liquid which the poor know, as a refresher to the dye, and it was now sweetening in the hill breezes.

Here the old man spoke as feelingly as ever, of the beauties of the surrounding country which he had traversed in all directions, and offered to traverse again with his friend, of their favourite authors, and his labours for the people. But soon after this, he was ejected by the old causes from this obscure retreat, and, wearied of the country, he had made a long flight southward, and had been some time labouring where we have found him in London.

A PEACE OFFERING.

In St. Stephen's thrice trumpeted hall,

St. Stephen-a martyr to blood-thirsty foes,
Looked down from his haven of rest;

And he pointed the member who sat for Montrose,
To the peace-makers' home with the blest.

Heaven teach us the hearts of mankind to endear,
And to lessen the sum of our woes!

But even here, he could not have maintained his ground, except for one stout little heart, that of Nancy May Heaven be judge 'twixt the noble Premier,

Tulloch. The old story had reached her in this court, and he would have had to march forth, had not this courageous little woman, bade the people look at

And the member who sits for Montrose!

May 3rd, 1848.

Cusco.