of his very intemperate habits he was shunned States; the eastern States in particular. In by the respectable portion of his friends, many all countries where it is not read, the masses months before his death. He asked permis- are as ignorant as the brutes that perish.— sion from the Trustees of the Society of Franklin, Fulton, Morse, Watts (steam-imFriends, to have his bones laid in their bury- prover), Burns, Hogg, Brown, and many othing ground: they refused. He was much hurt ers, some of them never read a book, the Bible by their refusal. His father was a member of excepted, till they had seen their twentieth the Society of Friends in England. Paine year. Most of the improvements in mechandied of delirium tremens. His last words ics, machinery, and the useful arts of husbandwere, "Lord Jesus, help." He was buried in ry, were produced by the natives of the easthis own farm, near New York. Carver, his ern States, where they read the Bible and revwarm friend and admirer, assured me that Mr. erence the Sabbath. Scotland is emphaticalPaine drank two gallons of brandy per week, ly the land of Bibles. In Ireland (comparaduring the last three months of his life. T. tively speaking) they have none: or if they A. Emmet, one of his executors, told me, when have them they don't read them. This day Mr. Paine's affairs were all settled, a balance our jails, penitentiaries, alms-houses, and state of 400 dollars remained for his relations in prisons are full of Irish. You can't find a England. Scotchman in any of them. In Scotland, Now, friend Editor, I was a free-thinker and every man, woman and child can read the Bia free voter, under the Presidency of Wash- ble and write their own name. It is not so in ington. I therefore think I have as good a any nation where the Bible is not read. I right to think as any free-thinker in America. wish you well, my esteemed friend. We are I think no republic can exist without the Bi- accountable to God only for our opinions.ble. When the goddess of liberty was a babe Should business lead you this way, I will be in her cradle, she was rocked to maturity in happy to see you. I would give a dollar for the Bible shops of Massachusetts. The his- half an hour with you, face to face. If my tory of our dear sister republics, France and name is in your paper at any time, please send Mexico, are cases in point. Franklin says, me a copy. I would have written sooner, but "no republic can exist except the citizens are time is short. intelligent and virtuous." I am not aware that the Bible is generally read among the masses, except in Scotland and the United

Thine with respect,

GRANT THORBURN,
aged 82 years.

BURYING IN LIME.

Lesketh How, Ambleside 14th March, 1855. SIR-The Reverend E. G. Parker, one of the witnesses who gave his evidence before the Committee of inquiry relative to our Army in the Crimea, on the 9th instant, is reported as having stated, that in conversation with Lord Shaftesbury," he had urged the necessity of making lime-kilns at Balaklava, in order to furnish lime with which to destroy the unburied horses or insufficiently-buried human bodies which now poisoned the air;" and that "Lord Shaftesbury had

told him that orders had been sent out to the Sanitary Commission to take those steps."

measure proposed if employed? The accumulation of bodies may become enormous; and if men and horses are buried be not of more than the graves and pits in which the bodies of the ordinary depth, they will be liable to be torn up and preyed on by dogs.

Should you honor this letter by insertion in administrative person under Government conyour paper, and should it meet the eye of any cerned, I would refer him to the 9th volume of the Philosophical Transactions abridged; where he will find an example recorded by Dr. Parsons of the evils of burying in lime.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN DAVY, M. D.,
Inspector-General of Hospitals, H. P.

Has this measure, I would ask, been well considered? If it be grounded on the old notion that caustic lime has the power to destroy dead bodies, it certainly has not been well considered; The Athenæum Francais has commenced the lime having no such property, but the contrary issue of a weekly Bulletin Archéologique, which property, that of preserving animal matter, and promises to increase the value of the paper. this in a remarkable manner, as I have ascer- The first chapter is on Etruscan Pottery, and tained by many trials made both in this country discusses the Sacrifice of the Dog,-a subject and in Malta, and these during the heats of sum-frequently found on the Maremma vases. The mer. Now, this being the case, is it not a serious dog was sacrificed to Apollo in times of pesquestion, what will be the consequences of the tilence.-Athenæum.

From Household Words.

A GHOST STORY,

I WILL relate to you, my friend, the whole history from the beginning to nearly the end. The first time that-that it happened, was on this wise.

My husband and myself was sitting in a private box at the theatre-one of the two large London theatres. The performance was, I remember well, an Easter piece in which were introduced live dromedaries and an elephant, at whose clumsy feats we were considerably amused. I mention this to show how calm and even gay was the state of both our minds that evening, and how little there was in any of the circumstances of the place or time to cause, or render us liable to-what I am about to describe.

spoke. The mere word Hispaniola was enough to throw a damp and a silence over us both,

"Isbel," he said at last, rousing himself, with a half-smile, "I think you must have grown suddenly beautiful. Look! half the glasses opposite are lifted to our box. It cannot be at me, you know. Do you remember telling me I was the ugliest fellow you ever saw?"

"Oh, Alex!" Yet it was quite true-I had thought him so, in far back, strange, awful times, when I, a girl of sixteen, had my mind wholly filled with one ideal -one insane, exquisite dream; when I brought my innocent child's gar lands, and sat me down under one great spreading, magnificent tree, which seemed to me the king of all the trees of the field, until I felt its dews dropping death upon my youth, and my whole soul withering under its venomous shade. I liked this Easter piece better than any seri- "Oh, Alex!" I cried, once more, looking ous drama. My life had contained enough of the fondly on his beloved face, where no unearthly tragic element to make me turn with a sick dis-beauty dazzled, no unnatural calm repelled; taste from all imitations thereof in books or where all was simple, noble, manly, true."Husplays. For months, ever since our marriage, Al- band, I thank heaven for that dear ugliness' of exis and I had striven to lead a purely childish, yours. Above all, though blood runs strong, common-place existence, eschewing all stirring they say, that I see in you no likeness to -" events and strong passions, mixing little in society, and then, with one exception, making no associations beyond the moment.

It was easy to do this in London; for we had no relations-we two were quite alone and free. Free-free! How wildly I sometimes grasped Alexis's hand as I repeated that word.

He was young-so was I. At times, as on this night, we would sit and laugh like children. It was so glorious to know of a surety that now we could think, feel, speak, act-above all, love one another-haunted by no counteracting spell, responsible to no living creature for our life and our love.

But this had been only for a year-I had thought of the date, shuddering, in the morning -for a year, from this same day.

We had been laughing very heartily, cherishing mirth, as it were, like those who would caress a lovely bird that had been frightened out of its natural home and grown wild and rare in its visits, only tapping at the lattice for a minute, and then gone. Suddenly, in the pause between the acts, when the house was half-darkened, our laughter died away.

"How cold it is," said Alexis, shivering. I shivered too; but it was more like the involuntary shudder at which people say, "Some one is walking over my grave." I said so, jestingly.

"Hush, Isbel," whispered my husband, reprovingly; and again the draught of cold air seemed to blow right between us.

We sat, he in the front, I behind the curtain of our box, divided by some foot or two of space and by a vacant chair. Alexis tried to move this chair, but it was fixed. He went round it, and wrapped a mantle over my shoulders.

"This London winter is cold for you, my love. I half wish we had taken courage, and sailed once more for Hispaniola."

"Oh, no-oh, no! No more of the sea!" said I, with another and stronger shudder.

He took his former position, looking round indifferently at the audience. But neither of us

Alexis knew what name I meant, though for a whole year-since God's mercy made it to us only a name-we had ceased to utter it, and let it die wholly out of the visible world. We dared not breathe to ourselves, still less to one another, how much brighter, holier, happier, that world was, now that the Divine wisdom had takenhim-into another. For he had been my husband's uncle; likewise, once my guardian. He was now dead.

I sat looking at Alexis, thinking what a strange thing it was that his dear face should not have always been as beautiful to me as it was now. That loving my husband now so deeply, so wholly, clinging to him heart to heart, in the deep peace of satisfied, all-trusting, and all-dependent human affection, I could ever have felt that emotion, first as an exquisite bliss, then as an ineffable terror, which now had vanished away, and become-nothing.

They are gazing still, Isbel."

"Who, and where?" For I had quite forgotten what he said about the people staring at me.

And there is Colonel Hart. He sees us. Shall I beckon?" "As you will."

He

Colonel Hart came up into our box. shook hands with my husband, bowed to me, then looked round, half-curiously, half-uneasily. "I thought there was a friend with you." "None. We have been alone all evening." "Indeed! How strange."

"What! That my wife and I should enjoy a play alone together?" said Alexis, smiling.

"Excuse me, but really I was surprised to find you alone. I have certainly seen for the last half-hour a third person sitting on this chair, between you both.

We could not help starting; for, as I stated before, the chair had, in truth, been left between us, empty.

"Truly our unknown friend must have been invisible. Nonsense, Colonel; how can you turn

"I perceive-you think it a mere hallucination" of mine. We shall see. I suspect the trick is on your side, and that you are harboring some proscribed Hungarian. But I'll not betray him. Adieu."

"The ghostly Hungarian shall not sit next you, love, this time," said Alexis, trying once more to remove the chair. But possibly, though he jested, he was slightly nervous, and his efforts" were vain. "What nonsense this is! Isbel, let us forget it. I will stand behind you, and watch the play."

"It was no living man, but a corpse that we picked up off a wreck, and again committed to He stood. I clasping his hand secretly and the deep-in the Gulf of Mexico. It was exhard. Then, I grew quieter; until as the drop-actly the same face, and had the same mark-a scene fell; the same cold air swept past us. It scar, cross-shape, over one temple." was as if some one, fresh from the sharp sea- ""Tis he! He can follow and torture us still; wind, had entered the box. And, just at that I knew he could!" moment, we saw Colonel Hart's, and several other glasses levelled as before.

and soon after birth, an orphan child. Brought I never knew-nor know I to this day, up in my mother's country, until I was sixteen whether I was dear to him or not. Useful I years old;-I never saw my guardian. Then was, I think, and pleasant, I believe. Possibly he met me in Paris, with my governess, and for he liked me a little-as the potter likes his the space of two years we lived under the same clay, and the skilful mechanician likes his tools— roof, seeing one another daily. until the clay hardened, and the fine tools refused to obey the master's hand.

I was very young; I had no father or brother; I wished for neither lover nor husband; my guardian became to me as the one object of my existence.

It was no love-passion; he was far too old for that, and I comparatively too young, at least too childish. It was one of those insane, rapturous adorations which young maidens sometimes conceive, mingling a little of the tenderness of the woman with the ecstatic enthusiasm of the devotee. There is hardly a prophet or leader noted in the world's history who has not been followed and worshipped by many such women.

So was my guardian, Anastasius-not his true name, but it sufficed then and will

now.

Many may recognize him as a known leader in the French political and moral world-as one who, by the mere force of intellect, wielded the most irresistible and silently complete power of any man I ever knew, in every circle into which he came; women he won by his polished gentleness,-men, by his equally polished strength. He would have turned a compliment and signed a death-warrant, with the same exquisitely calm grace. Nothing was to him too great or too small. I have known him, on his way to advise that the President's soldiers should sweep a cannonade down the thronged street-stop to pick up a strayed canary-bird, stroke its broken wing, and confide it with beautiful tenderness to his bo

som.

I was the brilliant West Indian heiress. I did not marry. Why should I? At my house -at least it was called mine-all sorts and societies met, carrying on their separate games; the quiet, soft hand of M. Anastasius playing his game-in, and under, and through them all. Mingled with this grand game of the world was a lesser one-to which he turned sometimes, just for amusement, and because he could not cease from his métier-a simple, easy, domestic game, of which the battledore was that said white hand, and the shuttlecock my foolish child's heart.

Thus much have I dilated on him, and my own life in the years when all its strong, wild current flowed towards him; that, in what followed when the tide turned, no one may accuse me of fickleness, or causeless aversion, or insane terror of one who after all was only man," whose breath is in his nostrils."

At seventeen I was wholly passive in his hands; he was my sole arbiter of right and wrong-my conscience-almost my God. As my character matured, and, in a few things, I began to judge for myself, we had occasional slight differences-begun, on my part, in shy humility, continued with vague doubt, but always ending in penitence and tears. Since one or other erred, of course it must be I. These differences were wholly on abstract points of truth or justice.

It was his taking me to the ball at the Tuileries, which was given after Louis NapoO how tender!-how mild !-how pitiful!-leon Bonaparte had seized the Orleans procould he be !

When I say I loved him, I use for want of a better, a word which ill expresses that feeling. It was-Heaven forgive me if I err in using the similitude-the sort of feeling the Shunamite woman might have had for Elisha. Religion added to its intensity; for I was brought up a devout Catholic; and he, whatever his private dogmas might have been, adhered strictly to the forms of the same church. He was unmarried, and most people supposed him to belong to that order called-Heaven knows how unlike Him from whom they assume their name-the Society of Jesus.

We lived thus-I entirely worshipping, he guiding, fondling, watching, and ruling by turns, for two whole years. I was mistress of

a

perty, and it was my watching my cousin's conduct there, which made me first question, in a trembling terrified way-like one who catches a glimpse of the miracle-making priest's hands behind the robe of the worshipped idol-whether, great as M. Anastasius was as a political ruler, as a man of the world, as a faithful member of the Society of Jesus, he was altogether so great when viewed beside any one of those whose doctrines he disseminated, whose faith he professed.

He had allowed me the New Testament, and I had been reading it a good deal lately. I placed him, my spiritual guide, first in venerating love, then, with a curious marvelling comparison, beside the fishermen of Galilee, besidereverently be it spoken-beside the Divine Christ.

There was a certain difference.

large fortune, and, though not beautiful had, I believe, a tolerable intellect, and a keen wit which he used to play with, as a boy plays with fireworks, amusing himself with their glitter-sometimes directing them against others, and smiling as they flashed or Scorched-knowing that against himself they were utterly powerless and harmless. Knowing, too, perhaps, that were it otherwise, he had only to tread them out under foot, and step aside The difference grew. from the ashes, with the same unmoved,easy smile. Gradually, I began to take my cousin's

The next time we came to any argument— always on abstract questions,-for my mere individual will never had any scruple in resigning to his—instead of yielding and atoning, I ceased the contest, and brought it afterwards privately to the one infallible rule of right and wrong.

wisdom-perhaps, even his virtues-with certain reservations, feeling that there was growing in me some antagonistic quality which prevented my full sympathy with both.

I could not altogether return it. I had just found out two things which, to say the least, had startled me. I determined to prove them at

once.

"But," I thought, "he is a Jesuit; he follows "My cousin, I thought you were aware that only the law of his order, which allows tem- though a Catholic myself, my house is open, and porizing, and diplomatizing, for noble ends. He my friendship likewise, to honest men of every merely dresses up the Truth, and puts it in the creed. Why did you give your relative so hard most charming and safest light, even as we do our images of the Holy Virgin, using them for the adoration of the crowd, but ourselves worshipping them still. I do believe, much as he I know not what reply he made; I know only will dandle and play with the Truth, that, not that it was ingenious, lengthy, gentle, courteous for his hope of Heaven, would Anastasius stoop-that for the time being it seemed entirely satisto a lie." factory, that we spent all three together a most

an impression of me? And why did you not tell me that Mr. Saltram has, for some years, been a Protestant?"

One day, he told me he should bring to my pleasant evening. It was only when I lay down saloons an Englishman, his relative, who had de-on my bed, face to face with the 'solemn Dark, termined on leaving the world and entering the in which dwelt conscience, truth, and God, that priesthood. I discovered how Anastasius had, for some secret-doubtless blameless, nay, even justifiable purpose, told of me, and to me, two absolute lies!

"Is he of our faith?" asked I indifferently. "He is, from childhood. He has a strong, fine intellect; this, under fit guidance, may accomplish great things. Once of our Society, he might be my right hand in every Court in Europe. You will receive him?”

Certainly."

But I paid very little heed to the stranger. There was nothing about him striking or peculiar. He was the very opposite of M. Anastasius. Besides, he was young, and I had learnt to despise youth-my guardian was fifty years old.

Mr. Saltram (you will already have guessed that it was he) showed equal indifference to me. He watched me sometimes, did little kindnesses for me, but always was quiet and silent-a mere cloud floating in the brilliant sky, which M. Anastasius lit up as its gorgeous sun. For me, I became moonlike, appearing chiefly at my

cousin's set and rise.

I was not happy. I read more in my Holy Book and less in my breviary; I watched with keener, harder eyes my cousin Anastasius, weighed all his deeds, listened to and compared his words: my intellect worshipped him, my memoried tenderness clung round him still, but my conscience had fled out of his keeping, and made for itself a higher and diviner ideal. Measured with common men he was godlike yet -above all passions, weaknesses, crimes; but viewed by the one perfect standard of manChristian man-in charity, humility, singlemindedness, guilelessness, truth-my idol was no more. I came to look for it, and found only the empty shrine.

He went on a brief mission to Rome. I marvelled that, instead of as of yore wandering sadly through the empty house, its air felt freer for me to breathe in. It seemed hardly a day till he came back.

I happened to be sitting with his nephew Alexis when I heard his step down the corridor-the step which had one seemed at every touch to draw music from the chords of my prostrate heart, but which now made it shrink into itself, as if an iron-shod footfall had passed along the strings.

Anastasius looked slightly surprised at seeing us together, but his welcome was very kind to both.

Disguise it as he might, excuse it as I might, and did, they were lies. They haunted meflapping their black wings like a couple of fiends, mopping and mowing behind him when he came-sitting on his shoulders, and mocking his beautiful, calm, majestic face-for days. That was the beginning of sorrows; gradually they grew until they blackened my whole world.

M. Anastasius's whole soul was bent, as he had for once truly told me, on winning his young nephew into the true fold, making him an instrument of that great purpose which was to bring all Europe, the Popedom itself, under the power of the Society of Jesus and its future headAnastasius.

The young man resisted. He admired and revered his kinsman; but he himself was very single-hearted, staunch, and true. Something in that strong Truth, which was the basis of his character, struck sympathy with mine. He was very much inferior in most things to Anastasius-he knew it, I knew it but, through all, this divine element of Truth was patent, beantifully clear. It was the one quality I had ever worshipped, ever sought for, and never found.

Alexis and I became friends-equal, earnest friends. Not in the way of wooing or marriage at least, he never spoke of either; and both were far, oh how far from my thought-but there was a great and tender bond between us, which strengthened day by day.

He

The link which riveted it was religion. was, I said, a Protestant, not adhering to any creed, but simply living-not preaching, but living the faith of Our Saviour. He was not perfect-he had his sins and shortcomings, even as I. We were both struggling on towards the glimmering light. So, after a season, we clasped hands in friendship, and with eyes steadfastly upward, determined to press on together towards the one goal, and along the self-same road.

I put my breviary aside, and took wholly to the New Testament, assuming no name either of Catholic or Protestant, but simply that of Chris

tian.

When I decided on this, of course I told Anastasius. He received the tidings calmly. He had ceased to be my spiritual confessor for some