accent was barely sufficient to show that the English was not his native tongue, and a very slight peculiarity in the pronunciation of the "th" ascertained him to be a Hollander. He had early entered into military life; had borne both a Dutch and a French commission; had seen real service, had travelled, was master of the English language, and evinced by his deportment, that he was no stranger to the society of gentlemen. He had, however, in a very high degree, a fault too common among military men, and too absurd to find an advocate among men of sense, he swore profanely and incessantly.

While the horses were changing, a gentleman who sat on the same seat with him, took him by the arm, and requested the favour of his company in a short walk. When they were so far retired as not to be overheard, the former observed, "Although I have not the honour of your acquaintance, I perceive, Sir, that your habits and feelings are those of a gentleman, and that nothing can be more repugnant to your wishes than giving unnecessary pain to any of your company." He started, and replied, "Most certainly, Sir: I hope I have committed no offence of that sort."

"You will pardon me," replied the other, "for pointing out an instance in which you have not altogether avoided it."

"Sir," said he, "I shall be much your debtor for so friendly an act; for, upon my honour, I cannot conjecture in what I have transgressed."

"If you, Sir," continued the former, "had a very dear friend, to whom you were under unspeakable obligations, should you not be deeply wounded by any disrespect to him, or even by hearing his name introduced and used with a frequency of repetition and a levity of air incompatible with the regard due to his character?"

"Undoubtedly, and I should not permit it; but I know not that I am chargeable with indecorum to any of your friends."

"Sir, my God is my best friend, to whom I am under infinite obligations. I think you must recollect that you have very frequently, since we commenced our journey, taken his name in vain. This has given to me, and to others of the company, excruciating pain."

"Sir," answered he, with very ingenuous emphasis, "I have done wrong. I confess the impropriety. I am ashamed of a practice which

I am sensible has no excuse; but I have imperceptibly fallen into it, and I really swear without being conscious that I do so. I will endeavour to abstain from it in future; and as you are next me in the seat, I shall thank you to touch my elbow as often as I trespass." This was agreed upon; the horn sounded, and the travellers resumed their places.

In the space of four or five miles the officer's elbow was jogged every few seconds. He always coloured, but bowed, and received the hint without the least symptom of displeasure; and in a few miles more so mastered his propensity to swearing, that not an oath was heard from his lips for the rest, which was the greater part, of the journey.

He was evidently more grave; and having ruminated some time, after surveying first one and then another of the company, turned to his admonisher, and addressed him thus :—

"You are a Clergyman, I presume, Sir."

"I am considered as such." He paused; and then, with a smile, indicated his disbelief in divine revelation, in a way which invited conversation on that subject.

"I have never been able to convince myself of the truth of revelation."

"Possibly not. But what is your difficulty?" “I dislike the nature of its proofs. They are so subtle, so distant, so wrapped in mystery, so metaphysical, that I get lost, and can arrive at no certain conclusion."

"I cannot admit the fact to be as you represent it. My impressions are altogether different. Nothing seems to me more plain and popular; more level to every common understanding; more remote from all cloudy speculation, or teazing subtleties, than some of the principal proofs of divine revelation. They are drawn from great and incontestable facts; they are accumulating every hour. They have grown into such a mass of evidence, that the supposition of its falsehood is infinitely more incredible than any one mystery in the volumes of revelation, or even than all their mysteries put together. Your inquiries, Sir, appear to have been unhappily directed; but what sort of proof do you desire, and what would satisfy you?"

"Such proofs as accompany physical science. This I have always loved; for I never find it deceive me. I rest upon it with entire conviction. There is no mistake, and can be no dispute, in mathematics. And if a re

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velation comes from God, why have we not such evidence for it as mathematical demonstration?"

"Sir, you are too good a philosopher not to know that the nature of evidence must be adapted to the nature of its object; that if you break in upon this adaptation, you will have no evidence at all; seeing that evidence is no more interchangeable than objects. If you ask for mathematical evidence, you must confine yourself to mathematical disquisitions. Your subject must be 'quantity.' If you wish to pursue a moral investigation, you must quit your mathematics, and confine yourself to moral evidence. Your subject must be the 'relations which subsist between intelligent beings.' It would be quite as wise to apply a rule in ethics to the calculation of an eclipse, as to call for Euclid when we want to know our duty, or to submit the question, 'whether God has spoken,' to the test of a problem in the conic sections. How would you prove mathematically that bread nourishes men, and that fevers kill them? Yet you and I both are as firmly convinced of the truth of these propositions, as of any mathematical demonstration whatever; and should