inquiries have been instituted by government into the means of supplying the demand for pure water, and plenty of it, and freeing the public from the necessity of slaking their thirst in the poisoned current of the Thames. Rival companies have broached gigantic plans; some for carrying conduits up the river beyond the tidal influence, others for draining extensive valleys into a single outfall leading to a monster reservoir sufficient to serve the whole metropolis. The rapid increase of London in every direction will, in all probability, compel the adoption of some comprehensive plan which ere long will banish the tidal Thames water from our dwellings, and yield us a wholesome beverage in its stead. Of the water-works at present in existence, those of the New River Company are by far the most extensive. Their resources have been much increased of late years by the construction of noble reservoirs, and it is probable that at this moment they furnish little short of one-third of the whole water supply of London. We have heard it stated, we know not on what authority, that the underground mains and pipes of this company, if laid down in a straight line, would extend for a length of four hundred miles. The East London Company, which is the next in magnitude, has its works on the river Lea, and traverses, with between two and three hundred miles of piping, the districts eastward of St. Paul's. It is remarkable that these two companies, which may be said almost to enjoy a monopoly of their several districts, and which dispense the purest fluid, supply it at the lowest price. In Paris, where a penny would buy a pound of bread, we have often given a farthing for a gallon of water; but in London, where bread is nearly double the price, the New River Company sell us thirty-six gallons of water for three-quarters of a farthing, and the East London Company the same quantity for a farthing. The pipes of the water companies, which permeate every street, lane, court, and alley of the town, are laid down so as to avoid the track of the sewers as much as possible they lie generally at the side of the street, within a yard of the pavement, and at a depth of hardly more than two feet, which renders them readily accessible. They have communications with every house they pass, and in some with every room. In some of the southern districts the pipes of rival companies lie peacefully side by side, while their proprietors are battling above-ground for the patronage of the public. In most instances the main pipes are of cast-iron, and until lately we imagined that they were all of that material: walking not long ago, however, in a certain suburb, we were startled by the appearance of a little jet of clear water rising out of the gravel which did the duty of pavement in front of a row of second-rate brick dwellings. While speculating on the phenomenon, a handy fellow stepped up, and with a spade turned up the gravel to the depth of a foot or two, and revealed the ends of a couple of elm-trees with their bark on, and fitting one into the other like a huge spigot and faucet. These were part of the main pipes of a water company, which had sprung a leak at their junction; the workman stopped it in a moment with a plug, of which he produced a handful from his pocket, driving it in with a few taps of a hammer; then filling in the earth again, he flattened it down with his spade; and in less than five minutes the mischief was repaired. Like the sewers, the pipes of the water companies are subject to invasion by a race of penniless gentry who go routing among them for the sake of a living. These are the eels, who, in spite of all the precautions that are taken to prevent their getting into the pipes, manage yet to effect an entrance. Their adventurous spirit, however, meets but a sorry reward, as their investigations lead generally, so far as we can learn, to the frying pan. An eel once in a branch pipe has nothing for it but to go forward; he is worse off than if in Procrustes' bed; he cannot turn round, and he cannot swim backwards, and the further he goes the narrower his prison becomes: by-and-by he is buried alive in a leaden coffin, which fits him as tight as a glove; he cannot even wriggle; he knows himself a gone eel, nothing better than a live cork stopping off the water from some fishmonger's kitchen; he feels his impending doom, and would tremble all over, but he hasn't room to do it; the difficulties of his position are too great for fish to bear; how he is to be released we don't exactly know; perhaps the turncock does, and to his mercy we must leave him. Side by side with the water pipes, and sometimes crossing them at right angles, lie the gas pipes. Their turnings, windings, and ramifications are almost endless; and their length, which underground cannot be less than a thousand miles, is prodigiously more above-ground, and defies all attempt at calculation. Time was, and that within our own recollection, when the idea of lighting a town or even a house with gas was scouted as one of the grossest of absurdities imaginable. It was not until some years after the close of the late war that gas came into general use. The first London company was the Chartered Gas-light Company, whose works are in Horseferry-road, Westminster. We well remember the sensation produced by the laying down of the pipes, and the interest with which the process of fastening them together with molten lead and oakum was watched by the public-as well as the incredulity of the populace with regard to the expected result. It was not till success had been achieved that the people believed it possible, and then the apparatus could not be prepared fast enough to satisfy their demands. This was not to be wondered at. Before this discovery, London after sunset was in almost total darkness, just rendered visible by the dim blinking of oil lamps, which in times of fog were not to be discerned at all. In the days of our boyhood, a young lady would have been thought rash who should have walked alone from Charingcross to St. Paul's two hours after sunset. Footpads waylaid travellers in Lincoln's-inn-fields. Then link-boys plied for hire as soon as darkness came on, and pedestrians found their services a safeguard as well as a guide. The descent of darkness upon the city was the signal for the swarming forth of hordes of abandoned wretches, who earned by plunder that subsistence for which they were too idle to work; while the only police were a set of superannuated watchmen, too weak to do more than waddle wearily under the load of as many great-coats as they could obtain by charity, and whose guardianship was the scoff and scorn of evildoers. In the main thoroughfares one half of the shops were closed at an early hour, and those which remained open, lighted but with two or three tallow candles, offered a tempting booty to the prowling wretches with whom robbery was a trade. The introduction of gas soon wrought an astonishing change in the moral aspect of London. The deeds which cannot bear the light shrunk away from it: the opportunity which makes the thief was wanting, and theft grew less frequent. What the sanguinary codes of our lawgivers, who hung up men and women a dozen of a morning for crimes of petty pilfering, could not effect, the blaze of the gas lamp accomplished: it reduced the convictions for shoplifting, and largely contributed to the repeal of bloody statutes which were a horror and a disgrace to our common humanity. There are now above a dozen gas-light and coke companies in London, the names of which we need not enumerate. There are besides many working establishments which mannfacture and consume their own gas. Some of these companies consume as much as 100,000 chaldrons of coal each per annum, and it may be that above a million of money is spent yearly in London in the purchase of coal for the manufacture of gas. The coke, however, which is nothing but coal deprived of its inflammable matter, yet remains for fuel, and has become so necessary for many manufacturing and other purposes, that in some parts of the kingdom, where the gas-works do not furnish a sufficient quantity, it is made from coal burned in kilns, the gas-producing elements being wasted. From the purity and brilliancy of the light it affords, and from its requiring the least possible degree of attention on the part of the consumer, gas has largely superseded all other modes of lighting, and has given rise to various branches of manufacture, some of them in the highest degree ornamental. The gas-fitter of the present day is a constructive artist, whose labours adorn the palaces of the sovereign and the mansions of the nobility; he has banished the smell of the lamp from our public assemblies, and led a light more brilliant than that of day into the dark and secluded resorts of congregated labour. He has made gas available for culinary purposes by adapting it to the cooking-range of the kitchen, and for domestie comfort by substituting it for the coal-fire of the drawing-room. He leads the subtle element for hundred of miles through the solid ground, and carries it by invisible channels through the nooks and corners of your dwelling, and enables you to pour a flood of light wherever you choose with a touch of the finger. Further, if you reside too far from the factory to be supplied from the mains, he condenses the invisible fluid into portable cylinders, and despatches it to your distant abode at a cost still less than that of the offensive oil or obnoxious tallow. There is but one drawback attending its use, and that is the peril resulting from excessive carelessness. Now and then we see the front of a house blown into the street, and hear of fatal accidents from fires and explosions occasioned by the escape of gas. These things have, however, latterly been much less frequent than they once were, and they are clearly to be escaped altogether by the exercise of ordinary vigilance. It remains now but to notice the fourth and last formed of these subterranean evidences of human sagacity and enterprise. Reverting to our supposed clairvoyant, to whose eye the stony ground should serve as a transparent medium-on looking for the means of effecting the most marvellous triumph which the united industry and genius of man has ever accomplished, he would see little more than a number of slender threads radiating from a common centre in Lothbury towards the various railway stations, where they are connected with the wires borne aloft on poles, the aspect of which is familiar to the reader. Along these wires the electric message travels at the rate of twenty thousand miles a second, and instant communication is thus obtained with any part of the kingdom furnished with the means of transit. Neither does the communication stop with the limits of the land; it traverses the sea, reaches the capital of France, the throbs of whose troubled heart pulsate in London, and dives across the Irish Channel, startling the ear of England with the lamentations of her desolate sister. Thus much has already been accomplished in the infancy of this new discovery: to what social advantages it will eventually lead it is vain as yet to prophesy; we live in an age of scientific marvels-marvels the bare mention of which would have provoked the withering contempt of David Hume and his whole school of freethinkers, and drawn down a storm of obloquy upon the head of any man who fifty years ago should have had the hardihood to have foretold them. It may well be that the use of the electric telegraph shall become as popular and as general as that of the railway is now that the art of magnetic converse may become an educational accomplishment, and that man may enjoy the society of his friend after the fatigues of business, though a thousand miles of land and sea may lie between them. There is nothing even now impossible in such a consummation; and if there were, we have learned to think that the impossible is to be surmounted, from having surmounted it so often. It is curious to reflect that the basis of this grand system of communication was the simple accidental discovery, that the electric current would defiect a delicately-balanced needle at an indefinite distance. This fact once established, it remained but to decide upon the signals which were to represent the different letters of the alphabet, and the system was virtually complete. To what other purposes it is to be applied, besides the transmission of intelligence and the diffusion of the true astronomical time, is yet to be seen. The generation which is to come after us will do more than tread in our steps, and will leave us, in all likelihood, still farther in the rear than we have left our sires. Thus much for the under-ground world of London, from which we cannot part without asking the question, Why is all this accumulation of material wealth buried in the earth and suffered gradually to rot in her damp embrace? Why not construct sub-ways, having arched surfaces to form the roads, beneath which the sewer-drains, the water-mains, the gas-pipes, and the electric wires, each in their allotted place, would be readily acces sible for repair or re-construction, without the expensive and annoying process of ripping up the roads whenever they require looking after? Some years ago, petitions were presented to parliament by an ingenious architect for the adoption of a plan to this effect. We cannot think but that it would have been a wise economy to have legislated for the adoption of the scheme, and to have carried it into operation by degrees, as opportunities arose for so doing. he said unto me, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end; I have the keys of hell and of death;' and then he added, “He stilled the tempest in my soul, and lo! there was a sweet calm!" to nature; and under a view of all these, I have found that in the way of God which gave me satisfaction, not merely a rational satisfaction, but a heart-engaging power that makes me rejoice." We have read of many sublime displays of courage in the dying hour, but never met with such a calm confronting of the king of terrors as the following passage displays: "I am not playing the fool," said he to his physician; "but I have weighed eternity during the last night. I have looked on death as stripped of all things pleasant HALYBURTON AND LEO THE TENTH. to nature; I have considered the spade and the THERE are many ways of preaching Christ's gos-grave, and every circumstance in it that is terrible pel, without choosing a text, or standing in a pulpit. This glorious work is not confined to any time or place, or class of individuals. A Wilberforce could proclaim the gospel of love on the platform of Exeter Hall, or the floor of Parliament House. Thomas Cranfield preached to the boisterous rabble of Wapping, till, in their delight, they were ready to reward him with "three cheers" for his thrilling exhortation. Hannah More in the drawingroom, Elizabeth Fry in the prison-cell, Harlan Page scattering tracts through a city workshop, the dairyman's daughter murmuring the name of Jesus with her faint, dying voice, and the shepherd of Salisbury Plain leaning on his crook to talk about eternity to the passer-by, were all intensely earnest "preachers of righteousness." The church, however, has had few more faithful preachers than Thomas Halyburton, and his most impressive discourses were delivered on a dying bed. "This is the best pulpit," said he, "that ever I was in; I am laid on this bed for this very end, that I may commend my Lord." The careful and erudite sermons that were prepared for the pulpits of Ceres and St. Andrew's are now well-nigh forgotten; but the savoury discourses that fell from his lips during the last month of his holy life will live, we trust, till the last saint shall go through the dark river. Let him who would learn how the sting of death may be plucked away, and how (to use Halyburton's own phrase) a frail mortal may shake hands with the king of terrors," read the closing chapters of his Memoir. What a spirit must that man have possessed who could have recorded the death of a favourite son in such words as these! 66 On the morning of the 23rd of September he went down into the dark valley. Yet he did not go alone, nor did the calm sunshine withdraw from his pathway, for in the even-time it was light about him. During the last six hours his voice failed him; but his angelic face was eloquent, and when he could not speak, he gently clapped his hands in triumph! So died the holy Halyburton. In contrast with this peaceful departure of a simple Scottish pastor, may be appropriately placed the closing scene of one of Rome's most gorgeous pontiffs, Leo the Tenth. Who, as he reads the narrative, would have exchanged the heavenly tran quillity that reigned in the humble manse of St. Andrew's, for the disquietude that agitated the breast of him who lay breathing his last amidst the marble halls and silken splendour of the Vatican? Among the few memorials left us," says the author from whom we quote, "of Leo's dying moments, is one of an interview between him and his favourite buffoon, in which the pope gave heartrending expression to the helpless agony of his soul. Of all the friends who used to flutter around him in the summer of his prosperity, not one remained to comfort him in the dark hour of death, except Mariano, the jester of the court. The rest had already abandoned the departing pope, to pay court to his probable successor. But Mariano, touched with his master's forlorn situation, and grateful for the many instances in which Leo had "March 23rd, 1712.-The Lord's day, a day shown him kindness, continued faithful to the ever to be remembered by me. O my soul! never last. Compassionating, but unable to relieve the forget what this day I reached. My soul had pain which appeared to oppress the dying man, smiles that almost wasted nature. My kind col- more in his mind than in his body, though the league and I prayed alternately; oh! such a sweet latter was suffering excruciating torments, the day. About half an hour after the sabbath, my buffoon exclaimed, Holy father, reconcile thyself child, after a sharp conflict, slept pleasantly in to God!' The poor pope, we are told, replied, as Jesus, to whom pleasantly he was so often given." well as he was able, by sobbing out the words, To his wife, who stood weeping by his bed-side, heGood God! good God! oh, good God!" and said when dying, "My sweet bird, are you there? I thus his spirit arose to the tribunal of the Judge. am no more thine; I am the Lord's. On the day How sad a commentary is this narrative upon the I took you by the hand, I wist not how I could words of Christ, What shall it profit a man, ever get my heart off you again; but now I have he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own got it done. Do not weep; you should rather re- soul? It was remorse of conscience that dis joice. Rejoice with me, and let us exalt His name tracted the mind of Leo-the conviction that his together. We shall be in the same family in hea- sins were unforgiven, and that he was therefore ven; but you must even stay awhile behind." At unfit to die. *** Had Leo, instead of seeking another time he remarked to her, after a night of agonizing pain, "Jesus came to me in the third watch of the night, walking upon the water; and if See "Leo the Tenth," one of the Monthly Volumes published by the Religious Tract Society. "to reconcile himself to God,' been pointed to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,' and sought to be reconciled through him, his faith in Christ's atonement would not have been rejected; and in the arms of death he might, for the first time, have tasted, greatly guilty as he was, the peace of God which passeth all understanding.' known only in the form of expensive muslins, brought from India in the company's ships, which used to wait at Deptford till the court ladies went down and bought their scanty stock. The lawn aprons and gowns of printed linen, in which less aristocratic dames delighted, were sought in shops like that which occupied the front of Mr. Fairhold's solid brick house. Its two narrow windows, well-packed shelves, and low counter of scoured deal, the foreman behind it in a frock of dark blue cloth, with slate and pencil hanging from the breast buttons, and the two young apprentices equipped with scissors and apron, bore little resemblance to the establishment of a modern Reader! if death should surprise you as you now are, to which of the above closing scenes would your own bear resemblance? "To that of Leo," does conscience whisper? Ah! why should it be so? The joys which Halyburton, that man of God, felt, the Saviour yet invites you to partake of. The atonement of Christ, his finished work, his everlast-draper. Beyond lay the warehouse-a great room, ing righteousness, the Spirit's quickening aid-all that gave tranquillity in the prospect of deathyou are invited to accept, freely and without price. Lose not, then, in fatal irresolution a single hour; but "let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." THE MOUSE AND THE MERCHANT. A HUNDRED years ago are old times to our generation. We know them only through books and pictures, which show us how fashions have changed and manners altered. Rude times they seem, too, compared with those in which we live. The schoolmaster, the press, and the mechanician had not then done so much for our people. Nevertheless, prudent and pious men walked the world with our great-grandfathers, and among them there was one known to his correspondents as Mr. Francis Fairhold, merchant, of Cheapside, in the city of London. more than half filled with piles of goods rising almost to the ceiling, and looking out on a dingy lane. There the warehouseman, the clerk, and the head apprentice minded their business, under the merchant's own superintendence; and from the best kitchen, hard by, the winding of the jack summoned one and all to meals at the same household board, where Mrs. Fairhold, an active comely matron, presided, with the help of her daughters Kate and Sophy, their old nurse, and her orphan niece, who had lived for years as attached and faithful servants in the family. City dames from High Holborn, Bishopsgate, and the Vintry, in all the majesty of hat, manteau, and train, judiciously bundled up, resorted to Fairhold's shop in search of select lawns and real French cambric. Country shopkeepers, from the towns and villages of many a shire, came to purchase goods at his warehouse, in wagons destined to convey at once themselves and their merchandise. There were pleasant social meetings within the old house at Christmas and other holidays; for Mr. Fairhold was a lover of good men and of hospitality. The birthday, too, of every one belonging to the household was celebrated with festive honours. Night and morning the family were summoned to prayers, and down to the youngest apprentice Mr. Fairhold's entire household were regularly seen in their church-pew on Sundays. The Fairholds had been notable in Cheapside ever since it was called West-cheap, or the western market. One representative of the family had helped to clear St. Paul's of relics and images; another had fitted out a ship at his own expense against the Spanish Armada; and one served as member for his borough in the long parliament. A prudent and prosperous man in every sense Their house had been almost desolated by the was our merchant of Cheapside. Active, but not plague, and burned down in the great fire of Lon-over-anxious for this world, he carried on his busi don; but it rose from its ashes with the rebuilt city, and son had regularly succeeded sire therein till about the year 1753, when George the Second sat on the throne of England. Johnson, Burke, and Goldsmith were then in the morning of their fame, and Mr. Francis Fairhold was reckoned a substantial member of the honourable company of linendrapers. Mr. Fairhold remembered the bursting of the South Sea bubble, the great frost, the last Jacobite rebellion, and was at the period of our story a discreet, middle-aged gentleman, plain of speech, friendly of manner, and attired, like the respectable citizens of the day, in amply-skirted coat, clubbed hair, and silver buckles. Mr. Fairhold was in high respect among the London drapers of those homely times. They knew his word to be as safe as his bond, his custom to be large, and his credit still more extensive. Moreover, there was not in the company a better judge of every article in his trade, from cambric to huckaback. Such were the bounds of linendrapery in those days. Cotton fabrics were ness with the steady and quiet industry of those old-fashioned days, giving time for recreation as well as work. His evenings were passed in household leisure with a city friend or two, who frequently dropped in to supper. When shop and warehouse were closed, on Saturday afternoons, he walked with his family to see their grand-uncle, the old farmer at Marylebone, then a village in the fields, or paid more ceremonious visits to his knighted cousin Sir Thomas, who kept his coach, and lived in the fashionable locality of Red-lionsquare. Once a year, when business was slack, about the end of summer, Mr. Fairhold made a circuit of his country customers, to collect debts and square accounts generally. He had no son to succeed him in the fashion of his family, nor even a nephew, having been himself an only child; but thankful for two good daughters, the merchant did not despair of finding a successor, and took no trouble regarding the continuance of his house. The experience of others had taught him that even paternal hopes are not safe from disappointment. the latter, besides being a slower method, owing to bad roads and stoppages at every inn, could only be had on the principal lines of traffic, and never approached those small towns and scattered villages where our merchant's customers flourished. Mr. Fairhold's journey, like his business, was quiet but regular. He was a peaceable man, and had always travelled safely, though there were bold He had seen sons turn out neither a comfort nor a | credit; and the saddest recollection hanging about his own peaceful premises was that of a young and once promising apprentice, the son of his poor neighbour Widow Waterton, who had been a gentlewoman and called Madame in her day. Perhaps the boy's mother had spoiled him. Perhaps the love of gay company (as he thought it) had led his youth into snares; for in spite of care, admo-highwaymen in those days, and the police system nition, and the good order of Mr. Fairhold's house, poor William had got acquainted first with strolling players, then with more dangerous characters, and at length, detected in an attempt to rob his master, he fled the city, and had not been heard of for years. Grieved at heart was Mr. Fairhold, and he diligently inquired after his apprentice, in hopes, merciful man as he was, of reclaiming him. No intelligence, however, of the youth could be gained. His mother, a weak, worldly-minded woman, after fretting for some time over the disgrace he had brought on her genteel family, married an ill-doing excise officer, whom she had rejected with high scorn in her youth, and removed with him to one of the northern counties. The remembrance of poor William Waterton served to make Mr. Fairhold more careful regarding his apprentices. Not that he had ever been remiss on that point. Our merchant was an upright, conscientious man, who felt that business had more duties for him than to get rich. No one under his authority had cause to complain of selfish exaction, or inconsiderate carelessness. His friends and family valued him for a mild and placable temper. His worldly dealings were just, his religion practical and sincere. Nevertheless, Mr. Francis Fairhold was not free of faults; and among them was a tendency at times to grumble at small and casual annoyances. Our merchant did not exactly lose his temper at every turn; but a spoiled dinner, or a room out of order, would vex him more than he cared to tell. Most of us, perhaps, bear great troubles better than little ones in proportion to their weight; but as the latter are by far the most abundant, that Christian philosophy which helps one to keep easy under them has a daily usefulness as well as dignity about it. Surely, a traveller to eternity should not be disturbed by every straw in his path; moreover, small evils may contain the seeds of great good, and Francis Fairhold was taught that truth by one of those wonderful works of Providence which prove to the Christian's mind that no instrument is weak in the hand of Omnipotence. The wild rose had faded in England's fields and hedgerows; the hay was mown in all her meadows, from Kent to Northumberland; and the flush of ripeness was growing on her orchard boughs, when Mr. Fairhold, having regulated his books, duly committed his business to Johnstone the foreman, who had been in his employment fifteen years, and having taken leave of his family and most intimate neighbours, set forth with a good horse and a well-secured valise, with many good wishes, and commissions almost as numerous, on his yearly circuit among the country customers. This and the stage-coach or wagon were the only public modes of travelling in the time of our story; but was far from its present completeness. His customers were mostly steady, methodical men, given to clear accounts and punctual payments. With many of them Mr. Fairhold was an old acquaintance, joyfully entertained at their houses in memory of similar hospitalities received in their great journeys to London. The landlords of all the respectable inns on his way waited for our merchant's coming year by year, as that of an important guest; and he rode on from one country town to another, through narrow rutty roads, familiar only with cart and wagon, at a pace varying between fifteen and twenty miles a day, attending to his horse's comfort as well as his own, settling old accounts, opening new ones, and depositing his receipts in a diminutive strong box constructed for that purpose in his valise. There may be readers of our tale who have never seen a specimen of that antiquated conveniency; but the valise played an important part in the travelling of Francis Fairhold's times. It was a species of leathern portmanteau, much about the size and shape of those ponderous folios in which laborious scholars then studied law and divinity, and was fastened to the back of the saddle by straps and buckles too numerous for the patience of our hurrying days. In the valise respectable travellers were accustomed to pack all their requisites, including money; and Mr. Fairhold had seventeen hundred pounds, the entire returns of his country business, besides bills and bonds, in the before-mentioned strong box, when, at the end of a seven weeks' circuit, he arrived at an old and favoured inn known as the Golden Lion, and standing on the ancient road between Farnham and Guildford, The country is now studded with hamlets and farm-houses, but at the time of our tale a wild heath extended for miles along the base of the chalk hills, through which the road, little better than a modern sheep-path, wound with many a curve and angle. At one of these turns stood the Golden Lion, one of the oldest hostels in the county of Surrey. Travellers had resorted to that house before the civil war. Its quaint chimneys, low windows, and wide porch were wreathed with ivy; but its thick walls of timber hewn from the famous oaks of Sussex, its roof deeply thatched with reeds and oaten straw, were still proof against time and weather. The sanded space in front still contained the horse-block and the draw-well. Sounds of pigeons and poultry came from the yard behind, cattle browsed and corn rustled in fields scarcely separated from the surrounding heath, and, half inn, half farm-house, the old hostel greeted all wayfarers with the creak of its swinging sign, on which the forest king was represented in rather indefinite gilding. For twenty years Mr. Fairhold had rested there on his homeward way; but as he now approached the house, late in a close, cloudy afternoon, with |