“Whilst you were searching for me to help me, I was trying to burn you in your house.  I cannot bear it.”  He sunk on his knees, and covered his face with both hands.

There was a long silence, for Mr. and Mrs. Leyton were as much moved as the boy, who was bowed down with shame and penitence, to which hitherto he had been a stranger.

At last the clergyman asked, “What could have induced you to commit such a crime?”

Rising suddenly in the excitement of remorse, gratitude, and many feelings new to him, he hesitated for a moment, and then told his story; he related his trials, his sins, his sorrows, his supposed wrongs, his burning anger at the terrible fate of his only parent, and his rage at the exultation of the crowd:  his desolation on recovering from his swoon, his thirst for vengeance, the attempt to satisfy it.  He spoke with untaught, child-like simplicity, without attempting to suppress the emotions which successively overcame him.

When he ceased, the lady hastened to the crouching boy, and soothed him with gentle words.  The very tones of her voice were new to him.  They pierced his heart more acutely than the fiercest of the upbraidings and denunciations of his old companions.  He looked on his merciful benefactors with bewildered tenderness.  He kissed Mrs. Leyton’s hand then gently laid on his shoulder.  He gazed about like one in a dream who dreaded to wake.  He became faint and staggered.  He was laid gently on a sofa, and Mr. and Mrs. Leyton left him.

Food was shortly administered to him, and after a time, when his senses had become sufficiently collected, Mr. Leyton returned to the study, and explained holy and beautiful things, which were new to the neglected boy:  of the great yet loving Father; of Him who loved the poor, forlorn wretch, equally with the richest, and noblest, and happiest; of the force and efficacy of the sweet beatitude, “Blessed are the Merciful, for they shall obtain Mercy.”

I heard this story from Mr. Leyton, during a visit to him in May.  George West was then head-plowman to a neighboring farmer, one of the cleanest, best behaved, and moat respected laborers in the parish.

* * * * *

FROM FRASER’S MAGAZINE.

THE GREAT MARSHAL SUWARROW.

The Russian is eminently fitted for a soldier’s life; his education is almost as martial as if he had been brought up in a camp; for his relatives and neighbors hold their lands by military tenure, and love to talk together of the days when they served in the wars.  All, from the highest order to the lowest, look to the fulfillment of their ancient prophecy, that “All the world is to be conquered by the arms of Russia.”  Should some man of resplendent genius, like Suwarrow, chance to command, there is no calculating on the position to which the Russian army might attain.  Suwarrow was not alone fitted to lead an army, but was exactly the general