to harmonize with the principles of that neglected thing called the Gospel?  In fact as we went along, it was easy to mark, on the houses and farmsteads about us, the injustice of making this heartless distinction.  The man who felt himself secure and fixed by a vested right in the possession of his tenement, had heart and motive to work and improve it, undepressed by the consciousness that his improvements to-day might be trafficked on by a wicked and unjust agent tomorrow.  He knows, that in developing all the advantages and good qualities of the soil, he is not only discharging an important duty to himself and his landlord, but also to his children’s children after him; and the result is, that the comfort, contentment, and self-respect which he gains by the consciousness of his security, are evident at a glance upon himself, his house, and his holding.  On the other hand, reverse this picture, and what is the consequence?  Just what is here visible.  There is a man who may be sent adrift on the shortest notice, unless he is base enough to trade upon his principles and vote against his conscience.  What interest has he in the soil, or in the prosperity of his landlord?  If he make improvements this year, he may see the landlord derive all the advantages of them the next; or, what is quite as likely, he may know that some Valentine M’Clutchy may put them in his own pocket, and keep the landlord in the dark regarding the whole transaction.  What a bounty on dishonesty and knavery in an agent is this?  How unjust to the interest of the tenant, in the first place—­in the next to that of the landlord—­and, finally, how destructive to the very nature and properties of the soil itself, which rapidly degenerates by bad and negligent culture, and. consequently becomes impoverished and diminished in value.  All this was evident as we went along.  Here was warmth, and wealth, and independence staring us in the face; there was negligence, desponding struggle, and decline, conscious, as it were, of their unseemly appearance, and anxious, one would think, to shrink away from the searching eye of observation.

“’But here again, Raymond; what have we here?  There is a fine looking farmhouse, evidently untenanted.  How is that?’

“‘Ha, ha,’ replied Raymond with a bitter smile, ’ha, ha!  Let them take it, and see what Captain Whiteboy will do?  He has the possession—­ha, ha—­an’ who’ll get him to give it up?  Who dare take that, or any of Captain Whiteboy’s farms?  But sure it’s not, much—­only a coal, a rushlight, and a prod of a pike or a baynet—­but I know who ought to have them.’