Such was the state of the parish when our poor scholar complained one day in school of severe illness.  The early symptoms of the prevailing epidemic were well known; and, on examining more closely into his situation, it was clear that, according to the phraseology of the people, he had “got the faver on his back”—­had caught “a heavy load of the faver.”  The Irish are particularly apprehensive of contagious maladies.  The moment it had been discovered that Jemmy was infected, his schoolfellows avoided him with a feeling of terror scarcely credible, and the inhuman master was delighted at any circumstance, however calamitous, that might afford him a pretext for driving the friendless youth out of the school.

“Take,” said he, “every thing belongin’ to you out of my establishment:  you were always a plague to me, but now more so than ever.  Be quick, sirra, and nidificate for yourself somewhere else.  Do you want to thranslate my siminary into an hospital, and myself into Lazarus, as president?  Go off, you wild goose! and conjugate aegroto wherever you find a convenient spot to do it in.”  The poor boy silently and with difficulty arose, collected his books, and, slinging on his satchel, looked to his schoolfellows, as if he had said, “Which of you will afford me a place where to lay my aching head?” All, however, kept aloof from him; he had caught the contagion, and the contagion, they knew, had swept the people away in vast numbers.  At length he spoke.  “Is there any boy among you,” he inquired, “who will bring me home?  You know I am a stranger, an’ far from my own, God help me!”

This was followed by a profound silence.  Not one of those who had so often befriended him, or who would, on any other occasion, share their bed and their last morsel with him, would even touch his person, much less allow him, when thus plague-stricken, to take shelter under their roof.  Such are the effects of selfishness, when it is opposed only by the force of those natural qualities that are not elevated into a sense of duty by clear and profound views of Christian truth.  It is one thing to perform a kind action from constitutional impulse, and another to perform it as a fixed duty, perhaps contrary to that impulse.

Jemmy, on finding himself avoided like a Hebrew leper of old, silently left the school, and walked on without knowing whither he should ultimately direct his steps.  He thought of his friend the priest, but the distance between him and his place of abode was greater, he felt, than his illness would permit him to travel.  He walked on, therefore, in such a state of misery as can scarcely be conceived, much less described.  His head ached excessively, an intense pain shot like death-pangs through his lower back and loins, his face was flushed, and his head giddy.  In this state he proceeded, without money or friends; without a house to shelter him, or a bed on which to lie, far from his own relations, and with the prospect of death,