heart; and he sees the God of right arraigning him at the bar of justice.  There, that Dispenser of all Good sits in his glory and omnipotence, listening while the oppressed recites his sufferings:  the oppressed there meets him face to face, robed in that same garb of submission which he has inflicted upon him on earth.  His fevered brain gives out strange warnings,—­warnings in which he sees the angel of light unfolding the long list of his injustice to his fellow man, and an angry God passing the awful sentence.  Writhing, turning, and contorting his face, his very soul burns with the agony of despair.  He grasps the hand of his physician, who leans over his wounded body, and with eyes distorted and glassy, stares wildly and frantically round the room.  Again, as if suffering inward torture, he springs from his pillow, utters fierce imprecations against the visions that surround him, grasps at them with his out-stretched fingers, motions his hand backward and forward, and breaks out into violent paroxysms of passion, as if struggling in the unyielding grasp of death.

That physical power which has so long borne him up in his daily pursuits yields to the wanderings of his haunted mind.  He lays his hand upon the physician’s shoulder as his struggles now subside, looks mournfully in his face, and rather mutters than speaks:  “Bring-bring-bring him here:  I’ll see him,—­I must see him!  I-I-I took away the book; there’s what makes the sting worse!  And when I close my eyes I see it burning fiercely-”

“Who shall I bring?” interrupts the physician, mildly, endeavouring to soothe his feelings by assuring him there is no danger, if he will but remain calm.

“Heaven is casting its thick vengeance round me; heaven is consuming me with the fire of my own heart!  How can I be calm, and my past life vaulted with a glow of fire?  The finger of Almighty God points to that deed I did today.  I deprived a wretch of his only hope:  that wretch can forgive me before heaven.  Y-e-s, he can,—­can speak for me,—­can intercede for me; he can sign my repentance, and save me from the just vengeance of heaven.  His-his-his-”

“What?” the physician whispers, putting his ear to his mouth.  “Be calm.”

“Calm!” he mutters in return.

“Neither fear death nor be frightened at its shadows-”

“It’s life, life, life I fear—­not death!” he gurgles out.  “Bring him to me; there is the Bible.  Oh! how could I have robbed him of it!  ’Twas our folly—­all folly—­my folly!” Mr. M’Fadden had forgotten that the bustle of current life was no excuse for his folly; that it would be summed up against him in the day of trouble.  He never for once thought that the Bible and its teachings were as dear to slave as master, and that its truths were equally consoling in the hour of death.  In life it strengthens man’s hopes; could it have been thus with M’Fadden before death placed its troubled sea before his eyes, how happy he would have died in the Lord!