Educated for a divine, he took orders, and for a series of years preached with much success to his congregation and honor to himself.  At length an evil day came, and with it a spirit of malice that leveled its shafts at his bachelorhood, crept into his church.  Unfortunately he had declared his determination not to marry in the presence of several venerable matrimony-mongers, and the result was, that so many slanders were got up against him, that his church became a bed of thorns continually pricking him.  “My heart, which heaven can bear witness, is tender enough, became overburdened with grief,” said he, his eyes filling with tears, as he wiped the sweat from his sun-burned brow, “for it seemed as if the whole church had turned its back upon me, and so many were the plans laid to effect my downfall, by those who should have held me up, that even the mantle of St. Peter could not have saved me.  Thus, it was said that I had made too free with my housekeeper, who, in some things, was a good enough woman, but (and it was well known to the parish), little could be said for her virtue.  Heaven knows I had never in my whole life permitted an evil thought concerning her to invade my mind; and yet she was got to bring against me a charge so grave that we will pass it over without a name.  Your must, however, remember that this was the work of my enemies, whom heaven forgive, as I freely forgive them, such being the glory of charity, which is the truest religion.  Indeed, sir, it was said that I did this woman grievous harm, and the parish rose up in her defence, and, what is more, set her up as a model of injured innocence.  I could only protest my innocence, and pray what chance is there for innocence against the voice of calumny?

“Then this was the penalty of your bachelorhood?  You should remember, brother, that so good a chance to become a father as that which is offered to the pastor of a flourishing congregation should never be lost; and he who fails to embrace it, evinces a want of wisdom the clergy would do well never to betray,” said the major, begging that his newly made friend would proceed with his story.  “As I never disdain friendship, (hoping the rudeness of my remarks at our meeting may find pardon in my sorrow,) I will give a respite to my tongue by quenching my thirst with another sup of the contents of that flask, for it gives me much relief in body as well as in mind.”  The major was only too glad to grant his request; and having passed him the flask, he said, as the other raised it to his mouth, he hoped it would transfer the hidden secrets of his heart to the light of day, since nothing pleased him more than a recital of the sorrows of the forlorn ambitious.  And here he of the swine, and he of the tin traps, continued to converse most strangely, the latter sympathizing with every new sorrow, of which the former seemed to have a never ending supply.  “Being in a remote village of Pennsylvania,” resumed he of the sorrows, “and having neither trade nor friends,