me."

In a moment I seemed to be standing with him in a parlor of one of the chief palaces of the city. A stout, florid, bald-headed man was seated at a table covered with papers, which he was sorting over with nervous anxiety, muttering to himself as he did so. On a sofa lay a sad-looking, delicate woman, her emaciated hands clasped over a little book. The room was, in all its appointments, a witness of boundless wealth. Gold and silver, and gems, and foreign furniture, and costly pictures, and articles of virtu—everything that money could buy—were heaped together; and yet the man himself seemed to me to have been neither elevated nor refined by the confluence of all these treasures. He seemed nervous and uneasy. He wiped the sweat from his brow, and spoke:

"I don't know, wife, how you feel; but I don't like this news. I don't understand it. It puts a stop to everything I know anything about."

"Oh, John!" said the woman, turning towards him a face pale and fervent, and clasping her hands, "how can you say so?"

And as she spoke, I could see breaking out above her head a tremulous light, like that above the brow of an angel.

"Well, Mary, it's the truth. I don't care if I say it. I don't want to meet—well I wish He would put it off! What does He want of me? I'd be willing to make over—well, three millions to found an hospital, if He'd be satisfied and let me go on. Yes, I'd give three millions—to buy off from to-morrow."

"Is He not our best friend?"

"Best friend!" said the man, with a look half fright, half anger. "Mary, you don't know what you are talking about! You know I always hated those things. There's no use in it; I can't see into them. In fact, I hate them."

She cast on him a look full of pity. "Cannot I make you see?" she said.

"No, indeed, you can't. Why, look here," he added, pointing to the papers. "Here is what stands for millions! To-night it's mine; and to-morrow it will be all so much waste paper; and then what have I left? Do you think I can rejoice? I'd give half; I'd give—yes, the whole, not to have Him come these hundred years." She stretched out her thin hand towards him; but he pushed it back.

"Do you see?" said the angel to me solemnly. "Between him and her there is a "GREAT GULF fixed." They have lived in one house with that gulf between them for years! She cannot go to him; he cannot go to her. To-morrow she will rise to Christ as a dewdrop to the sun; and he will call to the mountains and rocks to fall on him—not because Christ hates him, but because he hates Christ."

Again the scene was changed. We stood together in a little low attic, lighted by one small lamp—how poor it was!—a broken chair, a rickety table, a bed in the corner where the little ones were cuddling close to one another for warmth. Poor things! the air was so frosty that their breath congealed upon the bedclothes, as they talked in soft, baby voices. "When mother comes, she will bring us some supper," said they. "But I'm so cold!" said the little outsider. "Get in the middle, then," said the other two, "and we'll warm you. Mother promised she would make a fire when she came in, if that man would pay her." "What a bad man he is!" said the oldest boy; "he never pays mother if he can help it."

Just then the door opened, and a pale, thin woman came in, laden with packages.

She laid all down, and came to her children's bed, clasping her hands in rapture.

"Joy, joy, children! Oh, joy, joy! Christ is coming! He will be here to-morrow."

Every little bird in the nest was up, and the little arms around the mother's neck; the children