Lee struggled with himself a while longer. His own ill-nature had to be conquered first; his moody, accusing spirit had to be subdued. But he was coming right, and at last got right, as to will. Next came the question as to how he should begin. He thought of many things to say, yet he feared to say them, lest his wife should meet his advances with a cold rebuff. At last, leaning towards her, and taking hold of the linen bosom upon which she was at work, he said, in a voice carefully modulated with kindness,—

"You are doing the work very beautifully, Mary."

Mrs. Lee made no reply. But her husband did not fail to observe that she lost, almost instantly the rigid erectness with which she had been sitting, nor that the motion of her needle-hand ceased.

"My shirts are better made and whiter than those of any other man in our shop," said Lee, encouraged to go on.

"Are they?" Mrs. Lee's voice was low, and had in it a slight huskiness. She did not turn her face, but her husband saw that she leaned a little towards him. He had broken through the ice reserve, and all was easy now. His hand was among the clouds, and a few feeble rays were already struggling through the rift it had made.

"Yes, Mary," he answered, softly; "and I've heard it said more than once, what a good wife Andrew Lee must have."

Mrs. Lee turned her face towards her husband. There was light in it and light in her eye. But there was something in the expression of the countenance that a little puzzled him.

"Do you think so?" she asked, quite soberly.

"What a question!" ejaculated Andrew Lee, starting up, and going around to the side of the table where his wife was sitting. "What a question, Mary!" he repeated, as he stood before her.

"Do you?" It was all she said.

"Yes, darling," was the warmly-spoken answer, and he stooped down and kissed her. "How strange that you should ask me such a question!"

"If you would only tell me so now and then, Andrew, it would do me good." And Mrs. Lee arose, and, leaning her face against the manly breast of her husband, stood and wept.

What a strong light broke in upon the mind of Andrew Lee!" He had never given to his faithful wife even the small reward of praise for all the loving interest she had manifested daily, until doubt of his love had entered her soul, and made the light around her thick darkness. No wonder that her face grew clouded, nor that what he considered moodiness and ill-nature took possession of her spirit.

"You are good and true, Mary. My own dear wife. I am proud of you—I love you-and my first desire is for your happiness. Oh! if I could always see your face in sunshine, my home would be the dearest place on earth."

"How precious to me are your words of love and praise, Andrew," said Mrs. Lee, smiling up through her tears into his face. "With them in my ears my heart can never lie in shadow."

How easy had been the work for Andrew Lee! He had swept his hand across the cloudy horizon of his home, and now the bright sunshine was streaming down, and flooding that home with joy and beauty!

Sent by E. NEALE.

GATHERINGS FROM MEMORY.-NO. XVIII.

BACK AGAIN.

On arriving in the great city, I found our trade in an awful state of depression; so, after spending a week therein, on New Year's Day, 1840, I left London for the provinces, in company with a brother printer named Black. We had agreed on starting, that he who first got work should assist the other; my sompanion succeeded at Oxford, but renounced his bargain; so on a Sunday morning, without breakfast, I left the city of learning, and, after a hard week, assisted only by a small cake and pieces of turnip, I reached Banbury.

I will not trouble you with a detail of my adventures from thence to Macclesfield. At this place I got work for a week, which gave me rest and funds. After an absence of four months, I once more found myself in Liverpool. From thence I sailed into Cumberland on a visit to my father, who had sent for me to return home. Unable to find employment I returned home once more to Liverpool, when I again got employment on the Albion newspaper, and continued there nearly three years. This was an unhappy period, for I got entangled with all sorts of characters; my Christian duties were neglected, and sin had dominion over me.

When my brother John came to Liverpool to find employment, he found me in a "far-off-land," "led captive by the devil at his will," and in imminent danger of becoming a cast-away. He did not leave me, as did the priest and Levite; but like the Good Samaritan, he sought to restore me. Through God's blessing success was the result: I married, and once more returned to my old circle of friends and the means of grace. My wife had never been in a dissenters chapel, so both the ministers and the service filled her with amazement. The truth, however, found its way to her heart, and in Maguire-street chapel she was found of him who came to call sinners to repentance. I was not present, but next morning she had a tale of wonder and blessedness to relate. Strange it is that I should not have felt my own need; so it was; I fell into my old place in the church, as if I had never left it, feeling that it was just as easy to get made right as it was to become wrong. Herein I was deceived; and to this I must ascribe my downward course when outward hindrances were removed I was reformed but not converted.

At the time of which I now speak, Mr. Atterby was our minister. He was no ordinary man; his ways were winning; and he was a pastor in the fullest sense of the word. He was kind and true alike to the poor as the rich; and his hearty utterances as he entered our dwelling-"God bless you friends; how do you do?" together with his cordial grasp of our hands, did much in the way of binding us to the cause. It had a marvellous effect on my wife, who needed such like treatment, it won her heart entirely to dissent and Primitiveism.

For the first eighteen months after my marriage, everything went on smoothly-our comforts were many; our trials few. But we were doomed to an interruption herein. Our office was conducted in a manner displeasing to certain members of our trade-union, who, after much agitation, succeeded in forcing a strike upon us. The employer was resolved to resist the demand of the

union, and, after a short and hot battle, he succeeded. Thus I was thrown out of employment. This, like most strikes, ended disastrously to us; and as a proof of the changeableness of men, in less than six months after we were beaten, the union invited our successors in the office to join them, offering to forgive their sin in supplanting us. They did so; and ere long one of them

became the president of the union!

On losing my work, I gave up housekeeping, and went into apartments; and in course of time, unable to get work in the town, on Feb. 1st, 1843, I set off in search of a situation. I visited several towns in Yorkshire; but on reaching Sheffield, and finding everything gloomy and forbidding, I resolved to return. Reaching Glossop on a Saturday afternoon, I resolved to abide there over the Sabbath. My brother John had, near a year before, entered the ministry, and was stationed in New Mills Circuit. I had no idea that that place was near Glossop, nor that Glossop was included in the circuit, or I might have been more interested in the place-however, having ascertained the locality of our chapel there, and the hours of service, I made my way to the afternoon service. It was a few minutes after the time for beginning service when I entered; and in casting my eyes to the pulpit, lo! my brother John was its occupant! We were both struck with amazement as our eyes met. Depend upon it, I spent a happy day in Glossop; and next day I walked over the hill with my brother to New Mills, where I remained a day or two; after which I made my way home by way of Chester. Reaching that city at four o'clock, and resolving to get to Liverpool that night, I walked off, hoping to reaching Eastham in time for the boat. In this, however, I was disappointed; hence nothing remained but to set off, through a dark wood, for Rock Ferry. Here again I was too late for the boat; so as much dead as alive, cast down, and wretched, I dragged my weary limbs to Woodside, which I reached at 11 o'clock. Here I got a boat, and about midnight I hobbled into my abode, grateful that I could at last rest my weary frame where I was welcome.

We were reduced to a very low ebb by my long period of non-employment; and although a single hat and bonnet covered our family, we found out we could not live on air, and we were often put to our wit's-end to make ends meet. We tried a small shop; but our sellings did not keep us, and if the shop could have known anything it would have found out we could not keep it. My wife now put her wits to work to find out some means to keep the boat afloat; and, remembering that she was a good starcher and ironer, she made it known to her neighbours that she was willing to get up their caps; and, as a well-got-up cap was at that time a coveted article, she soon had a good run in that line. In the meanwhile I tried my best to get a situation, but failed; I had struck and that made masters unwilling to employ me.

One of our members kept a large boarding-house, at which a number of American stewards and cooks on board ships lodged while in port; and it was suggested that if my wife could get an introduction there, she might soon get as much getting-up of linen as she could do. Mr. Atterby, whose feeling heart was affected by our lot, made the needful introduction, and as soon as the coloured gentlemen alluded to found out my wife's capabilities, she had more work than she could get through. This gave us a grand pull-up, but the work was at once critical and laborious, and often was I filled with pain on seeing my wife's exhausted condition. But towards the end of 1843, after being

nearly a year out of work, a fellow workman who had been nearly as unsuccessful as myself in obtaining employment, called to inform us that, having heard of a place where two or three men were wanted, he had got work and wished me to apply also. But the office was a non-union one; and this was to me an insuperable objection. But my friend urged, my wife entreated, and Mr. Atterby reasoned with me: so after holding out till I could hold out no longer, I yielded and went to work. Soon plenty and comfort began to exist in our home; washing was nearly put aside; and our visits to the boarding house were those of a friendly kind.

The proprietor, Mr. Fishbourn, was a singular character, and had curious notions and ways. A native of the West Indies, the result of a marriage between an Indian and an African, he was early taught to earn his living; 80, uneducated, he took to sea-faring life. But he was kept from wicked ways; and in course of time he married the widow of his boarding-house keeper in Liverpool, and even became the head of a flourishing hotel. He was fond of controversy, and was in his element when discussing the subject of degrees of happiness or glory in heaven, and the American Slave question. He was a great lover of Primitiveism, and there are those still living who remember his kindness and liberality; for there was always an open house and a well-spread table in Robert-street, North. He had a place on the preachers' plan; and had his ability equalled his fidelity and zeal, he would have been a very useful man. But in the summer of 1849, he fell into temptation; trouble succeeded; and while his tender conscience was writhing beneath its oppression, and his heart broken by, I hope, contrition, God mercifully took him away by the cholera, which then ravaged Liverpool. I am not without hope that He who knows how feeble man is when tempted has poor Fishbourne in his safe keeping, where the "Weary are at rest." His poor widow made an unhappy marriage, the hotel soon came to nothing, and her husband forsaking her, she had to toil for her daily bread. How many evils one false step occasions! My own life after this was one upon which I cannot bear to reflect, so marked by unfaithfulness to God is it. My wife died, after a long and painful affliction. I was then in good circumstances and had maintained an appearance of godliness at any rate. Marrying again, I embarked in business, and might have done well had I been true to my convictions. But, as I said in my first paper, having thrown away all seeming regard for Him and his ways, He would not let me thrive, do as I would. And I now regard His acts towards me as loving acts indeed, for he might have allowed my outer life to be prosperous at the expense of my eternal welfare. As in my first paper I detailed the way in which I was delivered from "Secularism," I will here relate how I became involved in it. The furious current which rushed through the political channel in the years 1846-9 swept me along with it. Privately I used to devour the highly-seasoned writings of the Radical agitators of the period, such as Ernest Jones, J. Barker, and G. W. Reynolds, all other kind of literature being pitched aside as dreadfully insipid. Yes, those men were the men for me, and I gloried in their fearless denunciations of oppression and wrong. The Church, in all its divisions, and its ministers with their endless diversity of creeds, I began to consider as abettors of this tyranny, and without much reflection I allowed a feeling of disgust towards them to grow within me.

I was thus made eager to listen to some of the Secular Lecturers; and towards

the close of 1849, I attended a course of lectures by the late Charles Southwell, who being a great speaker, and one who dealt in fiery material, completely finished me off as an ultra-democrat. His anti-theological arguments were unheeded by me in my admiration of his attempts to turn social society upside down. He announced the formation of the "Alfred League," and I paid my shilling to become one of its members, fully believing that, ere long, every working man would do the same, when we should have the millenium. I was greatly disappointed next day when I failed to enlist one of my fellow workmen. But as I have never from that day to this heard anything of the "Alfred League," I judge it served its purpose in putting a few shillings into the pockets of its inventors. Well, by and by, the agitation of the period cooled down, and so did I; but when a few years after "Iconoclast" made his debut, my secular ideas were revived, and falling in with one or two men who had identified themselves with him, I too did the same, and thus became one of the "free-thinkers" of Liverpool. I knew that the religious element was discarded by this class of men; but anxious for the social changes aimed at by them, I imagined I might keep a certain degree of respect for Christianity while I co-operated with them. Hence, when I joined this society I asked "if I was required to renounce my faith in the Bible?" to which I received the reply "that if, after I had become acquainted with their principles and designs, I could still cherish faith in that book, I was at liberty to do so." I soon found that no man can serve two masters, and that he who works with foolish men soon becomes foolish also. My mind became dark and drear. My efforts to get on in life were all thwarted, one after another; and at last I saw that God loved me, and would not let me go down to destruction without manifold interruptions. But I must not repeat myself. Let the reader refer to the Messenger for July, 1870, when he will become acquainted with the story of the "Wanderer's Return." I knew not God until then. Like Jacob at Peniel I wrestled with the angel who laid hold of me and prevailed, and like him I then became a "friend with God."

THE GUILT OF SELLING ALCOHOL TO SOBER MEN.

Is it not as really wicked to make drunkards of sober men, as to kill drunkards ? Ask that widowed mother who did her the greatest injury: he who killed her long lost, drunken husband, or he who made a drunkard of her only son, the hope of her youth and the support of her declining years? Ask those orphan children who did them the greatest inquiry: the man who made a drunkard of their kind, affectionate father and thus blasted all their hopes, turning home sweet home into an emblem of perdition, obliging them and their sick mother to flee at the dead of night, in the midst of winter, without a covering or a shelter, till she was going down with a broken heart to an untimely grave; or the man who after long years of this unutterable anguish, sold him the last glass which closed his eyes, and caused in that long tumultuous habitation a great calm ? Can you doubt which of the two did that lonely family the greatest injury? If the guilt of the latter may be that of murder, what must be that of the former ?-Temperance Manual.