Isaac. "By this kind of thoughtlessness, many a young creature is driven into the downward path, who might easily have been saved." The good old man then went to the hotel, and inquired for Henry Stuart. The servant said his lordship had not yet risen. Tell him my business is of importance, said Friend H.

The

servant soon returned, and conducted him to the chamber. The nobleman appeared surprised that a plain old Quaker should thus intrude upon his luxurious privacy; but when he heard his errand, he blushed deeply, and frankly admitted the truth of the girl's statement. His benevolent visitor took the opportunity to "bear a testimony," as the Friends say, against the sin and selfishness of profligacy. He did it in such a kind and fatherly manner, that the young man's heart was touched. He excused himself by saying, that he would not have tampered with the girl, if he had known her to be virtuous. "I have done many wrong things," said he, "but thank God, no betrayal of confiding innocence rests on my conscience. I have always esteemed it the basest act of which man is capable." The imprisonment of the poor girl, and the forlorn situation in which she had been found, distressed him greatly. And when Isaac represented that the silk had been stolen for his sake, that the girl had thereby lost profitable employment, and was obliged to return to her distant home, to avoid the danger of exposure,

he took out a fifty dollar note, and offered it to pay her expenses. "Nay," said Isaac, "thou art a very rich man; I see in thy hand a large roll of such notes. She is the daughter of a poor widow, and thou hast been the means of doing her great injury. Give me another."

Lord Henry handed him another fifty dollar note, and smiled, as he said, "You understand your business well. But you have acted nobly, and I reverence you for it. If you ever visit England, come to see me. I will give you a cordial welcome, and treat you like a nobleman."

"Farewell, friend," replied Isaac. "Though much to blame in this affair, thou, too, hast behaved nobly. Mayest thou be blessed in domestic life, and trifle no more with the feelings of poor girls; not even with those whom others have betrayed and deserted." Luckily, the girl had sufficient presence of mind to assume a false name when arrested; by which means, her true name was left out of the newspapers. "I did this," said she, "for my poor mother's sake." With the money given by Lord Henry, the silk was paid for, and she was sent home to her mother, well provided with clothing. Her name and place of residence remain to this day a secret in the breast of her benefactor.

Several years after the incidents I have related, a lady called at Friend H.'s house, and asked to see him. When he entered the room, he found a handsomely dressed young matron,

with a blooming boy five or six years old. She rose to meet him, and her voice choked, as she said, "Friend H., do you know me?" He replied that he did not. She fixed her tearful eyes earnestly upon him, and said, "You once helped me, when in great distress." But the good missionary of humanity had helped too many in distress, to be able to recollect her, without more precise information. With a tremulous voice, she bade her son go into the next room for a few minutes; then, dropping on her knees, she hid her face in his lap, and sobbed out, "I am the girl that stole the silk. Oh, where should I now be if it had not been for you?" When her emotion was somewhat calmed, she told him that she had married a highly respectable man, a Senator of his native State. Having a call to visit the city, she had again and again passed Friend H.'s house, looking wistfully at the windows to catch a sight of him; but when she attempted to enter, her courage failed.

"But I go away to-morrow," said she, "and I could not leave the city without once more seeing and thanking him who saved me from ruin." She recalled her little boy, and said to him, "Look at that old gentleman, and remember him well; for he was the best friend your mother ever had." With an earnest invitation that he would visit her happy home, and with a

fervent "God bless you," she bade her benefactor farewell,

My venerable friend is not aware that I have written this story. I have not published it from any wish to glorify him, but to exert a genial influence on the hearts of others; to do my mite towards teaching society how to cast out the Demon Penalty at the voice of the Angel Love. L. M. C.

THE LAW OF KINDNESS,

OR

"Overcome evil with good."-Rom. xii. 21.

'As like physical causes produce like physical effects, as vice generates misery with unerring certainty, so revenge will create revenge; for water does not more certainly rush to its level, than the exercise of malicious power rouses into action the fires of anger and opposition. To small purpose has that individual perused the history of the world, who has not discovered that evil has been almost universally met with evil, and its path-ways have been clouded with the smouldering misery perpetually arising from the horrible spirit of retaliation. And to as little purpose has he poured over the records of nations, if ne is not convinced that when the law of kindness has been practised, it

has been much more salutary in its influence, and as much more glorious in its results, as virtue is more salutary and glorious than iniquity. For while retaliation is like a storm which sweeps through the forest in destruction, kindness is like the combined influence of the heat of the sun and the rain of the cloud, which unlocks the secrets of seed, and develops its leaves, flowers and odors. Happiness has been withered, friends separated, families filled with discord, reputations ruined, cities burned, and nations swept from the earth by revenge. Retaliation is earth's worst demon. No clime has escaped its blight, no heart its poison. It slew the Saviour in all the glory of his character, and millions of his followers.

It may be urged, that some of the principles of the Mosaic law sanction the principles of retaliation, in the requisition of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But it must be remembered, that the Mosaic Law, rich as it is in its provisions for the widow and the orphan, for hospitality, and for other excellent precepts, introduced the law of retaliation into its statutes, only as the preventive of an evil which already existed, the same as the lancet and probe of the surgeon are necessary for a diseased limb. Jews had been thoroughly debased in the Egyptian brick-yards, and the foul airs of idolatry; they had been degraded by ignorance; they were a head-strong, wicked people; they were

The