"I am afraid so too, my child. Your foot is sprained, and it will take a long time to be cured."

A carriage was procured, and Alice and her mother were driven to their lodgings as quickly as possible. The pain was so great that the poor girl could not help groaning, although she tried to bear it patiently.

"We must send for a doctor, directly," said her mother.

Oh, mamma, I am afraid he will hurt me, and I cannot bear any more pain," said Alice.

"My child, you must bear it. He will be as gentle as he can, but I am sure the foot must be attended to, or you will have to suffer for a long time."

"Will you ask God to help me, mother dear? I scarcely dare ask Him myself, because it is my own fault."

"That is no reason why you should not, Alice. Ask Him to forgive you, my child, and to give you strength to bear the pain, and He will certainly do it."

The doctor came, and he could not help hurting the foot a little; but Alice bore it without complaining. When he was leaving she took courage to ask how long it would be before she could walk again.

"Only about six weeks," said he.

"Six weeks!" cried Alice. "Must I lie in bed for so long? Why, the holiday will be over before I am cured."

"I cannot help that. It is a very bad sprain. Perhaps if you keep perfectly quiet, the foot may be well more quickly, but if you put it to the ground, and attempt to walk on it for some time, it will probably be even longer than I say."

Poor Alice! it was a dreary time which she passed after that mountain climbing. She was obliged to remain in the house when she would have preferred walking over the sands and sailing on the sea. She was often very lonely and dull; for, though everybody was kind to her, and quite willing to stay with her, she did not like to be selfish enough to keep her friends in the house when they had come to the seaside for a holiday. And her father and mother thought it would do her good to remain alone sometimes, for she had time to think and to pray.

Alice and her mother had many a nice talk together, which was remembered long afterward. And I cannot tell you how often, during her silent and solitary hours, she prayed, "Oh, God, please give me patience for Jesus Christ's sake.'

(To be continued.)

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The Editor of the CHRISTIAN WORLD MAGAZINE begs respectfully to intimate to voluntary contributors that she will not hold herself responsible for MSS. sent on approval. Unaccepted MSS. of any great length will be returned, provided the name and address of the owner is written on the first or last page, and provided also that the necessary stamps are enclosed for transmission through the post. Authors are recommended to keep copies of verses, short essays, and minor articles generally, since they cannot, under any circum stances, be returned. Miscellaneous contributions are not requested.

THE

CHRISTIAN WORLD MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1873.

OLIVER WESTWOOD;

OR, OVERCOMING THE WORLD.

BY THE EDITOR.

CHAPTER I.-MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows;
He sees it in his joy;

The youth, who daily from the East
Must travel, still is nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended.

At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."

WORDSWORTH.

CHILDHOOD's first impressions! How vague, how shadowy, how mysterious they are! And how difficult it is in after years to discern between that which is actually stereotyped on the memory, and that which we only seem to remember; to be clear as to that which we really do recall, and that which we know only by descrip

tion. A vivid imagination frequently credits its owner with larger, fuller, and more distinct recollections than he has any claim to; and, as we grow older, the more hazy, the more indistinct, the more confused these childish reminiscences become; and yet, looking back through the long, dim vista of the fast receding years, with what deep interest, with what tenderness, with what indescribable pathos one regards them! In thus retracing the way by which our Father has led us, I think we all-or most of us, certainly-come to a certain halting-place, about which we are perfectly sure, and which is, indeed, the starting-point, not of our existence, but of our individual sentient life. All behind is dim, dimmer, and then dark!-a dream, a vision, lapsing into unconsciousness. All in front is clear and clearer, more and more fully defined; neutral tints, and pale outlines in the distance, deeper shadows, brighter lights, glowing hues, fresh from memory's palette, in the foreground.

Looking back-as far back as I may, into those long-past days of childhood, the starting-point which I reach, and beyond which I cannot travel-is a national event. The first thing I accurately remember is the death of King George the Fourth. Few who have reached middle life will ever forget that awful storm which swept over the whole length and breadth of the country on the night of that monarch's demise. As well as I can recollect, it was a close, sultry evening, and, as I was put to bed, the lightning flickered, and the thunder rolled, through a gloomy leaden sky. I was not a timid child, and I was too young to be impressed with the grandeur and awfulness of the rising tempest, and so I quickly fell asleep, and woke to find myself being carried down-stairs in some one's arms, several hours afterwards. We lived in a great house in the City, as far as I can make out, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Cannon Street, and not far from Ludgate Hill. I know the first thing I saw in the morning was always the great dome of the Cathedral, which I used to fancy was just outside my window.

It was a house of business-whose I do not know: it was full of great bales from top to bottom, but of what they consisted I have not now the least idea. But this I do know, for I found it out long afterwards-my mother and I were allowed to live in the huge, dark, dismal house "out of charity," as people say. We were not alone in the vast tenement: there was an old, or probably elderly man, named Jacob, and Deborah, his wife, a pale, grave woman, who worked hard, and was severely pitted with the smallpox. Also Eliza Ann, daughter of the above, as a tombstone would put it; a tall, thin, colourless, sad-faced, dreary-looking young woman of thirty-five, of whom I had inadvertently heard that she

was

"crossed in love." Jacob and Deborah had charge of the

house. Eliza Ann was a dressmaker by trade, and usually worked at home, though now and then she went out by the day. Besides these human creatures there was a huge mastiff chained in the yard

-a fierce beast, which I was persuaded could easily eat me up, if so disposed; and, therefore, I kept out of his reach, and never willingly favoured him with my society; an immense tabby-cat, which pervaded the whole place, and with whom I was on the happiest terms of intimacy; and a luckless skylark, in a cage-the private property of the love-lorn Eliza Ann.

It was Jacob who carried me downstairs that night, and I naturally wondered where he was taking me, for the living-rooms were all in the upper stories. It seemed so odd to be going downdown-down-I don't know how many flights of stairs, in my little night-gown, in the middle of the night. I thought we must be descending to the cellars, but we stopped short on the groundfloor, and entered a small room, partitioned off from one of the larger warehouses, and having only borrowed lights. crossed the outer apartment, it was all ablaze-or so it seemed to me-with the hot, blinding, electric flame, and for the first time I was frightened, and called out in my childish way, "Mamma! Mamma!"

But as we

The next minute I was in my mother's arms, and I began to be fully awake. The room we were in was small and rather dirty, and had neither fireplace nor window, on which account it had been selected as a desirable refuge from the perils of the storm. Jacob, Deborah, and my mother sat on packing-cases; Eliza Ann was perched upon an unreasonably high office stool, standing in front of a huge desk, fit for the sons of Anak, and awfully splashed with ink. She sat "like Patience on a monument," only she was not "smiling at grief," for she never smiled at anything, and there was no damask on her cheek, for concealment or anything else to feed on. I did not like her, and I feared her, though I do not think she was ever unkind to me; and yet there was something about her which, in spite of myself, drew me towards her, and impelled me to ask her questions, and seek her society. For some reason, which I cannot even now explain, she attracted and interested me incessantly; and as I sat, half-scared and half wondering, in my mother's lap, I was watching her sharp, sallow face, and silently asking the subject of her thoughts.

"What did you bring me down for ?" I inquired of Jacob, presently.

"I brought you down out of the thunder, my lad," he replied. "I thought the top of the house was tumbling in, as I went up the stairs. How sound asleep he was!"

The last sentence was addressed to my mother, and Jacob added,

"He looked so pretty and so happy, poor little chap, I didn't like to wake him; but it wasn't safe, leaving him up there. Besides, he might have waked of himself, and been frightened out of his senses. Oh, mercy, there's a flash! The warehouse is as light as day. Now for it!"

And instantly there came a crashing peal which sounded as if the whole house were falling about our ears. And before that ceased another and another, louder and louder, and all the world seemed wrapped in flame, which showed even in our remote quarters, Surely the skies were rending, and the foundations of the solid earth breaking up! My own opinion was that St. Paul's itself had come to the ground, and I only hoped we should escape being buried in its ruins. Child-like, I was frightened only at the thunder, at the great noise, the rattle overhead, and all around, like a thousand fields of artillery exploding at once, and the strong vibration which jarred and shook the entire building. I rather liked to see the lightning, especially subdued as it was in our dim retreat. It seemed to me a very superior sort of fireworks. The thunderbolt, about which I had heard much, I naturally imagined, proceeded from the thunder. I could feel that my mother trembled, and I knew that she was praying silently. Jacob groaned, and clasped his hands. Deborah cried, "Oh, Lord, have mercy! All London's in ruins by this time. Oh, what do it all mean?"

Then Eliza Ann came down from her high stool, and seated herself, like the rest of us, on an inverted packing-case. She replied solemnly, "The day of the Lord is at hand, mother; we shall never see morning. This is the end of the world!”

Hearing which, I set up a great howling. I knew something about the Judgment Day, for Eliza Ann often read to me from the closing chapters of the Revelation, and I had learned some hymns which described the Second Advent in all its terrors. I shook with fear, and almost wished the house would tumble down and hide me from the dreadful scenes about to be enacted. Had the dead risen yet? I wondered; and I pictured to myself the ghastly forms-shrouded skeletons-coming forth from the marble tombs in St. Paul's; from the crypt into which I had been taken more than once; from the vaults generally, and from the vaults and graveyards of the many city churches round about. I listened for the trumpet to sound; I held my breath between the thunder-peals to catch the Archangel's voice. To think we had come-really come to the Last Day! the Day of Wrath! the day when heaven and earth should melt away, when the books should be opened, and the dead, both great and small, stand before the white throne! And where would the Throne be? I wondered; and,