into the pool, a loud voice was heard, and a plaid was hung over on the point of a shepherd's staff. Their wakeful sentinal had descried danger, and this was his warning. Forthwith, the congregation rose. There were paths, dangerous to tunpracticed feet, along the ledges of the rocks, leading up to several caves and places of concealment. The more active and young assisted the elder, more especially the old pastor, and the women with the infants; and many minutes had not elapsed, till not a living creature was visible in the channel of the stream, but all of them were hidden, or nearly so, in the clefts and caverns.

8. The shepherd, who had given the alarm, had lain down again instantly in his plaid on the green-sward, upon the summit of these precipices. A party of soldiers was immediately upon him, and demanded what signals he had been making, and to whom; when one of them looking over the edge of the cliff, exclaimed, "See, see! Humphrey, we have caught the whole tabernacle of the Lord in a net, at last. There they are, praising God among the stones of the river Mouss. These are the Cartland Craigs. A noble cathedral!" 66 Fling the lying sentinel over the cliffs. Here is a *canting covenanter for you, deceiving honest soldiers on the very Sabbath day. Over with him, over with him; out of the gallery into the pit." But the shepherd had vanished like a shadow, and mixing with the tall, green broom and bushes, was making his unseen way toward a wood. "Satan has saved his servant; but come, my lads, follow me. I know the way down into the bed of the stream, and the steps up to Wallace's cave. They are called, 'kittle nine stanes.' The We'll all be in at the death. Halloo! my

hunt's up. boys, halloo!'

9. The soldiers dashed down a less precipitous part of the wooded banks, a little below the "craigs," and hurried up the channel. But when they reached the altar where the old gray-haired minister had been seen standing, and the rocks that had been covered with people, all was silent and solitary; not a creature to be seen. "Here is a Bible, dropped by some of them," cried a soldier, and, with his foot, spun it away into the pool. "A bonnet, a bonnet," cried another, "now for the pretty, sanctified face, that rolled its demure

eyes below it." But after a few jests and oaths, the soldiers stood still, eyeing with a kind of mysterious dread, the black and silent walls of the rocks that hemmed them in, and hearing only the small voice of the stream that sent a profounder stillness through the heart of that majestic solitude. "What if these cowardly covenanters should tumble down upon our heads pieces of rock, from their hiding places? Advance? or retreat?"

10. There was no reply; for a slight fear was upon every man. Musket or bayonet could be of little use to men obliged to clamber up rocks, along slender paths, leading they know not where. And they were aware that armed men, now-adays worshiped God; men of iron hearts, who feared not the glitter of the soldier's arms, neither barrel nor bayonet; men of long stride, firm step, and broad breast, who, on the open field, would have overthrown the marshaled line, and gone first and foremost, if a city had to be taken by storm.

11. As the soldiers were standing together irresolute, a noise came upon their ears like distant thunder, but even more tappalling; and a slight current of air, as if propelled by it, passed whispering along the sweet-briers, and the broom, and the *tresses of the birch trees. It came deepening, and rolling, and roaring on; and the very Cartland Craigs shook to their foundation, as if in an earthquake. "The Lord have mercy upon us! what is this?" And down fell many of the miserable wretches on their knees, and some on their faces, upon the sharp-pointed rocks. Now, it was like the sound of many myriads of chariots rolling on their iron axles, down the strong channel of the torrent. The old, gray-haired minister issued from the mouth of Wallace's cave, and said in a loud voice, "The Lord God terrible reigneth!"

12. A water-spout had burst up among the *moorlands, and the river, in its power, was at hand. There it came, tumbling along into that long reach of cliffs, and, in a moment, filled it with one mass of waves. Huge, agitated clouds of foam rode on the surface of a blood-red torrent. An army must have been swept off by that flood. The soldiers perished in a moment; but, high up in the cliffs, above the sweep of destruction, were the covenanters, men, women, and children, uttering prayers to God, unheard by themselves, in the raging thunder.

CXXVIII. THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.
FROM LONGfellow.

1. THERE is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

2. "Shall I have naught that is fair?” saith he;
"Have naught but the bearded grain ?

Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."

3. He gaz'd at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kiss'd their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise,

He bound them in his +sheaves.

4. "My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and smil'd;

"Dear +tokens of the earth are they,
Where he was once a child.

5. "They shall all bloom in the fields of light,
+Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."

6. And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;

She knew she should find them all again,
In the fields of light above.

7. O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;

'T was an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.

CXXIX.

BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS."

FROM MACAULAY.

JOHN BUNYAN was born in 1628. In the early part of his life, he was noted for his profligacy and wickedness, but subsequently reformed and became a preacher of the Baptist denomination. During his imprisonment for holding religious assemblies, he wrote the celebrated Pilgrim's Progress. He died in 1688.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, the author of this extract, was for some years member of the English Parliament, and is a man of great erudition in almost every department of knowledge. His Lays of Ancient Rome, his Critical and Historical Essays, and his History of England, have a high reputation.

1. THE characteristic peculiarity of the "Pilgrim's Progress" is, that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many thousands with tears. There are some good allegories in Johnson's works, and some of still higher merit in Addison's. In these performances, there is, perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity, as in the "Pilgrim's Progress." But the pleasure which is produced by the vision of Mirza, or the vision of Theodore, or the contest between Rest and Labor, is exactly similar to the pleasure which we derive from one of Cowley's odes, or from a canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure which belongs wholly to the understanding, and in which the feelings have no part whatever.

2. It is not so with the "Pilgrim's Progress. That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. Doctor Johnson, all whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as he said, to read books through, made an exception in favor of the "Pilgrim's Progress." That work, he said, was one of the two or three works which he wished longer. In the wildest parts of Scotland, the "Pilgrim's Progress" is the delight of the peasantry. In every nursery, the "Pilgrim's Progress" is a greater favorite than Jack the Giant-Killer. Every reader knows the straight and narrow path, as well as he knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred times. This is the highest

miracle of genius, that things which are not, should be as though they were; that the imaginations of one mind, should become the personal recollections of another. And this miracle, Bunyan, the tinker, has wrought.

3. There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no +turnstile, with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The wicket-gate and the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of Destruction; the long line of road, as straight as a rule can make it; the Interpreter's house and all its fair shows; all the stages of the journey, all the forms which cross or overtake the pilgrims, giants, and thobgoblins, ill-favored ones and shining ones; the tall, comely, swarthy Madame Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with the money; the black man in the bright vesture; Mr. Worldly Wiseman and My Lord Hategood, Mr. Talkative and Mrs. Timorous; all are actually existing beings to us. We follow the travelers through their allegorical progress, with interest not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London.

4. Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the tabstract, the interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated authors, men are mere personifications. We have not an Othello, but jealousy; not an Iago, but perfidy; not a Brutus, but patriotism. The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so imaginative, that personifications, when he dealt with them, became men. A dialogue between two qualities, in his dream, has more +dramatic effect than a dialogue between two human beings in most plays.

5. The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the English language. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of +theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages which do not contain a single word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely *dia