were exchanged for groans and howlings as wild as those of the neighbouring wolves; every period of his frantic and incendiary eloquence was drowned in the cry of his hearers; and Boanerges himself, as he saw the increased excitement, the powerful and universal action of which he had been the first propeller, trembled at the working of the machine he himself had set in motion, and "doubted whereunto this would grow." So fares it with all who presumptuously approach the ark of Revelation, and are lost in the attempt to steady its progress and direct its course ere they have ascertained their right to touch it.

In the meantime Pierre and his companions were kneeling in their remote recess; and the lights and features of scenery under which these different groups were assembled were singularly adapted to their different characters. In the interior of the cavern an ample fire had been lit; its light, flaming upward, fell vividly on the notched and ragged edges of the rocks that impended above, shaping their wild out

lines into a resemblance of the visages of gigantic spectres seen in a feverish dream; even the light foliage of the shrubs that started from among their interstices, and the pendant and waving vegetation of the weeds that clustered round them, lost all the beauty of their verdure and forms in that strong unnatural light, and seemed like the dark webs that wave in the chambers of sorcery. Below, the glare was reflected from fierce faces, marked with fiercer passions, obstinacy and rage, hatred and despair, and that peculiar expression of religious hostility that combines all and surpasses all. In the little sanctuary of Pierre's associates there was no fierce and fiery light, no passion or tumult; they knelt on the floor of stone, and the moon, gleaming through a chasm in the rock, was the only light that fell on faces, mild, pale, and sorrowful, —on clasped hands, heads meekly depressed, and bodies, in whose deep and tranquil prostration you might see that hearts were bowed down also; and amid the cataract of sound that thundered from their fiercer brethren, the stilly

flow of their pure prayer was heard to murmur sounds only of love and of peace, of submission and of sorrow. It seemed as if the accusing and deprecatory spirits were on their flight towards heaven together, and the still small voice of the latter proclaimed that his petition was accepted.

It was now past midnight; the fires had sunk low, the moonlight was withdrawn, and the stormy congregation of Boanerges, and the placid followers of Pierre, alike sought a refuge from the stings of many wants and sufferings in slumber. The gleam of the embers shed a sullen and wearied light at length on hands locked in defiance or in supplication-now unclasped; -on eyes that had flashed with the light of every passion that can dilate or inflame their orbs-now closed;-on forms agitated by every spirit that can shake and convulse them most fearfully-now still as infancy; all buried in a sleep like that of death: rage and grief, talent and mediocrity, power and weakness, slumbered beside each other. The stormy Boanerges,

and the hot deacon, and all their followers and favourers, with all their various shades of discrepancy and contradiction, were mute; as deep a repose was on the few followers of the pastor; it was a living churchyard. Genevieve alone, like the angel of the resurrection, sat watching till the morning.

CHAPTER VII.

Fate sits on these dark battlements, and frowns,
And, as the portals open to receive me,

Her voice in sullen echoes through the courts
Tells of a nameless deed.

WALPOLE'S Mysterious Mother.

THE desperate courage of Mattathias and his followers had delayed, though not rendered doubtful, the strife with the crusaders. Many fell, and the few who survived fled to their mountain retreat, their flight well covered by their dauntless leader, who fought to the last, and, while the flying party were mingling with the mists of the mountains that shrouded them, still kept his face toward the foe. His arrow was the last that flew-and it never flew without quivering in a foeman's heart; his club was the last that was wielded-and it never fell without crushing a man-at-arms to