binger of the coming storm, in which my peace was to become a wreck!

I think I hear you say, "whence this gloomy presage? what connection has it with that moment of felicity I have so recently experienced, when I pressed my faithful Eugenia to a bosom, whose every wish is responsive to her own?"

Alas, Albert, would it were so! but surely to convince you how much you deceive yourself on this point, I have but to remind you of those conversations with Mr. F. which took place during the few days we passed at his hospitable mansion,-into which, accompanied by you, my affianced husband, I entered one of the happiest of human beings, and quitted perhaps one of the most miserable; for there did my eagerly listening but eventually dismayed ear, hear from the lips of him to whom I had plighted my first, my willing vows, sen

timents which must ever prevent their fulfilment, should he continue to cherish them. There did I hear the once virtuous, warmhearted, high-souled Albert, express, with all the vehemence of a zealot, opinions which in their very nature are destructive to every noble principle, must chill every warm affection, and are totally inconsistent with the inherent dignity of man. There did I hear him deny with bold contempt, before youthful auditors, who had been wont to rest upon his words with enthusiasm, from a conviction of their virtuous tendency, before such auditors did I hear him deny "there is a spirit in man;" and that an idea of a future state of rewards and punishments is but a necessary check for the vulgar, a mere political creed,-unworthy the credit or the thought of a refined understanding and an enlarged view of science and mankind.

Perhaps you may say, " And what, my Eugenia, have these opinions (free as they may

very naturally appear to thy timid, inexperienced mind, not yet emancipated from early prejudices), what have they to do with that love I have cherished for thee, through every change and fluctuation of them?-a love which neither time, absence, nor circumstances, sufficiently powerful to have diminished or destroyed a weaker attachment, have in the smallest degree been able to affect, other than, if possible, to increase it."

I admit the strength, the sincerity of that attachment, of which I have had proofs indelibly impressed upon my heart and memory;but, oh! Albert, much, very much does the unhappy change of other sentiments, effected by your residence abroad, and more especially by your association with Lord Algernon, much does it affect me, who have devoted myself to your happiness, and, alas! rested my own upon your integrity of principle, and congeniality of sentiment upon every point,-but, above all,

upon that most essential and important oneReligion. Much surely must it concern me to know, from your even proud confession, that you have rushed from the safe and long-tried path of religious hope, to enter upon a career of scepticism, which promises no termination, and in which no land-mark is recognised. Ah! ` much does it concern Eugenia, that her beloved Albert has quitted the luminous way of that Revelation, upon which she herself rests her hope, and from whence she has, in an eventful and calamitous, although short life, drawn her consolations, to wander in the intricate and dark avenues of human speculation, upon the existence or non-existence of a great superintending Cause; of a Being in whom "we live and move," and whose mercy surrounds us on every side: that he has ranked himself with those unhappy men, who seek to impose upon others specious opinions (the offspring of pride), subversive of those incontestible truths, which have been believed and valued by the good of

all ages; and thus, leading astray the young and ardent, finally accomplish their cruel work by depriving them of the source of their happiness, removing from them the corrector of their passions, and snatching from them the anchor of their hope.

Yet, further:-say, Albert, can it be nothing for a wife, who when her prayers are full of the husband of her love, to feel that the same pure offering is not made for her, by that being upon whom she relies, under heaven, for every earthly bliss; to know, that, instead of pleading together, and for each other, before the throne of the Most High, he even derides, as superstitious, enthusiastic, and visionary, the holy exercise? Can it be nothing to a fond and confiding heart to hear him, upon whose head she is supplicating heaven to shower it's choicest blessings, denying it's power; and to see him a wanderer through the trackless desert of the world, yet refusing to look towards that glori