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NON-RESISTANCE.

ciety. Suppose a man were to break into your house at night, would you not resist him? Would you not, if you could, prevent him taking your goods, and that too violently?"

"If I could not persuade him to go out." "Persuade him! Nonsense! Would you not shoot him? Or, if without a deadly weapon, attack him with any thing you could get in your hands, and maim him if possible?"

"Not until I had, at least, made the attempt to convince him that he was acting wrong."

"While he quietly knocked you over, and then took possession of whatever he wanted! Depend upon it, neighbour, you are in error in this matter. There are two great parties in this world, and as these are opposite to each other in all their ends, they must ever be opposed to each other, and that actively. These two parties are the good and the evil. No peace can ever be made between them. Their war is for dominion-the dominion of peace, good will, and social order-or the dominion of anarchy, crime, and wretchedness, and this war is a war in which each of the parties seeks the total destruction of the other. For the good to assume that non-resistance is a wise principle, is to show that they do not unite the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove. They are like watchmen slumbering in the alarm tower, while the enemy is scaling the wall. Good must resist evil; and resist it at every point. In no other way can order be maintained in society."

"But, in this case, harm would grow out of my seeking justice at the hands of Fisher. As you know, he is a prominent member of the church, and very influential into the bargain."

"What of that?"

"It would bring scandal upon the church were so active a member, as he is, exposed in so palpable a fraud."

"How scandal?"

"It would cause many to say that all religious people are hypocrites."

"Suppose it did. Could that take away from any one a good and a true principle? And if it did not, it could do no possible harm. On the other hand, by your suffering a wolf to remain disguised in sheep's clothing, you are permitting him to wound, vitally, the lambs of the flock. A corrupt humour in the body may, in its hidden activity, reach a vital part, and cause death: but in coming to the surface and passing off in violent eruptions, it relieves the body from a dangerous enemy, and leaves the system in a far more healthy condition. Some physicians, who seem to understand the human, about as well as you, judging from what you have said, do the social economy, attempt to drive in and dissipate interiorly incipient eruptions, while others give remedies and use means to bring them fully to the surface that they may pass off. The former too often entail upon their patients some incurable form of disease, as consumption, or visceral abscesses; and like

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them, coverers up and drivers in of evil and corruptions in social or religious bodies, provide for them incurable maladies."

"I cannot see it so," was the unconvinced reply to this. Mr. Walton, who had argued the point so closely with this non-resistance friend, a Mr. Anderson, finding that all he urged seemed to carry with it no conviction, thought it best to change the subject.

It happened, about three months after this conversation, that Mr. Anderson, the advocate for non-resistance, was awakened one night by a noise which seemed to proceed from below. After listening attentively for some minutes, he became convinced that there were robbers in the house.. Here now was the chance of giving his non-resistance views a trial after a fashion that he by no means relished. Quickly dressing himself, his first movement was to take up a heavy cane. But then, he bethought himself, that, to use this, would be a violation of the law in regard to the resistance of evil. He must suffer even to be despoiled of his goods rather than seek to be revenged on his brother-so he argued, even under the trying circumstances in which he found himself placed so he laid his cane quietly down. For some time he hesitated what to do-whether to go down and remonstrate with them upon the evil of their course, or to endeavour to alarm the watch by dumb signals, or shouting from his window. While thus debating, the door of his chamber, in which still lay his wife and children asleep, was thrown open, and two men stepped boldly in. Such was his position, that with the heavy stick in his hand, which he had just laid aside, and a brave determination to do his duty like a man, he could have knocked both of the intruders down, the moment they entered. But this would have been wrong in his view,-it would have been resisting evil. All that was now left for him was to reason with them.

"My friends, this is all wrong," he began in a mild tone, although he trembled from head to foot with fear

But before he could utter a word more one of the burglars struck him with a heavy bludgeon, and he fell senseless to the floor. His wife, aroused by the noise of his fall, started up, but before her bewildered senses could fully take in what was passing round her, she, too, received a stunning blow, that caused her to fall back upon the bed, apparently lifeless. Fortunately for the children they were not awakened.

The robbers then proceeded quietly to rifle Mr. Anderson's drawers, from which they took a pocket-book containing five hundred dollars.Plate, watches and jewelry were also carried off to nearly the same amount.

When Mr. Anderson was next conscious, he found himself lying on the floor. He opened his eyes, and perceived that all was dark. He listened, but not a sound could be heard. In attempt. ing to rise, he found himself so weak, that he

could not at first support his own weight; he was seized at the same time with a faintness and deadly sickness. In placing his hand to his head, through which shot a sudden pain, it came in contact with a cold, slimy mass, the very touch of which made his flesh creep. It might be, for aught he knew, that half of his head had been knocked away, and that it was his brains that he had touched!

After lying quite still for some time, during which he was enabled to collect his scattered senses, he came to the conclusion that it could not exactly be his brains that he had felt. This prompted him to make another effort to get up, which proved more successful.

As soon as he had procured a light, he turned towards the bed where he had left his wife asleep, when he was alarmed to find that she had half arisen, and then fallen forward. As he raised her up quickly, he perceived that there was the mark of a heavy blow on the side of her head and face, and that she was very pale and apparently lifeless.

By the use of various means that suggested themselves in the emergency, Mr. Anderson succeeded in bringing his wife back to consciousness. His children were next looked to, and found to be sleeping quietly. After the blood had been washed from his head, the mass of matted and tangled hair smoothly parted from the wound which the robber's bludgeon had made, and the contusion ascertained not to be so serious as to let out his brains, Mr. Anderson with rather more sense than he had displayed previous to the slight excitement of his combative organ by the application of a little "club-oil," took up his heavy cane, and holding it in a guarding attitude, proceeded to ascertain whether his house was still infested by burglars. Certain it is, that if any such individuals had been found upon the premises, and had not fled precipitately, the law that had ruled in the conscience of Mr. Anderson, the law of non-resistance, would most certainly have been broken.

On the next day, the fact that he had been assailed by burglars, beaten and robbed of nearly a thousand dollars in money and valuable articles, became noised abroad.

Mr. Walton was among the first to call upon Mr. Anderson to sympathize with him in his loss, and to congratulate him upon having escaped with, personally, only a broken head. He found him writing an advertisement descriptive of the articles which had been carried off; to this advertisement was attached the offer of a reward for the apprehension of the robbers and the recovery of the goods.

"You certainly do not intend publishing this," Mr. Walton said, in well feigned surprise, on reading over the advertisement which was shown him.

"And why not?" asked Mr. Anderson.

"Because it will be a direct violation of your

doctrine of non-resistance. Let them go. Why should you seek to have them punished?"

"To prevent their robbing you next week, if for no other reason. If suffered to get off after their successful effort at my house, they will only be emboldened to rob more extensively."

"Indeed, friend Anderson! That knock on your head has brightened your ideas quite considerably, I perceive," Mr. Walton said smiling. "A similar application, doubt not, would do much good in all cases of like disease. And so you are really going to give up your non-resistance principles!"

"No, I cannot say that I am. The present is one of those extreme cases which require to be dealt with somewhat rigorously."

"But why didn't you resist the attempt to rob you? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

"I didn't see it right to resist by violence, until I had first remonstrated."

"And you got knocked down, and your wife, whom you are bound by every human and divine law to protect, into the bargain for your pains. As far as you are concerned, I cannot help saying that I think you were served perfectly right. But do you think you could have resisted successfully?"

"O yes, there is no doubt of that. As they entered my chamber, if I had kept hold of my stick, and used it, I could have felled them both to the floor."

"As a man of sense ought to have done. Well, I hope it will teach you a lesson. But now, friend Anderson, that you see the propriety of seeking to have these burglars arrested and punished, can you not see, likewise, that it is your duty to bring Fisher also to justice?"

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Oh, no--no--no! I can see no such thing." "Why not? Is he any better than your housebreakers? They only took by force what he did by fraud-your property. Why then make a difference between them. Both are dangerous to the good order and well being of society."

"But think of the injury that would be done to religion if Mr. Fisher were exposed? Why it's only a week or two since he was elected president of an auxiliary Bible Society, and you know that he is one of the vestrymen at Saint-'s. He is looked up to in the community. He is like a branch to which are appended many twigs. Cut him down, and numbers fall with him."

"And they had just as well fall as cling to a false-hearted, rotten limb like he is."

"I wouldn't do it for the world, Mr. Walton. The cause of our holy religion forbids it. I would rather bear ten times the personal wrong, than be a party to the injury that would follow his expo

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going to give them up-and they will be deeper and broader in their blasting effects upon society just in the ratio that he gains power and influence in the community. Better extirpate a cancer the moment its existence is discovered, than suffer its corroding fibres to dive down into the physical organs so deep, as to involve extensively the surrounding parts and render its removal almost hopeless, or only by the attendance of extreme suffering. Evil, unresisted, does not die of itself. Like a poisonous plant, it grows rapidly, and becomes harder and harder to subdue the longer it is suffered to remain in existence."

Mr. Anderson made his advertisement offering a liberal reward for the arrest of the housebreakers and recovery of his money. But it was all in vain. No trace of either his property or the men could be found.

It was a few months only from the period of the robbery, when the excitement in regard to it had nearly died away in the interest that other and more recent occurrences had naturally awakened, that Mr. Walton found himself placed in circumstances very similar to those that had presented themselves to his friend Anderson. In the middle of the night he was awakened from sleep, and soon became aware that some one was endeavouring to open the door of the room in which himself and wife and two younger children were sleeping. For a moment his heart fluttered, and sent the blood with suffocating repletion to his lungs. But he soon grew calm and self-possessed. Softly getting out of bed, he drew on a portion of his clothes, and then from a drawer which he always kept locked, he took out a large pistol. His pistol he carefully examined, placed in it a fresh cap, and then with a heavy stick by his side awaited the success of the intruder or intruders in their attempts to enter his chamber. The removal of the key from the lock seemed to be the effort of those outside. It was moved and turned as if by a pair of small pincers inserted into the key-hole. At last it fell, with a slight noise upon the carpet. Now came the exciting moment. A false key was, in a little while, inserted, and the bolt sprung. Then came another pause, after which the door gently opened. Mr. Walton had placed himself so that he would be partly behind the door, and thus unperceived. In a moment after a stout man, carrying in one hand a dark lantern, and in the other a heavy club, stept in noiselessly, and commenced noting with hurried glances the position of things in the chamber. Before, however, this rapid examination was completed, he fell stunned to the floor by a tremendous blow from Mr. Walton's heavy stick.

Simultaneously with the fall of the robber, came the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps along the passage without. Swinging open the door instantly, Mr. Walton saw a man just in the act of descending the stairs. Taking at him deliberate aim he fired, and had the satisfaction to hear him fall heavily upon the landing. Then

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returning to his chamber he threw open a window and raised a cry of alarm. Watchmen were in the neighbourhood and came at once. Descending to let them in, Mr. Walton found the man he had shot lying where he had fallen, while a large pool of blood had formed around him. He did not move. The entrance of the watchmen relieved him from further care over his fallen enemies, who were removed-the first with only a broad, black, tumefied mark from Mr. Walton's cane on his ear and the side of his face, and the other with a ball inside his shoulder blade, the extraction of which caused him most excruciating pain; but left him in no danger of his life.

Circumstances came out on the trial of these men, who were convicted, and sentenced to ten years imprisonment in the penitentiary, which made it clear that they were the same who had broken into Anderson's house, and escaped punishment on that occasion from his childish misapprehension of his duty as a man.

"There now, my friend," remarked Walton to him after the trial and conviction; "all this trouble has been brought upon me, because you did not resist evil when it encroached upon you a few months ago. Had you then opposed force to force, under the advantage which you had, you might have saved your property and prevented the depredation that the villains who escaped from you were emboldened to attempt upon me." I was wrong in that, I am fully convinced," Anderson replied.

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"And not only wrong in that, but wrong in other matters."

"In what?"

"That affair of Fisher, for instance."

Oh, don't mention him again, if you please. I cannot expose Mr. Fisher. I am content to suffer wrong for the good of the whole."

Surely it cannot be for the good of the whole to permit a specious scoundrel to be in their midst and his quality unknown, and if he has deliberately cheated you, he will as deliberately cheat others."

"But he stands so high, Mr. Walton. Last Sunday he went to the communion table. I saw him myself. He is said to be getting very pious. Perhaps he has repented already of the wrong he did me."

"Has he made restitution?" "No."

"Has he offered to do so?" "No."

"Then I wouldn't give that (snapping his fingers) for his piety. A mere cloak under which the more successfully to carry out his evil intentions."

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Time passed on, and Fisher, who has been several times alluded to, went on prosperously in business. He was director in one of the insurance companies, also director in two banks, president of a Bible society, active member of a state missionary society, subscriber to various benevolent funds, and with all a very pious member of the church. So popular a man had he become, that even Mr. Anderson, whose indignation at having been cheated by him had been so warm as to prevent him for some time holding any intercourse with him, began to feel honoured in being seen in his company. Fisher's business had, likewise, become very much extended. From his connections with moneyed institutions, he had the command of as much capital as he wanted, and this he was using to the best possible advantage. But, as his facilities increased, his ideas became more extensive, and his head, consequently, filled with new schemes and plans by which to acquire immense wealth. At last the idea struck him of getting control of a banking institution, as the readiest means of accomplishing the ends he had in view. To do this, it would be necessary in the first place to manage the stock in such a way as to get himself elected president. The capital was two hundred thousand dollars. His first movement was to ascertain the names of the shareholders. Of the two thousand shares of stock that made up the capital of the institution, he was satisfied that he could readily manage one fourth, by direct application and through pliant friends. To make sure of a majority of votes at the annual election about to take place, he asked for heavy discounts in all the banks, and obtained the sum that he wanted, viz. one hundred thousand dollars. With this, through brokers and agents, he bought up half the capital stock of the bank. He was now certain of success.

It was about a week before the annual election for officers, that Mr. Anderson came into the store of Mr. Walton, and said—

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of not resisting evil. Had I then brought that matter to light, his character would have been blasted inevitably, and look what a useful man in society would have been ruined."

"He'll do more harm before he dies than twenty of your non-resistance people can mend if you lived to be as old as Methuselah-mark my word for that. This scheming to get himself elected president of the Eagle Bank portends no good. That's my opinion."

"So you won't let him have your vote?"

"No, indeed, that I will not. And, moreover, if he gets in I will sell out my stock immediately."

In due course of time the election came on, and Fisher was declared president. For five years from that period he ran a brilliant career, inducing even prudent men to enter into his schemes. Then came a heavy crash, involving hundreds in loss, and far too many in utter ruin. For the latter two years of that period, he had but a nominal board of directors, who were his tools; and they deceived the public by a show of supervision over the affairs of the institution, while they had no more control, or even a correct knowledge of them, than the man in the moon.

The excitement occasioned by the failure of the bank made a legal investigation necessary. This was at once instituted, and developed a system of fraud and imposition that astounded the whole community. Among other things that came out, was the issue of nearly five hundred thousand dollars by the president, which never passed through the bank, and had, of course, been used for his private ends. During most of the time, he had lived in a style of princely splendour, and had reigned the little autocrat of the monetary circle.

The whole result was, that hundreds of persons lost their all either as stockholders, depositors, or operators, with and under Fisher; among these was Mr. Anderson himself. As for Fisher, he escaped the penitentiary only by the aid of money which he had managed to retain really, though not apparently, and upon which he afterwards lived at his ease.

It was during the excitement of these proceedings that Mr. Walton and Mr. Anderson again

met.

"So his majesty has been uncloaked at last," remarked the former.

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'And shown to be a scoundrel double-dyed in the wool," replied Anderson with bitterness.

"As I always said he was since you related to me the manner in which he took the advantage of you several years ago."

"And if I had not been a fool I might have been sure of it too. As it is, I have been ruined by my blind confidence in a man whom I had the best reason in the world for distrusting."

"If you alone were the sufferer," Mr. Walton said with some little severity in his manner, "it would be well, for you deserve to suffer; but the distress which that scoundrel has wrought in this

AN EVENING WITH MRS. S. C. HALL.

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community is really heart-sickening. And for all this, I hold you, sir, to be almost as much to blame as Fisher."

"Me, sir!" ejaculated Anderson in surprise and indignation.

"Yes, sir, you! Had you, as a lover of order and justice, for their own sakes, protected this community by an exposure of the fraud practised upon you, and thus put the people on their guard, you would have saved many a widow and orphan from being robbed, and many an honest man from the loss of his all. But, instead of this, you covered up and concealed, from mere external

considerations, and for the sake of appearances, his crime, when I warned you of the danger of doing so, and showed you that you were acting from narrow and erroneous views of things; and not only so, but gave him your countenance and support in his grandest scheme of villany. But, it's no use for me to preach now. The horse is stolen, and to lock the stable door would be an idle ceremony."

Anderson turned away in silence, painfully conscious that he had his own share of the responsibility of Fisher's too successful villany to bear.

AN EVENING WITH MRS. S. C. HALL.

BY THEO. LEDYARD CUYLER.

I was strolling down the old Brompton road one pleasant evening last fall, and meeting a labouring man, I inquired if he knew the residence of Mrs. Hall. "Oh! yes," said he, with a tip of his hat, "go along this road till you come to a pretty little cottage, covered over with trees, with a green railing in front, and 'The Rosary' on the brass plate; that is the place." With such a luminous direction I could not well go astray, and in ten minutes I was giving a tweak at the bell-rope of this little "House Beautiful."

Having a commission from an American friend, I was shown at once into the snug parlour, where I found a group seated around the fireside. Oh! those English firesides! I never can forget them. Of all the pleasant recollections of the old world, the most perfectly pleasant are those connected with the homes of England. If a stranger wishes to gather the most favourable impression of the English character, let him not go to the Palace, or the Parliament, to the court rooms, or the counting rooms, to the splendid mansions of the nobility, or the huts of the poor; let him rather see the refined and well educated commoners, and those by their own quiet firesides. But to return from the digression. The most conspicuous figure of the group, of course, was the authoress-not as an authoress, however, but as the ladylike head of the family; for Mrs. Hall has too much sense to attempt any of that silly display of lionism, which is the sure mark of pedants and of fools. My reception was most cordial, and I found myself at once domesticated in the circle, enjoying the "full flow of London talk."

But how does she look? inquires some modest country lassie, who has sat up until her bright eyes ached, in reading "Mary Ryan's Daughter." I will tell you, my jewel, so that when you get another precious morceau from beyond the water, you may have a perfect image of your benefactress. She is not a very large woman, nor indeed VOL. XXVII.-8

is she a very small one, and she has a bonny round figure. Her eyes are dark, and bright as your own, her forehead is exceedingly broad, and her hair is dark brown, dressed in the Grecian style. She has a complexion somewhat florid, and a nose slightly concave, which are the only marks she bears of her native land; she would not be an Irish lady without them.

I am no physiognomist, and never affected that superhuman knowledge of the character, to be drawn from the shape of the mouth, the contour of the nose, or the arch of the brow; I only saw that she was goodly to look upon, and that was enough. Her eyes, and her lips too, spake overflowing kindness, and that to me, young, and a stranger, was far more than if they had displayed the fire of Shelley, or the lordly curl of Byron. I do not mean by this that her face is wanting in intelligence; far from it. I only mean that the learned trash often written about the personal appearance of the eminent, is to me eminently ridiculous.

The evening was passed in most delightful literary conversation. Mrs. Hall is a charming converser, easy and vivacious; she laughs frequently, and sometimes almost immoderately. And no wonder, for Mr. Hall is an exceedingly humorous man. He tells an Irish story admirably, and illustrates it with most irresistible gestures.

Mr. H. is a lawyer, but is known to the world as an accomplished literateur, and the author of several very attractive little pieces. He is at present engaged upon a new edition of the old English Ballads, and is also assisting his wife in the preparation of a magnificent work on Ireland-its scenery, character, &c.

Were it not for the gross impropriety, too often committed by the Boy Jones school of tourists, of blazoning the private conversation of distinguished individuals, I might relate many anecdotes of Mrs. Hall and her literary cotemporaries. But I know

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