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put it into execution the first time I saw Mr. Lee, although long years should intervene. Gradually, however, my feelings subsided, and my impressions of the insult became weaker and less vivid; and in the lapse of a few years the whole affair faded away from my mind. Thirteen years passed over me, and the impetuosity of youth had been softened down by sober manhood, and gradually-approaching age. I was standing upon the downhill of life.' On a beautiful morning in the early spring, I left my residence to transact some business in Petersburg; and on reaching the main road leading to town, I saw, a few hundred yards before me, an elderly-looking man jogging slowly along in a single gig. As soon as I saw him, it struck me, that's Jesse Lee. The name, the man, the sight of him recalled all my recollections of the insult, and all my purposes of resentment. strove to banish them all from my mind. I reasoned on the long years that had intervened since the occurrence; the impropriety of thinking of revenge, and the folly of executing a purpose formed in anger, and after so long a lapse of time. But the more I thought, the warmer I became. My resolution stared me in the face; and something whispered coward in my heart if I failed to fulfil it. My mind was

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in a perfect tumult, and my passions waxed strong. I determined to execute my resolution to the utmost; and full of rage I spurred my horse, and was soon at the side of the man that I felt of all others I hated most.

"I accosted him rather rudely with the question, 'Are you not a Methodist preacher ?'

"I pass for one,' was the reply, and in a manner that struck me as very meek. "An't your name Jesse Lee ?' "Yes: that's my name.'

"Do you recollect preaching in the year meeting-house?'

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66 6 Yes; very well.'

66 6

Well, do you recollect reproving a young man on that occasion for some misbehaviour?' "After a short pause for recollection, he replied, 'I do.'

66 6

'Well,' said I, ‘I am that young man; and I determined that I would whip you for it the first time I saw you. I have never seen you from that day until this; and now I intend to execute my resolution and whip you.'

"As soon as I finished speaking, the old man stopped his horse, and looking me full in the face, said, 'You are a younger man than I am. You are strong and active; and I am old and feeble. I have no doubt but, if I were disposed

But as a So as you

to fight, you could whip me very easily; and it would be useless for me to resist. 66 man of God I must not strive." are determined to whip me, if you will just wait, I will get out of my gig, and get down on my knees, and you may whip me as long as you please.'

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"Never," said the old general, was I so suddenly and powerfully affected. I was completely overcome. I trembled from head to foot. I would have given my estate if I had never mentioned the subject. A strange weakness came over my frame. I felt sick at heart; ashamed, mortified, and degraded, I struck my spurs into my horse, and dashed along the road with the speed of a madman. What became of the good old man I know not. I never saw him after that painfully-remembered morning. He has long since passed away from the earth; and has reaped the reward of the good, the gentle, and the useful, in a world where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary find eternal rest.'

"I am now old; few and full of evil have been the days of the years of my life, yet I am not now without hope in God. I have made my peace with him who is 'the Judge of the quick and dead;' and hope ere long to see that

good man of God with feelings very different from those with which I met him last."

The old man ceased. A glow of satisfaction spread over his features, and a tear stood in his eye. He seemed as if a burden was removed from his heart-that he had disencumbered himself of a load that had long pressed upon his spirits. He had given his secret to the near relative of the man he had once intended to injure, but whose memory he now cherished with feelings akin to those that unite the redeemed to each other, and bind the whole to "the Father of the spirits of all flesh."

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THE MORAL SUBLIME.

"The sublime is an outward reflection of the inward greatness of the soul."-Longinus

THE moral 'sublime is the sublime in moral action or endurance-the highest appeal to human taste. In an extensive review of ecclesiastical history which I have lately completed, I have been struck with the numerous examples which it affords of this noble greatness. Profane history affords many sublime examples of endurance and self-sacrifice. The cases of Socrates, Leonidas, Regulus, and Winkelried, sustain our confidence in humanity and our hopes of the world. But how far short of the illustrious examples of the church are these instances! There is a peculiarity in the latter, arising from religious influence, which approaches the sublimity of inspiration. How calmly and majestically they suffer! What a bearing of repose, like the classic statues of the gods, they wear at the very stake, as if they were beings of a superior essence, immortal, and insensible to the effects of the elements ! The instances of profane history are cases of cool and stanch submission to stern principle or hard necessity-magnanimous, indeed, but it

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