myself
more familiar with the evil than the good. It shocked me. But I
penetrated deeper and deeper into my own heart--into the iniquity of
my soul, until I despaired of ever sounding its depth. I then cried to
God to have mercy on me. He heard my prayer, and Jesus Christ came to
my help. I felt that he had suffered in my stead, and had poured out
his blood as an atonement for my sins. I found peace to my soul as I
cast myself, a poor, helpless sinner, upon his atoning altar, and
bathed myself in his all-cleansing blood."

Mary could proceed no farther, for the tears began to flow too
rapidly, and her emotion might have been noticed by others than
Albert.

The wind, too, began to rise, and it blew so fresh that they retired
to the cabin, where Albert occupied himself with a game of chess, and
Mary read, with evident pleasure, such parts of her dearly-prized
Bible which suited the state of her mind, occasionally calling
Albert's attention to some passage particularly striking.

In the afternoon, Mary took her seat in a position to enjoy the best
view of the western sky, in which floated, in all their gorgeousness,
the variegated sun-lit clouds.

Albert soon joined her. "Well, Mary, you seem to be meditating; but
allow me to participate in the luxury of your reflections upon that
splendid horizon."

"Indeed, Albert, I was thinking how much more impressive is such
scenery than the traveller on land enjoys. In the rapid succession of
scenery and variety of faces, as the coach or the steam car drives
rapidly onward, everything one sees increases the mind's confusion.
Whatever he casts his eye upon, worthy of admiration, attracts his
attention but a moment; and the sublimity of mountain heights, the
gaudy decorations of fertile valleys, and the frowning grandeur of
rocks, as they cast their dark shadow upon some foaming torrent, flit
by him as a dream of twilight, and leave upon his memory only pencil
outlines of the beautiful and the sublime. Not so the voyager on the
ocean. Here the beautiful imprints itself ineffaceably in all its
sparkling and its gorgeous variety upon the enchanted mind, and the
grand and the sublime raise such a tempest of wonder in the soul that
the ocean ever after rolls its foaming waves over the broad expanse of
memory."

"Mary," said Albert, "these clouds, floating so gracefully on the
ocean, and this gorgeous horizon inspiring your poetic fancy, are
something more than mere sky drapery,