told him
that it sounded well from a dependent on his father's bounty to preach
up abstinence to him. These circumstances threw Anthony into a deep
melancholy. He did not like to write to his uncle to inform him in what
a disgraceful manner his son was spending his time and money; and he
constantly reproached himself with a want of faithfulness in keeping
such an important matter a secret.

Disgusted with his cousin and his dissipated associates, Anthony
withdrew entirely from their society, and shut himself up in his own
apartments, rarely leaving his books to mingle in scenes in which he
could not sympathize, and in which, from his secluded habits, he was not
formed to shine. He became a dreamer. He formed a world for himself, and
peopled it with beings whose imaginary perfections had no counterpart on
earth. He went forth to mingle with his kind, and found them so unlike
the creatures in his moral Utopia, that he determined to relinquish
society and spiritualise his own nature, the better to fit him for his
high calling as a minister of the gospel of Christ.

"How much better it would be to die young," he would exclaim, "than live
to be old and wicked, or to watch over the decay of the warm affections
and enthusiastic feelings of youth; to see the beautiful fade from the
heart, and the worldly and common-place fill up the blighting void! Oh!
Godfrey, Godfrey! how can you enjoy the miserable and sensual pleasures
for which you are forfeiting self-respect and peace of mind for ever!"

"But Godfrey is happier than you, with all your refined feelings and
cultivated tastes," whispered the tempter to his soul.

"It cannot be," returned the youth, as he communed with his own heart.
"The pleasures of sin may blind the mental vision, and blunt the senses,
for a while; but when the terrible truth makes all things plain--and the
reaction comes--and come it assuredly will--and the mind, like a
polluted stream, can no longer flow back to its own bright source, and
renovate its poisoned waters; who shall then say that the madness of the
sensualist can satisfy the heart?"

Thus did these two young men live together: one endeavoring by the aid
of religion, and by studying the wisdom of the past, to exalt and purify
his fallen nature; the other by grovelling in the dust, and mingling
with beings yet more sinful and degraded, rapidly debased his mind to a
more degenerate and fallen state.

Godfrey Hurdlestone had always been cov