floated
on its surface, and beheld whole generations flourish and fade away, while
age and silver hairs, growing infirmities, and the closing sigh that ends
them all, mocked me with a horrible exemption. I remained, and might have
remained, for ages yet to come, the fixed and unaltered image of what I
was, when in Mauritania I encountered the potent Amaimon, the damned
magician of the den, but for that--woman's faith, and man's
fidelity--which have made me what I AM!

"This _was_ my destiny. Now mark, how I became enthralled to it; and how
it befell, that at last I shook it off, and found redemption.

"In my middle manhood, when scarcely forty summers had glowed within my
veins, I left my native Italy, and journeyed to the Holy Land, upon the
strict vow of a self-imposed penance. It was for no sin committed in my
days of youth, but for the satisfaction of an ardent piety, and the
growing spirit of a long enkindled devotion. I had patrimonial wealth in
Apulia; I had kindred; I had friends. I renounced them all, to dedicate
myself, thenceforth, to the service of THE CROSS. My purpose was blessed,
by a virtuous mother's prayers, that I might approve myself a worthy
soldier of Christ; and it was sanctified by a holy priest at the altar.

"Even now, the recollection is strong within me, of the feelings with
which, as the rising sun illumined the tops of the surrounding hills, I
approached the once glorious, and still sacred, city of Jerusalem--that
chosen seat of the Godhead--that Queen among the nations. Eclipsed, though
it was, and its majestic head trodden into the dust, by the foot of the
infidel, my gladdened eyes dwelt upon what was imperishable, and my wrapt
imagination pictured what was destroyed. The valleys of Jehosaphat and
Gehinnon, Mount Calvary, Mount Zion, and Mount Acre, stretched before me.
The palace of King Herod, with its sumptuous halls of marble and of
gold--the gorgeous Temple of Solomon--the lofty towers of Phaseolus and
Mariamne--the palace of the Maccabees--the Hippodrome--the houses of many
of the prophets--grew into existence again, beneath the creative force of
fancy. I stood and wept. I knelt, and kissed the consecrated earth which
once a Saviour trod."

* * * * *

"THE HUNTED STAG: A SKETCH.

What sounds are on the mountain blast?
Like bullet from the arbalast,
Was it the hunted quarry past
Right up Ben-ledi's side?--
So near, so rapidly h