AN AGED JEWISH CONVERT TO HIS SON.*

My son, my son! oh! let me hear
Those lips once more Messiah bless!
Nor think there's sorrow in the tear
Which speaks my o'erwrought happiness.

Art thou my very son? the child
Who cursed his sire as Israel's shame,
And branded, with blaspheming wild,
Jesus—that dear, that saving name!

So did we part-but now no more
The memory of that parting sears;
This moment heals the pang I bore,
And pays the agony of tears.

For thou art His-upon thy brow
The purifying drops are bright;
And on this ear thy whisper'd vow,
Has poured its union of delight.

Both chosen in the holy seed,
We see Messiah's promise stand;
For we are Abraham's sons, indeed,

Yet raised from stones at His command.

Oh! let me kiss the sacred sign

That marks thee from delusion free:
Israel by nought but change divine,
Could glory in the accursed tree.

Then forward, soldier of the cross!
Fear not, the strife is almost done;
He who has counted all but loss
For Christ, the triumph half has won.

The victor o'er his own proud heart,
Need fear nor sneers, nor kinsman's frown;
Glory is His: God will not part

Faith and reward-the cross and crown.

Praise be to God, no more we sever,
Still meeting at one throne of grace;
One Lord, one faith insure for ever,
To sire and son one resting place.

* Mr. Keonheim is a converted Jew. It is fifteen years since his conversion, and five years ago his son, then twenty-five years of age,-left him with a curse; not, as his father said, because he did not love him, but because he was a follower of Jesus. That same son was baptized at Belfast last September.

Printed by T. Thomas, Eastgate-street Row, Chester.

VOL. III.

CHRISTIAN BEACON.

"THE LIGHT SHINETH IN DARKNESS."-John i. 5.

THE MERCHANT'S CLERK.

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

THE night before, I had been one of Mr. Cecil's hearers. On Monday night, the very next night, I was at Vauxhall, one of a party of thoughtless and profligate young men. I was alone, and I had just taken up a book which Angus had lent me, and was quietly pouring out a cup of tea, when a loud ring at the gate drew me to the window. A little servant-boy stood at the gate, and a gentleman sprang out of the gig, which had just drawn up, as I made my appearance at the window. It was Desmond Smith-and in another minute he was in the room with me. "There is no time to be lost, my dear fellow," he said, " you must dress instantly, and come with me.' "No time to be lost," I repeated, why, what has happened? and I am dressed." He laughed, and threw himself into my arm-chair, taking up the open volume, which I had put down, and while he was quietly running his eye over the leaves, he said as quietly," I am come to carry you off to Vauxhall. Hanson says you have never been there, so go and get ready; you cannot he seen there in a morning dress-but first ring the bell for another cup, and put some green tea in the tea-pot, and leave me to read your book and drink your tea, while you are making an Adonis of yourself." "But I do not know that I can go," I replied, for I was thinking of Angus Murray, and a conversation which had taken place between him and me, as we walked into the city that morning from Mr. Maxwell's house, and I felt that Mr. Maxwell and his family, and Mr. Cecil, would all have disapproved of my going with Desmond Smith,-for my own part, I did not like going, not so much because I felt any strong objections, but because it was so soon after having been in such different company. Why, what's the matter," said Desmond, "ar'nt you well-or has your visit to Great Ormond-street put you out of conceit with the pleasures of the world. At any rate, there can be no great harm in a garden and a few lamps, and a concert and cold chickens.' I still hesitated, but Desmond Smith said coldly, "you can go this once, and if you disapprove the thing, you need not go again-I would advise vou to go." This was the reasoning to which I yielded, because I liked to yield. I went up to dress. When I came down, I found Desmond Smith sitting in deep abstraction of thought, and when I spoke, he sighed heavily. But he started up, and began to talk in a loud, cheerful voice, and continued talking till his gig stopped before the door opening into the lamp-lighted gardens of Vauxhall. "That book of yours has made me feel rather

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queer," he said, as he passed his arm within mine, and hurried into the gardens, "but here is a place which will soon make us forget it. Hanson and Chillingworth, and some other fellows, friends of mine, promised to come by water-I wonder if they have arrived yet!" We soon after

met them.

I was amused and excited by the novelty of the scene, and by the gaiety and splendour of every thing around me. Desmond Smith pointed out to me many of the leaders of the world of fashion, whose names I had often heard, and who were celebrated at that time for high rank, or talent, or great beauty. I was very much entertained, and the evening passed rapidly away. I should probably have stayed till a late hour, for I was too much occupied with pleasure to regard time, had not my companion met with two young foreign gentlemen, who had only come to England, it appeared, that morning. They spoke together in French for some time. "You hear how anxious they are to have me with them to-night," said Desmond Smith, in English, turning to me. "They have business of importance to communicate, and they wish to take me home to sup with them." I did not hear, for I could not speak or understand French, but of course, I thought Desmond Smith ought to accompany his friends. "Is it very late?" I asked. "Near midnight," he replied, "but if you wish to be at home in any reasonable time, I would warn you not to join Hanson and the rest of them. They have ordered supper, and will be here later thau any one else. One or two of the party are half drunk already. If you like to get away at once, the Count tells me he has a coach waiting at the door, and we can give you a seat as far as we shall go in your direction." It was beginning to rain hard, and this decided me. I accepted the seat in the coach-was set down by them, and reached home just at midnight, but with my thin shoes wet through, and my coat in the same state. "You are out very late, Sir," said my good landlady, as she opened the door herself, and she looked cross and spoke sharply; " I have sent the servant girl to bed, and I have been sitting up and waiting for above an hour-its on the stroke of twelve. But, dear me," said Mrs. Thompson, "why, you are wringing wet," and all her crossness gave way to motherly compassion. She insisted on taking my coat to the kitchen fire, and she bustled up stairs for my slippers, and before I could get to bed, I heard her kind voice at my door, and received a cup of hot gruel, well spiced, from her kind hands, with many entreaties, that I would be sure to take it at once, while it was hot.

I had seen nothing that appeared to me objectionable on my first visit to Vauxhall; but I went again, and then the party was not broken up by the departure of Desmond Smith and myself, nor did it rain. We were among the last of the company to leave the gardens, and we all remained long after the more respectable portion of the people had departed. We remained to sup in the king's box, and to drink and to dance-but there is no occasion to describe minutely the proceedings of that evening, or of any other such evening. Alas, I soon became accustomed to scenes and practices which had at first made me feel uneasy. My conscience began to upbraid me less frequently-iny judgment

being continually overpowered by my will and inclination. Often and often was I out till long after midnight. Mrs. Thompson became at length wearied out by my irregularities. On her coming up to speak to me, one evening, just as I was going out, I begged her to allow me to have a key made to her house door, by which I might admit myself at any hour, without disturbing the rest of the family. To my astonishment she told me plainly that I must look out for lodgings elsewhere. I expostulated with her, but to no purpose

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Many of the young gentlenen," she said, "in Mr. Arnold's counting-house, and in the other great merchants' houses, had occupied her lodgings, but she had never had cause to complain of any one of them, except it was of poor Mr. Vining, who had run just such a course as I had begun, and who, I might have heard, was taken up and tried for his life, and hanged for forgery. She should never forget the night when the Bow-street officers came after him. He had been dressing to go out, and when she went up stairs, to the very room where I was then sitting, to tell him he wes wanted, one of the strange, rough-looking men followed close at her heels, and was in the room looking over her shoulder before she had done speaking, and the poor young man knew the face of the Bow-street officer the instant he saw him, and made a rush into the bed-room-the very bed-room where I had been dressing-and he had managed to bolt the door, and to throw himself out of the window into the back garden, and would probably have escaped had · not the other Bow-street officer been on the look out for him and seized upon him almost as he dropped from the window." The good woman was in tears while she told me this, and her manner was more than usually kind, but I found her quite decided as to my leaving her house. This was anything but pleasing to me, and I could not help shuddering when she spoke of the merchant's clerk who had been hung for forgery, and who had occupied my rooms, and whose irregularities had been so like my own.

On other accounts I was glad to go. I felt that Stanley's correct and steady habits were a reflection and a restraint upon me. He said little, he had left off speaking, for he found that I only took offence, and still followed my own ways. Indeed, a coolness had arisen between us, and we seldom met or spoke except at the counting-house, and on business. But, as I said before, Stanley was too common-place, and, as I assured myself, too cold-hearted to suit me. "Why does he not come and tell me plainly that he disapproves of my ways? I said to myself, instead of putting on that cool, careless look, and speaking with that dry, heartless voice? How very different from Angus! How kindly, and yet how faithfully he spoke to me only yesterday; how his colour came and went; and how his voice trembled with emotion when he said the severest things! how his heart seemed to speak even in the most cutting words, (and they were, indeed, cutting words,) which he spoke !"

I might have added-" but the expostulating words of Angus had no more effect upon me, than the phlegmatic silence of Stanley."

I had now begun to feel a craving for constant amusement. I had formed a habit of going continually to some place of entertainment. I could not bear to pass an evening by myself, and I seldom did so. Lodgings I had easily found, not on the southern side of the Thames, in the outskirts of London, as before, but at the West End of the town, though in a dark narrow street and at a higher price.

I

And now I soon began to find that my new mode of life was a very expensive one: I could not, indeed, go to one place of amusement after another without paying away my money; but added to this I could not frequent such places without dressing more finely and fashionably than I had been accustomed to do; and expensive dressing required more money than I had ever been accustomed to spend upon my person. stood aghast one afternoon, on returning to my lodgings from the city, when I opened the large folds of what seemed to be a long double letter-it was my tailor's bill. I glanced my eye at the amount, it was double the sum that I expected to receive during the whole of the next year. How it was to be paid I could not tell. Moodily I paced up and down the room, thinking over first one plan, and then another. I would have written to my aunt, or to my mother, confessing my profligacy and extravagance, and intreated them to forgive me, and to enable me to extricate myself from my difficulties, but I had not the heart to do this, for I recollected that my aunt had just lost a large sum of money by the stoppage of one of the Sussex Banks; and only the week before, in answering a letter-an application of mine for money-that dear kind aunt had sent me twenty pounds, telling me at the same time of the loss of her money, and adding that they have been obliged to discharge one of their servants, and that they meant to live as economically as possible for the next two years, if she and my mother were spared so long. I thought of Angus, but he had spoken to me so often and so earnestly, warning me of what had now come to pass, (the difficulties in which I had involved myself,) that I felt I could not bear to speak to him on the subject. Besides, I said to myself, he is as poor as I am, and could not help me if he would, and I murmured to myself something about Scotch nearness and love of money. In the midst of these perplexing thoughts, a hand was laid on my shoulder, I started, for I had not heard him enter the room, but when I looked round I saw the handsome and smiling face of Desmond Smith, now my frequent visitor, indeed my favourite companion. "What is the matter?" said he, "for I am sure something is the matter? Why I never saw you so woe-begone before? If you could but see yourself in that Glass, you would agree with me that you might go to the Masquerade at the Opera house to-night without a mask, as the knight of the rueful countenance ?"

"Is that all?" he said when I had put my tailor's bill in his hand, and he laughed, "Why what a novice you still are? One would have enough to do, if every necessary evil, as I call a bill like this, made one as mis