"Walk in Sir-this way;"--and the servant opened the door of a room, which I was now obliged to enter whether I would or not. I felt like a condemned man led to execution. Mrs. R. sat in a picturesque attitude on a couch, with her head leaning on one hand; with the other she played with the curly hair of a boy about four years old. The group appeared to my eyes like a representation of Melancholy playing with Innocence. I had never been introduced to Mrs. R. nor seen her before. Her appearance had an effect on me, which rooted me to the spot where I stood as if by magic. What a lovely figure! What regularity of features! What a beautiful complexion! What a sparkling glance! What bewitching grace in every movement! I beheld before me one of those women, represented by poets as angels. She sat so abstracted and plunged in thought, that she had not remarked my entrance ;-but as the door shut itself behind me, she started up. With her hand she pointed to a chair;-the next moment I sat opposite to her-immoveablebereft of speech-like an idiot. The question which I at length put to her would have been absurd and ridiculous in the extreme, had not the dumb answer which I received rendered it dreadful. In the manner in which one commences acquaintance with a nursery maid, I addressed her: "A beautiful child, that is Ma'am !"-and then continued with a faltering tongue, "He is probably by your first marriage?" The look of astonishment with which she gazed at me, was, as I have said, perfectly dreadful. Unable to find other words for utterance, I repeated the question, the importance, of which, I only then accurately comprehended. Without altering her fixed look, Mrs. R. cried out-"Yes yes" and drew the boy towards her, whom she folded in her arms, to shield herself, as it were, against me. A silence-a long silence followed. At last the lady in her turn, questioned me. "What are your wishes, Sir?" "I have something to return to you" was my answer, and produced a small box from my pocket. "By whom were you commissioned to deliver it?" "By the grave," answered I with a hollow-voice. The great scene had now commenced: we had reached the culmination of the drama. She was agitated by an indescribable terror,I was equally so. Notwithstanding, I ventured to present the box to her-she seized-she opened it-and Oh! a scream was heard in which every thing dreadful, that can pierce the human soul, was combined. My suspicions had alas! only been too true; the crime had been committed. That instant, a man in uniform darted in from an adjoining room. "What is the matter with you Leontine ?" inquired the Major of his wife. Pressing both hands in agony to her forehead, she murmured-" Oh! that nail!" There was an expression in her sigh which I could never attempt to describe. Scarcely had she breathed it, when she fell fainting. The Major stood immoveable as a statue. The nail had fallen on the floor; from which the child had picked it up, and was playing with it. On all the previous occurrences, I had looked as calmly as I would on a storm in the Bay of Biscay; but the child's play was more than I could bear. I fled from the scene of horror. On the stairs the Major seized and forcibly held me back. "Sir" said he "you are in possession of a fearful secret.Before another hour has elapsed, one of us must cease to live. Judging from your appearance, you are a soldier as well as myself, therefore-." Major R." interrupted I-with a mixture of dread and compassion, "You are punished sufficiently, that secret shall never pass my lips." "A captain of a frigate, and a-coward?" he called out with ill-concealed fury. "Major, in forty minutes I am at your service; take the choice of weapons." "Pistols !" "Pistols be it then," said I: and had the place of meeting pointed out to me. "Serves me right," I soliloquized-as I walked towards the appointed spot. Why mix myself up with circumstances which concerned me not in the least-what have I, a sailor, to do with the earth and its secrets! What interest could I have in Counsellor P?-Was he my relation, my friend? Curses on my meddling curiosity-I may have to pay with my life for it." The Major did not keep me waiting. He had no friend, neither had I.-Two soldiers passing that way, were ordered by him to fill the place of seconds.-Retraction, retreat, was not to be thought of. The men loaded the pistols which the Major had brought with him, and measured sixteen paces. We placed ourselves, after I had made it an absolute condition that the Major should fire first.-The bullet tore away a button from my uniform.-It was now my turn-I wanted to fire in the air. But my antagonist called out "Shoot at me, if it is not your wish that we commence again."-I aimed at his shoulder wishing merely to wound him, not to kill him— Oh cruel fate! my bullet pierced his heart-in a few moments he had breathed his last. Our seconds conveyed the body home. Mrs. R. received it, but knew it not, for-the unfortunate woman had gone mad!! I flew, rather than ran on board my ship. In the course of an hour-I had killed a man-a total stranger to me-made a lunatic of a woman I had never seen before, and created a hell in my own breast!!! Wherever I now land, never again do I enter a graveyard. (Translated from the German, for the Benares Magazine.) THE ECHO-LESS LAND-LOWER BENGAL. Oh voiceless land! no Echo dwells in thee; No tale of arms, high love, or liberty; No mighty ruins, wrestling with decay, Tell thou hadst great ones who have passed away. In the sweet mimicry of wandering voices. Oh thou dull land! Thus like thee is the race To which God hath assigned in thee their place; Within their souls no Echo seems to dwell; SPHYNX. VII. THE PROPOSED PUNJAB MISSION. The advocacy of the Benares Magazine has been requested in behalf of a proposed Mission in the Punjab. Our pages are, and we trust we need not add will always be, dedicated with more than ordinary readiness to any scheme of Christian usefulness within those limits to which the polity of the Church of England circumscribes us. It has been remarked with manifest truth that we are called upon, as a Christian people, to devise some especial and permanent means of testifying the sincerity of the Public Thanksgiving which we rendered unto Almighty God on the 6th of May last, and which was suggested, as our venerable Bishop has well remarked, by the "piety" of our Most Noble Governor General. In two discourses equally admirable as eloquent homilies and as authentic digests,* our Bishop and Chief Pastor has propounded "the Duties of British India in return for Almighty God's recent extraordinary mercies" with a force of parallelism irresistibly appealing. The Bishop, comparing the conquests of our armies, and the acknowledgement due from us, to the case of Asa victorious over the hosts of Zerah, remarks the duty, not merely of renewing national engagements with the Lord; but also of each for himself considering His goodness as a call to true repentance for sin, lively faith in the sacrifice of Christ, and new obedience to his God. And the effects produced by these determinations, we are told upon the same authority should be "free will offerings of our substance to the God of our mercies in aiding and supporting Christian Education, the Societies for Missions, for the Circulation of the Bible, for providing Additional Clergy, and for Scripture Readers; and in relieving the temporal and spiritual miseries of the Native population." "We must also" his Lordship adds, "bring, as it were, 'into the house of the Lord our dedicated things,' by aiding in erecting Churches and preparing them suitably for the solemn worship of God." And therefore we deem it right to say that Christians generally were enjoined by the highest ecclesiastical authority * Two Sermons delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta ; the one on March 11th 1849, the other on May 6th 1849; by Daniel, Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India. in this land, on the 11th of March 1849, to signalize their "thanksgivings to God for the success of the war in which we have been engaged, and for the restoration to the people of the blessing of peace," by an enlarged liberality towards Missionary enterprizes, as one among many means confirmatory of the sincerity of their gratitude. At the same time, as public instigators to the decent and orderly doing of all things in our Zion, we feel bound to say that the advocacy requested of us for the particular method which has been proposed, (we are told throughout India,) for testifying our thanksgiving, namely "a Christian Mission in the Punjab" will be given much more cheerfully and satisfactorily, as soon as we learn that such method has been submitted to, and sanctioned by him under whom all are in the Church in this land. The Christian man will not doubt that Israel's failure in discerning the expansive plan which God had ordained for filling the earth with the knowledge of Him has been visited by the terrors of God's indignation from the time of the Jewish Dispersion unto the present hour. Nor will he doubt that these judgments of God upon Israel are full of pregnant lessons for us who occupy, if any can be said to do so, the exalted station to which the Jews were elected in the counsels of the Eternal. For our dominion is mightier than ever was Solomon's when he reigned over all the kingdoms from Euphrates unto Egypt; and both are set up on high for the same ends, that God's "Name may be known upon earth, His saving health among all nations." Therefore are we called upon to proclaim throughout the lands of our inheritance the essential unity, the spotless purity, the boundless power of the Living God, Who hath made us what we are, and not suffered our enemies to triumph over us. For this hath He summoned us to be a Prince among the Powers of the Earth-he hath given us the might whereby we put to naught all those who are arrayed against us,—in order that we do our diligence in the accomplishment of those ultimate designs which can have their perfect consummation only in the establishment of His Temple in every land, and the acquisition of the Heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. Nor does it admit of a doubt, that if we fail in this our Mission, it will be nothing surprizing if God cast us off, as He did Israel of old;-if He destroy our prestige, and obliterate our rule, and make us as great a wonder for our insignificance as ever we have been for our renown. |