Is It A Promise, Or A Declaration ?

courteous infidelity ; whether we are to confront the old weapons of Celsus and S pinoza furbished up with modern fittings , or listen to the wordiness of Strauss , or be pained by the profanity of Massol , let us be resolute in this one thing , —that we decline either to be ridiculed or intimidated out of our religious notions , our religious convictions , our religious trust . Infidelity in the abstract or concrete may draw near to us with siren voice , and argumentative audacity ; it may seek , as the case may he , to seduce

, to entrance , or to overaAve , but we decline to cast off our little "bark" from our " moorings , " which are firmly fastened to the " Rock of Ages . " We know too well Avhat Infidelity has in store for us , to be allured by its pretences , or shaken by its sarcasms . Instead of peace it Avould give us fear ; instead of satisfaction it Avould give us confusion ; instead of order , it would lead us into anarchy ; and instead of faith , hope , and certainty , it Avould leave us , and can but leave us , in the mournful quagmire of error , in the sinking quicksands of despair !

The Scot Abroad.

THE SCOT ABROAD .

From " The Masonic Eclectic . " WE Avere going out to join the Turkish sendee , Avhere hard knocks and hi gh pay Avere to be got for the asking , and of course ive talked of nothing but cutting ancl slashing , capturing standards , aud winning endless glory , forgetting that Ave might be picked of by marsh-feA'er or cholera before Ave eA'cr saw the enemy at all . The most

enthusiastic of us all was an Englishman , a jolly , empty-headed , good-natured sort of a felloiv , AVIIO Avas going out as an interpreter , having sonieliOAv picked up a smattering of Turkish , though of Russian and the other language of-Eastern Europe , he kneiv no more than I did . I found out by chance , before I fell in ivith him , that his ruling passion was an unquenchable hatred to ei'cry thing Scotch ; and so , just for the fun of the thing , I determined to pass myself off for an Englishman . Having been brought up in England , I succeeded very Avell ; and to others AA'ho ivere in the secret , it was as good as a play to hear tho felloiv launching out against Scotland ancl tho Scotch , never dreaming that his attentive listener was himself one of the hated race .

lm not going to inflict upon you the history of our journey up the country , Avhich at the time I thought unendurable misery , though I know better Avhat " roughing it" really means by this time . Suffice it to say that after several weeks bad food , dirty quarters , days of crawling at a snail ' s pace along the worst roads in the ivorld , and nights of being crawled over by creeping things innumerable , we at last found ourselves , with our trimness tarnished , and our ideas of" glorious war" considerably modified , encamped at some unpronounceable places on the Loiver Danube , with old Suvarov ' s gray-coats quartered Avithin three miles of us .

I never saiv Suvarov but once ; but I haven't forgot it yet . One day , when there AA'as a truce for three or four hours , some of the Russian officers invited a few of ours to dine with them ; and an old Bavarian cavalry officer , who was one of the elect , and with whom I had become quite intimate , thinking I might like to see the fun , took ma alongwith him . We -were all as thick as thieves in a twinkling , aud there was a great hand-shaking and drinking of healths going on all roundwhenall of a suddenthe

, , , hangings of the tent were flung back , and in rushed a little pug-nosed , dirty-faced fellow , dressed ( or rather undressed ) in a tattered pair of trowsors , and a shirt that looked as if it had never been washed for a month—stuck his arms akimbo and croived like a cock . I took him for a drunken camp-felloiv , and Avas rather astonished to see all the Russian officers start up and salute him , as if he had been the emperor in person ; but my old