As soon as poor Parley had swallowed the fatal draught it acted like enchantment.  He at once lost all power of resistance.  He had no sense of fear left.  He despised his own safety, forgot his master, lost all sight of the house in the other country, and reached out for another draught as eagerly as Flatterwell held out the bottle to administer it.  “What a fool have I been,” said Parley, “to deny myself so long.”

“Will you now let me in?” said Flatterwell.

“Aye, that I will,” said the deluded Parley.  Though the train was now increased to near a hundred robbers, yet so intoxicated was Parley, that he did not see one of them, except his new friend.  Parley eagerly pulled down the bars, drew back the bolts, and forced open the locks, thinking he could never let in his friend soon enough.  He had, however, just presence of mind to say, “My dear friend, I hope you are alone.”  Flatterwell swore he was.  Parley opened the door—­in rushed, not Flatterwell only, but the whole banditti, who always lurk behind in his train.  The moment they had got sure possession, Flatterwell changed his soft tone, and cried out in a voice of thunder, “Down with the castle; kill, burn, and destroy.”

Rapine, murder, and conflagration by turns took place.  Parley was the very first whom they attacked.  He was overpowered with wounds.  As he fell, he cried out, “O my master, I die a victim to my unbelief in thee, and to my own vanity and imprudence.  O that the guardians of all other castles would hear me with my dying breath repeat my master’s admonition, that all attacks from without will not destroy, unless there is some confederate within.  O that the keepers of all other castles would learn from my ruin, that he who parleys with temptation is already undone.  That he who allows himself to go to the very bounds, will soon jump over the hedge; that he who talks out of the window with the enemy, will soon open the door to him; that he who holds out his hand for the cup of sinful flattery, loses all power of resisting; that when he opens the door to one sin, all the rest fly in upon him, and the man perishes as I now do.”

[Illustration]

A NEW CHRISTMAS TRACT;

OR, THE RIGHT WAY OF REJOICING AT CHRISTMAS, SHOWING THE REASONS WE HAVE FOR JOY AT THE EVENT OF OUR SAVIOUR’S BIRTH.

There are two ways of keeping Christmas:  some seem to keep it much in the same way in which the unbelieving Jews kept their feast in honor of the calf which they had made.  “And they made a calf in Horeb in those days, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”  But what a sad sort of Christianity is this!  I am no enemy to mirth of a proper kind, and at proper seasons; but the mirth I now speak of, is the mirth of inconsideration and folly, and is often mixed with much looseness of conduct and drunkenness.  Is this, then, the sort of mirth proper for Christians?