and, in a few hours, the creature of impulse and impetuosity had argued himself into the expediency of adapting his conduct to existing circumstances—­of stooping, in short, to all the selfishness and meanness that actuate the most unfeeling and the least uncalculating of mortals.  If there were wanting, as, thank Heaven, there is not, one proof to substantiate the fact, that no rule of life is safe and certain save that made known in the translucent precepts of our God—­no species of thought free from hurt or danger—­no action secure from ill or mischief, except all thoughts and actions that have their origin in humble, loving, strict obedience to the pleasure and the will of Heaven; if any one proof, I say, were wanting, it would be easy to discover it in the natural perverse and inconsistent heart of man.  A voice louder than the preacher’s—­the voice of daily, hourly experience—­proclaims the melancholy fact, that no amount of high-wrought feeling, no loftiness of speech, no intensity of expression, is a guarantee for purity of soul and conduct, when obedience, simple, childlike obedience, has ceased to be the spring of every motion and every aim.  Reader, let us grapple with this truth!  We are servants here on earth, not masters! subjects, and not legislators!  Infants are we all in the arms of a just father!  The command is from elsewhere—­obedience is with us.  If you would be happy, I charge you, fling away the hope of finding security or rest in laws of your own making in a system which you are pleased to call a code of honour—­honour that grows cowardlike and pale in the time of trial—­that shrinks in the path of duty—­that slinks away unarmed and powerless, when it should be nerved and ready for the righteous battle.  Where are the generous sentiments—­the splendid outbursts—­the fervid eloquence with which Michael Allcraft was wont to greet the recital of any one short history of oppression and dishonesty?  Where are they now, in the first moments of real danger, whilst his own soul is busy with designs as base as they are cowardly?  Nothing is easier for a loquacious person than to talk.  How glibly Michael could declaim against mankind before the fascinating Margaret, we have seen; how feelingly against the degenerate spirit of commerce, and the back-slidings of all professors of religion.  Surely, he who saw and so well depicted the vices of the age, was prepared for adversity and its temptations!  Not he, nor any man who prefers to be the slave of impulse rather than the child of reason.  After a day’s deliberation, he had resolved upon two things—­first, not to expose himself to the pity or derision of men, as it might chance to be, by proclaiming the insolvency of his deceased father and secondly, not to risk the loss of Margaret, by acknowledging himself to be a beggar.  His father had told him—­he remembered the words well that she was induced to name the wedding-day, only upon receiving the assurance of his independence.