16 MEMORY. 



in an instant tlie rude disticli of boyisli days came up 

 to my recollection, and I involuntarily repeated — 



" Lucky stone ! lucky stone ! go over my head, 

 And bring me some good luck before I go to bed !" 



For it was one of the superstitions of my childhood, 

 taught and believed by credulous schoolfellows, that 

 the boy who found such a perforated stone, and threw 

 it over his head with the above doggerel rhyme, would 

 not fail to reap a swift harvest of " luck." What a 

 strange faculty is memory ! I had not thought of 

 this rhyme nor of its associations for perhaps thirty 

 years ; and yet the sight of the pebble brings up the 

 perfect recollection, as if it had been only yesterday 

 that I had played at canal-digging and boat-sailing 

 on Westbutts shore ! Perhaps nothing, be it good, 

 bad, or indifferent (especially the latter two), is really 

 lost when once the mind has apprehended it ; so lost 

 as that it may not be recalled, voluntarily or involun- 

 tarily, by some association or other, at some time or 

 other. And possibly in eternity, when God will bring 

 every secret thing to judgment,we may find everything 

 perfectly presented to our remembrance that has ever 

 occurred to us, with all its causes, results, and connex- 

 ions. " For there is nothing covered, that shall not 

 be revealed; and hid that shall not be knoAvn." Ter- 

 rible, indeed, would be the anticipeition of such an 

 unveiling of the past, were it not for the blood of tjie 

 Great Atoning Lamb of God, in which the guiltiest 

 conscience may find refuge. 



Standing here once more at the verge of the sea, 

 with its gentle waves kissing my feet, about to resume, 



