VISION OF THE RAILROAD. 229 



terior : the scattered remains of an altar rested against the eastern 

 gable. There was a crackling, as of broken glass, under ray feet, 

 and stooping down, I picked up a richly-stained fragment ; it bore a 

 portion of that much-revered sign, the pelican giving her young to 

 eat of her own flesh and blood, the sign which Puseyism and Popery 

 equally agree in regarding as adequately expressive of their doctrine 

 of the real presence, and which our Scottish Episcopalians have so re- 

 cently adopted as the characteristic vignette of their Service-Book. 

 The toad and the newt had crept over it, and it had borrowed a new 

 tint of brilliancy from the slime of the snail. Destruction had run 

 riot along the walls of this parish church. There were carvings chip- 

 ped and mutilated, as if in sport, less, apparently, with the intention of 

 defacing than rendering them contemptible and grotesque. A huge 

 cross of stone had been reared over the altar, but both the top and one 

 of the arms had been struck away, and from the surviving arm there 

 dangled a noose. The cross had been transformed into a gibbet. Nor 

 were there darker indications wanting. In a recess set apart as a 

 cabinet for relics, there were human bones all too fresh to belong to a 

 remote antiquity ; and in a niche under the gibbet lay the tattered re- 

 mains of a surplice dabbled in blood. I stood amid the ruins, and felt 

 a sense of fear and horror creeping over me, the air darkened under 

 the scowl of the coming tempest and the closing night, and the wind 

 shrieked more mournfully amid the shattered and dismantled walls. 



There came another change over my dream. I found myself wan- 

 dering in darkness, I knew not whither, among bushes and broken 

 ground ; there was the roar of a large stream in rny ear, and the savage 

 howl of the storm. I retain a confused, imperfect recollection of a 

 light streaming upon broken water, of a hard struggle in a deep ford, 

 and of at length sharing in the repose and safety of a cottage soli- 

 tary and humble almost as my own. The vision again strengthened, 

 and I found myself seated beside a fire, and engaged with a few grave 

 and serious men in singing the evening Psalm with which they closed 

 for the time their services of social devotion. 



' The period of trial wears fast away,' said one of the number, 

 when all was over, a grey-haired, patriarchal-looking old man, * the 

 period of trial is well nigh over, the storms of our long winter are 

 past, and we have survived them all ; patience, a little more 

 patience, and we shall see the glorious spring-time of the world be- 

 gin ! The vial is at length exhausted.' 



' How very simple,' said one of the others, as if giving expression 

 rather to the reflection that the remark suggested, than speaking in 

 reply, ' how exceedingly simple now it seems, to trace to their causes 

 the decline and fall of Britain. The ignorance and the irreligion of 

 the land have fully avenged themselves, and have been consumed, in 

 turn, in fires of their own kindling. How could even mere men of the 

 world have missed seeing the great moral evil that lay at the root of * 



* Ay,' said a well-known voice that half mingled with my dreaming 

 fancies, half recalled me to consciousness ; ' nothing can be plainer, 



