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THE PIONEERS.

CHAPTER XII.

Your creeds and dogmas of a learned church,
May build a fabric, fair with moral beauty;
But it would seem, that the strong hand of God
Can, only, 'rase the devil from the heart.

Deo.

While the congregation was separating, Mr. Grant approached the place where Elizabeth and her father were seated, leading the youthful female, whom we nave mentioned in the preceding chapter, and presented her as his daughter. Her reception was as cordial and frank as the manners of the country, and the value of good society, could render it; the two young women feeling, instantly, that they were necessary to the comfort of each other. The Judge, to whom the clergyman's daughter was also a stranger, was pleased to find one, who, from habits, sex, and years, could probably contribute largely to the pleasures of his own child, during her first privations, on her removal from the associations of a city to the solitude of Templeton; while Elizabeth, who had been forcibly struck with the sweetness and devotion of the youthful suppliant, removed the slight embarrassment of the timid stranger, by the ease and finish of her own manners. They were at once acquainted, and, during the ten minutes that