of prayer; secondly, examples from history of answered prayer; thirdly, the written testimony to its solace and power by Christians, in all ages of the world. I think now, with my added literary experience, that the plan was excellent. I pursued it with zeal, and it was more voluminous than all my adolescent works. But I have an idea that it was heavy, inasmuch as I never could bear to read it myself. When last I saw it there seemed some danger of its being suffocated under a pile of incumbent manuscripts. Sometime when I am in good courage I will seek for it; but not to inflict it on you.
Occasionally I indulged myself in imitating the style of the historical parts of the Old Testament. This I was first induced to do by admiring a parable of Dr. Franklin, which exhibits a remarkably successful similarity.
When still very young I had been much pleased with a brief history of the mother-land, in pamphlet form, entitled "The Chronicles of the Kings of England." I wish I could find it now. The quaintness of some of its expressions still dwells in memory. After a good description of the Gunpowder Plot, the simple phrase, "and James was glad that he was alive," depicted more clearly the happy state of the monarch's mind than an elaborate portraiture.
Fancying that this style was adapted to make lasting impression on the retentive powers, and being fa-
