was turned into a snow-like paleness, faintly streaked with carmine, as if the pride of woman's loveliness was unwilling to leave its favorite throne. Yet still there was a hush of sweetness in the very composure of those softened features, that wakened a finer and more touching thrill within the heart, than could the full bloom and radiance of her charms. Kaunitz saw that the burning blush on his own cheek, called up an answering suffusion in the wasted features of the lady, but it was of that purely intellectual emotion with which earth and its feelings has no community whatever, and the embarrassed young man felt himself greatly relieved, when the lady requested him to be seated, and addressed him in tones which, though weak and feeble, were of the sweetest courtesy-"I know not, sir, under what circumstances you have been brought here; perhaps they were violent; but there never was any human being I desired so ardently to see." Kaunitz answered her with some confusion, that he would forgive any violence which would make him the means of rendering her a service. "Ah," said she, taking his hand, and fixing her large dark eyes upon him, with an expression that touched his soul, “you little know the service you shall have to render me, or the relationship in which we stand to each other." The young minister colored again, and his heart almost stopped within him, as he felt a scalding tear drop upon his hand. She continued, "You do not know me, but still I venerate you as my deliverer, my instructor, as my father." Kaunitz, with new sympathy, deeply awakened, begged of her to explain. "You will not think it strange that I should use such language when you hear my story; though you may have, perhaps, seen me in your church; yet-start not-I am a Jewish maiden, and was educated in the deepest abhorence of that Jesus of whom I have often heard you speak in the most delightful terms. I might have remained so forever, and been like thousands of my sex and persuasion, happy and admired in my ignorance. But I had a young and beautiful friend, to whom, though proscribed by my relatives and a christian, I was passionately attached. But in the very pride of her young beauty, she was stricken by disease-alas! destined to be mortal. As I watched by her bedside one evening she took my hand, and said to me, in a tone which sunk into my heart, for it was such as I had never heard her use before, 'Zora, will you promise me one thing, and I will die happy? I promised her solemnly, for I would have promised her any thing. 'Zora, then,' said she, 'dearest Zora, will you only engage to love my Saviour?' The tears gushed from her eyes as she spoke, and they gushed from mine too; for I was horrified at her request. But she continued, 'Oh, I am too weak to tell you of the happiness and delight you would feel. But will you go and hear the minister of whom you have often heard me speak? He can tell you of the power of the religion of Jesus better than a dying girl. Oh, Zora, do tell me, that you will go? She looked at me with such an earnestness of agony in her countenance, that I assured her I would do all she asked; and in delight she pressed my hand close to her bosom, for she was too exhausted to speak. In a short time I felt her grasp become weak and clammy, and, oh, mercy! she died even while holding my hand." Here the tears of the beautiful girl choked

her utterance, and Kaunitz, who well recollected the lamented young lady of whom she spoke, freely mingled his own, at this affecting narrative of her last moments. The lady seemed deeply touched by his emotion, and in a short time continued a narrative, to Kaunitz now become intensely interesting-"That request, so earnestly entreated ;-and so solemnly registered to the dead, you may be sure was kept, though it cost me many a pang of strange and shuddering reluctance. At length, deeply disguised, I hired a close carriage and went alone, for I dared not trust another with my secret, to the place she had mentioned. It was to your chapel. You cannot appreciate the conflict of my feelings when, alone and unprotected, I found myself in a place and among a people I had always looked upon with abhorrence and detestation. But I had not listened to you long before I forgot every other feeling in a glow of awakened tenderness. It was of my own and ever dear Maria you were speaking; and you described her loveliness, her purity, her resignation, in a manner which filled my soul with the most exquisite emotion; but when you came to speak of her death, and to dilate on the efficacy of faith in the Redeemer, in the awful moments of dissolution, my soul was touched with wonder. And is this' said I, 'the Jesus I have heard reviled? My very heart sunk within me at the reflection, and I thought God himself must for ever condemn me for my impiety. I was in fact wretched in my mind, until you, as it were, opened the portals of heaven, and pointed out my departed friend, robed as an angel, singing the praises of her Saviour in an eternal paradise; and declared, that transcendent bliss would be the lot of all, who, like her, would take that Saviour for their portion; then, oh, then-my soul seemed to have changed its residence-so new, so delicious were the hopes and the feelings awakened in me; and I vowed that night, if I were not too great an outcast for mercy, I would live so as to join my lost and loved companion in her bright abode. That evening I purchased a New Testament, and words would be insufficient to tell the delight, the rapture with which I perused the wondrous story of Redeeming love. In a short time I found my chief delight consisted in attending your ministry, and in reading over the precious record of salvation. In spite of doubt and darkness I soon experienced the sweet serenity of being reconciled with God; and I sometimes fancied my beloved Maria was hovering near me on her wings of light, to cheer me in my path, and to assure me of reward. Alas! my hopes were early overcast. Hitherto conscious of the irreconcileable enmity of my friends, I had kept to my own bosom the fearful secret of my altered opinions. But whether from observation or suspicion; they soon viewed me with a jealous eye; and great was my horror one night on leaving your chapel, to find that the carriage which had hitherto conveyed me was gone. In the midst of my embarrassment, my father and my brother drove up, and I was conveyed home more dead than alive between terror and alarm. Since that time, oh, could you know what I have suffered; every comfort was removed, and the most systematic aud relentless persecution adopted. Once discovered, I well knew the iron opposition of my friends never could be softened ; and I besought of the Jesus I had dared to love, to give me strength for the terrible

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conflict. Oh, my dear sir, how glad would I have often been in the gloomy hours of solitude and privation I had to encounter, to have seen you-to have heard your lips explain once more those delicious truths, at once my comfort and my bane. My repeated solicitations to that effect, were, however, of no avail; and it was at last only when in the tremor of weakness, they had extorted from me a terrible promise, that my relatives consented you should be brought. I cannot express the joy your presence has inspired. Oh, do tell me," she continued, while she clasped her hands, and her countenance assumed an expression of the deepest earnestness, there any hope of heaven for one so long an unbeliever? Can an outcast such as I am, enjoy any portion of that Saviour's love, so long but unconsciously despised?" As she was speaking, her beautiful but wasted features, would at times light up with an expression that seemed to the intensely interested minister, to glow like the prophet's of old, with a halo of inspiration; and again be veiled in an imploring dejection, as if her very heart was withering within. When she finished a narration that melted the softened minister to tears, the exertion seemed too much for a frame so debilitated, and she sank back exhausted upon the sofa. Kaunitz, with unreflecting impulse, caught her in his arms. All consciousness seemed to be suspended-her thrilling eyes were veiled in their long dark lashes— and as her motionless but yielding form was pressed to his, the gentle pulses of her bosom seemed to be at rest, and life itself to have fled. Yet there was a holiness in the saint-like composure of that reposing form, he felt it would be profanation to disturb, and the deep silence of the place, broken only by the audible throbbings of his own heart, had something so sacred in its very stillness, that he felt his existence could have resolved into the kindred state of the lovely inanition in his arms, before his slightest breath would have recalled to life, by invoking infidel assistance, a spirit so purely and unequivocally destined for the skies. The warm tears, however, in which his agonized feelings had found vent, gushing unrestrained upon her features, brought back her hovering soul once more to earth. She opened her eyes, and her glance resting on the speaking tenderness of Kaunitz' gaze, beamed with an instant and joyous recognition. Her first words were of her melancholy but ever constant theme. "Oh, tell me," said she, "can I hope for pardon?" The overpowered clergyman relinquished his hold, and affected, with inexpressible emotion, knelt down beside her, and in an eloquence of soul he had never felt before, besought the throne of Mercy to pour the full assurance of pardon in her heart. As he grew more fervent in the power of his God, he called upon the present Jesus to finish the redemption of a spirit so ripe for heaven-to remove the awful obduracy of her relations, and to strengthen that gentle mind with more than crcature firmness in the ordeal of danger she would have to encounter. When he had finished, the lovely convert still remained in an attitude of intense devotion; her fair white hands were clasped upon her bosom; her countenance was upturned to heaven, but the agony of doubt had departed. Her soul seemed entranced in rapture, and her exquisite features were lit up with a beaming satisfaction, that partook of the radiance of anticipated immortality. Kaunitz never saw any form of earth look half so lovely.

Every trace of anguish and despair had left her features, for a joyous flush of resplendent satisfaction; and the unutterable charms of the heart's deep and unearthly delight, shining through the most perfect lineaments of mortal beauty, gave, in that exquisite moment, such an angelic lustre to her person, that the first impulse of the impassioned clergyman was to adore, what seemed to be a revelation of heaven's own sinless and immortal loveliness. In that holy time, too, he felt in the kindred glow of his own excited spirit, all those ardent feelings of sympathy and admiration with which the casual sight of that fair creature had first inspired him, explained and resuscitated, but so refined by the redeeming influence of her stainless purity, that not a tinge of earthly love or passion mingled in his thoughts.

In a short time the lady rose from her knees, and the celestial animation of her face was clouded, but only deepened by the tone of solemn and emphatic seriousness in which she said, while she clasped her hands convulsively, "Oh, my God, I feel, I feel now that thy religion is worth all which I will have to suffer. Yes, my dear Maria, the blessed knowledge of thy Jesus, and the certainty of thy glorious eternity is worth -"a cold damp came on her brow-" is worth, I feel, is worth, dying for." As she spoke the word to which her lips almost refused to give utterance, Kaunitz felt a shivering thrill of instinctive dread steal over his frame, -the horrible mysteries with which his visit was accompanied, the "terrible promise" she had mentioned, and her words now; all rushed, with numberless dark associations, into his freezing mind. He seized her hand, and gazed at her pale damp features with an unconscious agony. "Lady,— what suffering?Worth dying for? Zorah, dear Zorah, what is it you mean?" She returned his look with cold and chilling earnestness for an instant, but another smile of inborn happiness again lít up her fast-sinking features with all their former beauty. "Yes," said she, "it is not for me to know the pleasures of your religion and live. Oh, God, support me.This very night.Your arrival is the only mercy I could obtain.--This very night--even in a few short moments, unless I abjure the religion of Jesus, I will be put to death.--By my own dear father.--By my own relatives, in the presence of the full Sanhedrim, and with the great solemnities of our religion, will I be STONED to DEATH !". -Kaunitz' eyes grew dim; he stirred not-spoke not, but every word fell with dark and withering distinctness on his heart. "Look here," continued the hapless maiden, summoning strength to rise, and walking to the side of the apartment, "look here, and you will be convinced of the reality of my fate?" She drew aside a curtain.—Kaunitz, with a chill as if his heart was turned to ice, saw a large heap of stones collected in the recess. He had not the power to move. The room was still as ever. But that ominous silence and its smothered noises now spake fearful volumes. The full extent of the appalling tragedy flashed in instant comprehension on his mind. Then, too, he recollected, in crowding horror, many a dim tale of the relentless tortures with which Jews were said to martyr any of the converted sect who ever fell into their power; and when, in the same instantaneous act of mind, he thought of the spotless innocence

and exquisite beauty of the delicate victim they had doomed before him, and, as it were, made him a very party to the atrocious deed, his energies seemed to melt and dissolve in the weakness of intensest agony.But the re-action to that paralysis of terror was instant. He already fancied he heard the tread of the murderers-the fearful preparations for the sacrifice the unavailing shriek of the lovely victim. His blood seemed turned to fire at the thought, and his frame to iron. He stepped back, and he felt his body, as it were, swell beyond the stature of humanity, as he said, in a tone that echoed like thunder throughout the midnight stillness of the vast apartment, "By the God I serve, in whose power, and whose minister I am, this shall never be!" Instant and gathering noises collected like an answer on every side. Distinct and dread commotion was in the house. But this was no time for the infuriated man to parley with his fears or his reflections. Maddened with superhuman excitement, he dashed against the door with a giant's might. In an instant crash, like the explosion of artillery, the whole partition went thundering to the ground, and a burst of dazzling light, from unnumbered lamps, streamed like the blaze of meridian day into the room. The very arcana of their mysteries -the Holy of Holies of the Jewish faith, in all its splendor, was before him, with its Seraphim and Cherubim, and Ark of gold; its curtains of richest purple, its network of silver, and its countless lamps burning with frankincense, and glittering with costly gems.* The glories of their revealed religion-the enchantment of the scene, stopped him not a moment, for in simultaneous fury, host after host of armed and shouting wretches in their national costume, rushed into the room. Nerved for the occasion with more than mortal power,—to dash the intervening myrmidons to the earth, and to clasp the intended martyr in his arm, was, with Kaunitz, but the work of a moment. Ere they had time to overmaster his roused and terrific energies, he had snatched a dagger which an assailant had already at his throat, and as he sprang over his shrinking and shrieking foes every brandish of the weapon was bathed in blood. A huge window, streaming with painted story, was before him;-with a tiger's bound he reached the casement: the glass shivered with the shock: the iron network behind yielded like a cobweb to his Herculean strength. All was dark and deep below. Without a thought of consequences, or quiver as to danger, he clasped his rescued charge, in exultation, closer to his breast, and sprang into the vacuum.

It becomes painful to even trace the narrative. There is no heart so cold that would not catch a throb of delight in the success of that tremendous effort; nor is it in humanity to peruse the story and not feel the glow of its warmest feelings, interested in the preservation of that innocent and lovely martyr. The gallant attempt of the generous young minister was not, however, attended with the success which its reckless heroism de

*La population Israëlite de cette ville conserve seigneusement sa croyance. Les familles riches ont en général dans leurs maisons, un appartement secret et meublé à grands frais, destiné à la représentation du Saint des Saints du temple de Solomon. Ce lieux, et autres destinés a leur service religieux sont tenu caché aux profanes.-Lettres de Vienne. Paris, 1781.