A year passed. The savages had disappeared, and the rock on which the pilgrim met his death had been consecrated by many prayers. His blood was still visible on the spot, and his people often came with reverence to kneel there, and offer up their petitions. The place they called Bethel Rock; and piously they deemed that their hearts were visited here with the richest gifts of heavenly grace.

It was a sweet evening in summer when Mary Benison, for the last time, went to spend an hour at this holy spot. Long had she knelt, and most fervently had she prayed. O, who can tell the bliss of that communion, to which a pure heart is admitted in the hours of solitude and silence! The sun went down, and as the veil of evening fell, the full moon climbed over the eastern ledge, pouring its silver light into the valley; and Mary was still kneeling, still communing with Him who seeth in secret.

At length a slight noise, like the crushing of a leaf, woke her from her trance; and with quickness and agitation she set out on her return. Alarmed at her distance from home at such an hour, she proceeded with great rapidity. She was obliged to climb up the face of the rocks with care, as the darkness rendered it a critical and dangerous task. At length she reached the top. Standing upon the verge of the cliff, she then turned a moment to look back upon the valley. The moon was shining full upon the vale, and she gazed with a mixture of awe and delight upon the sea of silvery leaves, which slept in deathlike repose beneath her.

She then turned to pursue her path homeward; but what was her amazement to see before her, in the full moonlight, the tall form of Pomperaug! She shrieked, and, swift as his own arrow, she sprung over the dizzy cliff. The Indian listened; there was a moment of silence, then a heavy sound, and the dell was still as the tomb.

The fate of Mary was known only to Pomperaug. He buried her, with a lover's care, amid the rocks of the glen. Then, bidding adieu to his native valley, he joined his people, who had retired to the banks of the Housatonic.

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Almost half a century subsequent to this event, a rumor ran through the village of Pomperaug, that some Indians were seen at night, bearing a heavy burden along the margin of the river, which swept the base of Pomperaug's Castle. In the morning, a spot was found on a gentle hill near by, where the fresh earth showed that the ground had been recently broken. A low heap of stones on the place revealed the secret. They remain there to this day; and the little mound is shown by the villagers as Pomperaug's grave.

SELF-DECEPTION.

Ir is a startling paradox, but nevertheless it is true, that mankind sometimes set about cheating themselves. There is nothing in the mazy labyrinths of the human heart so strange, so absurd, as self-deception. That a man should enter into a conspiracy against himself; that one part of him should play hide-and-seek with another; that the sly and trickish intellect should put on a mask and seek to dupe honest plodding conscience; is one of those anomalies in human nature, which may well excite our utmost wonder. Perhaps the true explanation of this problem may be, that conscience, like some divinity within, acts without our volition, and is felt to be an independent agent. We regard it, perhaps, as a spy upon our thoughts, or as filling the place of the All-seeing judge, and if we hoodwink this, we may fancy that our actions pass unseen and unrecorded. However this may be, a familiar instance will render the fact of self-deception plain and palpable.

A poor man at the end of a week's work, has five dollars in his pocket, which his family needs for their comfort. As he passes the door of a grog-shop, the question arises, shall I stop and expend this money in gambling and licentiousness with these boon compan

ions

or shall I go home, and bestow it in blessings

on my family? The question is, which is the best way - which will yield the man most happiness?

Here truth and conscience present the whole case. "If you go home, you will see that place rendered cheerful and bright by your presence, and the results of your toil. You will share in the confidence and blessings of a cheerful wife, and the affection of happy children. If you do otherwise-if you spend your money here, you will reduce yourself to the degradation of a brute, and on the morrow you will suffer all the pangs of outraged nerves, rendered more poignant by the reproaches of conscience setting before you a wife deserted a family neglected and the paradise of home converted into a scene of misery, because a husband and a father turns spoiler and betrayer."

Here then is the whole truth, fairly presented: but now comes the process of self-deception. A veil is dexterously drawn over this side of the picture, or perhaps it is forcibly thrust out of view - while the other is contemplated with a fond and favoring fancy. The mad delights of the bowl, the fierce revelry, the bewildering joys of intoxication, come over the yielding fancy like a spell. Thus passion presses its instant claims, and the conquest is already made. The victim, though he has actually made up his mind, still pretends to one part of himself, that he has not done so. "I will go home to my family," says he, whispering in the ear of conscience at the same time, he enters the gate of perdition. "I will step in and take one draught, and then I will go home." He goes in, and is lost. Such is self-deception-such is the enemy within

the fortress, too often ready to betray it. In morals, as well as in war, there are more garrisons lost by treason in the camp, than by the assailants without the wall. The great strife in the pursuit of truth is, to guard against self-betrayal.

One of the commonest instances of self-delusion, is that in which a man's wishes, passions, or interest lie on one side of a question. In this case, he covers up the truth that presents itself on the side against his wishes, or at least he puts it in the back-ground, as of little weight or importance; while he brings into full light, and bestows exaggerated consideration upon, those circumstances which accord with his desires. He thus uses in dealing with himself two sets of weights, and both of them false. He weighs those things he wishes to depreciate, with heavy weights; and those he wishes to have preponderate, he weighs with light ones. der this process, nothing is correctly estimated - nothing is seen in its proper place or proportions. The mind is used as a spy-glass-in looking through it one way, all the objects are diminished and remote; reverse it, and the scene is brought close to the eye, and with enlarged dimensions.

Attachment to particular opinions is a common source of self-delusion. A man's pride, his habits of thought, his credit for sagacity, his self-esteem, all unite to create in him a desire to sustain and establish the creed in religion or politics, with which he is connected. Under such circumstances he will often shut his eyes to the plainest and most palpable facts. An instance of this is furnished by one of the English missionaries to