Then he took one of the matches and lighted it, while guarding his face, and committing his soul to God. And then he thrust forward the lighted match to the paper.

The instantaneous storm of fire did not come. Neither the match nor the paper would burn. For a moment he knew not what to do. Suddenly he recollected that the gas must be too dense, and needed admixture of air. He crawled back and fanned air into the place, and again repeated his operations with the same result; though the light did not go out so instantaneously. For a third time he contended, and this time successfully. An explosion took place-by no means a serious one- and which did him no harm whatever.

He entered the place, lit another match, and saw he was in a natural hollow of the rock, quite uninjured either by the previous explosion or by the inundation.

A second glance inspired a thrill of joy. He saw an opening leading to another level. In hurriedly feeling round the place in the darkness he had missed this.

The level led him into the part he expected to finda large district that had been worked and abandoned, much of which was on the same high-level as their place of shelter.

But a most important idea was immediately suggested to David. He remembered quite well to have noticed that the stable with some horses, and an engine for pumping water, and some sort of store-place for candles, oil, and various things often required in the mine were all located close by this abandoned district; and lay, not high certainly, but still above the lowest levels, and therefore might possibly be got at in this way, while by the ordinary route they were quite inaccessible.

With a quickening pulse he hastened to verify his hope, but while he satisfied himself he was right as to the localities, he found unhappily the water much too high to admit of his reaching either the stable, the engine place, or the little store-place.

He went back, however, in good heart to communicate his news to the Deputy, if only he should be well enough to listen to him and understand him.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE MINER'S PSALM.

DAVID found the Deputy seeking him in the place where the entrance had been made from the incline. He was, or seemed to be, much recovered, and full of grief that so much time had been lost.

He certainly had regained all his clearness of intellectual vision, and David took care to ask no questions that might suggest to the Deputy the state from which he had just escaped.

His first great satisfaction seemed to be that they had now room to assemble together and to move freely about; and he begged David to draw all the men down from their dangerous perch, and to be careful not to lose a single one.

Life enough has been sacrificed, and for which some of us perhaps may have to answer to our common Father, so let us be careful now. Quick, David, my son, for I have something to say to them and to you.'

The men soon came hurrying into the new place of shelter; and were about to disperse through the different roads in the search for whatever they might find promising present relief or future extrication, when the Deputy raising his voice, cried

'The water is there too. You will only lose time. Listen to me!'

They gathered accordingly, marshalling themselves as well as they could in the darkness into some sort of order, and then the Deputy began

'Brothers, have we not already even in this state of darkness and terror enjoyed the inestimable benefit of God's mercy? Speak, you whom He moved to come to our succour though strangers to us-speak, you whose lives have been spared during four fearful days and nights of anguish. We, who have been but as instruments in your redemption, seeking to pay back what you generously

lent-risk for risk, life against life-we speak to you now, and ask you now also to speak as men, brothers, Christians, to the harder hearts among us, who think the war of the elements is not enough to overwhelm us, but they must raise the infinitely more evil, wicked, and senseless war of man's own violent, reckless passions.

6

'O my brethren, heirs as ye are to the most inestimable dowry that the soul of man can conceive-Christ's love will you refuse this at your Maker's hands, and turn your backs to Him, and for what? only that you may stand face to face with the devil, with the enemy of man, who no doubt waits to embrace you and hold you fast enough, if only you so will it!

Blows have been stricken, I hear, though I bless my God He did not let me hear them; but, oh, my brethren, I feel them, ay, a thousand times more keenly than those on whom they were inflicted.

'But I will not dwell, as I intended, on the crimes beyond this sad beginning that have followed or might have followed. Let us only whisper it among ourselves with the shuddering horror of men who have human hearts, that there is no extremity of evil to which we may not go if we once give way-suicide, murder, cannibalism lie at the one end of the dreadful balance where our fate is suspended; peace, hope, brotherhood at the other. Which then shall it be? Choose.

'Death! And is that so awful that we can wish to evade it by atrocities that blister the lips but to speak of?

'Death! Miners, and not know how to die! Ah, my brethren, shall I tell you in deep humility of heart and bitter distress of soul that death to me, if in dying I could keep you all alive, would be so sweet, that I should feel recompensed for a long life of trouble?'

The listening miners could no longer contain themselves, but burst out-several speaking at once

'Ay! ay! We believe that.

O God, help us! God, help us!

our wives!"

And children!'

That is true, master!
He only can!'

'And

Such were the exclamations that now burst forth on all

sides, mingled with tears and sobs, and passionate wringing of hands, and convulsive beating of breasts.

• Listen! Listen to me! I command you. What would you say if I could prove to you that God has expressly foreseen all you now suffer, the very place in which you are, and has inspired the very words and thoughts best calculated to express for you your own emotions?'

"Where? Where? Tell us!' some cried in voices of intense earnestness, while others asked, but so despairingly as to show they wished for no answer

'What does he mean?'

Ah, my brethren, see what you must be made to endure before you will know your true friends, but let us also see that when you are made you do indeed prize them.

Hearken, then, to the words of the inspired Psalmist, draw comfort from them, such comfort as the truth can best afford. I am not striving to teach you how to live, but how best to die, if you must die!'

The sounds of anguish and cruel disappointment called forth by these words stopped the Deputy for a minute or two, as though he were himself too deeply affected by the grief and despair to go on.

Perhaps he was thus induced to change his purpose, and seem less stern as to what he desired to say about their fate.

'I hear all about me signs and tokens of heart-rending anguish. I cannot quarrel with that. I am like you, brothers-my own dear brothers--but a frail man, and feeling pain in every nerve of my body, and fear and anguish and doubt alternating with hope and faith and joy in every effort of my soul, while I see death on the one hand, and escape on the other.

'Let me, then, so far as I dare, bid you yet he of good cheer.'

'You mean -' burst out one loud passionate voice. 'I mean that the men who will be resigned, patient, brave for death, truly so, mind! no hypocrisy of believing all the while they are not going to be tested :—I mean

I say that for such men God may yet do great and wonderful things, and that if we trust to Him we shall acquit ourselves worthily, whether it be for living or dying.'

'There's hope in that man's soul, though he's afraid to tell us so!' muttered some voice during a deep, significant pause, and others took up the cry, so that a low, buzzing, animated sound ran through the place.

'Now, brothers, listen to what the Bible can tell us about our condition- -we poor miners. Do you not already feel, as I do, a kind of light streaming through our hearts, at the thought of having God, or, what is the same thing, God's inspired prophet, standing among us and speaking in this cause for us?

"I hope my memory will not fail me! I do hope

that!

‹ The psalm I am about to try to repeat to you has been my comfort and solace many and many a dark hour―ay, darker than that of the deepest pit.

'Draw round me-as nigh as you can. My voice is yet but feeble. And I would not have you lose one word of words all so inestimable. Listen then with all your hearts :

'O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before Thee;

'Let my prayer come before Thee: incline Thy ear unto my cry;

'For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

'I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

'Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom Thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from Thy hand.

Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy waves. Selah.

6

Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me;