“Fear not the lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for trial of faith where it is; and for the discovery of those that have none: keep in the midst of the path, and no hurt shall come unto thee.”—Pilgrim’s Progress.
It was long before Mark could get to sleep, and he awoke almost before it was light. He felt a heavy oppression which was new to him, and rose to open the window. The sky was now of that deep exquisite blue which it wears the hour before dawn; the few stars that studded the heavens were growing pale at the approach of morning. The street was perfectly quiet, not a vehicle was moving about, and the sleepy sound of a cock crowing at some distance was the only noise that broke the stillness.
“I feel as though I could not rest,” said Mark, “the sun will rise before long; I will dress myself and go out, and have a quiet time before I am required to work. I have been keeping too little watch over myself lately, I have been too easily contented with the little knowledge
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 to which I have attained. Oh, what if I should have been deceiving myself all the time—if I have never entered the strait gate at all!” Mark had lost for a time that sweet assurance which had afforded him such joy amidst trials.
Putting his Bible in his bosom that he might read it as he walked, Mark opened the door of his attic. The instant that he did so he became sensible of a most powerful smell of fire, and the next moment a volume of smoke came rolling up from below!
Mark sprang down the staircase with anxious haste, every step making him more certain of the fearful fact that the house of his master was on fire! He rushed first to the sleeping apartment of Radley, then roused up the servant of the house, and bidding her throw up the window and call loudly for assistance, hurried to the bedroom of Mr. Lowe.
Startled from deep sleep, hardly able to comprehend what had happened, only with a terrible consciousness that it was something dreadful, the wretched man rose from his pillow, and was half dragged by Mark from his apartment, which being immediately over the place of the fire, was becoming very hot, and full of smoke. Such an awakening is terrible here—but oh, what will it be to the hypocrite hereafter, when the trumpet of the angel shall rouse him from his grave to behold a universe in flames!
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Assistance was speedily given; the cry of “fire!” brought crowds of neighbours around; pails of water were passed from hand to hand, and the fire-engine soon came rattling up the street. The cries and shouts, the crackling and roaring of the devouring element, the suffocating dense clouds, through which little could be seen but tongues of fierce flame, now darting curling round the wood-work, now streaming upwards and reddening the black canopy of smoke—the stifling heat, the occasional glimpse of burning rafters, which looked as if glowing red hot in the fire, all formed a scene which time could never efface from the memory of those who beheld it!
Half wild with terror, anxiety, and grief, Lowe pushed his way here and there through the crowd, sometimes urging on the firemen, sometimes trying to assist them, sometimes standing still, to witness in helpless misery the destruction of his property. Well might he look on in misery, for that property was his all! The hypocrite had not laid up his treasure in heaven, and he now beheld, consuming before his eyes, that for which he had been daily bartering his soul!
Before the sun had reached his mid-day height, the fire had been entirely subdued. The efforts of the firemen had prevented it from spreading, but a charred and blackened shell of a house, floors, rafters, windows, all entirely destroyed, alone remained of the habitation of Lowe!
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The unhappy man was offered shelter in the house of a sympathizing neighbour, and thither Mark went to see him. He found him in a pitiable state, his mind almost crushed by his misfortune, yet still, true to his character, he professed submission to the decree of Providence, even while his excessive grief showed how little he felt it, and intermixed his lamentations with various texts, thereby edifying his neighbours, perhaps, but shocking one who knew him better than they did.
He received his errand-boy with great kindness. “One of the most bitter parts of my trial,” said the really kind-hearted though unprincipled man, “is that my ruin will throw you and poor Radley upon the world. I suppose that you will return home directly.”
“I thought that I would go first to Mr. Ewart, and ask his advice.”
“I grieve to say that will no longer be in your power. That excellent minister was to leave Marshdale for Yorkshire yesterday.”
This piece of information fell like a heavy blow upon Mark, and his face showed how much he felt it. “Then I must return to the cottage at once,” said he, in a low tone.
“I can understand your reluctance, my boy, to become a burden upon your poor parents.”
There was not a particle of hypocrisy in Mark; he wanted no praise for motives which were not his. “I was not thinking about that,” said he.
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“Ah! I understand,” said Lowe, in his own peculiar tone; “you feel being deprived of the spiritual advantages which you enjoyed while under my roof.”
“Not exactly that,” replied Mark, hesitating and looking embarrassed, for there was a mixture of this regret in his reluctance to return home, though it was not his principal feeling.
The truth was, that Mark dreaded not so much the poverty and discomfort of Ann’s cottage—though he did not like that—as the positive cruelty which he would probably have to endure if he returned. Having for some time slipped his neck from the yoke, he shrank exceedingly from having to bear it again. A soldier who fights bravely on the battle-field, if he leave it for a while till his blood cools and his wounds begin to stiffen and smart, finds it a much greater trial of courage to return to his post than to stay there without ever quitting it.
But Mark seemed to have no other resource, and bidding a friendly farewell to his late master, who, whatever he was in the sight of Heaven, had ever been kind to him, he walked slowly up the street. The gloomy, threatening clouds a............