FREDERICK RIVERS; INDEPENDENT PARSON. BY MRS. FLORENCE WILLIAMSON. WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 1864. [All rights of Translation reserved.] 250. u. 11. FREDERICK RIVERS. CHAPTER I. STONECROFT. "THERE is a river in the ocean;" bluer, salter, warmer, swifter than the waters through which it flows. It will not mix with those waters a moment sooner than it must; and a ship may sail in midocean, half within and half without this mystic gulf-stream. Yet, for all its wondrous separateness, it gives and takes, until at last the whole ocean is aware of its presence, and even the shores are gladdened by its genial warmth. And there is a stream no less mysterious beneath the surface of human character and life; a current of deeper passion, warmer affection, swifter and more irresistible thought and purpose than any careless observer would dream. It were well indeed if this under-current of human nature were always genial and benign; only thawing the ice of conventionalism, and nourishing those timid and beautiful affections which, like the delicate creatures of the sea which B |