his secret purpose all along had been to enter with her into the state
of matrimony, rather than into the church. Ambition, however, is beyond
all comparison the most powerful principle of human conduct, and so
Denny found it. Although his unceremonious abandonment of Susan appeared
heartless and cruel, yet it was not effected on his part without
profound sorrow and remorse. The two principles, when they began to
struggle in his heart for supremacy, resembled the rival destinies of
Caesar and Mark Antony. Love declined in the presence of ambition; and
this, in proportion as all the circumstances calculated to work upon
the strong imagination of a young man naturally fond of power, began to
assume an appearance of reality. To be, in the course of a few years,
a _bona fide_ priest; to possess unlimited sway over the fears and
principles of the people; to be endowed with spiritual gifts to he knew
not what extent; and to enjoy himself as he had an opportunity of
seeing Father Finnerty and his curate do, in the full swing of convivial
pleasure, upon the ample hospitality of those who, in addition to this,
were ready to kiss the latchet of his shoes--were, it must be admitted,
no inconsiderable motives in influencing the conduct of a person reared
in an humble condition of life. The claims of poor Susan, her modesty,
her attachment, and her beauty--were all insufficient to prevail against
such a host of opposing motives; and the consequence, though bitter, and
subversive of her happiness, was a final determination on the part of
Denny, to acquaint her, with a kind of _ex-officio_ formality, that
all intercourse upon the subject of their mutual attachment must cease
between them. Notwithstanding his boasted knowledge, however, he was
ignorant of sentiment, and accordingly confined himself, as I have
intimated, to a double species of argument; that is to say, first, the
danger and sin of opposing the wishes of the church which had claimed
him, as he said, to labor in the vineyard; and secondly, the undoubted
fact, that there were plenty of good husbands besides himself in the