V.

Indications of the Inner Life.

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"It is too cleare a brightnesse for man's eye;
Too high a wisedome for his wits to finde;
Too deepe a secret for his sense to trie;

And all too heavenly for his earthly minde:
It is a grace of such a glorious kinde

As gives the soule a secret power to know it,
But gives no heart nor spirit power to show it.

"It is a joy that never comes in jest;

A comfort that doth cast off every care;

A rule wherein the life of life doth rest,
Where all the faithfull finde their happie fare;
A good that doth but onely God declare;
A line that His right hand doth draw so even,
As leads the soule the hyway into heaven."

SIR NICHOLAS BRETON, 1590.

In many instances it is difficult to distinguish between natural amiability and the results of religious principle. When an amiable disposition is brought under religious influence, it is possible to give religion credit for more than it has really done. When the original character is churlish and unamiable, men too often blame religion for the faults of natural temperament. In Eliza's case it was not so difficult to draw the line. Naturally truthful, energetic, and warmhearted, these virtues were brought out with additional force and distinctness by the introduction of the religious element. But there were other virtues not natural to her disposition, and so evidently the work of the Holy Spirit, as to furnish precious evidence of her having been brought into newness of life. If this point is dwelt upon more frequently than may at first sight appear to be necessary, it is because the leading lesson of her life is to be found in it; it is because under the influence of religion she be

came what she would never otherwise have been, --became, in the short space of a few months, an example to young Christians of all that is lovely and of good report-that her case is presented to their attention.

Among the virtues foreign to her character were the meekness and self-control to which reference has been made, and which she struggled hard, and not unsuccessfully, to attain. Such, in a more remarkable degree, was her humility. Lowliness was by no means her natural characteristic; she was high-spirited, proud, and self-reliant. But from the time that she was brought to the feet of Jesus, she regarded herself as the least and lowest; and humility became, not as in the case of temper, a constant effort, but the very habit and tone of her renewed mind. The one great sin of her past life, in her long neglect of her loving Saviour, ever exercised a subduing, humbling influence over her spirit. Though she had faith to believe that He had blotted out the handwriting that was against her, memory often retraced the great dark characters before her mental vision. Walking one day on the Observatory Hill, on Clifton Down, when the Leigh woods were in their richest livery, and the river Avon at high tide,