in age, is a much older Christian than I am; and as it was he who first taught me to know the blessings contained in the Word of God, I thought it my duty to show him, by bearing my pains as patiently as I could, and by keeping up my spirits and his, that he had not shown me the way to happiness in vain. But what, perhaps, you will think strange is, that he cannot read at all! He had, early in life, been brought to a sense of the misery of a wicked life, by a dreadful accident which befell him one evening after a drinking party, and which confined him to his bed in an hospital for many weeks. By degrees, and especially after he got well enough to go to Church, his mind was led to consider the dreadful consequences of the idle, sinful life he had till then followed; and, afterward, he was brought to enjoy all the blessings of a life of industry and of humble trust in God. He was so desirous to obtain this blessing, that, as he has often told me, he prayed earnestly to God to have mercy upon him, and to help him, by His Holy Spirit, to keep all his good resolutions; and the promises of our Saviour were made good to him, for he asked, and he had; he sought and he found that grace which enabled him to forsake all his former wicked courses, and all his bad companions.

"It was about a year after this that we were married. I had learned to read at a Sunday school; there also I had learned my catechism, and had read a great part of the Bible, and having always attended school very punctually, and behaved so as to please my teachers, I had a Bible and a Prayer-book given to me when I left school to go to service; and very proud I was, my lady, of them as my reward; but I never thought of them in any other light; and my only care was, to behave well, that I might have a good character, and

be thought well of by my mistress and my fellow-servants. But, when I was married, my husband used to ask me to read a little out of my Bible to him of an evening, when we had done our day's work; and on a Sunday after Church, he would talk to me of what we had heard, of all the comfort we might hope to enjoy in this world, and the certain happiness we should enjoy in the next, from the great mercy of God and the great merits of our Saviour, if we would humble ourselves before Him, and, through the aid of His Spirit, we should serve Him with all our hearts, and all our strength. I loved my husband very dearly; and, at first, I listened to him because I liked to hear him talk, and to think how clever he was, though he did not even know his letters: but, very soon, his plain and kind way of talking made me think a great deal of what he said; and, by degrees, I began to to understand, and to feel affected by a sense of the wonderful things our Saviour had done for us. I had always till then had such a very good opinion of myself, and had often been so much praised for my neatness and my industry, that I was suprised to find how much I needed the atonement of my Saviour, and how little I had, till that time, known or loved Him; for though, as I said before, I knew my catechism, had read my Bible, and done what was outwardly right, I had done it without a right feeling. I had, while at service, regularly gone to Church whenever I could got leave, and had often said the prayers I had been taught to repeat at school; but I did not know, or at least I did not remember, that God looked at the heart, and that it is not the words which we say, but the words which we feel, that he regards.

"We had one little girl, who was very dear to us both; my husband, in particular, loved her very much,

because, as he said, she was so like me ; and she was such a dear little child, so obedient to my husband and myself, and that she was a great joy to us; but it pleased God, when she was about eight years old, to take her to Himself, after a sickness of only a few days; and a dreadful blow her death was to us. But her dear father taught me that, as we had daily said, and taught our sweet child to say, in our blessed Lord's own beautiful prayer, ‘Thy will be done,' we must now show that they were not vain words, but must submit to that will, and not rebel against it, by our murmurs. 'Our merciful God, my dear Mary,' would he often say to me as he kissed a way my tears, while his own were streaming down his cheeks, poor man! our merciful God does not require us not to feel the loss of our little darling. Our Saviour himself wept at the grave of Lazarus, though he knew that, by His Almighty power, He should raise him from that grave. We therefore may weep, but we must not sorrow like those without hope, for our hope is certain, for He is true who promised that we shall go to our little Mary, though she shall not return to us. In a few short years we shall be raised to that blessed heaven, where death, and sorrow will be known no more, where we shall meet not only our dear child, but our Saviour and our God, face to face, and dwell with Him for ever in glory and happiness. When we think of this, my dearest Mary, our tears may flow, but our hearts will rejoice, and we will say, with patient Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.' And so, my dear lady, with so kind a husband and so very merciful a God, I have always been, and still am, a very happy creature.”

As my visits to poor Mary seemed to give her great comfort, and I took great pleasure in talking to her, I called very often; and though she was frequently in

of

very great pain, and sometimes even in great agony body, I never saw her otherwise than cheerful and patient. To my usual inquiry of how she did, she often answered, “Oh, I am very bad, my dear lady, as to my body; but, blessed be God, I am very happy in my mind, and the more I suffer the weaker I get, you know, and the sooner I may hope to be released; but still I am not impatient, and shall, I trust, cheerfully wait God's own good time. The peace, which in His great mercy He gives me here, is, I know, only a very small part of that joy which he has prepared for me in heaven. Sometimes, indeed, my heart is cast down, when I think of leaving my dear husband alone in this world; but, as I tell him when we are talking of my death, though I shall go, God will never leave him, nor forsake him. Oh, my dear lady, you cannot think what a comfort this blessed promise has given to my poor heart. Often, before I knew our good Clergyman and you, have my husband and I wanted a meal; and, for days together, we have had nothing but potatoes, when we were both in a weak state, and wanted more nourishment; but still we never despaired, and this promise, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,' and all the other gracious promises of our blessed Saviour, cheered us and made us feel happy and thankful. I have been thinking, that if you will put me in the best way of teaching my poor John to spell little words, I shall, perhaps, have time, before I am taken from him, to teach him to read a little; and then, dear soul! if he can but read his Bible, he will not so much miss his poor Mary."

My reader will, I hope, feel certain, that I willingly granted this request; and they will, I think, be glad to hear that John, though he was, when I gave him his first lesson, seventy-two years old, could, at the end of

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six weeks after the death of his wife, read a chapter in any part of the Bible with great ease. He came to my house whenever he pleased, and dined at it regularly every Sabbath-day. Mary's sufferings increased; but her patience and trust in God never forsook her. "Do not grieve for me, my dear lady," she would say, "the more I suffer in my body, the more happy I am in my mind, for the more I feel the value of the hope that is in me. I know that no earthly thing can ease my pain, or give me power to move, but my heart is the more lifted up to that Almighty God, who will now so soon raise my soul to live with Him in peace and joy for ever; and when I hear, as I always seem to do, His gracious words, 'Come unto me all ye that are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,' then my sinking spirits rise, and I rejoice to think how soon this glorious rest will be my portion. I am so happy, that I would not change my poor mean dying bed for all the grandeur in the world."

Her sight became very dim, and I then used to read a chapter or a Psalm to her. She would frequently stop me to make some excellent remark, and would sometimes go on to repeat the remaining verses of the chapter; and, so clear was her recollection, and so great her knowledge of the contents of her Bible, that her remarks pleased as much as they instructed me, and I now look back to the hours I thus passed with her, as to some of the happiest of my life. Two or three days before her death, she fell into a sort of doze, from which she seldom appeared to awake, except to utter a short prayer, or to make some acknowledgment of her happiness. On the last night she was very restless for some little time, when she became more easy and fell asleep; but before the morning shone, she had yielded up her last breath in death.