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the cottager goes home from the house of prayer; and all who value the privileges of a Christian community, acknowledge with thankfulness and joy the welcome influence of a day of bodily rest, and spiritual refreshment. I turned in to my own habitation, to sit down with a husband, whose senses, half drowned by recent intoxication, were still dense and brutalized, and whose very countenance, retaining the mark of the beast, was flushed, and distorted with fever, and burning thirst.

Now, my friend, I believe you have had experience enough in the deceitfulness of the world, more especially have seen enough of that worst kind of deception by which we endeavour to impose upon ourselves, to lead you to join with me in deprecating the false delicacy by which women are accustomed to blind themselves to the true nature of vice. Thus we speak of a gentleman, being gay, being under the excitement of wine, being good-hearted, but a little dissipated, an enemy to no one but himself; and thus we marry the creatures whom we pity for such gentle errors, when we think we would not for the world unite ourselves to a vicious, a drunken, or a bad man. Not that I would in any way imply that, because of our own exemption from glaring vices, we should look with uncharitable eye upon those whose temptations may have been incalculably more powerful than ours; but oh! what weight, what dignity would be added to the character of woman, if, when speaking of mankind, she would raise her mind above that network of nonsense which is used in polished society, to throw a veil over those vices which cry aloud for our deepest, our most fervent, most persevering reprobation. I could draw a picture of what a gay man is in private life, but which of my fair sisters would not turn away her eyes, and say it was impossible that her Lothario should ever resemble that. But enough of this. I wish not to expose my poor husband's transgressions more than is necessary for warning others from risking the same rash experiment, which plunged me into the deepest despair; and while I

speak fairly of his character, I desire to treat my own with the same candour, and to prove that whatever his undisguised errors, or even sins might be, they were more than balanced by those which I endeavoured to conceal within my own heart; by the unpardonable presumption which led me on to undertake his conversion, having never made my own "calling and election sure;" by the rebellious and unsubdued pride in which I refused to fulfil the only conditions which could produce a favourable change; and by the contempt with which I looked down from my own fancied elevation upon his lost and fallen state.

Severely, deeply, as my feelings were har rowed by this last exposure, I still adopted no conciliatory measures, nor condescended to enter upon an impartial examination of the root of the evil.

The next morning, I will venture to say, did not rise upon any creature more wretched than myself. I awoke with an indistinct sense of something impending over me, something dreadful, that would happen, or had already happened, and scarcely could the severest calamity that words might describe have been so intolerable in its oppres siveness as that universal yet indefinite kind of desolation which was made sufficiently evident to my fully awakened thoughts.

"What am I, where am I, and what do I possess?" are three appalling questions which we not unfrequently ask ourselves on first awaking from a long and heavy sleep. I had no answer by which to allay the anguish of my heart, and when I arose, it was but to take up again the weary burden of the past day.

Under the pressure of affliction in which no one can partake, and which we imagine nothing can alleviate, we do not beguile the time by tracing our accustomed walks in grounds or gardens, but seek either the city or the solitude, the crowd or the wilderness; because in both situations we feel ourselves equally unobserved. In this state of mind I chose out for myself a melancholy retreat, where neither my husband nor my domestics

were likely to find me. It was in a wild and untrimmed plantation, where the grounds of the parsonage were bounded by a brook that murmured perpetually over a gravelly bed. There was no beauty in this scene except what the little brook and the wild weeds gave it; yet here I used to sit on the mosscovered stem of a fallen tree, envying the very birds, and the insects that winged their flight around and above me. Even winter could not keep me from this spot, for I loved its withered grass, and bright green moss, and silvery lichen; but most of all, I loved to listen to the blast that roared amongst its leafless boughs.

Here I was one day indulging the full bent of my distempered fancy, until at last my thoughts broke forth in words.

"Everything in nature," said I, "has some purpose to fulfil, some power to exercise, some impulse to obey, but me. I alone, of all creation, live on from day to day, in a perpetual imprisonment of soul.-Why, why was I ever animated with human life, when the very worm has an existence more enviable than mine? The simplest denizen of air may 'flee away and be at rest;' the birds have their unwearied wings to bear them to a distant land: and the stream that murmurs idly at my feet, after meandering through a thousand meadows, finds a welcome in the bosom of the ocean at last."

I had scarcely uttered these words when my ear caught a rustling sound amongst the dead grass and fallen branches on the opposite side of the brook, and I saw the figure of an aged woman stooping down to fill a pitcher with water. The bank was so damp and slippery that it would have been difficult to find safe footing even for one more light and agile. After many fruitless at tempts, she looked up, as if to see whether any one was near of whom she might ask assistance, and half ashamed of my tardy of fer, I crossed the stream and stooped down myself for the water.

There was to me a strange novelty in doing even this act of common kindness, which pleased me for the moment, as it brought a

change; and I insisted upon carrying the pitcher, if her home was not far distant.

"Oh! no," said she, with many apologies, "it is close by. Just at the skirt of the wood. You may see the smoke beside that old tree. But still it is too far for you to carry such a weight, and the way is not the cleanest." Here she hesitated; for there was evidently some other reason why she did not wish me to go with her, and this exciting my curiosity, I persevered with my burden, which, had it been imposed upon me, and not of my own choosing I should have thought intolerably heavy.

The cottage to which our path led, was beautifully situated, and at first I thought it presented a perfect picture; so apt are we to imagine that the cares and troubles, and perplexities of life must necessarily be shut out from such picturesque and secluded retreats. On a nearer inspection, however, I found an air of great poverty spread over the whole, and a slovenly appearance about the door, that might soon have been done away by a strong and willing hand.

At the entrance of a little plot of garden, the old woman stopped and took the pitcher from my hands, with many hearty thanks for the service I had done her.

"May I not go in with you?" said I. "Oh! yes, ma'am if you please," but she stopped again, and looked distressed. "I have a poor lassie," said she (for they were north country people) "who is just now in some trouble, and will not be much pleased to see the face of a stranger, but I am sure you are a kind-hearted lady, and you may be able to say something that will comfort her."

We were standing but a few paces from the door, though screened from the small window, and while we hesitated about entering, I heard the following words sung in a sweet and plaintive voice by some one within, who appeared to be unconscious of a listener.

SONG.

"Listen! oh! listen! is Ronald returning? Hear ye the sound of his step o'er the lea?

Come again, lost one, the bright fire is burning,
The hearth is swept clean in thy cottage for thee.
"Sad is the night, and the morning how dreary;
Dark is the sun-rise when Ronald's away;
Come again lov'd one, my bosom is weary,
Pining to welcome thee through the long day.

"Where is my joy if thy smile is not near me?
Where is my hope if thou wilt not return?
Vainly my bonny bairn's lisping would cheer me,
Vainly my mother's bright ingle would burn.
"Where are the sunbeams that danced on the mountain?
Where is the moonlight that slept in the vale?
Where is the sparkling foam of the fountain?

The music that sigh'd in the whispering gale?

"Where are the songs I have heard the birds singing? When all was melody tun'd to mine ear? Now every note a sad burden is bringing,

Warbling of spring-time, while winter is near. "Where, bonny babe, is thy wandering father?

Close thy sweet eye-lids, and hush thee to rest,
Ask me no more, hapless thing; I would rather
Lull thee to sleep on this comfortless breast.

"Come again Ronald, the bright fire is burning,
Thy wife and thy mother are watching for thee;
Come again loved one, thy joyful returning
Brings beauty to nature, and gladness to me."

man.

"Oh! that's her way," said the old wo"When she's left alone it lightens her poor heart to sing these dismal ditties, if she thinks no one can hear her. But come in, my good lady, you must not stand here in the cold."

The sound of our steps at the door brought the young woman in an instant from the fireside, where she had been sitting with her baby in her arms. There was at first a bright flash of expectation in her looks, which faded away on seeing who we were, and though she welcomed us in with civility and kindness, I saw her often turn away to wipe off the tears that were continually gathering in her eyes. At last she retired into an inner room, and I was left at liberty to ask her mother what was the cause of her distress.

"It's a long story," said the old woman, "and one that is too common for you to listen to; but the shortest and the worst part of it is, that my poor Jenny has a drunken husband. He was a bonny Scotch lad when we first knew him, and even now he has the kindest heart; but oh! these sad ways of his

will bring us all to ruin!" and she, too, wept, without any attempt at concealment.

"And yet," continued she, "it is not so much the loss of worldly comfort, though that is going fast; but there's his own soul to think about, poor fellow, and the bairns that should be looking up to him, and Jenny's healthshe's pining away daily, and the more I talk to her of heaven, the more she frets about her husband and her children. You should have seen her when she married. The sweetest face-the lightest foot-you never heard the lark carol on a May morning with a gayer heart than hers."

"Oh! my dear Lady, it needs faith," and she fixed her eyes intently on my face,-" it needs faith to bear these things day after day, and yet to say in our nightly prayers, 'thy will be done.'”

"I have lived to the age of threescore years, and my life has been none of the smoothest. Sometimes I have known poverty, and sometimes comfort, but I have always had need enough to lean upon the only arm that was able to support me; yet, I can tru ly say, without any wish to complain more than is necessary, that to console my poor daughter, and to keep her thoughts steady to the true point, is the hardest task I have ever had yet. Perhaps you have never known trouble, ma'am. Perhaps you have never been disappointed, nor found yourself bound up as it were with the tares, when you thought you should have stood among the wheat. If so, you will be tired of hearing me talk about what you do not (and I pray you never may) understand. sometimes it is a relief to tell our troubles to a stranger, for it seems almost as if a new face would bring some new consolation.

But

"I am not tired of hearing you, indeed," said I, "go on, and tell me all about your daughter."

There's little to be said of her, poor thing, more than may be said of many who have no one to speak for them. She was brought up in a careful way, and yet married just for love, without, as she often says now, so much

as asking a blessing upon what she did; and then she reproaches herself, and says she deserved this, and more; not in the way of complaining, you would never hear her do that; and if she does but hint at her husband's fault, she takes care to tell of his kindness too, and says that, though his sins look more than her own, they are not half so great, or so many. And though he grows worse and worse, and what with wanting money, and drowning his right senses, his temper is not what it used to be, still she never tires of trying to please him, but keeps the house neat, and makes every meal ready as if he were here, even while she believes in her heart he will not come; yet she says, he shall not find any difference if he does. And now she'll come, and get out the tea and please herself with thinking how comfortable everything is for him, and she'll wait, and wait, and scarcely eat a morsel herself, and look so sick and faint, that my heart aches to see her.

Oh! if we had no consolation beyond ourselves, I think we should both die before the end of another day! But we are not, I hope we are not, without some hold of better things. We pray diligently, and sometimes our prayers are blest to us, and we rise up, if not in the expectation that they will be answered in the way we wish, yet in perfect trust that we shall be wisely and mercifully dealt with, and that the very burden of which we are complaining, is exactly the trial we are most in need of. Sometimes we feel this in such a lively manner, that it almost grows into gladness; and we look on beyond this little spot of earth, this little speck of time, and are satisfied that we know not what is best for us, and then we speak to each other words of cheering, and read our Bible, and see how the Lord led his people through the wilderness.

this. Perhaps you have been brought to it by an easier way. I have no right to ask questions of you, but there is something in your face which tells me that all is not sweetness of which you have to drink. Whatever your trials may be, I think they cannot well be greater than my poor daughter's. Remember, when you go home, that there is consolation even for these; and, so saying, she bid me good day, for I had already risen to depart.

On returning home after this scene, I was much struck by a sense of my own deficiency in all that I had found here exemplified; in patient submission, in watchfulness, and confiding trust, in short, in the three Christian graces, faith, hope and charity. And yet I had dared to think my portion hard. And so unquestionably it was to me; but I had chosen my own lot; I had taken up my own burden, I had filled my own cup with bitterness; and since to my natural feelings that lot was most wretched, that burden most grevious to be borne, and that cup most unpalatable; there was urgent need for me to look beyond my present blighted and gloomy prospects, to that region of blessedness, where there is neither blight nor gloom.

"But what," exclaimed I, giving way to my cheerless meditations, "what is there in this wide world for me! This poor woman doats upon her husband with all the enthusiasm of youth, and the very love which tortures her heart, at the same time keeps it from the stagnation of despair.”

In the midst of my gloomy reflections I was startled by the sound of carriage wheels at the door, and looking out, I saw my husband, extremely pale, dressed in a loose gown and supported, or rather carried into the house by a medical gentleman who lived near us.

He had gone out that day with the intenOh! my dear lady, miserable as we may tion of compelling a young horse to take a appear to you, we would not exchange these desperate leap, and the consequences were seasons of blessed confidence for all that a such as might have been anticipated. The wealthier or seemingly happier station could beast was obstinate, the man furious; at last afford. after a dreadful conflict, both horse and rider Perhaps you have never been brought to had rolled together down a steep bank, and,

had not a poor man been passing at the time, in all probability my husband would have been unable to extricate himself. He had paid dearly for his exploit by many severe contusions, but he had a good-natured way of making the best of that which was undeniably bad, and he now looked cheerful, and affected to be much less hurt than he really was.

There is nothing wins upon our kindness more than suffering patiently endured; and when my husband saw my real concern, and my willingness to serve and assist him, his joy and gratitude were beyond bounds.

"Be always thus," said he, "and you may make of me what you please."

was compelled to return to the cottage of the poor woman, to take a fresh lesson for my own private walk, to gather fresh strength for the performance of my own duties.

It was with deep and heartfelt regret I observed in my repeated visits, that disease was making rapid progress in the once healthy frame of the young woman. The kind of melancholy which I endured, and which I fancied so intolerable, made no inroads upon my constitution; but hers was a torture of the heart, a strife between love and sorrow, which no human constitution can long sustain.

Often, as I had entered the cottage, I bad

"Be always ill," thought I, "and it will never yet found the wandering husband at be no effort to me to do my duty."

It is peculiar to weak and flippant characters to imagine that every new impression they receive will be deep, and lasting, and influential upon their future conduct. The surface of their animal existence is so often and so easily stirred, that they have no time to ascertain what lies beneath, and thus are incapable of reasoning from analogy, of judging rationally of their own feelings or motives, and of drawing conclusions from the force of established habit, the power of association, and the impossibility of acting rightly merely from occasional efforts of the natural will.

Any one who had but slightly studied human nature, would have thought my husband, during his confinement to a quiet chamber, in a state of mind which promised great amendment of life. Even I was fain to build upon the earnestness of his promises, made in the warmth of awakened feeling; and thus the moments we spent together while he was ill and helpless, were amongst the happiest of my life; for I had then an object in view, towards the attainment of which I seemed to be making some progress. Nor was it an unpleasing task, to reason with one who now was glad to listen; to plead with one who heard me in a subdued and gentle spirit. But my hour of trial was not yet come, and often after this I

home; until one evening, when nature was again assuming the freshness of spring, I was surprised to see the figure of a man seated beside the poor invalid. At first I hesitated, but Jenny's voice called me in with such a gladsome tone, that I could not turn away without once witnessing her joy.

"He is here!" she whispered to me as I stood beside her. "He is here!" she repeated, with a look of happiness that I never can forget.

Ronald was indeed a fine looking man. whose strongly marked countenance indicated a strong character. At first I thought him handsome; but when he spoke there was a thirsty kind of irregularity about his features, which had no doubt been brought on by his dreadfully debasing habits. Jenny, however, seemed to be unconscious that he exhibited any other aspect than that of perfect beauty; for she leaned with her thin white hand upon his arm, and looked up into his face, as if she read there all that was written in her book of life.

This little act of kindness on his part (his merely staying with her one evening when her mother was absent,) was worth, in her estimation, all that the world could offer of riches, rank, or splendour; and her gentle eyes were lighted up with something of the brilliancy they had worn in former days, and her hollow cheek was tinged with a fe

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