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of our parish, good sir, was changed soon after you were here, and the new one visited us in our cottage, and he catechised our little ones, and he gathered us all together several times in the week in the village church, and he taught us what we never knew before, and he made me feel how I had neglected the soul of my son in his childhood, and it was a very humbling feeling, sir. He visited my children when they lay dying. He visited me afterward and comforted me, and he gave me a Bible, and made me to understand the goodness of God, and all he has done for sinful men; and so, kind sir, I have been reconciled to my bereavements, and made to be thankful for what is left. And I have a belief that my children are in glory, for they died in faith; and I am waiting here until my change shall come; and I am not impatient to be gone because of little Gertrude, although it will be a gain to her when I am gone, because the pastor's lady has promised to take her."

"Oh! don't talk of going, dear grandmother," said the little girl, rubbing a tear from her eye. "Please not to let her talk of it, sir; I never shall be happy when she is gone; this house is so dear to me, I shall never love any place like this."

"It is a sweet and a happy place, my dear child," said the old woman, 66 and I thank God for giving us such a home: nevertheless, this world is not our restingplace, here we cannot stay, and ought not to wish to remain. But, kind sir, I can remember the time when you were here last, when I was quite uneasy and dissatisfied, and yet could not bear the thought of going out of this world; and now, sir, since the fear of death has been removed, since Christ our Lord has shown my heart what he has done for me, I am quite content to die; and yet I am more happy here than I was then,as much more happy, I think, as heaven is happier than the place of anguish and despair. I have lost a great deal too, that is, for a time I have lost a great deal, and sometimes we feel it hard to manage for ourselves; our cow is dead, and our garden is gone to ruin, and our bees have swarmed and hived in distant places; still we are happy and content, because we know it is to be for a very little while, and that a place is prepared for us as much better than this, as this valley is than the sandy deserts spoken of in Scripture, where no water is; and

thus, sir, all care is off our minds, and of this I am sure, that where there is corroding care there can be no peace."

In this way she talked to me, while I from time to time interrupted her to question and examine her, and, as it were, to try her serenity; and when she had told her story, and explained the changes which she had gone through, both in her outward circumstances and her mind, she ceased to speak of herself, and began to busy herself in preparing a little repast for me. This fare, however inferior to what she had formerly given me, was tendered so hospitably that I could not refuse it; and it was from her manner, when she thought that I did not observe her, that I felt more fully convinced of the blessed change which had passed in her mind.

I spent several hours with this excellent person; and before I left the neighbourhood I went to the friendly pastor, with whom (having received a confirmation of the blessed change which had passed in this poor woman) I left a small sum for her use in case of need, and then took leave of the lovely valley, probably never to see it again, but strongly impressed with the truth so often mentioned during the course of this little narrative, namely, that happiness is a gift of God bestowed only on those who are brought to him by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and wholly independent of outward circumstances.

OBSTINACY PUNISHED.

HAVING arrived at a period of life in which an individual is enabled to look back with calmness on the mistakes and miscarriages of early youth, and feeling, by the divine blessing, that sort of illumination of the understanding by which I am enabled to contemplate my former misconduct in its true and real point of view, I am induced, for the sake of such young persons as may lie under the same kind of temptations as those by which I was exercised in my early life, to give a few specimens of that sort of behaviour, and of that state of feeling, and that mode of acting, by which I, in a very great degree, lost all those opportunities of improvement which were provided for me, at a great expense, by my indulgent parents, during the first twenty years of my existence.

My father and mother during my early life had a considerable command of money; but being much engaged, my father by his business, and my mother by many younger children, it was found necessary for them to devolve the work of my education on other persons. I remember little of my proceedings till I was about six years of age, at which time a governess was engaged to instruct me. I do not recollect enough of this young person to be able to say why she did not continue in our family, or wherefore this plan for my education was abandoned. Indeed, I doubt whether the system of private education, where a child is partly under the conduct of a governess, and partly under that of a mother, can be expected to succeed very frequently: for as the Scripture says, "No man can serve two masters." And unless the mother and governess are more like-minded than can be reasonably expected, or the child is of a peculiarly amiable disposition, little disagreements must necessarily arise; and in these disagreements the child will of course take the part of the person who is most indulgent, and most blind to her faults, and with whom she feels most at her ease. How things went VOL. XIII. E 9

on between my mother and this our first governess, I do not recollect; but this I know, that soon after I had entered my tenth year I found myself one of the members of a large school, and under the charge of the Miss Harrises, three sisters, whom we called the three degrees of comparison;-the youngest being remarkably stiff and positive; the second, much more agreeable; and the eldest, an actual favourite with all the young ladies. This school, though not a heaven upon earth, was, as far as I recollect, passably comfortable. Our food was wholesome, our beds good, and our rooms airy. We suffered neither from heat nor cold. There was no particular tyranny exercised among the young people; and our chief governess, the eldest of the three sisters, was particularly kind to the little ones, and used to take us into the parlour every afternoon in winter, when it was dusk, to tell us stories; seldom using any other punishment than to exclude us from hearing these sto

ries.

Our schoolhouse was an exceedingly old, black-timbered mansion, still to be seen standing in a garden near the town of Guildford; at least, I have not heard of its being taken down, although it was falling fast into decay when last I saw it.

Such was my first school; and there was no reason why I might not have been happy when there; but some person, I cannot say who, had put it into my head that it was necessary for me to think myself wretched at school; and this idea was confirmed on the very evening of my arrival at Guildford; for when first introduced into the school-room, a girl, at least three years older than myself, invited me to sit by her at the long table on which our supper was set out; and seeing the traces of tears on my cheeks (for I had just parted with my mother), she said she pitied me from her heart; and in order to console me, began to tell me all the difficulties I had to expect in my new situation; among which she enumerated cross looks, practising music, learning the pence-table, mending stockings, and being silent during school-hours. It was well for me that this my new acquaintance, whom I shall call Miss Jane, was not to be my companion in my sleeping apartment; on the contrary, the young people who occupied this room, which was an exceedingly long one, and contained many beds, were playful, sim

ple children, and though much nonsense passed among them after the teachers were gone down to their suppers, yet I recollect nothing much amiss. I however went to bed, resolved never to be happy at school, and got up in the same state of mind.

I wanted some person to represent to me that happiness is not the object in life which we are to pursueit being the nature of happiness to run away from those who run after it, while it pursues those persons who, forgetting self, are only anxious to do their duty, and give pleasure to such of their fellow-creatures as are within their reach.

A child who goes to school with the wish of giving his parents pleasure by his improvements when he returns home, has not time to fancy troubles, and often finds happiness where other children are miserable; but that sweet spirit which bestows contentment is the gift of God, and seldom exists in the absence of true piety. My reader will, however, already have perceived, that at the time of which I am writing I had very little idea of religion.

There were several little girls in my sleeping-room for whom I already felt something like childish admiration, for they were pretty, smiling, and good-natured; but it never occurred to me that I might be equally pleasing if I would endeavour to lay aside that sort of gloom and sullenness in which I had persisted ever since my arrival at school. We were called by a bell at seven o'clock in the morning, and all went down into the school-room, where, after a short prayer, we sat down to breakfast-my friend Miss Jane having again taken me by her side. One of the teachers being directly opposite to me at breakfast, I had not much conversation with my new friend. Immediately after breakfast we were called to our lessons. I was made to read, to write, and to learn a task in English; all these things I had been accustomed to at home, and therefore did not consider that my governesses, in making me do what I had already been accustomed to do, were making any violent attacks upon my rights; but when summoned to a French lesson, and called upon to learn the French alphabet, I made the laudable resolution never to pronounce any letter of the alphabet in any way to which I had not been used. In vain did my governess repeat the first letter, and inform me that in French it was

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