our trials through the distance of intervening years, we can generally discern some good purpose which they immediately answered: and if this be the case with our finite powers of discrimination; if, while we see through

glass darkly," we can all of us say "it is good for us to be afflicted ;” what conclusions must we form of the inestimable advantages of such discipline, when our glorified faculties are enlarged in a state of endless enjoyment! Surely our notions of life, as they respect the vicissitudes of fortune, will then so far change, that we shall denominate evil good and good evil.

But beside these trials, which must necessarily fall to the lot of declining age, it often happens, that some great and overwhelming affliction, some dreadful deprivation or change of circumstances, assaults us at this feeble period; and to evils of this kind the female sex is more

peculiarly exposed. These are, however, felt more severely in the autumn of our days, than in the last years of life. The tree is most likely to be overset when it is loaded with its verdant honours; for the tempests which would have howled through its bare and naked branches without meeting with resistance, will overwhelm opposition. The want of a sympathetic feeling, which is so universally ascribed to age as one of its errors, is in fact a characteristic of bodily decay, and a merciful preparative for its departure hence. In those rare instances, in which the afflictions of advanced life encounter very acute feelings, they who have witnessed the tears and bitter wailings of hopeless infirmity must ever regret that insensibility has not dropped the veil.

At whatever period of life we endure the extreme pressure of calamity, we shall

do well to consider why we are severely afflicted. Sorrow cannot visit man but by divine permission, and for two purposes; to prove or to correct him; and both these ends are defeated, if we question instead of submitting to the blow. Repining murmurs are, in fact, rebellion against God, who may be thereby provoked either to cast us off as irreclaimable, or to humble us by still more acute chastisements. Even grief, when it becomes so immoderate as to injure our health or our temper, or absorbs our thoughts so as to disqualify us for the duties we owe to our friends and the world, is questionless a frailty, if not a sin. This consideration is very proper to women, who are too apt to attach merit to extreme susceptibility. To submit with cheerful resignation to the burden which Providence lays on us, and to improve.

it to our everlasting benefit, is christian virtue. We must compassionate the faded form of grief, or the wild aspect of despair; but it is fortitude, "the nymph of the rock," and " pa"tience with her meek arms folded on her throbbing breast," whom we esteem and venerate.

As death is the last enemy of man, so to subdue the dread of it is the closing labour of a pious christian; and doubtless, it is to expedite this glorious achievement that the last scene, of life is generally marked with privations and sorrows. Our friends expire before us, to teach us how to die; our powers of enjoyment decrease, to convince us that we have little to relinquish; our sphere of usefulness becomes contracted, to show us that our task in life is nearly finished. "The "time was," says the amiable Howell

writing to an old friend," that you and "I had all the fair continent of Europe before us to range in; we have "since been confined to an island ; "and now, Lincoln holds you and "London me. We must expect the "day that sickness will confine us "to our chambers, then to our beds, "and so to our graves, the dark and "silent grave, which will put a period "to our pilgrimage in this world. And "observable it is, what method nature "doth use to contract our liberty by de'grees. But though this small bag full of bones be so confined, yet the noblest part of us may then be said to be "set at liberty, when having shaken off "this slough of flesh, she mounts up to "her true country, the country of eternity, "where one moment of joy is more than

if we enjoyed all the pleasures of this "world a million of years here among the