tion be the means of removing them; and as the Captain of my salvation was made perfect by sufferings, so may my sufferings make me perfect.

"If it should please Thee, O my God, to restore me to the enjoyment of health, may my profiting appear unto all. May I be more meek in my disposition, more amiable in my temper, more devout in the frame of my mind, more spiritual in my conversation, more zealous for thy glory, more conformed to the image of my Lord and Master; and the life which I live in the flesh, may I live by the faith of thy Son, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

"As Thou hast been pleased to entrust me with a few talents, may I prove a faithful, and not a slothful servant. Preserve me from envying others who may possess superior endowments; and keep me from undervaluing or misimproving those which Thou hast assigned to me. If I cannot do all the good my soul desireth, may I do all within my power. May I recommend the gospel by a holy life; pray for its extension through the world, and support it by my influence and my substance.

"And when the evening of life sets upon me, may I enjoy the light of thy countenance. When my outward man perisheth, may my inward man be renewed. day by day. Suffer me not to lose my power of recollection, when I lose my animal vivacity, or to lose my intellectual vigour, when my physical strength is failing; but may I retain the free and unfettered use of all my mental faculties, in their undiminished energy, in my last moments; and bear an honourable testimony to the truth as it is in Jesus, when on the eve of departing to receive the crown of righteousness which fadeth not away.

'Lost in myself, restor'd by Thee,

Let dread of death no more corrode,
It will be life and heaven to see

Thy face, my God.'

"And all I implore is through the mediation of Him who bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors; to whom, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, be endless praises.

Amen."

Printed by MILNE and BANFIELD, 76 Fleet-street.

[No. 28.

"The seventh day after her death, the hearse came to carry her to the tomb; and almost every inhabitant of the village attended to pay the tribute of respect to her memory.'

See page 10

London:

THE WIDOW'S DEATH.

"Death, to those who die in the faith of Christ, is no longer the tyrant who approaches with his iron rod, but the messenger who brings the tidings of life and liberty. They view themselves as going forth, not to lie silent and solitary in the darkness of the grave, not to wander forsaken in the wild deserts of the universe, not even to pass into a region where they are altogether strangers and unknown; but to enter on a land, new indeed to sight, but by faith and hope frequented long before where they shall continue to be under the charge of Him who hath hitherto been their Guardian, be re-united to many of their ancient and beloved friends, and admitted to join the innumerable multitude gathered out of all nations, and tongues, and people, who stand before the throne of God. They leave behind the dregs of their nature, and exchange their confined and gloomy apartments of the universe, for the glorious mansions of their Father's house." BLAIR.

THE morning was ushered in by a tremendous thunderstorm, which lasted some hours, but about noon it began to clear up; and the evening was one of the most lovely I had ever seen. I felt inclined to wander out amidst the charms of the rural scenery; but as my indisposition had not quite left me, it was agreed that we should remain at home.

་

Our conversation turned on biography as a species of writing which deeply interests most readers; when Mr. Stevens remarked, that he had recently read the life of the Rev. William Jones, of Nayland, which had given him great pleasure. He reached the volume from the book-case, and read to us a letter which was written by Mr. Jones to a friend, soon after he lost his wife, and from which I have selected the following extracts:

"On the last evening she sat with me in the parlour, where I am now writing; and I read the lessons of the day to her as usual; in the first of which there was this remarkable passage, and the time drew near when Israel must die.' Of this I felt the effects, but made no remarks. On her last morning, we expected her below stairs; but at eleven o'clock, as I was going out to church to join the congregation in praying for her, an alarming drowsiness had seized upon her, and she seemed as a person literally falling asleep; till at the point of noon, it appeared that she was gone; but the article of her dying could not be distinguished; it was more like a translation.

valuable to me upon earth. I have lost the manager, whose vigilant attention to my worldly affairs, and exact method in ordering my family, preserved my mind at liberty to pursue my studies without loss of time, or distraction of thought. I have lost my almoner, who knew and understood the wants of the poor better than I did; and was always ready to support them to the best of our ability; I have lost my counsellor, who generally knew what was best to be done in difficult cases; to whom I always found it of some advantage to submit my compositions; and whose mind being little disturbed with passions, was always inclined to peaceable and Christian measures. I have lost my example, who always observed a strict method of daily devotion, from which nothing could divert her, and whose patience, under every kind of trial, seemed invincible. I have lost my companion, whose conversation was sufficient of itself, if the world was absent, to the surprise of some of my neighbours, who remarked how much of our time we spent in solitude, and wondered what we could find to converse about. But her mind was so well furnished, and her objects'so well selected, that there were few great subjects in which we had not a common interest I have lost my best friend, who, regardless of herself, studied my ease and advantage in every thing. These things may be small to others, but they are great to me: and, though they are gone as the vision of the night, the memory of them will always be upon my mind during the remainder of my journey, which I must now travel alone. Nevertheless, if the word of God be my companion, and his' Holy Spirit my guide, I need not hocolitary, but may indulge the hope that I shall once more join my departed fiitud, novor more to be separated."

66

It is," I remarked, "impossible to form any just conception of the solitariness which an affectionate husband feels, when death comes and deprives him of his endeared companion. His home, which used to be, in the days of conjugal life, the tabernacle of joy, now becomes silent and cheerless as the mansions of the dead. Oh! the tender ties

Close twisted with the fibres of the heart!
Which broken, break them; and drain off the soul
Of human joy; and make it pain to live,-

And is it then to live? When such friends part,
'Tis the survivor dies."

"Yet it is but rarely that those who have lived in the possession of domestic happiness, to a good old age, survive each other long; and sometimes the rites at sepulture are but just performed for one, before the mourners go and fetch the corpse of the other; that those who were so closely united in this world, should not be long apart from each other in a better."

་

"Mr. Jones,' says his biographer, survived his wife only a few months, but his months were not altogether months of vanity; he passed his days in his usual employment of defending or illustrating the truth as it is in Jesus, by the exercise of his pen,-till at last, as if he felt himself arrested by the hand of death, he suddenly quitted his study, and retired to his chamber, from whence he came out no more, till he was brought out by the ministers of the tomb.

"I have often reflected on this melancholy incident in the life of this extraordinary man, with the deepest interest, and admired the firmness of mind which he discovered on leaving his study,-the scene of his labours, the birth-place of many fine mental conceptions, without a groan,-without a sigh,-without a tear, to enter the dark valley through which the pilgrim passes to an unknown and to an eternal world."

;

While we were thus conversing on death, and the reunion of the redeemed in the kingdom of our Father the postman passed the window through which we were gazing on the setting sun, who seemed to display more grandeur at his departure, than whon shining in the greatness of his sticugth. The scene brought before my fancy the parting hour of a Christian, smiling on the sorrows of the world, he is on the eve of leaving; and giving, in the serenity of his decline, an assurance that he will rise again in glory. The letter which was brought into the parlour, was from Mr. Lewellin, addressed to Mrs. Stevens, of which the following is a copy :My dear Aunt:

"I have just received a letter from S

which informs me of the dangerous illness of my dear honoured mother. I cannot give you any particulars.

I

go off by the mail this evening. The hour I have so