III.

THE BLIND MAN.

Blind Bartimæus! day and night
I muse on thee, and hail my mate,
As, quench'd by sin my inward sight,
On life's dark road I weep and wait :
And every passenger implore,
And every answer proves the more

Man's help how weak and vain.
But hark! I hear the Lord go by,
The mighty Saviour "hear my cry,
List to my suppliant strain,
Hear, Son of David, my appeal,
Have mercy on me, stay and heal."

With angry words the world without
Chides my importunate address;

But no! still louder will I shout,

My prayer more urgent will I press.

Thou glorious Son of David, stay,
Chase, chase these blinding films away :
O hark! he pauses-turns-
Touches-my walls of darkness nod-
They fall-'tis day!—my King, my God
This film-purg'd eye discerns:

Prostrate, in thanks and reverence meet,
I fall, and kiss his blessed feet.

*Mark, x. 46.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FIRST MARRIAGE IN THE FAMILY.

I WAS coming one morning out of my church, after having performed the ceremony of marriage to a couple, when I beheld my friend just entering the churchyard. The little bridal procession respectfully saluted him as it passed, and he returned the salute with the marks of his usual kindness and affability. When they had gone by, he turned and gazed at them for some time with fixed earnestness. When he came up to me, he said, that procession in white, which has just crossed my path, brings vividly to my recollection one of the earliest events of our family, the marriage of my eldest sister. It left a deep impression upon my mind. I have her figure now, even at this moment, visibly before me as she stood at the altar arrayed in snowy

white, and there was recited the passage of St. Paul, which declares the union of husband and wife to be typical of the mystical unity between Christ and his church. She became from that instant sanctified in my eyes, and her lovely innocent countenance and snow-white raiment, to which I knew that the purity of her bosom perfectly corresponded, embodied to me in a lively representation that church without spot or wrinkle, holy and unblamed. She was no barren spouse of Christ, offered up in mockery of our natural feelings by a cruel superstition; but in her I could contemplate the mother of many sons of God to come, the teacher of his children, the sacred depository of the milk of his holy gospel. All trace of Eve and our fallen nature seemed vanished; she bore the stamp of the Eve of promise, whose sons, by the help of the mighty Conqueror who had gone before, should bruise the serpent's head, even as he bruised their heel. Through what a peculiar series of thoughts, what a solemn train of feelings, do the words of the Apostle lead us from this outward and every-day rite, taking our sight away from vulgar objects, and fixing it, through this lovely medium, upon the great ark of our salvation, the church of God, directing the mind

in one comprehensive glance backward to prophesy, and forward to fulfilment, and bidding us in the dearest of our natural connexions look on to the most precious of our spiritual. Thus, in this, as in every other instance, the gospel lays its sanctifying hand upon each act and incident, and refines it to purest spirit.

On such considerations as these passing through my bosom, I became conscious of standing in a new relation to the church of Christ, brother as I was to one who was destined to give it increase, and contribute to perpetuate its visible duration through a glittering succession of prophets, confessors, and martyrs, to the end of time. And most strange have I ever since thought it, that men should be so generally deaf to the spiritual call announced in this event of life, and leave to death the sole privilege of pointing their thoughts heavenward; that the hour of joy should be less fruitful in the heart's holy motions than that of sorrow. But, so it is; reckless selfish beings as we are, we never approach God but when compelled by need; we think of him indeed, and pray earnestly when he smites, but turn away when he would embrace.

On that day I lost another sister; for, certainly, that term became now inapplicable to her in the

full sense in which I had hitherto employed it. Her heart could no longer be given up to us whole and undivided: she was now a wife. I could no longer approach her with my former reckless playfulness: she was now the matron. She was endued with the ensigns of parental royalty, a reverence mixed itself with my affection, if it did not displace a corresponding portion of it, and I became insensibly imbued with somewhat of the feelings of the subject. O my friend, if a change of station like this can so influence our mutual affections below, how will they stand after the grand and final change to which all others are but introductory and typical, beyond which all is immutability. But let me not encroach upon your attention by entering upon a thriftless speculation.

You will suppose that the hour of my sister's departure would, in a family so united, where every member had so definite a place assigned, be one of proof and trial. So, indeed, it was. My sister could not but be aware that she was going from a tried to an untried state, that she was leaving those with whom love was co-extensive with life, for him with whom it was but as yesterday. To add to her regret, we were on this day met in our full numbers, and home