bitter way, Bad water!' then with a look of exuiting contempt at the remaining fluid, he added, Soul gone water? No!' This idea, that the soul was not drowned, electrified me; so good is a word spoken in due season, however trite a truism that word may be.

That night I pretended to go to bed, that others might do so too; and then I left my room, went to my little study, which was hung round with Jack's sweet drawings, and sat down, resting my elbows on the table, my face on my hands, and so remained for a couple of hours. Day had scarcely broken brightly upon mé, about two in the morning, when the door opened softly, and Jack entered, only partially dressed, his face deadly pale, and altogether looking most piteously wretched. He paused at the door, saying, 'Jack asleep, no; Jack sick, head bad,- no more see beautiful Captain B.' I could only shake my head, and soon buried my face in my hands again. However, I still saw him through my fingers; and after lifting up his clasped hands and eyes, in prayer for me, he proceeded to execute the purpose of his visit to that room. Softly, stealthily, he went round, mounting a chair, and unpinned from the wall every drawing that contained a ship, a boat, or water under any form of representation. Still peeping at me, hoping he was not observed, he completed this work, which nothing but a mind refined to the highest degree of delicate tenderness 'could ever have prompted, and then stopping at the door, cast over his shoulder such a look of desolate sorrow at me, that its very wretchedness poured balm into my heart. Oh what a heavenly lesson is that, Weep with them that do weep,' and how we fly in its face when going to the mourner with our inhuman, cold-blooded exhortations to leave off grieving! Even Job's tormenting friends gave him seven days true consolation while they sat silent on the earth weeping with him.

224

TRUE

FEELING.

But God put into the dumb boy's heart another mode of consolation, which I must recount, as a specimen of his exceedingly original and beautiful train of thought. He used to tell his ideas to me as if they were things that he had seen; and now he had a tale to relate, the day after this, which rivetted my attention. He told me my brother went on the lake in a little boat, and while he was going along the devil got under it, seized one side, pulled it over, and caught my brother, drawing him down to the bottom, which, as he told me, was deep, deep, and flames under it. Then Jesus Christ put his arm out of a cloud, reached into the water, took the soul out of the body, and drew it into the sky. When the devil saw the soul had escaped, he let the body go, and dived away, crying, Jack said, with rage, while the men took it to land. The soul, he continued, went up, up, up; it was bright, and brigh er, like sun,all light, beautiful light. At last he saw a gate, and inside many angels looking out at him; but two very small angels came running to meet the soul; and when he saw them, he took them up into his arms, kissed them, and carried them on towards the gate, still kissing and caressing them. I was amazed and utterly at a loss, and said, Two angels? What? Mam not know, what?' He looked at me with a laugh of wonder; pointed to my head and the wooden table, and replied (his usual way of calling me stupid), Doll mam! Two small boys, dead, Portugal.' My brother had lost two babes in Portugal; and thus exquisitely, thus in all the beauty of true sublimity, had the untaught deaf and dumb boy pictured the welcome they had given their father on approaching the gate of heaven.

6

A day or two after, some kind, sympathizing relations and friends being assembled at the dinner-table, something cheerful was said, which excited a general smile, Jack was in the act of handing a plate; he looked round him with a face of stern indignation, set down the plate, said Bad laughing!'

smiled; and this jealous tenaciousness of such a grief, on the part of an exceedingly cheerful boy, was the means of soothing more than any other means could have done it, the anguish of that wound which had pierced my very heart's core. These were a small part of the munificent wages that my Master gave me for nursing a child of His.

1

My first act had, of course, been to adopt my brother's son, the Baby boy' - now five years old, who had been since he first showed his little round face in England, my own peculiar treasure. I begged him as a precious boon, and for his sake bore up against the storm of sorrow that was rending me within. Jack fell into a decline, through the depression of his spirits in seeing me suffer; for to conceal it from one who read every turn of my countenance was impossible; and I should have been well content to sink also, but for the powerful motive set before me. Under God, who gave him to me, you may thank your young friend for what little service I may have rendered in the cause you love, since 1828: for the prospect which by the Lord's rich mercy is so far realized, of seeing him grow up a use ful, honourable member of society, with right principles, grounded on a scriptural education, was what enabled me to persevere against every difficulty and every discouragement that could cross my path. I set up a joyful Ebenezer here; and I ask your prayers that the blessing may be prolonged, increased, perfected, even to the day when we shall all meet before the throne of God.

226

A ROUSING.

LETTER XIII.

NATIONAL APOSTACY.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE arrived. Most hateful year in the annals of England's perfidy to her bounteous Lord! I was never really roused from the lassitude of spirits that my loss had occasioned, until the conviction that the sin was about to be perpetrated forced itself on me ; and a fervent desire to be found among those who were actively dissentient from it, overcame all the languor consequent upon such a season of bitter affliction. For, what was it that England was about to do?

The gospel had been preached here in the very early days of Christianity, probably by an apostle; and an independent church, small indeed, but scriptural, existed; sufficient to offer serious opposition to the Romish delegate, Augustine, when he was deputed to incorporate this country in the growing mass of papal dependencies. The struggle was not of long duration. Rome, not then arrived at the full stature of the Apocalyptic Beast, prevailed; more by the lances of despotic monarchs, than through the willing assent of Britons, either lay or ecclesiastical. Once subjugated, England lay at the foot of the Popes, from generation to

haps I should rather say, by a rap on the head with the iron key. In the time of Richard II. blood shed openly for the truth's sake began to give testimony that martyrdom would yet become the order of the day here. The spirit of persecution waxed bolder and fiercer, as the voice of scriptural protestation was heard; and the temporary check given to Romish usurpation by the decided proceeding of Henry VIII. in casting off the Pope's supremacy for his own private benefit, was followed by the blessed interval of young Edward's reign, during which God was, for the first time since foreign delegates got footing here, acknowledged and worshipped according to the Scriptures. Then had the church peace, and the land prosperity.

Mary followed: she ravened like a she wolf in innocent blood. Popery ruled supreme; and the consequence was that the three years and a half of its domination may be characterized as one continuous act of murder. Then came Elizabeth, who, though she did not sufficiently purge out the old leaven, yet as she established Protestant ascendency on a strong basis, exalted her kingdom to a height never before known; and James I. treading in the same steps. found his reign equally prosperous. Charles I. attempted to give preponderance to the evil again; and in that attempt brought upon his people a fearful civil war, and upon his own head an ignominious death. Charles II. worked covertly, under the surface of a profligacy almost equalling that of Rome itself, to bring back upon our fathers the yoke of that odious bondage; and James II. set about the same enterprise openly. Then it was that, to avert another era of blood and flame, our ancestors removed from the throne the perverse line of Stuart, and placed upon it a devoted Protestant prince; restricting the succession to those heirs alone who should hold and solemnly swear to maintain the