seemed to be improving, and the little household partook for a time, the blessings of tranquillity and content.

But let none flatter himself that the dominion of vice is suddenly or easily broken. It may seem to relax its grasp, and to slumber, but the victim who has long worn its chains, if he would utterly escape, and triumph at last, must do so in the strength of Omnipotence. This James Harwood never sought. He had begun to experience that prostration of spirits which attends the abstraction of an habitual stimulant. His resolution to recover his lost character was not proof ́against this physical inconvenience. He determined, at all hazards, to gratify his depraved appetite. He laid his plans deliberately, and with the pretext of making some arrangements about the waggon which had been left broken on the road, he departed from his home. His stay was protracted beyond the appointed limit, and at his return, his sin was written on his brow in characters too strong to be mistaken. That he had also brought with him some hoard of intoxicating poison, to which to resort, there remained no room to doubt. Day after day did his shrinking household witness the alternations of causeless anger and brutal tyranny. To lay waste the comfort of his wife, seemed to be his prominent object. By constant contradiction and misconstruction, he strove to distress her, and then visited her sensibilities upon her as sins.

There was one modification of her husband's persecutions which the fullest measure of her piety could not enable her to bear unmoved. This was unkindness to her feeble and suffering boy. It was at first commenced as the surest mode of distressing her. It opened a direct avenue to her heartstrings. What began in perverseness seemed to end in hatred, as evil habits sometimes create perverted principles. The wasted and wild-eyed invalid shrank from his father's glance and footstep, as from the approach of a foe. More than once had he taken him from the little bed which maternal care had provided for him, and forced him to go forth in the cold of the winter storm.

On such occasions, it was in vain that the mother attempted to protect her child. She might neither shelter him in her bosom, nor controul the frantic violence of the father. Harshness, and the agitation of fear, deepened a disease which might else have yielded. The timid boy in terror of his natural protector, withered away like a blighted flower. It was of no avail that friends remonstrated with the unfeeling parent, or that hoary-headed men warned him solemnly of his sins. In

temperance had destroyed his respect for man, and his fear of God.

Spring at length emerged from the shades of that heavy and bitter winter. But its smile brought no gladness to the declining child. Consumption fell upon his vitals, and his nights were restless and full of pain.

"Mother, I wish I could smell the violets that grew upon the green bank by our old dear home."

"It is too early for violets, my child. But the grass is beautifully green around us, and the birds sing sweetly, as if their hearts were full of praise."

"In my dreams last night I saw the clear waters of the brook that ran by the bottom of my little garden. I wish I could taste them once more. And I heard such music, too, as used to come from that white church among the trees, where every Sunday the happy people met to worship God."

The mother saw that the hectic fever had been long increasing, and knew that there was such an unearthly brightness in his eye, that she feared his intellect wandered. She seated herself on his low bed, and bent over him to soothe and compose him. He lay silent for some time.

"Do you think my father will come ?"

Dreading the agonizing agitation which, in his paroxysm of coughing and pain, he evinced at the sound of his father's well-known foot-step, she answered,

"I think not, my love. You had better try to sleep."

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'Mother, I wish he would come. I do not feel afraid now. Perhaps he would let me lay my cheek to his once more, as he used to do when I was a babe in my grandmother's arms. I should be glad to say good-bye to him, before I go to my Saviour."

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Gazing intently in his face, she saw the work of the destroyer, in lines too plain to be mistaken.

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My son; my dear son; say, Lord Jesus receive my spirit. "Mother," he replied, with a sweet smile upon his ghastly features," he is ready, I desire to go to him. Hold the baby to me, that I may kiss her. That is all. Now sing to me, and, oh! wrap me close in your arms, for I shiver with cold." He clung, with a death grasp, to the bosom which had long been his sole earthly refuge.

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Sing louder, dear mother, a little louder, I cannot hear

you."

A tremulous tone, as of a broken harp, rose above her grief, to comfort the dying child. One sigh of icy breath

was upon her cheek, as she joined it to his-one shudderand all was over. She held the body long in her arms, as if fondly hoping to warm and revivify it with her breath. Then she stretched it upon its bed, and kneeling beside it, hid her face in that grief which none but mothers feel. It was a deep and sacred solitude, alone with the dead. Nothing save the soft breathing of the sleeping babe fell upon the solemn pause. Then the silence was broken by a wail of piercing sorrow. It ceased, and a voice arose, a voice of supplication, for strength to endure, as seeing Him who is. invisible.' Faith closed what was begun in weakness. It became a prayer of thanksgiving to him who had released the dove-like spirit from the prison-house of pain, that it might taste the peace and mingle in the melody of Heaven.

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She arose and bent calmly over her dead. The thin, placid features, wore a smile, as when he had spoken of Jesus. She composed the shining locks around the pure forehead, and gazed long on what was to her so beautiful.

The father entered carelessly. She pointed to the pallid immoveable brow, "See, he suffers no longer!" He drew near and looked on the dead with surprise and sadness. A few natural tears forced their way, and fell on the face of the first-born, who was once his pride. The memories of that moment were bitter. He spoke tenderly to the emaciated mother; and she, who a short time before was raised above the sway of grief, wept like an infant as those few affectionate tones touched the sealed fountains of other years.

Neighbours and friends visited them, desirous to console their sorrow, and attended them when they committed the body to the earth. There was a shady and secluded spot, which they had consecrated by the burial of their few dead. Thither that whole little colony were gathered, and, seated on the fresh-springing grass, listened to the holy healing words of the inspired volume. It was read by the oldest man in the colony, who had himself often mourned. As he bent reverently over the sacred page, there was that on his brow which seemed to say, 'this has been my comfort in my affliction.' Silver hair thinly covered his temples, and his low voice was modulated by feeling as he read of the frailty of man, withering like the flower of grass, before it groweth up; and of his majesty in whose sight, a thousand years are as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.' He selected from the words of that compassionate One, who gathereth the lambs with his arm, and carrieth them in his bosom,' who,

pointing out as an example the humility of little children, said, Except ye become as one of these, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven,' and who calleth all the weary and heavy laden to come unto him, that he may give them rest. The scene called forth sympathy, even from manly bosoms. The mother, worn with watching and weariness, bowed her head down to the clay that concealed her child. And it was observed with gratitude by that friendly group, that the husband supported her in his arms, and mingled his tears with hers.

He returned from this funeral in much mental distress. His sins were brought to remembrance, and reflection was misery. Conscience haunted him with terrors, and many prayers from pious hearts arose, that he might now be led to repentance. The venerable man who had read the Bible at the burial of his boy, counselled and entreated him, with the earnestness of a father, to yield to the warning voice from above, and to break off his sins by righteousness, and his iniquities by turning unto the Lord.'

There was a change in his habits and conversation, and his friends trusted it would be permanent. She who, above all others, was interested in the result, spared no exertion to win him back to the way of truth, and to soothe his heart into peace with itself, and obedience to his Maker. Yet was she doomed to witness the full force of grief and remorse upon intemperance, only to see them utterly overthrown at last. The reviving virtue, with whose indications she had solaced herself, and even given thanks that her beloved son had not died in vain, was transient as the morning dew. Habits of industry, which had begun to spring up, proved themselves to be without root. The dead, and his cruely to the dead, were alike forgotten. Disaffection to the chastened being who against hope still hoped for his salvation, resumed its dominion, The friends who had alternately reproved and encouraged him, were convinced that their efforts had been of no avail. Intemperance, like the strong man armed,' took possession of a soul that lifted no cry for aid to the Holy Spirit, and girded on no weapon to resist the destroyer.

Summer passed away, and the anniversary of their arrival at the colony returned. It was to Jane Harwood a period of sad and solemn retrospection. The joys of early days, and the sorrows of maturity, passed in review before her; and while she wept, she questioned her heart, what had been its gain from a father's discipline, or whether it had sustained the greatest of all losses-the loss of its afflictions.

She was alone at this season of self-communion. The absence of her husband had become more frequent and protracted. A storm, which feelingly reminded her of those which had often beat upon them when homeless and weary travellers, had been raging for nearly two days. To this cause she imputed the unusually long stay of her husband. Through the third night of his absence she lay sleepless, listening for his steps. Sometimes she fancied she heard shouts of laughter, for the mood in which he returned from his revels was various. But it was only the shriek of the tempest. Then she thought some ebullition of his phrenzied anger rang in her ears. It was the roar of the hoarse wind through the forest. All night long she listened to these sounds, and hushed and sang to her affrighted babe. Unrefreshed, she arose and resumed her morning labours.

Suddenly her eye was attracted by a group of neighbours, coming up slowly from the river. A dark and terrible foreboding oppressed her. She hastened out to meet them. Coming towards her house was a female friend, agitated and fearful, who, passing her arm around her, would have spoken. "Oh, you come to bring me evil tidings: I pray you let me know the worst."

The object was indeed to prepare her mind for a fearful calamity. The body of her husband had been found, drowned, as was supposed, during the darkness of the preceding night, in attempting to cross the bridge of logs, which had been partially broken by the swollen waters. Utter prostration of spirit came over the desolate mourner. Her energies were broken, and her heart withered. She had sustained the privations of poverty and emigration, and the burdens of unceasing labour and unrequited care, without murmuring. She had laid her first-born in the grave with resignation, for faith had heard her Saviour saying, 'Suffer the little child to come unto me.' She had seen him, in whom her heart's young affections were garnered up, become a 'persecutor and injurious,' a prey to vice the most disgusting and destructive. Yet she had borne up under all. One hope remained with her as an anchor of the soul,' the hope that he might yet repent and be reclaimed. She had persevered in her complicated and self-denying duties with that charity which beareth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things.'

"

But now, he had died in his sin. The deadly leprosy which had stolen over his heart, 'could no more be purged by sacrifice or offering for ever.' She knew not that a single prayer