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and, looking me in my face, said most affectionately, "Bless you, my dear missus, (for so I shall always call you,) you remember this vile body when it bore a different appearance; a time will soon come when it will be loathsome, and after that it shall be glorious." I gave her a trifle, and endeavoured in vain to say farewell. "Stop," she said; "I thank God for this first, and then I thank you. This gift is amongst the 'all things' that God has promised shall be added.' You know we have no business to complain so long as we have bread and water; for the words are,' Bread shall be given, and water shall be sure.' My dear, I have, with the help of the Lord, taught myself to read. At sixty odd I did not know a letter; now I can read both Old and New Testaments. Only think, that I had almost forgot to tell you this. Have you any old people unable to read?" I said, One or two." "Tell them to begin to learn; and if they ask God to help them, they will soon master it. A winter evening, a farthing candle, and an earnest desire to learn, will do a deal for them. Can you stop to hear me read a chapter now, or will you call another day?" I said another day, as I feared to keep my friends waiting. I then took my leave of poor Hannah C.

He was a H. C. was

The man,

I think a few particulars of her history will be interesting to those who have read thus far. She was in early life married to a man more than twenty years her senior, by whom she had eleven children. brickmaker by trade, and a brute by nature. extremely handsome, and a very fine figure. without any reason, became jealous of her, and in consequence obliged her to work with him in the brickyard, and only permitted her to return home when his day's work was completed. The poor woman had all her house-work and family to attend to when he was taking his rest. If she ever ventured to complain, then kicks and blows followed, so that her life became a burden to her. My mother felt much compassion for the woman, and, hoping to make her life rather more tolerable, frequently sent for her to assist the servants when additional help was required. During the illness of her husband, conscience told him how wicked he had been to his wife,

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and he then besought her to forgive him. She told him flatly, she would not. Her spirit seemed to rise with her difficulties; and I frequently remember to have heard my mother tell her, her high spirit must be brought down. She had one boy about two years old when her husband died, and on this child all her affection seemed to expend itself. The child used to follow his mother to our house when she came to char, and on one occasion was seen by my mother, who naturally inquired who he was; and on finding it was Hannah's son, ordered him some food. This was so often repeated, that he became one in the kitchen, and, being a gentle child, was something of a favourite with the work-people. The boy could read well for his age, and the Bible was his book. He used to rise in the night, light his candle by the few embers left in the grate, (for they had only one room,) and open his Bible, and read to himself; but when unable to contain his delight and astonishment, he would cry, "O mother! do hear this." The mother was very angry at thus having her rest broken, and in much passion ordered the candle to be put out, and her son to bed. But no sooner was she quiet, than his little gentle voice was heard at a throne of grace, that God would give his dear mother a new heart, and make him a good boy, so that he might work for her when she was old. It often happened that the mother heard all this, and on one occasion she said, "Why do you wish me to have another heart, Tom?" "O pray don't be angry, mother, and I will tell you. You go into passions, you say naughty words; and if I were to shed tears of blood for you would do no good; but God can take your wicked heart away, and give you a good one." "I think," she observed, you had better set up for a parson." "O," he said, "that God would make me a parson! how I would talk to sinners about my book!" Now, this child unfortunately took up a bottle containing poison, and mistaking it for something else, and being very hot and thirsty, he drank so much that he only lived a few hours. Every thing that skill could devise was resorted to, but in vain. To the last he talked to his mother respecting her soul; and the heart that brutal violence could not subdue, was

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almost broken by this sad affliction. After his death, when kept awake by her grief, his gentle voice seemed again to reach her ear; text after text came to her recollection, and brought conviction with them. She now determined to go to church, and became regular in her attendance there. It was some time before she could give her heart to God; but when she did, it was in good earnest. She began to learn her letters, and then to read; and then it was that God by His Spirit made known to her her exceeding sinfulness, and taught her to look to Christ alone as all her hope and all her salvation. Years have passed since she became a changed character. She is now gentle and forgiving, but declares she shall, to her last moment, feel bitterness of spirit because she refused that forgiveness to her husband which God, for His dear Son's sake, has given to her. Poor Hannah has one small room, which contains all her worldly goods. She has, as I said before, an allowance of two shillings and sixpence a week, for fire, food, and clothing. She is neat, very clean, nay, even trim in her appearance; and her cottage is fit for a prince to set his foot in, it is so tidy. She never mentions her poverty unless asked questions about it, and seems mainly anxious to win Christ and be found in Him. Jesus having manifested Himself to her, she knows He has promised to provide for her; He will correct her errors, instruct her mind, feed her soul, and guide her feet. All things necessary to the present life are secured to her, and a boundless inheritance beyond the grave will crown the whole; and though the remembrance of sin and Satan's devices often press down her spirit, yet the Divine words "fear not " bring hope and consolation to her fainting soul. M. B.

EXTRACT FROM A SERMON ON GENESIS iii. 24.

"So he drove out the man."

In this third chapter of the Bible we read the strange reverse of all that holy and happy perfection, which dignified and graced the new-created world. The sin and guilt of man, which rendered inevitable his sad ex

pulsion from the pure scenes and enjoyments of Paradise, are related to us in a manner the most simple, and, on that very account, the most impressive. Here is no labour of words, but a natural statement of an event, which however may be said to have changed the whole state of the world, to have clothed the firmament with sackcloth, and sent man forth, in moral confusion, an exile from that hallowed spot, within which the Author of his being had placed him, a creature of purity and bliss. The commentary on this fearful story was to come afterwards in the detailed account of our fallen world; for up to this present moment the life of every human being has furnished an additional page of confirmation to the ancient truth, that man sinned in eating the forbidden fruit, that he thus incurred the threatened doom of transgression, and that he entailed upon his posterity of mankind, throughout all generations, that corruption which originated with himself. These, brethren, are the considerations, to which I would now draw your at tention; and I must allude, first, to man's sin in eating the forbidden fruit. Sin consists either in omitting what God enjoins, or in committing what God prohibits. Men who are held captive by a vainly curious or profane mind, may be tempted to cavil and doubt respecting the equity of consigning the whole human race to misery and destruction, for what in their carnal ignorance they think to be an act so disproportioned and trivial as that by which man is said to have fallen. But shame on such shallow and corrupt reasoning as this!-the very reasoning of the tempter himself, though in one respect beneath it, for he did attach an importance to the deed, which he suggested to the too credulous woman, when he said, "God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." But, my brethren, the indisputable sovereignty of a creating God should at once put an end to all strife on such a subject as this: it pleased God to select this tree as He might have sefected any other tree, leaving it to stand as a test of man's obedience. There is no allusion to any poisonous quality in the tree itself; it had its proper place among

the trees of the garden: but it was a tree forbidden, without any given reason; accordingly, if the command respecting it had been, "Thou shalt not even look at it," one wilful look would have been as guilty and as fatal as the touch and the taste so soon afterwards proved to be. The fact is, men adopt into their creed the doctrine of the fall as their own apology for sin; they appear to esteem all the frailties of our present nature then incurred, and to us by generation conveyed, as relieving us of responsibility,—as leading us to rest assured of God's connivance at our errors! So long, therefore, as men thus fatally pervert the tenet of original sin, we must treat them as unbelievers of the doctrine, -as though they discarded it altogether; for most certain it is, that the knowledge of truth can never have fairly entered where the principle of its operation has never been felt. With ample warrant, therefore, do the ministers of revealed truth continually dwell on this elementary article of our common faith,-and this from the strong conviction, that our most fatal defects may commonly be found on subjects which we have too much taken for granted, from our youth up! Let us then return awhile to the scene of confusion which took place by the entrance of sin into the world, and contemplate the evil principle in its birth and worst feature, as disobedience to a Divine, express command, - positive, though unexplained. Man came forth from his Maker's hands possessed of conscience, reason, and immortality, with every other imaginable endowment for answering the purposes of his existence, and for keeping within them. And as to enjoyment, he was free to roam unrestricted amid the lavish profusion of Paradise,-unrestricted, save with one exception, of a tree forbidden by that munificent Creator, from whom proceeded a permission so free and unlimited in every other respect. We are accustomed, indeed, to say, that Eve was tempted and deceived, and so she was, most insidiously and fatally, but we must not allow our understanding of these terms to convey the sense of an excuse for our guilty parent. Eve knew her God,-she had heard the Divine command,-she retained it full in her memory,

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