most loved to hear are hushed; and return to the scenes of my youth when I may, there will be few of all I once knew and loved, to greet me on the streets, or whose voices shall ever more be heard in my dwelling.

"They are all gone into a world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove;

Or those faint beams in which the hill is drest,
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days;
My days, which are at best, but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmerings and decays.

Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just,
Shining no where but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark." *

But this is not the time to indulge in private sorrow. During my sojourn here, I feel like a tree, that, having been torn up by the roots, is transplanted, and begins again to take root, and to put forth some green leaves.

Never did the weary mariner cast his anchor in calm water more joyfully, than I did mine in Knockdailie; and never did the mariner turn his ship's head to the sea and the storm more unwillingly than I shall be to go forth your father's house; but the day when I must do so is not far distant. My master had work for me here, but it is done, and I am daily expecting to

* Vaughan.

hear him say, "Arise and go hence." I have been long a dead man to clay and time, but this is not enough, I must be able to add, "nevertheless I live." It is yet called "to-day," and I must continue to work. When the sun sets, and the shadows are stretched out, then shall I get home. When the ship enters the harbour, the passengers will get to land; when the autumn comes, the fruit will fall of its own accord from the tree. Let us only work and wait, and all will be well. I forsee that a hard time awaits us; but if our cross be green, we have not far to carry it; it is only to the grave, on the edge of which we are already standing. Bonds and imprisonments" may await us, as they did the apostle, "Come, and welcome," be our cry. The first cast of the soul's eye on the land that is yet afar off, that blessed land, where all are "kings," and "priests," and "first-born," and on Him its flower and jewel-the first draught of its waters of life, fresh and new from the well-head of eternity, will make amends for all. Your father's health, as you have heard from Alison, is, I am grieved to add, daily declining; somuch so, that you need not be surprised, should you soon hear from him recalling you home.

66

125

CHAPTER VIII.

MY RETURN HOME.

Our

It was not many weeks after I had received the above letter, that I received the summons home, which I was daily expecting, and for which it had in part prepared me. On obtaining Mr. Innes' consent, I hastened to Rowallan Place, and took sorrowful leave of the Rowallan's. separation, we hoped, was but for a short time. Heaven had ordained it otherwise. In the course of two days solitary travel, I came in sight of the old trees that sheltered my native roof. Every thing, as I drew near, seemed to wear an air of supernatural stillness. My heart sunk. The windows were darkened, the doors were shut. As I stood there, afraid to enter, the door was opened by Ringan Craigie, an old and confidential servant, who had grown gray in the service of his master.

66

Patrick," said the old man, his voice faultering, and his eyes filling with tears, "you are come, but it is too late to see Knockdailie."

He had departed an hour before-about the setting of the sun. Though in some measure prepared to expect this, I was stunned at the intelligence. I wept like a child, and cried aloud in the bitterness of my soul. My mother heard the voice of my weeping, and I soon found myself locked in her embraces. My mother was a woman of strong sense as well as of deep piety,

and bore her loss with great firmness; her countenance was sorrow-stricken, but she was perfectly calm. Alison was resigned, but not so calm. She fell on my neck and wept.

"Patrick," she said, "we are orphans and fatherless, and our mother is a widow.”

When the first wild burst of grief had subsided, I learned the circumstances of my father's death, and, what was of greatest interest of all, that he had finished his course in joy; that he had departed this life not only in peace, but in the triumphant assurance of a better. He who had never forgotten me living, did not forget me when he lay a-dying.

"Tell Patrick," said he, "that my soul has been given me for a prey, that my prayers for myself and for him have been all answered, and that though I shall not see him in the face here, I hope to meet him before the throne."

Calling my mother and Alison to his bed-side, and addressing my mother by her maiden name, he said, "Alison Glendinning, we must at last part. In you and in my dear children my heart, I fear, has been sinfully bound up: the ties which bound me to you, God is now gently loosening. I am no longer yours-but weep not. Behold I die, but God will be with you, I have been seeking Him on your account. He has heard me, and has said to me, 'Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widow trust in me.' Alison Glendinning, are you satisfied to take the Lord for your Husband?"

66

I am satisfied," said my mother.

And you, my sweet Alison Welwood," he continued, "are you satisfied with the Father of the fatherless, can you take him at his word?"

"I have had good cause to do so hitherto," said

Alison, "He will be as good as His word, He will never leave us, He will never forsake us. When father and mother leave us, I believe that the Lord will take us up."

"I can now," said my father,

to the wall, and die in peace.

"turn my face Lord," he added, I leave them on thee, I die in the assurance that thou wilt keep them while they are in the world, and that though we part now, we shall meet where parting is unknown." Soon after, having served his own generation, by the will of God he fell asleep.

Four days after my return, he was carried to the grave amid the regrets of all who knew him, and was laid in the burying place of his fathers.

"God setteth the solitary in families;" how simple are these words of holy writ, but how beautiful and affecting. They fall on the ear, they touch the heart like a sweet strain of music. How beautiful also and how beautifying the arrangement which they describe the familyform of humanity! What a centre of light and love is a human family! how pure, deep, and enduring is family affection! Others may love us for what we have or what we have done, our kindred love us for what we are; others may forsake us, our kindred scarcely ever do. Family affection endures when all else decays and dies. Many waters cannot quench, many floods cannot drown it. How powerful the attractions and how hallowed the associations of the family home! It is not even when we are preparing to leave; it is when we are far distant, and when we have been long absent from it, that we come to know the strength and the sweetness of its spells. Yet, alas! if family affections be the sweetest, family afflictions are the sorest. This