avail; and we saw that it was not. Day after day he altered. At first he borrowed books of us, but his eyes soon failed too much to allow of his reading; or the broad volume, whose large type favoured the weak sight, was too heavy for the feeble hand. His form became day by day more bent, and his steps slower.

"He was wearing awa,

Like a snaw-wreath in thaw;"

and we knew not how to press his remaining at a distance from his own home. He left us: the following lines were written that day; they have nothing but their feeling to plead for their insertion, but I do not think they can want that.

Here then we part-a little while;

Thus far we came toward Jordan's shore,
Heard the weak tone, lov'd the kind smile,
And look'd till we might look no more.

Farewell! that face by nature's care
So finely cast in choicest mould;
The forehead high, the shadowy hair,—
'Tis ours no longer to behold.

And 'tis our pleasant task no more
The sunny path with thee to tread;
For thee the cooling draught to pour,
Or gently the low couch to spread.

We 've mark'd the graceful form decline,
Hour after hour, and day by day;
Seen dread disease life's bonds untwine,
By an unmark'd yet sure decay.

Hope says, "Thine health and life may be,
And years of joy for days of pain :"
Christian, it matters not to thee;
To live is Christ, to die is gain!

Life has a thousand hopes to give,
A thousand blessings to bestow;
And thou, I know, wouldst joy to live,
Or, if thy Father bids, to go.

Farewell, farewell! all homeward bound,
With sails full set, gales fair and free;
Depths are beneath and breakers round,-
Lord, hold the helm, and safe are we !

Little it matters thus to part,

The same our way-the same our shore;
One Lord, one life, one hope, one heart,
One meeting;-and friends part no more.

I was reading yesterday an account of the execution of the noble Earl of Derby, during the civil wars. The historian relates that his Lordship caused the block to be turned, that he might look towards the church, saying, "Whilst I am here I will look toward thy holy sanctuary, and

I know that within a few minutes I shall behold thee, my God and King, in thy sanctuary above; under the shadow of thy wings shall be my rest, until this calamity be overpast." No doubt such attachment was called bigotry then,-I am sure it would be called such now. Yet there are some hearts still in which it exists; and one of its effects, as I have seen it, is to give strength and stability to the character. These men, not being double-minded, are not unstable in their ways; they meddle not with those who are given to change, and therefore are not carried away with every wind of doctrine. Some such feeling existed in my friend's mind.

Every church was

dear to him, as a place in which God's honour dwelt; but the one in which he had at first listened to the message of salvation, and which in weakness and weariness he constantly attended, was an object of veneration and love to him, in a way of which many-not on other points coldhearted-could not by any means conceive. And he not only loved the beautiful old Gothic building; but the low, gloomy, city church-yard, so cumbered with dead, and so shadowed by melancholy and wretched looking houses, was interesting and dear to him. "This is my bed

chamber," he frequently said, as he walked up and down there with a dear friend; and pointing to the stone under which his mother slept, "That is my bed." "I should like," he once added, "to be buried on a Saturday, at one o'clock, because then all my boys would be at leisure to come to my funeral if they pleased." "I would not be buried any where but here, if I could have my choice, on any account; and you cannot conceive," he said once to me, "with what delight I sometimes think of the morning of the resurrection, and fancy one and another, GH- and F-,"—and he named some of the school-boys whom he had reason to hope had become Christians through his means, and were now waiting for him in heaven-" rising up about me, and meeting, and knowing me."

I believe that this strong desire to be laid to rest in this particular spot was one reason for his taking a step, which, considering his state of health, appeared rather extraordinary. "Poor Mr. H ," said a friend to me, as we were walking in our garden one sweet evening that summer,-I turned to hear that he was dead"Mr. H- is going to be married." I cannot say how much we were all astonished. At first

we were disposed to blame; but when we considered that he was again earnestly advised to seek change of air at a great distance from home; that his mother, who should have waited and watched by her dying son's bed, had been long in her grave; and that he had no sister who could accompany him ;-when we thought of his weakness, and felt how much he needed a kind hand-and a woman's hand-to smooth his pillow, and to make his bed in his last sickness; how could we wonder at his request to his betrothed wife to go with him; or how could any one-any Christian woman at least-believe that she ought to have refused. There was, however, no clinging to earth; no latent seeking for happiness here, in his forming this new and dearest connexion. "Most people marry to live," he said, "I am marrying to die."

After the day of his marriage and his sailing were fixed, for they were going by a steampacket to a port at some distance-I went to take leave of him. How very affectionately, how cheerfully, he received us. There he lay on his sofa, worn almost to a shadow; but with more beaming eyes, a lovelier smile, and a brighter complexion, than ever;-and so thank

F