member, after we left Lisbon, how I regretted not having bought more of these baubles? How little did I then think I should so soon leave them behind! Do not these things shew our shortsightedness?" She then presented to a young friend, the daughter of one of the officers, a few of her jewels, accompanied with the most solemn and appropriate advice. It is much to be regretted that the counsels which then fell from her lips, and which so strikingly marked the strength of her mind and the maturity of her grace, have not been preserved.

When speaking to all who approached her dying bed of the uncertainty of life, she more than once said, "Do you not see an instance of it in me? I who was always so healthy, who could have supposed that I had come at last to lay my body here? but the worms will not feed much upon me," holding up her emaciated hands. I mention this to shew how completely her faith in Christ and her bright hope of heaven raised her above all the terrific and humiliating circumstances of her approaching dissolution. The "last enemy" was disarmed of his terrors by her simple yet strong faith in Him who had "abolished death, and had brought life and immortality to light."

She then requested her mamma to allow her to make a few bequests of money to the servants and attendants, expressive of the gratitude which she felt for their attentions during her illness. The first

person she asked to see was Charles, the servant-man. On his approaching her bedside she said, "Charles, are you sorry that I am going to die?" He dropped on his knee, and wept. She then said, "But do not grieve for me; I am going from a world of sin and care to one of unutterable joy. And, Charles, Jesus is willing also to be your Saviour. Oh, look to Him now that you are in good health; and let not the world persuade you that your red coat will prevent you entering into rest. No; Jesus is an all-sufficient Saviour; believe on Him, and taste how gracious the Lord is. Here, take this trifling sum from the hand of your dying young mistress." She then addressed each in a similar strain, exhorting with all the earnestness and solemnity of one standing upon the verge of the eternal world, with expanded wings for glory, to prepare, by repenting of their sins, and believing in the Lord Jesus, for that awful hour. She spake of being a guardian angel to her dear mamma; but emphatically added, “Oh, if God permit me, I will." To her beloved papa she said, “I wish to exact a promise from you. It is a thing near my heart. It is, that you will do everything to console my dear mamma when I am gone. From me she expected much temporal happiness; but the Lord is pleased to withdraw me from her, and she will require your kindness and sympathy." Her papa instantly made the promise; and, by the grace of God, that promise has been faithfully fulfilled. She then requested

that her interment might not be attended with needless expense, adding, "I have necessarily put you to too much already."

About this time she was favoured with the visits of the Rev. Mr, a clergyman of the Church of England, whose evangelical and affectionate ministrations appeared to have consoled her dying hours. On one occasion she asked him, "If the soul appeared before its Maker the moment it leaves the body?" He replied that we have every reason to believe that it did, from what we read in Scripture. For example, what our Lord said to the penitent thief, "Verily, I say unto you, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." She then said, "Ah! that is true! and if my Lord smiles. upon me when I appear before Him, and says, 'Come, thou blessed of my Father,' oh with what ecstasy will I fly into His arms!" and then her bright eye sparkled with joy, and her countenance kindled with a glow of heavenly delight.

That her filial desire may have been gratified-that she may now be a ministering spirit, hovering around those beloved ones who cradled her in infancy, and whose steps, in later life, she guided to the Saviourwe delight to think. There is nothing, we suppose, visionary or speculative in the thought. Our conceptions of the world of glory are far too ideal, our ideas of its inhabitants and their employments far too sha

Luke xxiii. 43.

dowy and vague. The home of the glorified is not so remote from us as we deem it. The "Father's house"

is nearer than we suppose. Heaven itself being not so distant, the "spirits of just men made perfect," who people its blissful regions, are closer to us than we have thought. We move, in fact, through a world of invisible spirits. They cluster around our persons, they crowd upon our path, and they fan us with their wings as they sweep on their errands of mercy and love. Were but the spiritual eye unsealed, as was the prophet's servant's, forms of beauty and "chariots of fire" would be seen trooping around every pilgrim on his way to heaven. And oh! is it fanciful to suppose, is it credulous to believe, is it presumptuous to hope, that among those pure and lovely spirits clustering around us, we should recognise some loved one who once journeyed by our side, soothing our sorrows, and heightening our joys-whose last sickness we nursed, whose dying pillow we smoothed, whose eyes we closed in death, and whose departing spirit we accompanied to the celestial gate,-now "sent forth" to guide us, noiseless and unseen, along our trying and perilous path? The very conception is sanctifying. "seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses," "what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" It may be an inferior, but it is yet a powerful incentive to watchfulness.

For,

+

But suffer not this thought, holy and persuasive as it is, to take the place of that greatest of all motives to holiness," Thou God seest me!"* The consciousness of God's eye resting upon us at every step-that eye, the eye of a Father reconciled in Jesus, and never for one moment withdrawn from us-oh, there is no motive to a holy walk like this. I have set the Lord alway before my face;"+"The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous;" "Thou God seest me;" "Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways," § are declarations deeply solemn and sanctifying to the child of God. What are the eyes of angels and of glorified saints gazing upon us, compared with the eye of the holy God-this God, our God and Father, accepting us, rejoicing over us in Jesus the Son of His love? Oh, to walk beneath the beamings of that eye, as an holy, obedient child, loving what He loves, hating what He hates, and aiming in all things to please and glorify Him! This may be a high and difficult walk, but the grace of Jesus is all-sufficient for it. That grace can make us all that the Lord would have us to be, even "perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect."

We return to the dying young saint. Her affectionate minister took occasion to direct her attention to some of those "exceeding great and precious promises"

*Gen. xvi. 13.

Psalm xvi. 8.

Psalm xxxiv. 15.

§ Psalm cxxxix. 3.