often felt your little arms twine round my very heart, and found your lisping tongues fill me with sensations of delight which none but a parent knows, yet, these purest of human joys and affections, fade away before the thought of that transport with which I should embrace your ransomed souls, in the presence of a redeeming and a sanctifying God." The family were all moved by the affecting energy with which he spoke. The tattered bed shook with the sobbing children who were gathered round it, and the old man, exhausted by the effort of pious affection, sank on his pillow. Sephora now rose to go; it was so late that she did not dare to leave her mother longer. She took Nicanor's hand to bid him farewell; and felt that when they next met, it would be to part no more. He thanked her for all she had done for him; and added, “I have never seen you, my benefactress ; but when we meet in heaven, I think I shall distinguish your voice among the seraphs." He then begged he might place his hand on her head, and give her his blessing. She immediately unloosed the turban that confined her long dark hair; threw off the wimple she had just cast over it, and knelt down to receive his last words, while he strengthened himself once more to rise from his dying pillow, and stretched forth his sinewy but emaciated arm, that shook almost to convulsions between the contending claims of life and death. His trembling hand rested at length upon her head: he raised his sightless eyes to heaven, while the tears that dropped from them found a well-known channel down his furrowed cheek, and hung like the gem of sincerity and pity in his hoary beard. A silence of some minutes succeeded; it was not as if he laboured for thought, but for words to give it utterance. His heart overflowed with blessings for her; but it was some time before his faultering tongue could slowly pronounce this benediction: "May the blessing of him who now stands on the confines of the invisible world, who sees clearly the vanity of all that is passing from him, and the glory of all that is before him-who waits but the beck of the AImighty to pass over the threshold of eternity--may his blessing descend upon thine head, and flow down to thy children's children. "Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain; but may the Lord make thee that virtuous woman, whose price is far above rubies. May he pour his Spirit upon thy seed, and his blessing on thine offspring, and give thee a name better than of sons or of daughters, even an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And in that day when he makes up his jewels, mayest thou be found in his crown of glory, and shine with heavenly lustre in his diadem of beauty, as the brightness of the firmament for ever. I know the thoughts that he thinks towards thee; thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give thee a desired end. He maketh sore and bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands make whole : though he show thee great and deadly trouble, yet shall he turn again and look upon thee, so that thou shalt forget all thy misery, or remember it as the waters that have passed away. The son of righteousness' shall arise with healing on his wing, and thine eyes shall behold that blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in that light no mortal can approach." The old man now became silent; his hand still rested on her head, but its tremblings had ceased. She thought it was the pause of death, and arose from her knees to look on his countenance; but the last enemy could boast no conquest there. A holy calm sat on his features, and his whole frame seemed motionless with heavenly joy. "Can it derogate from the majesty of our God, to suppose that he sometimes meets the trembling spirit on this side heaven, overshadowing it with those encompassing beams of mercy in which it is to dwell through all eternity?-May not Nicanor's soul be now entranced by some faint and distant vision of that glory, into which it is so soon to enter?" These were Sephora's thoughts, as she looked at death's inverted power, thus strikingly displayed in the beatific being who |