Oh, sir, what should I have done without it? It is not my own. My eyes are, with illness, anxiety, and tears, too weak for a small print: I borrowed this Bible of a neighbour. It has been food to my body as well as to my soul. nave often passed many hours without any nourishment, but I have read this blessed book, till I have forgotten my hunger.' Sometime after this the poor woman died, literally worn down and exhausted with want and anxiety; but the night before she expired, the consolations of the holy Scriptures shone in her countenance. She spoke of her dissolution with a smile of sacred triumph; enumerated her pious ancestors and acquaintance, with whom she trusted shortly to unite in joy and felicity; and seemed, as it were, to feel the saying brought to pass, which is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'

Read this, and be still. Read this, and learn that there is no weight of sorrow under which genuine faith in God's word, cannot sustain you.

9. Make another comparison, I mean between your losses and trials, as a woman, and your mer

es and gains as a christian. Here, say you, is the grave of my dear husband,—there, I say, is the cross, the grave, the throne of your Redeemer. Here, say you, is his vacant seat at my table, his vacant place at my side, his vacant chair at my hearth-there is God, with his smiling countenance, his heart of love, his covenant of grace, his all-sufficient resources, to fill the vacuum. Here, say you, is the weight of

woe and care pressing upon my heart, like a dead unsupportable load-but there is not the burden of unpardoned sin, sinking down your soul to the bottomless pit. Here, say you, is now my gloomy house -there is the house of your God, always inhabited by his gracious presence. Here, say you. I am a forlorn creature upon earth, having lost all that rendered the world delightful-there is heaven glowing like a brilliant firmament over your head, into which your departed husband has entered, and where you will soon join him in glory everlasting. Think how many widows there are, who have no covenant God to go to; no consolations of the Spirit to sustain them; no pleasure in the Bible or in prayer to soothe them. You, even you, ought to rejoice in a present Saviour and a future heaven. All the attributes of God, all the offices of Christ, all the consolations of the Spirit, all the promises of scripture, all the blessings of grace, all the prospects of glory remain to be set over against your loss: and is not this enough?

CHAPTER III

INSTRUCTION.

God is the best and only infallible teacher. "None teacheth like him." He delivereth his lessons in various ways, and through different mediums. The Scriptures, of course, contain the fullest and clearest revelation of his will; but these are corroborated and illustrated by the works of nature, and the dispensations of Providence. Events are pregnant with instruction. "Hence," saith the prophet, "the Lord's voice cometh unto the city: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it." Yes, every rod, as well as every word, has a voice; and it becomes us to listen to it. Afflicted woman, read the lessons which Providence has inscribed in dark characters on the tomb of your husband. It may be that God is saying to you, “I spake unto thee in thy prosperity, but thou saidst I will not hear; this hath been thy manner from youth that thou obeyedst not my voice." Jer. xxii. 21. Taken up with the enjoyment of the dear objects to be found in a quiet and comfortable home, you withheld your heart from God. You neither loved, served. enjoyed, nor glorified him as the end of your existence.

Your husband was your idol, the stay and prop of your mind: and now God, who is a jealous God, and will not endure a rival, has removed the object of that supreme attachment, which ought to have been placed on him; and in language which derives additional weight and solemnity from being uttered over the sepulchre, saith "I am God, and there is none else. Thou shalt have none other God besides me; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, and heart, and soul, and strength." This is his demand now, and it always was. It is not only what he says, now in the wilderness into which he has driven you, but what he said when you walked in the Eden of your earthly delight, and felt that your husband was to you as the tree of life in the midst of the garden. Now then open your ear, and hear the voice of his Providence. read the lessons which, as I have said, are inscribed on that tomb, which contains all that was dearest to you on earth. Desire to learn; be willing to learn; and much is needed to be learnt from the sorrowful scenes through which you have been, and still are called to pass. When God takes such methods to teach, surely you should be willing to learn; and it may be that it is his intention to make up to you by spiritual instruction and consolation, if you will receive it, the loss he has called you to sustain of temporal comfort.

Open your eye and

1. Are you not most impressively reminded of the evil of sin?

What could more affectingly illustrate this, than the deep sorrow which has fallen upon you? If the magnitude of an evil may be ascertained by the inagnitude of its effects, what must sin be, which nas produced such consequences, as those you have witnessed. What agonies it has inflicted, what ties it has rent asunder, what desolation it has made, what scenes it has produced, that widowed mother, those helpless, perhaps portionless babes, that gloomy house, those flowing tears too well proclaim! And what is the cause? Sin. "Sin entered into the world, and death by sin: so death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Yes; death with all its consequences, are the bitter fruits of sin. Had not man sinned he had been immortal. Every instance of death is the infliction of a penalty; for "the wages of sin is death." Think of what sin has robbed you. Calculate the mischief which it has wrought in your desolate abode. What has made you a widow? Sin. What has made your children fatherless? Sin. And think of the millions who are at this moment, in similar sad and melancholy circumstances. God is benevolent, and doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men; and yet he is perpetually multiplying widows and orphans by the ravages of death. How evil must sin be in his sight, when he takes this method of showing his abhorrence of it; when he has fixed this penalty to it. And then this is only the first death, a mere type and symbol of that more painful "second death," which