at all seasons it is good; but in the days of our distress, what a privilege it is! Well saith the sacred book, Trust in the Lord; at all times trust in the Lord!' When every other support fails us, when the fountains of worldly comfort are dried up, let us then seek those living waters which flow from the throne of God. 'Tis only from the belief of the goodness and wisdom of a Supreme Being that our calamities can be borne in that manner which becomes a man. Human wisdom is here of little use; for, in proportion as it bestows comfort, it represses feeling, without which we may cease to be hurt by calamity, but we shall also cease to enjoy happiness. I will not bid you be insensible, my friends. I cannot, if I would." His tears flowed afresh. "I feel too much myself, and I am not ashamed of my feelings; but therefore may I the more willingly be heard; therefore have I prayed God to give me strength to speak to you, to direct you to him, not with empty words, but with these tears, not from speculation, but from experience, that while you see me suffer you may know also my consolation. You behold the mourner of his only child, the last earthly stay and blessing of his declining years. Such a child too! It becomes not me to speak of her virtues; yet it is but gratitude to mention them, because they were exerted toward myself. Not many days ago you saw her young, beautiful, virtuous, and happy. Ye who are parents will judge of my felicity then; ye will judge of my affliction now. But I look toward him who struck me; I see the hand of a father amidst the chastenings of my God. Oh! could I make you feel what it is to pour. out the heart, when it is pressed down with many sor

rows, to pour it out with confidence to him in whose hands are life and death, on whose power awaits all that the first enjoys, and in contemplation of whom disappears all that the last can inflict. For we are not as those who die without hope; we know that our Redeemer liveth, that we shall live with him, with our friends, his servants, in that blessed land where sorrow is unknown, and happiness is endless as it is perfect. Go, then, mourn not for me; I have not lost my child; but a little while, and we shall meet again, never to be separated. But ye are also my children: would ye that I should not grieve without comfort? So live as she lived, that, when your death cometh, it may be the death of the righteous, and your latter end like his."

Such was the exhortation of La Roche: his audience answered it with their tears. The good old man had dried up his at the altar of the Lord: his countenance had lost its sadness and assumed the glow of faith and hope. Mr. followed him into his house. The inspiration of the pulpit was past; at sight of him, the scenes they had last met in rushed again on his mind; La Roche threw his arms around his neck, and watered it with his tears. The other was equally affected. They went together, in silence, into the parlor, where the evening service was wont to be performed. The curtains of the organ were open; La Roche started back at the sight.

Oh! my friend!" said he, and his tears burst forth again.

Mr. had now recollected himself; he stepped forward, and drew the curtains close. The old man wiped

off his tears, and taking his friend's hand, "You see my weakness," said he, "'t is the weakness of humanity; but my comfort is not therefore lost."

"I heard you," said the other, "in the pulpit; I rejoice that such consolation is yours."

"It is, my friend," said he; " and I trust I shall ever hold it fast. If there are any who doubt our faith, let them think of what importance religion is to calamity, and forbear to weaken its force. If they cannot restore our happiness, let them not take away the solace of our affliction."

Mr. 's heart was smitten, and I have heard him, long after, confess that there were moments when the remembrance overcame him even to weakness; when, amidst all the pleasures of philosophical discovery and the pride of literary fame, he recalled to his mind the venerable figure of the good La Roche, and wished that he had never doubted.

HAT is to be thought of sudden death? It is remarkable that, in different conditions of society, it has been variously regarded as the consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, and on the other hand, as that consummation which is most of all to be deprecated. Cæsar the Dictator, at his last dinner-party (cena), and the very evening before his assassination, being questioned as to the mode of death which, in his opinion, might seem the most eligible, replied, "That which should be most sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our English Church, when breathing forth supplications, as if in some representative character for the whole human race prostrate before God, places such a death in the very van of horrors. "From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death, - Good Lord, delirer us." Sudden death is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calamities; it is the last of curses; and yet, by the noblest of Romans, it was treated as the first of blessings.

In that difference, most readers will see little more than the difference between Christianity and Paganism. But there I hesitate. The Christian Church may be right in its estimate of sudden death; and it is a natural feeling, though after all it may also be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life, as that which seems most reconcilable with meditation, with penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, however, occur to me any direct Scriptural warrant for this earnest petition of the English Litany. It seems rather a petition indulged to human infirmity, than exacted from human piety. And, however that may be, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which else may wander, and has wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The first is this that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death (I mean the objective horror to him who contemplates such a death, not the subjective horror to him who suffers it), from the false disposition to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by an accident they have become words or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But that is unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not, habitually a drunkard. If not, if his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be no reason at all for allowing special emphasis to this act, simply because through misfortune it became his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one of his habitual transgressions, will it be the more