and he was a corpse! If any thing could have mitigated my affliction for such a loss—if any balm would have allayed the inexpressible pain of my heart—I might have drawn comfort from the truly religious manner in which he closed a life wherein the love of God and neighbour had shone bright and glorious. He was attended by a clergyman of our own Church; a pious feeling gentleman, who performed all his offices with true Christian charity, and only ceased to speak the words of consolation and precept to myself, when the vessel was unmoored in which I left England. I determined from the first moment after the stunning effects of my dear partner's death had subsided, to return to Ireland. It seemed to my poor weakened brain, as if every enjoyment I should have at Workington would be an offence against his memory and love. I knew I was very wrong—and bitterly, most bitterly, do I lament my folly. I came in a coal vessel, and had a tedious passage to Belfast. While there, the Lord laid his hand on me once more. First, my little baby, an infant of four months old, died of convulsions, with scarcely any previous illness, the day after we landed. I waited one other day to see the little innocent decently interred, intending to set out on the morning after ; but even while I stood beside the grave of my child, I was seized with shivering fits, and before night became so unwell, that the people of the house where I lodged, alarmed by the appearance, insisted on removing me to the hospital. They abandoned this intention only on learning that that receptacle already overflowed, and could admit no more patients. Still, on finding the necessity they were under, they treated me and my children with all possible tenderness. Next day the fever showed itself in its plain character. In this dreadful disease I lay for three long weeks, during a part of which I was either insensible or delirious; and when I became convalescent, I was greatly annoyed by the return of hysteric attacks, even while I ding to set out the little i which a fright I met with at the birth of my poor baby had occasioned. As soon as I was able, and much sooner than it was prudent for me to travel, I commenced my journey with these poor children. Though I had practised all economy, and experienced much consideration at Belfast, my resources in money, and what arose from the sale of my clothes, were totally exhausted. I left a town wherein I had suffered so much affliction, with tenpence only in my pocket, and with seventy long miles to accomplish before I should reach the end of my journey, -namely, the residence of my mother—a woman far advanced in years, and labouring under many infirmities. Weak as I still find myself, and with these poor children to drag along with me, we have been unable to get forward in the direct line of our journey more than about five miles each day, and perhaps may walk nearly two more through fields and lanes seeking support and shelter for the night; which latter, the dwellers by the wayside have uniformly refused, and those in more retired situations only grant in their outhouses, such is the prevailing fear that wanderers like us may carry infection. This is the sixth day since we began our pilgrimage ; to-morrow, as your Reverence knows, will be the Sabbath. Neither I nor my children have tasted a morsel of food since this time yesterday; and although we have not been refused by any poor body'' - My fair autobiographer laid no emphasis upon the words, but my own conscience pointed them. The blood rushed into my cheeks like a fiery flood of lava; they seemed to swell as if the skin must burst; and eyes and forehead were equally burning. “ Although,” she said, “ we have not been refused by any poor body, yet they often gave us only one potatoe, and that sometimes a small one. With such store, collected during the day, we purchased a night's lodging, and supported nature as we best might. This day has been the most unsuccessful of all, while a double need was before me. You, sir, have seen what has happened to my little provision for the morrow." She ceased, completely worn out, but evidently aware that her history had interested me, and that some attention was reserved for her for one night at least. I need not add, that her expectations were justified by the event. I lodged the wanderers in a cottage about a hundred paces distant from my own house. It was requisite to observe considerable caution in administering food to the entire party. Even the mother herself, when relieved from the burthen of care which oppressed her, seemed to forget the prudence which her delicate state of health demanded, and would have devoured, rather than eaten, whatever was set before her as ravenously as the most famished of her children. I attributed this greediness to the hysterical affection under which she laboured, and which I now perceived had caused the wild smile which had well nigh hardened my heart against all pity for her distress. On further acquaintance, I discovered that she had been brought up partly by religious parents, but more importantly, as it affected her ideas and manners, in the house of a very worthy gentleman's family, chiefly in the capacity of a sempstress. Rather with their consent than approbation, she married the miner, who established himself in a small farm under his wife's patrons. For some years they lived prosperously enough; but at length misfortunes overtook them; and after struggling with adversity as long as he could, he took the step with which the reader of this story is made already acquainted. The three children came uninvited on the following day to my Sabbath-school. They were all more or less instructed in the Catechism of the Church of England, and habituated, as they assured me, to morning and evening devotion. They were, indeed, interesting manifestations of the value of maternal care and piety. Their mother and they attended Divine service, being somewhat improved in their apparel by the extempore contributions of my wife, whose wardrobe furnished a motley raiment to the semi-nudes. In apparent interest in the work of prayer, and in the word preached, nothing could surpass this poor creature's demeanour. The subject of my discourse bore occasional reference to the distress of the period, and therefore necessarily to the long separations of death. Many a fast-flowing tear fell from her wan cheek as the sad topic was discussed. Alas! they flowed or fell not without cause. Behind her was the memory of lost happiness—before, a dark and melancholy future. Yet, I believe, she rested her hope where true joys are to be found, and, I trust, did there find a blessed substitute for those transitory pleasures she was no longer to experience here. Monday morning came, and she insisted on resuming her journey. We did what we could to dissuade her ; but in vain-she would go. I was half-vexed at this obstinacy, and expostulated with her without effect. Her principal reasons, or I should rather say answers, were sobs. But she was not insensible to our kindness. If there be in gratitude a mixture of inexplicable pain-and I believe it so to be—even in that pleasurable sentiment my poor friend felt it to the full. Perhaps it was the strife of contending recollections that worked so powerfully in her mind, and gave to her first efforts at acknowledgment an insurmountable hesitation ; perhaps, indeed, the still lingering hysteria impeded her expression, for she remained silent during many minutes of our leave-taking. The spirit and the heart seemed in prayer, as her weeping bore witness. At length the tongue found utterance, and with much composure she thanked us for all the benevolence we had bestowed upon her, in terms of deep sensibility which I shall never forget. She asked my blessing supplication in my behalf, for which they all knelt. The parting has been, I trust, not without instruction to myself; it certainly ought to have profited me, for it was entirely of a Christian character. On leaving, she gave me the address of the respectable family with whom she had lived in early life, requesting that I would inquire from them concerning the truth of her story. Of that I had no doubt; but after herself I might with much reason have sought for some intelligence. I intended to have done so, but neglected it; other incidents intersened, particularly at that calamitous period—other cares engrossed my attention, and my poor guest of two nights was overlooked in the “ melee.” Time has slipped away, and I have failed to fulfil an intention which, at the moment when I formed it, was very near my heart. I trust and hope that the trials of her who was the object of it may have been sanctified to her immortal good; and I pray that no impatience may ever again cause me to “turn my face from any poor man.”- Pastoral Annals. CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. “ Give me a calm and thankful heart, From every murmur free; And make me live to thee.” Contentment, as it is one of the most exalted, so is it one of the most difficult, of all the Christian graces, to attain. It is no more the offspring of abundance than of want. It grows not in the abodes of luxury and ease any more than in the hovels of suffering and sorrow. It is a state of mind totally different from apathy or disregard to our circumstances--as it is from the reckless hardihood of infidelity, which leads a person to sit down in sullen indifference, as if under the irresistible control of fate. Genuine contentment is a sweet satisfaction of |