genial warmth, rejoices in the light which it affords him, and prosecutes his journey with pleasure. At other times he is like a traveller in a dark night: the moon and the stars are to him invisible ; dangers stand thick around him, and he is in momentary expectation of perishing. By and by, however, the sun revisits the earth; the traveller hails his appearance with joy, and again aided by his friendly beams, presses onward to the end of his journey.

The soldier confides in the general, who has often before led him on to victory: the seaman depends on the skill of the experienced pilot : and former instances of attachment from a friend beget fresh confidence in his fidelity. So Samuel, in the case before us, not only reverts to past instances of the Divine goodness, but looks forward with a full expectation of future support in every season of trial.

The Christian, in an hour of difficulty, may sometimes be compared to a person who has to mount a hill, which is very steep and rugged in its ascent, and causes him often to fear lest he should never arrive at the summit. But when he surveys his past Ebenezers, and contemplates the help he then experienced, he can look forward to approaching difficulties and say, “Who art thou, o great mountain ? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.” (Zech. iv. 7.) And when called to pass the swellings of Jordan, he may boldly say, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?” (1 Cor. xv. 55.)

To conclude.—The subject is calculated to afford encouragement to Christians who are now in the midst of trouble; and to those who have reason to expect that they may shortly meet with tribulation, either of an outward or of an inward nature. They are under the care of Jesus, the great Captain of salvation, and through him hey shall do valiantly, and come off more than conquerors. And those Christians who are just emerging from any trouble, will do well to erect a fresh Ebenezer of gratitude and praise.

THE STARVING FAMILY.

AN IRISH SCENE.

At the period when I took possession of my new residence, the results of the late disastrous season were beginning to develope themselves in varied forms of horror. Who that remembers the summer of the year 1817, will say that the scenes of distress and suffering which marked its progress have yet been effaced from his mind ? The unparalleled inclemency of the weather during many months, had produced sickness and famine among the lower orders, beyond all former example. On a beautiful evening in July, I had walked to visit a family living about a mile distant from my residence, every one of whom, eight in number, had been attacked by the scourge of the time-typhus fever. Three of them had passed into “ the land where all things are forgotten.” The remaing five were in various stages of convalescence, but still avoided by the great majority of their neighbours, and so feeble as to be entirely incapable of providing for their livelihood. As I proceeded slowly through the picturesque lanes which led to their humble habitation, I met several of the rustic population, whose pale and emaciated countenances betokened, in lines not to be mistaken, the silent ravages of famine and disease. Some were anxiously surveying the early potatoe crop, as if they hoped, by looking on it, to accelerate the growth. All seemed weak and dispirited, and replied to the language of kindness or friendship with which I addressed them, in tones of profound melancholy. My own mind caught the contagious sadness of the hour; so that when I reached the object of my excursion, I felt a species of inert despondency quite foreign to my general habit.

In this frame of mind I commenced my instructions at the door of the cottage of the sick family, who sat or stood around me. We had scarcely begun our devotions, when they were disturbed by the approach of a female, followed by three children between the ages of eight and four; she herself appeared somewhat under thirty, and was remarkably handsome. Without regarding my occupation, she hastily, and with a wild vigour of importunity, asked alms; the children lifting up their voices in concert, and seemingly bent on forcing their way into the house. Whether the interruption offended me, or that the eager stare and inexplicable smile of this very comely young woman inspired me with opinions prejudicial to her character, I could not accurately define to myself, but certain it is, that her presence disturbed the train of thought I most desired to cherish; and I therefore ordered her to withdraw, with some rather severe remarks upon the intrusion she had been guilty of. She retired without uttering a word of remonstrance or apology, merely repeating the strange smile which had so struck me when she first solicited charity. She was not yet out of sight, when the stings of conscience began to work painfully within me. I ceased to pray, and asked my sick friends if they thought the woman was an impostor. They answered with one consent, that they were firmly persuaded of the contrary; that they thought she appeared in a state of faintness from absolute starvation-was no practised beggar or vagrant, and a stranger they had never seen before. It was besides evident, though they did not say so, that they disapproved of my conduct in dismissing my afflicted sister so abruptly. I therefore bid an instant good-night to the cottagers, and followed the poor wanderer. The winding nature of the path, enclosed on either side by a high hedge of hawthorn, enabled me to pursue my way unperceived; and from

the same cause, the little band of mendicants was concealed from my view. I knew, however, that I was on the track they had taken, and proceeded confidently for about four hundred yards without coming in sight of the object of my chase. At that moment a sudden exclamation of distress struck upon my ear. The shriek—oh ! how loud and shrill it sounded !-was undoubtedly from the mother; and the mingled wail of young sorrow revealed the companions of her disaster. I hastened to the spot, fearing that they might be attacked by some dog, of which many in a half-famished state prowled through the country in quest of food. Arriving quickly at a low stile, which led from the lane by a field path to a group of cabins, a scene presented itself so surpassingly affecting, that, as God's will ordained that my eyes should behold it, so I pray that His grace may preserve it for ever uneffaced, undimmed, unchanged, in my heart. In the field, at a few paces beyond the stile I have spoken of, knelt and prayed, with streaming eyes and uplifted hands, the young mother. And thus she spoke :—“Father of the fatherless, and God of the widow !"—these were her very words—" hast Thou brought me so far through misery and temptation, to forsake me now?” I might perhaps have heard more, but I could not refrain from pressing forward, and asking the cause of her new distress. She made no reply; but smiling as before, showed me her empty apron, and pointed to her children. The occasion of her grief was now apparent. It seemed that she had fallen, from pure weakness, in stepping over the stile. The produce of the alms-seeking of a long summer day, consisting of about a dozen of potatoes, was scattered on the grass. A flock of geese, scarcely less hungry than herself, promptly seized the poor provision, and fled away. The children engaged in fruitless pursuit—the mother, addressed a not unheeded prayer to the footstool of the Divine throne.

Such was the sight, then, presented to my eyes ;—such it still remains, ever abiding in my recollection. More than twenty years have elapsed since the incident occurred. I have related it to many friends; I have thought on it with a frequency that would have rendered any other subject faded and irksome; but yet I am firmly persuaded that this one scene-one amidst the varied multiplicity of life's chequerings—is destined of God never to be obliterated from my memory-never to diminish in freshness or in force. It seems traced as by an iron pen upon the tablets of my very soul, to remain while life and faculties shall endure.

I questioned the poor woman, whom I made sit down on the grass beside me, as to where she had come from, whither she was going, and her name. She told me that " she was an inhabitant of a remote part of the county of

- ; that she had gone over with her husband and children, about three months before, to Workington, in the hope that the former would find employment in the coalpits, where he had on previous occasions laboured. She was herself well skilled in needle-work, and a tolerable laundress; and they calculated, between their joint earnings, to bring up their family in comfort and decency. But God,” she said—and profound was her anguish as she pronounced the sentence—“God, in his unsearchable counsels, had decreed otherwise. My dear kind husband, too good for a sinner like me, was carried off by fever in less than a month after we landed in England. We had already begun to thrive. My dear departed John, on the day he sickened, brought home to this little boy a child's whistle—this, Sir, which you see (for the children had grouped around us)—saying, "here, namesake, I have laid out twopence of my earnings to amuse you; but you must not play on it till to-morrow, for my head is like to split asunder from pain.' Alas ! alas ! that morrow came, and dear, dear John, was in a raging fever !--six days more