poor friend. He had died the same hour, and on the same day as that on which I had received his last letter; and thus had I another intimation that life "is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

Those who have seen me latterly, may have observed a ring on my finger. It is not likely that such an appendage would have been placed there by any other cause than the loss of a friend. I wear it at the request of a saint in heaven, who, with an humble spirit, trod an humble path through life it has inscribed upon it her last intelligible words to me, "Bless the Lord, O my soul;" and serves me as an additional monitor, reminding me that "there is an appointed time to man upon earth." It was an affecting circumstance that this aged pilgrim could not finish the text she began-" Bless the Lord, O my soul," said she, and then failed. I added the words, " And all that is within me, bless his holy name."

Many weeks have not passed since I wrote to a youthful invalid relative. Though at a distance from me, we were linked together in bands of love, and her last lingering look of affection is now vividly present to my memory. My letter was hoarded up as a treasure through that sickness which was unto death. I knew that her days

were numbered, and thought to speak a parting word with her before she set out for heaven, but it was not to be. The day after my arrival, her ashes were carried to the tomb. How true is it, that "there is but a step between me and death!"

Some time since I told you, and I told you truly, that on the banks of the Delaware, in North America, a log-house had been built by a near and respected relative of mine; that the axe had been at work felling the trees, and the spade employed in digging the ground, till the place of briers looked like a garden.

I said, too, that in that solitary place Old Humphrey was not forgotten. That when the inmates of the log-house talked of their fatherland and of friends, made dearer to them by distance, they remembered me.

Have you forgotten that a tree was called by my name, from whose grateful shade the voice of prayer and psalmody was wont to arise, to Him who had made the desert to blossom as a rose?

Well! the far distant log-house is yet standing; the tree is still growing, and peace is reigning around; but the patriarch of the place—he whose silver hairs proclaimed that his days had been long in the land; whose soul magnified the Lord,

F F

and whose spirit rejoiced in God his Saviour, he is gathered to his fathers. What a dream is time, and how stedfastly should we regard the realities of eternity!

Surely I have had line upon line, precept upon precept, and admonition upon admonition. How has it been with you? Had you sustained such a succession of losses as those I have enumerated, I think that I could patiently have endured your recital of them, out of pure sympathy, and therefore I reckon, confidently, on a kindly spirit on your part.

An old man's personal friends must of necessity get scarce; it is so with mine, and if I were of a desponding disposition, I might fear, from the inroads that death is making among them, that I should be left almost without any. Even this view, however, is not without comfort, for if, through Divine mercy, we ever enter heaven, (and we need not doubt while we are in the right way,) why, the more friends we have to welcome us the better.

Again, then, I say, that among the first and foremost of the favours bestowed by our great Redeemer, are the merciful remindings of their short tenure on earth; the notices given us to quit our present crazy habitations, a better being prepared for us above.

A look on ourselves, as sinners, brings a thunder cloud over our heads; but a look at the Saviour puts a sunbeam in the sky. It converts the wrathful denunciation, "Depart!" into the loving invitation, "Come!" and death approaches, not to cut down the barren fig-tree, but to gather the shock of corn fully ripe into the garner of God.

My pen has run its length; it may be that when next dipped into the ink-stand, a livelier subject may engage it, but an old man must be allowed to walk as it suits him, sometimes on the sunshiny side of the street, and sometimes in the shade.

ON FLOWER SEEDS.

THERE appears to be a natural, or an acquired love of the wonderful in the human heart. Hence it is interesting to read about the burning mountains of Vesuvius, Etna, and Cotopaxi, the Pyramids of Egypt, the falls of Niagara, the Caves of Elephanta, or the Icebergs of the Northern Ocean; but if, through the frequency of narration, even such subjects as these should fail to excite curiosity, there are others of never-failing interest ever at hand.

There is always some subject more or less occupying and absorbing public attention; and whether this be the missing whalers, the Nassau balloon, the fire at the Royal Exchange, or Murphy's almanack, every line that is written thereon is with avidity devoured. The love of the wonderful is as epidemical as the small-pox; it runs, it revels, it rages, and every new wonder, like a wave of the ocean, takes the place of its prede

cessor.

It is possible that many may pass over the title chosen for my present remarks, who would have been arrested by a more wonderful announce