no difficulty in recognising in it the image of one to whom Christ was truly "all;" in whom He had taken a place which dispossessed inferior objects, and to whose eye the glory of this unseen Saviour had eclipsed the world's brilliance and the creature's beauty.

For various private reasons, the names of persons and places have not, in general, been given. This, however, will be no hindrance to the usefulness nor detraction from the interest of the volume.

KELSO, December 1852.

CHAPTER I.

The Sketch.

OF the life that is outward,—the life that is lived before the eye of man,—there is little in this volume; almost nothing. The world's "great things" are not here. Yet there are greater things than these,—the transactions between the soul and its Creator,—the intercourse between the Saviour and the saved one.

Of the life that is inward,—the life that is lived under the eye of God,-with its struggles, and hopes, and joys, with its changeful movements, its lonely utterances, its quiet walks of shade or sunshine, there is much. In few such records will more of this be found; and it is this that gives to these pages all the interest which they possess, an interest which will not seem poor or trivial, to those who know the difference between the seen and the unseen, and who have discovered, that the points at which the soul comes into contact with the God that made it, and with the eternity where its joys are treasured, are the points of truest interest and importance in its history.

But though the dazzle of strange incident or soaring

A

sentiment be awanting, the reader will find little of the flat or the commonplace. The life here recorded was no copy, no stale imitation. However much the biographer may fail in sketching its features, the life itself was not tame or artificial, as if the individual were merely saying over again what she had heard others say, and trying to feel in certain modes, because she had read that others felt so, and setting down in her diary or letters some excellent sentiments, neatly culled from the experiences of others. It was singularly fresh and real; all the colours of its varied complexion arising from the health underneath, and not laid on by a skilful hand from without. It was thoroughly natural, nay, original, even to simplicity, both in thought and language. Its movements were, not from the surface to the centre, but from the centre to the surface, produced by the indwelling Spirit, and regulated by His inworking hand. It did not shew itself in the form of second-hand pietism or imitated devotion; nor did it work itself into the stiff, irksome routine of externalism, either in language or in action. It came out, without effort or study, in the warm utterance of unborrowed feeling, in the eagerness, sometimes the fitfulness, of impulse, in vigorous yet quiet consistency of character, and in strenuous pressing forward to the mark for the prize of the high calling. It does not deceive you with plagiarised experiences. It is as true as it is transparent; true both in what it speaks and what it leaves unspoken, in what it does and in what it leaves undone; sometimes changeful in its moods, abrupt in its movements, and extreme in its ebbings and flowings, yet always true;