her was intuitive as to human inftruction, and wholly of divine teaching: "This alfo cometh forth from the Lord, who is wonderful in counfel, and excellent in working." The evening preceding her feizure by the diforder which proved fatal, it was remarked how exceedingly the dwelt upon a verfe of fome poetry fhe had learned at fchool. I mention this circumstance the rather as a proof that a mind, under the gracious teaching of the Holy Spirit, is fometimes enabled to extract good out of evil. The words of the fong I know not; but what engaged her attention, and employed her thoughts, was the finishing verfe of it:

"........... Dear maid adieu,

My forrows foon fhall ceafe ;

For heav'n will take a mind fo true
To everlasting peace."

She fung this ftanza so frequent, to an air fo plaintive, and with fuch melody of expreffion, that her mother who had heard her, though at that time unconfcious of the event about to follow, intreated her to drop a fubject fo melancholy, for the could not bear it. During the paroxisms of her diforder the gave vent to the feelings of her mind, by finging; though the burden of what the fung could not be understood. Once particularly, at a midnight hour, fhe did it with an effect perfectly undefcribable. Her voice, which was naturally fweet and melodious, feemed to have acquired, from her fituation, a certain pathos moft peculiarly tender and affecting; which, that the whole energy might, as it were, be felt, her melody clofed in a groan of the deepest and most piercing nature.

But what I am chiefly interested to defcribe, is the manifestation of the divine grace, which appeared in her whole deportment. It was abundantly evident, from every cir cumftance, that her mind laboured under fome very strong impreffions of diftrefs. In the early ftage of her disease, fhe was conftantly speaking of the horrors which he felt: But from a reluctance to increase her mifery, all questions leading to an inquiry into the caufe were at that time cautioufly avoided. At this feafon information was firft brought me of this child's illness, accompanied with an account, that he had expreffed an earnest wish to be remembered in my prayers. I thought a request of fuch a nature, coming from one fo young, feemed to imply the affurance that it muit have originated in an higher appointment, and as fuch, afford a promiting prefage that it would come up with a

prevailing efficacy, through the great Redeemer's intercefi on, before the throne of grace. Conceiving that I ought not to confine io interefting a fubject to my own prayers alone, but engage the fupplications of the congregation to which I belong on her behalf, I availed myfelf of the occa fion; and on the following Lord's day, at my evening lec ture, requested, "That the prayers of God's people might be offered up for a fick child, on whom there feemed to ap pear ftrong marks of grace.' This circumftance being communicated to the child the following morning, the joy the expreffed upon the occafion was extraordinary. It dwelt upon her mind continually, and the mentioned it to feveral of her friends which came to fee her in terms of great pleafure. To her mother, particularly, fhe expreffed herfelf in thefe words: "I have been prayed for in the church, and I am told that there were five or fix hundred perfons prefent; and if but five of them were real Chriftians before God, you know their prayers must be heard. Now I fhall be relieved from the horrors." Finding her fpirits fo cheerful, her mother now ventured to ask her what thofe horrors were which the had fo often complained of. To which the immediately replied, "The fear of God, and the future judgment, and not the fear of death."

Her confcioufnefs of human tranfgreffions before God was exceedingly remarkable in one fo young. Indeed, she had fo frequently lamented her fins, and what fhe had done to offend God, that her mother imagined, there must have been fome more than ordinary offence which fhe had committed, which preyed upon her mind. Hoping that the communication of it might relieve her, she took occafion one day, as the fat by her bedfide, to prefs her to unbofom herself upon the fubject. "My dear," faid her mother, "if there be any thing that you have done which burthens your mind, pray inform me of it, now there is no one prefent but ourfelves." Her anfwer was, "I know of nothing in particular, my dear mother, by which I have offended God; but I am fure I have greatly finned against him, or he would never have afflicted a poor child as I am afflicted." And that the fenfe and weight of fin lay heavy upon her mind is ftrikingly evident, from a queftion which one day, in the moft unexpec ed manner, the put to the medical gentlemen that attended! her, when nothing in the converfation had the least reference to the fubject. "Do you know, Sir," fays fhe, "that I have a foul to be faved?" And the faid this with fuch an earneftnefs of expreffion, as ftruck every one around her with altonishment. I have no doubt in my own mind, but that it VOL. I.

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was from very ftrong prepoffeffions of this nature, that she fo frequently made it a matter of request to her friends to pray for her. Her expreffions on this occafion were exceedingly remarkable. "Pray for me," fays fhe, "to my Saviour, that he may intercede for me with the Father. O! that I had but three minutes' ease to pray myself: if but three minutes," fays fhe, repeating the words, "that I might pray properly." The reader will do well to remark the most extraordinary inftance of this child's apprehenfion of the intercefforfhip of Christ. From whence, or by what means, the acquired this knowledge, I have no conception; but the exercife of fuch a principle of grace in a season fo interesting and critical, and by fuch a child, is an object peculiarly meriting the regard, and fit to call up the adoration of God in the breast of all the faithful.

The rapid advance of her diforder, and the hafty steps which the meffenger of death made towards her, from the first moment of her feizure, to the final convulfions of nature, when she fell to rife no more, were such as to afford but little opportunity for making observations on the progress of grace in the heart, which a cafe lefs oppreffed with disease, in an inftance like her's, would otherwife have furnished. The pleafing prefage of her departure to an happy eternity is more to be gathered from the detached views of her conduct in her illness, than from any regular tracings of the operations of Divine love in her heart. That the felt and confeffed the burden of fin; that fhe had lively views of mercy through the righteoufnefs of a Saviour; that the wished to feek this mercy by prayer through Chrift; and defired to intereft every one to pray for her; all thefe circumstances are abundantly evident from what hath been related. And it fhould be added, that her mind had acquired a certain confidence and hope in the Divine mercy, is a reasonable conclufion from feveral expreffions which dropped from her occafionally, and particularly towards the clofe of life. comforted her mother in the profpect of her departure with the confolation, that by death the fhould efcape a thousand evils; and once, in a very expreffive manner, faid, "I long to fee God's face;" fo that, upon the whole, I venture to abide, by my original idea, that a more striking proof of the gracious dealings of God with his people, and particularlyin fo youthful an inftance, hath not occurred in these later ages of his church. It may not perhaps carry equal conviction to every mind; but great regard fhould be had to the disadvantages of fituation under which it was found, as well as to the want of the means of grace in the time prior

to her illness. For my own part, I hefitate not to believe, that what the prophet fays of the church in Gofpel days, at the first dawn of the morning, may, by a parity of reafoning with equal truth be faid of the experience of the believer in a fimilar fituation: "In that day the light fhall not be clear nor dark, but it fhall be one day, which fhall be known to the Lord; not day nor night, but it fhall come to pass that at evening time it fhall be light." Zech. xiv. 6, 7.

I must not trefpafs further. Inftructive and highly interesting as the fubject is for raifing reflections of the most pious nature, I rather retreat in filence, to leave every reader to the comments of his own heart upon the occafion under divine awakenings, than add a fingle obfervation of my own. hope in God, indeed, that the perufal, through his grace. refting upon it, who alone can commiffion it to improvement, will in no inftance prove barren or unfruitful. The affectionate parent, in particular, will find a volume of the most perfuafive arguments, in the fhort page of this child's history, to awaken attention to the everlasting concerns of her household. There is nothing, I am oft awfully convinced, can reconcile the breaches made in our families by death, but the pleafing hope that our departed children, or friends, are asleep in Christ. When God is pleafed to make fuch an incurfion in our houses, and death enters in at the window, the the mind is confoled in viewing the vacant place, and the unfilled feat at the table, if faith affords a well grounded affurance that the dear departed object, though" abfent from the body, is prefent with the Lord, and is fitting down with Abraham and Ifaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." But what an accumulation of woe must every instance of a contrary effect induce in a tender breaft, concerning the everlasting fate of our children, where the strongest probabilities exift that the departure is in an unprepared ftate, unawakened by grace, unwashed in the blood of Jefus, unregenerated by the Holy Ghoft! The bitter exclamations of Job on his birth, awful and expreffive as they are, are not half enough expreffive of the real ftate of fuch a cafe. The portrait, though highly coloured, is palenefs indeed to the original (fee Job, iii.) Happy that parent, who, on committing the afhes of a beloved child to the humiliation of the grave, can answer the anxious queftion of the foul's eternal welfare in the language of the Shunamite, "Is it well with the child?" And the faid, "It is well."

I am, Rev. Sir, your's, &c.

The Sympathy of Jesus.

Jesus wept.-John, xi. 35.

W mould frequently be in tears, is nothing frange:

HO was it that wept? That the children of men

this world is a place of fin, and therefore it is no wonder that it is alfo a place of weeping. Sin and forrow must be companions. But what fhall we fay when we read that Jefus wept? Was it not strange that he, who was "holy, harmlefs, undefiled, and feparate from finners," fhould be in tears! How aftonifhing, that he, who is truly God, fhould be capable of real weeping! Perhaps it was on this account, that they who divided the Bible into verfes, placed these two words by themfelves to intimate how remarkable the expreffion is; and that in reading, we might not haftily pafs over the wonderful fact-but that we fhould paufe, confider, admire, and adore.

Let me repeat it-Jefus wept! My foul, meditate on thefe furprising tears, and let me contemplate this weeping Saviour!

Jefus was truly and properly God and man, in one divine, mysterious Person. And here I perceive a strong proof of the important doctrine. His words, his works, and his very name, fufficiently demonftrated that he was poffeffed of real Godhead. He had juft fignified, that he would awake Lazarus from the fleep of death: And his weeping did not proceed from any doubt of his ability to perform the miracle. The event fhowed that he was able; for he spake, and Lazarus, that was dead, came forth. And when I read that "Jefus wept," I may equally infer that he was truly man; that "the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." He fubmitted to the frailties of human nature; he was fubject to hunger and thirst; to wearinefs and grief; for in all thefe things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren." "Jefus wept," was "a man of forrows, and acquainted with grief." While fome will admit only the humanity of Jefus, let me not be ashamed to believe in his two fold nature. How can any one deny his divinity? Did he not at the grave of Lazarus raise the dead as well as weep? As a man he was capable of weeping, of fuffering, and dying,-as God, he could merit and fave men from fin, from mifery, and from