gave the expression at once a double sense. "Yes," I involuntarily exclaimed, "thank God, there is a home for us, Jeddy, where the weary are at rest."

"O yes, massa," said the old labor-worn negro, as the tears started in his eyes, "me often tinks of dat-me hopes to get dere some day."

"There is rest at home"-the sentence gave me new energy, and has often done so since, in many a harder trial.

We jogged along, but ever and anon were struggling in the bogs. Wearied at last, we sat down on a small protuberance of the prairie, too fatigued to proceed.

"How old are you, Jeddy ?" I inquired. "Seventy-three, massa; me be getting toward dat home,' massa.'

"Have you a wife, Jeddy?"

but me know not where she be

66

"Yes, massa;

former massa

love not God, and sold her far away." "Have you children?” Yes, massa." "And where are they?” "All gone, too, massa, me know not where. But we all served God, massa, and hope to meet in dat home where be rest." The tears started afresh in the old man's eyes. I could inquire no further. My feelings overpowered me. What, thought I, are my suffer

ings compared with those of this poor, sorrowstricken servant of my Master!

"There is rest for us at home," said I involuntarily, and motioned to proceed. It was very dark, the rain was falling, and my horse limped with lameness. I was compelled to lead him by the bridle the remaining ten dreary miles. Through rain, and mud, and quicksands, we plodded on, nerved against them all by the thought which ever recurred with refreshing influence to my mind, that "there was rest for us at home." At last the glimmer of a distant light fell on our course. "Dat is home, massa," exclaimed Jeddy, with ecstasy.

So, I have often thought since then, gleams the light of hope over the valley and shadow of death to the Christian pilgrim.

Rest,

I was received about midnight at the log cabin, wet and weary, yet as an angel of God. The table had been spread with everything good the house could afford for my refreshment. After many congratulations, a prayer and a song of praise, I laid me down to rest. thought I, what a sweet word! Never did I feel its significance more than in the slumbers of that night, sweetened as they were by beautiful visions of that better land where "there remaineth a rest for the people of God." The

phrase of my aged guide wove itself into all my dreaming thoughts, and yet with such effect as not in the least to disturb my repose. At one time I thought I was reclining my head on the breast of a seraph, and dying-nay, it was falling asleep in Jesus-pervaded from head to foot with the most delicious sensations-a feeling of profound repose, which I never felt before nor since. At another I was gliding in the air, up over the hills, down into the valleys of heaven, without touching the soil, and wrapt in an unimaginable ecstasy-an ecstasy intense, and yet strangely tranquil. At another, I was sweetly sleeping under a leafy tree near one of its streams, on whose margin all varieties of flowers were bending and blushing, as if at the reflection of their own charms; and though asleep, yet it seemed that my eyes were open, drinking in all the indescribable scenery, while music, slow, sweet, and subdued by distance, flowed like a soft breeze of the south over my charmed spirit, and ever and anon a seraph glided by, smiling with unspeakable love, and uttering as he passed, "Rest thee, brother," and leaving behind him a very wake of fragrance like the odor of June roses. These were fantasies, but how sweet were they!

I rose the next morning with the freshness

of youth, greeted by the sweet and ever-varying notes of a mocking-bird, which had perched on a tree over my chamber.

Ten years had passed-years of much labor and sad changes in my history-when I had. occasion to visit a much more remote frontier settlement. I preached in a log school-house, to a congregation gathered from within twenty miles around. At the close of the discourse, a Mr. M. introduced himself to me as the son of my former host, Colonel M. The colonel had emancipated his slaves, and during a long period of sickness was converted, and died, it was believed, the death of the righteous. The son, indulging the characteristic propensity of the family, had advanced with the frontier line, and the old colored servants, unwilling to disperse, had accompanied him, and were settled about him. One of them, he said, was not expected to live from hour to hour. We went immediately to the sick man's cabin; it was surrounded by colored people, weeping like children for a father. On a bed in a corner lay the dying man. I approached to address him; his languid eye kindled, and in a moment there was a mutual recognition. It was old Jeddy. Need I tell the reader the effect on myself and on

the dying African? Leaning over the bed, and taking his hand, I asked, "Do you remember, Jeddy, the boggy prairie at?”

"O yes, massa; dat precious night," he replied, gasping for breath.

Your pilgrimage is most ended. There's rest for you at home, Jeddy."

The old saint had not forgotten the phrase. His dying eye kindled anew, and in broken expressions he responded, "Yes, bless de Lord, massa, me most dere, me most home; me poor, old, weary servant, O very weary, but going home, going home." Tears of gratitude and joy expressed still more fully his thoughts. When he had nearly lost the power of speech, he continued to utter this phrase, and his last words were, "Rest-home!" He died about eleven o'clock that night, and I have no doubt that by the midnight hour he had passed through the "everlasting gates," and was hailed by seraphim amid the "excellent glory."

Often, while drooping under the fatigues and diseases of those wild regions-often, in laying my head on my saddle, to spend the night in the forest, have I recalled the phrase of Jeddy, "There's rest at home." There has been a spell of power in these words which no labor, no peril, has been able to dissipate.