room of the little cottage, I saw on a bed | ing Bessie. In this letter the gentleman a young woman of no ordinary share of stated that the poor girl had been very beauty, not, apparently, much changed by ill; that change of air was the only thing illness, with a bright glow on her cheek, requisite for her recovery; and earnestly and a fire in her rich dark eye, and a implored them to give her lodging and smile playing round a very lovely mouth, nursing until she should regain her health. so unlike what I had expected to behold, Attention being turned to the poor creathat I knew not how to account for it. ture thus thrown on hands little capable However I sat down on the bed, while my of assisting her, it was discovered that friend, sitting nearer the pillow, bent over she was raving: and also that the thrush the sufferer, addressing her in gentle had broken out in her mouth, with other tones, and in the sweet language of the symptoms so fatal that the medical man, Gospel. For some time she spoke un- who was hastily called in, at once deheeded; at length the bright eyes were clared her to be dying. She had, in fact, raised to her face, and a transparent trem- been confined for three weeks to her bed ; bling hand was stretched towards her and the inhuman seducer, who had first head, with the words "Let me look at stolen her from her home (which broke your bonnet, Miss. Pretty bonnet!" the hearts of both her parents) and reEmma yielded to the request, at the same tained her in worldly abundance on guilty time sadly observing to me that it was not terms for four years, no sooner found her a lucid interval, and then I saw the extent thus becoming a burden on his hands of the calamity, as regarded this world than he had her taken from her bed, to reason had fled. encounter the rough blasts of a severe winter's day; and so exposing her to almost certain death, sent her to those whose daily labour could but just scantily feed their own little ones, to suffer all the privations inseparable from such a change: even if, as was very near being the case, the irritated feelings of one on whom poor Bessie had no claim, did not provoke him to deny her the shelter of his roof. A sister's love, however prevailed; and she was tenderly nursed; while the lucid intervals, long, but not frequent, were diligently improved by my dear young friend, with an earnest desire for the salvation of her soul. How far the Lord might bless the means of grace under which she was so singularly brought, it is not for us to say: but we were not left without hope concerning her. At first, when my friend spoke to her of the compassionate love of the Redeemer, showing forth the exceeding riches of that grace for which all are invited to plead the fulness of that pardon which, in Christ Jesus, is offered to the vilest of sinners-she seemed to consider it rather a mockery of woe than as an encouragement; for she fixed on the speaker an incredulous look, saying, "Oh, don't talk so to me, Miss!" By degrees she became less reluctant to listen: and after hearing much more to the same effect, she grasped her visiter's `hand, say

While the poor maniac amused herself with the bonnet, and with her sister's little infant, which she tenderly noticed, I learned the particulars of her story. The family was poor but respectable; and all had gone out to service excepting Bessie, who remained with her parents, taking in needle-work, and frequently so employed for the various shops in London. At the age of eighteen she was suddenly missed from home; and no tidings could be heard of her until four years after; when, in the summer, she came down to that cottage on an unexpected visit to her sister, who had married an industrious man, and passed a day with them. A gentleman accompanied her to whom she evidently was not married; but as she was handsomely dressed, and came in a postchaise, and appeared in high spirits, and as the gentleman-for such, in rank he was-treated her with much affection, and behaved to her humble relatives with great affability, the poor people, culpably ignorant of their duty, forbore either to question or remonstrate with her, and Bessie returned, promising them another visit.

The promise was fulfilled, when six months after she was again brought to their door in a post-chaise, the driver of which delivered a letter to the sister, and while she was reading it, departed, leav-ing, "I should not be afraid to die if I

might go to heaven:" then added in an | period of her illness, what would have

awaited her? A state of comparative luxury must have rendered distasteful the humble fare of a poor cottage, and the daily drudgery by which even that fare must have been earned would have been intolerable. It was plain that the seducer had for ever abandoned her; and, if unre

that she would have sought in the wages of guilt those worldly comforts and gratifications that had become necessaries in her sight. Another step, and another, in the downhill path of that awfully rapid descent, would soon have brought her to the level of the most repulsively abandoned and lost; and disgust might have prevailed to avert the pitying eye, to withdraw the outstretched hand, and consequently to restrain the pleading voice that told of a refuge from everlasting destruction-of a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, and a heaven purchased for the very bond-slaves of hell. It is dreadful to reflect that the more desperate the case becomes with these wretched wanderers, the more reluctant we are to pause in their path, and bid them turn, and flee to Jesus.

agitated manner, as Emma rose to go, "If you will come to see me again, you will be my dear." The visit was repeated often; and once or twice, at her urgent request, was her kind teacher sent for when reason was perfectly awake: but only four days intervened between her first arrival and her entrance on the eter-newed in spirit, it cannot but be believed nal world. I saw her a second time, and then the colour had left her cheek, the fire was quenched in her eye, the smile had departed from her swollen lips, and a character of restless discomfort was upon her vacant countenance, while faintly, but fondly calling on the name of her destroyer. It was then, sadly contrasted with the healthy peasants and blooming babes around her, that she became so identified with the Chrysanthemum under her window as to leave a lasting impression on my mind, ever to be revived as I look on the flower. A few hours before her death, Emma saw her speechless, and nearly motionless, but perfectly sensible, and expressing by such signs as she could make, a wish to have her sent for. When asked if she felt a hope that her sins were pardoned through the Lord Jesus, with a My garden would be but a poor request to hold up her hand if she did, she preacher, if it had nothing to say to me on raised it as far as she had power to do; behalf of my erring sisters: and the senand this, with the fixed, calm, affectionate timent that could have wept over Bessie, look with which she received her friend's still blooming and, in appearance, not only last farewell, and the character of perfect gentle but modest, yet would turn from peace spread over her countenance, was another homeless outcast, because she is all that we had to build on, as to the state almost brutalized by similar vice and frenof her feelings. The evident fact that she zied by despair, cannot be Christian senhad never before heard of Christ as an timent. It is the mere romance of excited all-sufficient Saviour, and that she heard feeling, ready to assume the colour of reof him gladly, afforded more solid grounds | ligion, but it does not emanate from it as to hope that he had sent the poor wan-an effect from its cause. We can, as it derer there to be called into his fold. But he has left a veil upon the work which human hand cannot lift: and far rather would I on this, as on other occasions, employ the little knowledge that I have in proclaiming to sinners the exceeding love of Him who died for them, than in prying into matters which will be fully revealed when faith is swallowed up in sight.

The story of Bessie C- is that of hundreds, yea of many thousands around us, as regards her first deviation from the path of moral rectitude. Had her sickness not been fatal, and had her sister's home afforded her no refuge beyond the

were, endure to take, through a vista, a dim and distant view of what we shrink from contemplating more nearly. The full reality, more broadly displayed, the actual extent to which vice and cruelty hold unchecked their appalling sway over the lower classes of our population, in and around the larger cities, would almost quench the very breath of prayer for this guilty land. The glittering sword of vengeance would be seen suspended over us. and the awful voice be heard, "Shall 1 not visit for these things? saith the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?"

through my frame is more pleasurable than the same objects in any other stage of their wonderful existence have power to impart. Always delightful, in all their associations, are the sweet children of the garden, the hedge-row, and the grove: but nothing is so touching as the first pledge of the approaching spring. It leads the mind at once, and with affecting power, to that sure word which, if the promise of God could be made of none effect, our sins

I could have told a sadder tale: I could out yet venturing to rise upon their stems, have led my readers into a deep and noi--sure I am that the sensation which thrills some cellar of dark St. Giles', and curdled the blood in their veins, even though I had left untold the half of what I have there beheld on a dying bed: but I forbear. My object is to plant a thorn in their consciences that they may not rest in peace and fancied blamelessness, while callous to the hurt, the deep and deadly hurt of the daughters of their people. "Is there no balm in Gilead? no physician there? Why then is not the hurt of the daughter of my people healed?" Yes, there is balm in Gilead; there is a Physician, a Healer, alike ready to hear and omnipotent to help. But they, poor wounded ones! know him not; no man directs them to seek Him; no man cares for their souls. They go astray, they fall, they perish; they lie in hell like sheep. And one by one, as the wretched victims pass away, the finger of him who overlooks no living soul is pointed to her, and the now unheeded voice that must and will one day be heard and answered, repeats the emphatic question: "SEEST THOU THIS WOMAN?"

CHAPTER XX.

THE DAISY.

my sins-would have provoked the withdrawal of: that seed-time, and summer, and harvest, equally with winter, shall not fail. Though every man be a liar, God is true; though we daily deny him, he continueth faithful, and cannot deny himself. The cloud, the storm, and the snow-drift, the inundated path, the black unsightly soil, the withered skeletons of shrub and tree, these are what we may receive as our portion, and be thankful that the bursting torrent, the rending earth and volcanic fire are not super-added, to requite our obstinate rebellion. But while we go on to sin, to forget all his benefits, and neglect his commands, the Lord is not to be turned from his purposes of mercy. "He hath said, and shall he not make it good?" The appointed season comes, and the mighty work that has been progressing unseen begins to manifest itself in the gradual change of gloom to sunshine, torpor to animation, sterility to luxuriance, and the swarthy aspect of an uncultivated expanse to the endless variegations of vivid green, bedecked with every tint of glowing beauty.

These are thy glorious works, Parent of Good!

If I were required to decide what in the kingdom of God's visible creation, commonly called nature, is the most heartcheering spectacle, I should be inclined to say, the first demonstration of awakening life among the vegetable tribes, that have been slumbering in death-like torpor and naked desolation through the wintry sea- What a miracle of madness is that son. Sure at least I am, that when, as is which characterizes evil man. "God is often the case, the eye which last looked not in all his thoughts." None of us can abroad upon a dreary landscape of spread-plead exemption from the charge: our ading snow and leafless sticks, escapes the confinement of a sick room to take its next survey where, under the warm, bright beam of a clear sky, the little buds are perceptibly swelling into magnitude against a sunny wall, while here and there perhaps a bold leaflet ventures to hold up its green mantle to the ray, and closely bedded in their circle of crisp, pale leaves, the primrose and polyanthus peep forth, with

miration of these exquisite creatures are often, very often, unmixed with a reference to the Creator. Science will examine their wonderful mechanism, without giving instant and continual glory to the wisdom that devised it; and taste will revel in their exquisite tints, independently of the skill that pencilled them. Even those who by grace are enabled to see God in every thing, and love to retain him

in their minds, have many omissions to deplore. I, at least, have; and how poor, how unsatisfying is the gratification enjoyed at such oblivious seasons, compared with that which fills the heart when viewing all as a type and a promise of what the same Almighty Being who forms, and nourishes, and clothes the flower of the field, will do for me!

In earliest spring, when

Awakening nature hears

The new-creating word, and starts to life,

stancy, perseverance, and a habit of looking upward that cannot be overcome. No sooner does the sun's first beam touch the verge of its domain, than the daisy's eye is opened wide, and instantly fixed on the regions of light, until, in needful repose, it is shut for a time, but never averted. The daisy turns not earthward: though not a beam be in the sky, thitherward its aspect is fixed; and the earliest ray of morning streams into its joyous bosom. It is not often that we find a character among God's children worthy to be classed with this flower: but such I have known: and one of them I will record, though the daisy may be identified with her in these pages before one has had time to unfold upon the grave where her venerable and beloved head now sweetly rests until the resurrection day. A month has not passed since she was dwelling on these little chapters, because the happy old man re

there is a family of great extent and diversity, ever among the first to spring up, the most eager to occupy the ground, and the most tenacious to retain possession of it. I have often mused at the quiet alacrity with which the humblest of this lowly tribe, the Daisy of the fields, lifts up its little face to smile at the sun: and often when the scythe has passed over the lawn, and left no vestige of the merry-membered there as the purple crocus was looking crew, I have exulted in the speedy appearance of another reinforcement taking the field, as numerously and as resolutely as their predecessors.

one whom she well knew, and had often encouraged in the Lord; little did she, or we, anticipate that just when the crocus should begin to rear its head above the There is a singular beauty in this rugged soil, her soul would be in that flower, even as it grows wild among the kingdom whither our dear brother's had grasses, not to mention the high degree taken its flight just twelve months preof diversified elegance to which the culti-viously. This mysterious visitation that vated species will attain. I admire them has recently fallen so heavily on the aged all but constantly prefer the playthings of my infancy, which, seated on the grassy hillock in front of my father's parlour window, I was wont to gather into my lap, as they grew profusely around me, and to string in garlands to adorn my doll's bonnet, or my own neck, or to entangle the dimpled hands of my smiling brother. Perhaps this association is the most universally admitted of any that we can connect with the vegetable world. Who, as a child, has not filled a little bib or basket with these inexhaustible treasures-and who that has, can refuse a smile and a sigh to those sun-shiny hour of unclouded and unfettered enjoyment?

and infirm, bore a summons to her gentle spirit, for which it had long placidly waited; and four days sufficed for her passage from comparative health and vigour, through the painful stages of acute disease, into the never-ending felicity of her heavenly inheritance.

I know not when, or by what means, this gentle flower was first brought into the Lord's garden. My abode was fixed in her neighbourhood some years ago, and she was pointed out to me as one who peculiarly delighted in the shining of the Sun of Righteousness, by the husbandman then carefully tending that part of the vineyard. I found her all that I had been No one denies the symmetrical beauty led to expect: and often, very often, was of the Daisy; and its radii of pure white, my own weary spirit refreshed by even from a centre of rich gold, often tipped exchanging a few short words with her: with a shadowy tint of purple, may chal- while a dear friend whose custom it was lenge comparison with most flowers. The to pay a regular weekly visit to the old character assigned to it by general con- lady, assured me that next after the ordisent, is that of humility, modesty, and nances of God's own house she found the sprightliness: to these I would add con- greatest spiritual comfort and encourage