No. 2.

ALAS! my dear Miss

how little did

I think when last I took my pen to trace a few lines to you, on what occasion I should so employ it next! How little did I anticipate that ere one short week had run its sands, your heart would be bleeding under that desolating stroke which has sundered from you the guide of your youth, your dearest earthly guardian, instructor, companion, friend-all that is comprised in that one word which I cannot now bear to utter, because I know full well the anguish with which its very mention must fill your heart. Under such a bereavement how impotent is human sympathy,-how vain the help of man! The wound is too deep for any balm the creature has to offer, the heart refuses to be comforted by aught that earth affords. But is there no balm in Gilead? is there no Physician there?

Yes, dear friend, and to Him I would desire to point your weeping eyes, on Him I would beseech you to repose your aching heart. He has balm even for such a wound as yours, "for, if His hand is strong to smite, 'tis also strong to save." He is "the Mighty One of Israel," "the Almighty," and yet He trod this wilderness in human form, "the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief;" and why this mysterious, this marvellous condescension? was it not that He might prove "a brother born for adversity," one who having been in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin, might know how to succour them that are tempted? What a combination is here!" He knows how,"

"He is able," and what is more still, He is willing, not only willing, but "waiting to be gracious," stretching out His compassionate arms, and crying, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;"-rest, what a sweet word in this unquiet scene!

just what our poor tempest-tossed spirits yearn to possess, and what is never to be found upon the restless bosom of life's troubled waters. No, we must get above the billows-we must have our feet set upon the rock-"the Rock of Ages," if ever peace is to be the inmate of our breast. Oh, to make the sweet singer of Israel's petition ours," when my heart is overwhelmed within me, lead me to the rock that is higher than I:" how secure, how peaceful may we there abide although

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deep call unto deep,”—looking up with filial confidence to our Father and our Friend, looking down on all below, looking on to that blessed inheritance where there is no more sin nor death, no more sorrowing nor sighing. You have my earnest prayers that the Lord's supporting and sanctifying presence may be with you in this furnace. Let me in Christian affection urge you, in place of nursing your grief, by allowing your thoughts to settle on the sad, sad blow, until with

Jonah you are almost disposed to cry, "I do well to be angry," to carry your sorrow to your God,-to Him who can comfort you. Oh talk to Him of all, He can shed such a conviction into your mind that "the Judge of all the earth does right," as shall hush into peace every rising murmur within, and lead you to receive this and every other infliction of His hand in holy silence at least. Dear friend, "the time is short," soon will life's journey close to you and me, soon will its joys and sorrows be for ever past, let us then gird up our loins, and seek, as "strangers and pilgrims," to pass our few remaining days.

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Yours in much Christian sympathy,

MY DEAR FRIEND,

No. 3.

And so your sweet babe is gone! the precious boon so recently bestowed, so quickly recalled! the lovely bud on which your eyes were wont to gaze in fondest delight and brightest hope, cut down by the unsparing hand of him whose relentless scythe sweeps before it indiscriminately youth and age, beauty and deformity, opulence and indigence. Alas! my friend, against his inroads there is no appeal, a mother's love, and a father's pride, were vain pleas with the unpitying "king of terrors." Ah, I well know how a mother's heart must bleed when called on to surrender one of the dear objects of her tenderest solicitude, to witness the last heaving sigh, and mark the last convulsive sob of the loved one her heart had often fondly pictured soothing his mother's dying pillow, and supporting her sinking

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