went with a friend to pass the night with the little sufferer. Deep stillness hung around the cottage. At an extremity of the low piazza sat two medical men in anxious consultation. The tones of their voices were low and subdued, and the expression of each serious and doubtful.

The sick chamber was profoundly still. It was difficult to recognize in the sunken, burning countenance before us, the mild and placid features of our little scholar. His eyes rolled wildly from side to side, and his mouth was blistered with fever. I took his hand, and, parting the curls on his hot brow, asked him if he knew me. A loud, unmeaning exclamation burst from his lips, which told the sad story of wandering reason.

The physicians separated, and he to whose watchful care the child had been consigned, prepared to pass the night by his bedside. The father, who had anxiously waited the result of their consultation, called him aside, and asked their united opinion,

the

Dr.

hesitated. "Tell me," exclaimed parent; "I do not listen in my own strength." "We think he cannot survive," said Dr.

tenderly. "To-night, however, is the critical period; we have decided upon trying a violent remedy; I shall remain and watch its effect; should it be favourable, he may yet be spared to you, but the hope is but slender."

The father bowed his head, and summoning in a distant apartment such of his family as were not engaged with the sick, he commended the child to the arms of his Saviour. His life was asked, but with deep submission of the divine will not our will, but Thine, was the spirit of the petition.

It seemed as if the Almighty mercifully accepted this entire surrender, and was satisfied with the faith of his children. "Judgment is his strange work;" and as he looked into the hearts of these parents and beheld their submission to His will, He spake as of old to the Judean Patriarch: "Now I know that thou *. fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me."

The still vigils of the night commenced. They were interrupted only by the moans of the little sufferer, who, after a moment of troubled sleep, would awake to a new sense of his distress. His mother had been persuaded

to leave the room and seek some repose, but again and again during the night would she steal to the bedside of her child and bend over him her tearful eyes to see if there was any change; but he would shrink, and cover hist face with the clothes as if afraid of her who had so often pillowed his infant head.

The night wore away, and the first faint light of morning found the poor child exhausted with suffering. The cold stamp of death seemed already on his brow, and his very calmness led us to fear that all would soon be over. As we moistened his lips and smoothed his pillow, he turned over and appeared to be settling himself to sleep. In a few moments his soft, steady breathing fell upon our ears. The physician hastened to his side, and a ray of hope crossed his face. It was a critical hour, one to which he had looked forward with fear. Nothing could be more favourable than this quiet slumber, the first he had enjoyed since his attack.

His

The father came in at this moment. expression of anxiety had given place to one of tranquil acquiescence. On hearing the opinion of Dr. on the preceding evening,

he had surrendered his child to God, and in the fullness of his faith had been enabled to "bless the giver and the taker too."

"Your care and nursing may yet be rewarded," whispered Dr.

"Give God alone the praise," exclaimed the grateful parent.

We all stood around the bed, watching that long sleep. We stood in prayer, waiting the Lord's decision.

After an hour or more the child opened his eyes. One glance told the mother that her prayers were answered. Those eyes rested in fond intelligence upon her. He looked around upon the group and then faintly asked, "Where is my Sunday teacher ?" The first thought that reason guided, rested on his Sunday school. What a testimony of the faithfulness and efficacy of the instructions he had received! It was enough to encourage that teacher to persevere in his efforts to the end of life, for it seemed like a voice from the other world attesting to the value of Sunday school labours,

THE BEREFT.

"Where thou art gone

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown;
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting word shall pass my lips no more."

COWPER.

THAT we are "strangers and pilgrims on the earth," was the confession of that crowd of witnesses who now, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. With the Divine assurance for their passport, this band of believers made their way through every variety of trial, to that "city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

There are those who in these latter days have followed closely in the footsteps of that holy flock; and among such was Mary Singleton, an aged mourner, who with chastened affections sojourned below, while her home and her citizenship were in heaven. Her path through this world had been strewed with thorns, and each tear that moistened it, "mourn