morning of the resurrection, when she will arise, to meet that Saviour whom, not having seen, she loved, and when her drowned and mangled body will be fashioned like unto His glorious body, and be admitted with many redeemed from the heathen islands where she lived and where she died, to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and with Jacob, in the kingdom of our God.

"FROM the roaring surge they came,
From the darksome depths of wo;
Peril, weariness, and shame

Mark'd their chosen lot below.

Sinking in the ocean brine,

Jesus caught them from the flood:
Lo! how bright their garments shine,
Blanch'd in their Redeemer's blood.

Where is now the streaming tear,
Where the pang, the secret groan?
Sin, nor sorrow, mingle here,

Shadeless splendour girds the throne.

Like the rush of ocean storm,

High the thund'ring chorus blends;
Rich with life, with rapture warm,
Deep the wavy circle bends.

One their Lord, and one their song,
Saint and seraph there combine;
Christian, be thy faith as strong,
Rest as glorious shall be thine."

THE WIDOW.

BEHOLD the daughter of grief," said Dr. Mason. "The fever rankles in her veins. She has no partner dearer to her than her own soul, on whose bosom she may recline her throbbing head. Her name is WIDOW. Desolate, forsaken, helpless!" Such are

the terms in which the state of widowhood is ever described. Every other calamity, however deplorable, if widowhood be added to it, has a tenfold aggravation. "He was the only son of his mother;" this made the grief of carrying him to his last narrow bed very deep; but the affliction was brought to a lower and darker depth by the other event described in the mourner's life," and she was a widow." The Lord, who penetrates the recesses of the heart, saw her, and had compassion on her." This was no fictitious and sentimental sorrow, which was entitled to no sympathy; no earthly and selfish mourning, which excited only rebuke. It was the legitimate and genuine grief of heart, which our gracious and compassionate High Priest is touched with, and to which he says, "Weep not."

Who is she, who is the subject of oppression and treachery? Who is exposed to be misguided and over-reached in the discharge of strange duties, and the exercise of new cares? Who is she, who enters on offices alien to her habits and tastes, offices that would demand the unbroken energy of youth, and health, and spirits; with a shattered frame, a broken heart, and

a sinking spirit? It is the widow. And therefore it is, that God hath proclaimed himself "the Judge of the widow ;" and interspersed his holy law with dehortations, rebukes, and threatenings, which shew that whoso doeth her wrong, "stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty." "Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry unto me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless."* The deepest stain marked against the character of an unrighteous man is, that he will "take a widow's ox to pledge;" or that he has caused the widow's eyes to fail ;"-or, that "he slays the widow;" or "devours widows' houses." While one of the testimonies of the character of the righteous is, that he "has caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." The Lord himself promises to establish the border of the widow," and commands those who put away the evil of their doings, to "release the oppressed, and to plead for the widow."

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These scriptures prove two weighty truths: First, That the widow is peculiarly exposed to cupidity and injustice from man. And second, (Oh blessed reality!) that she is the object of the peculiar and fostering care of her God. How sweetly does he consider her case, and lead his people by the arms, teaching them to go, when he instructs them thus minutely: "When thou hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go to fetch it; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow; that the Lord thy God may bless thee."+ And also of the olive and the

* Exod. xxii. 22, 23.

+ Deut. xxiv. 19.

vine, a gleaning of each is to be left for those who have now no vine and no olive.

But why speak only of the more visible and tangible, the worldly losses, of the widow? They are hard, it is true; they are very claimant where they exist. But say that they exist not, or that their pressure be not heavy, has the widow then no sufferings? Ask of her whose better heart is torn from her, at how many veins she bleeds-from how many invisible associations she sorrows-under how many unintended blows she writhes-by how many unthought-of neglects she is reminded that her head is taken from her. Was she erewhile the centre of a smiling circle, expanding her affections with her hospitality, and rejoicing in intellectual reciprocities, while she shed around her the thousand small sweet charities which open the door, and let the stranger in. "Ah! she has now discovered that with the beloved of her soul have departed many of those whom in her inexperience she had counted as her friends; and that as her hospitality is contracted, so are their sympathies.

Was she by station, by influence, by talent, enabled not only to deal bread to the hungry, but counsel to the simple, she now finds the gaze of surprise in eyes which once waited on her admonitions with gratitude, and traces back with a smothered groan this fresh evidence that she is not what she was, to the one great stroke which has overthrown her happiness. Nay, would she form new associations, and, accommodating her mind to her position, take a Christian interest in that which now surrounds her; the heart refuses what the understanding would yield. All is blank, dull, and cold. He for whom her associations were formed, he with whom her social

joys were partaken-is not. That which is wanting, cannot-no-nor will the time ever come when it can-be numbered; and she turns her saddened, solitary spirit from all without, to feed in loneliness over the treasure of mournful associations which she hoards within.

Truly, her name is Widow. And it is not those who may observe the pallid smiles with which she regards her children, or her patient exterior in the midst of care, or her willing exertion on behalf of others, who comprehend the true import of that name. But is there no balm for her wound-is her grief utterly unapproachable by consolation? Do sorrow and she sit in melancholy association, refusing to be comforted? Oh no, blessed be the name of the God of all consolations, this is not the case. While she feels that she is a widow indeed, and desolate, she is learning to cleave to her God by a firmer trust, and to continue instant in prayer and supplications night and day. While outwardly she is shrinking at all points, exposed to a thousand wounds, she is inwardly learning sweet lessons of submission, of self-renunciation, of peace. Did her heart flow forth in general sympathies before; its flow is deeper now, more intense, more efficient. She has ascended to the highest form in the school of mourning pilgrims. There is now no fellow-wo which she cannot reach; no untried depth of privation which she cannot fathom. She has more approximated to the spirit of Him who wept over Jerusalem, who wept at the sepulchre of his friend Lazarus, and yet who said to the widow of Nain, "Weep not." And, therefore, she has found a joy in grief; she has tasted a sweetness even in her bitter cup.

And what though the portion which she can now