a husband
one tenderly loved. One day as he was standing on some steps to
reach down a parcel of goods, he fell from the top and broke his leg
in two places."

"What a dreadful misfortune!" said Mrs. Betty. "What a signal
blessing!" said Mrs. Simpson. "Here I am sure I had reason to say
all was for the best; from the very hour in which my outward
troubles began, I date the beginning of my happiness. Severe
suffering, a near prospect of death, absence from the world,
silence, reflection, and above all, the divine blessing on the
prayers and Scriptures I read to him, were the means used by our
merciful Father to turn my husband's heart. During his confinement
he was awakened to a deep sense of his own sinfulness, of the vanity
of all this world has to bestow, and of his great need of a Saviour.
It was many months before he could leave his bed; during this time
his business was neglected. His principal clerk took advantage of
his absence to receive large sums of money in his name, and
absconded. On hearing of this great loss, our creditors came faster
upon us than we could answer their demands; they grew more impatient
as we were less able to satisfy them; one misfortune followed
another, till at length Mr. Simpson became a bankrupt."

"What an evil!" exclaimed Betty. "Yet it led in the end to much
good," resumed Mrs. Simpson. "We were forced to leave the town in
which we had lived with so much credit and comfort, and to betake
ourselves to a mean lodging in a neighboring village, till my
husband's strength should be recruited, and till we could have time
to look about us and see what was to be done. The first night we
got to this poor dwelling, my husband felt very sorrowful, not for
his own sake, but that he had brought so much poverty on me, whom he
had so dearly loved; I, on the contrary, was unusually cheerful, for
the blessed change in his mind had more than reconciled me to the
sad change in his circumstances. I was contented to live with him in
a poor cottage for a few years on earth, if it might contribute to
our spending a blessed eternity together in heaven. I said to him,
'Instead of lamenting that we are now reduced to want all the
comforts of life, I have sometimes been almost ashamed to live in
the full enjoyments of them, when I have reflected that my Saviour
not only chose to deny himself all these enjoyments, but even to
live a life of hardship for my sake; not one of his numerous
miracles tended to h