firmness to resist temptation when
presented in its most alluring form, was blended with that genuine
kindness of manner, that deference towards the weak and defenceless,
which renders its fortunate possessor not only esteemed, but beloved.
Yet with so much that was admirable in mind and heart, of him it might
be said, as it was of one of old, "One thing thou lackest." Strange,
that the subject of the greatest importance should be, too often, the
one most seldom dwelt on, too frequently thrust aside, until, in the
season of affliction and the hour of death, its terrible magnitude is
first realized--realized, perhaps, forever too late. Regular in his
attendance on all the ordinances of worship, his heart had remained
unaffected; but this indifference was owing, it may be, in a measure, to
the discourses to which he was in the habit of listening from Sabbath to
Sabbath,--discourses which, while they portrayed in fairest colors the
beauty of a moral life, seemed to forget the natural depravity of the
human heart, and the necessity of the mind being fully renewed, in order
that it might carry those principles into effect.

Mrs. Bernard, though a devoted mother, and, in many respects, an
excellent woman, had never realized, for herself, "the blessedness of
things unseen." She had been contented to sail smoothly along the stream
of life, which for the most part had been ruffled by few storms, and she
almost forgot, as day after day and week after week glided past, they
were bearing her frail bark swiftly on to the ocean of eternity. There
was a time,--it seemed to her now like a dream as she looked back,--that
she had thought more of these things, for they were presented to her in
a living form, embracing, as it were, in the daily walk and
conversation of a relative, who had been for some time an inmate of her
dwelling. The lovely traits developed in the character of this lady, had
won the matron's heart, and especially had she appreciated the unbounded
care and tenderness which her friend exercised towards her children,
Ella and Arthur. But this messenger of peace passed away to a brighter
clime, and the impression made by her brief sojourn seemed to have
become erased from the memory; like the morning cloud and the early dew,
it soon passed away. Yet was she not altogether forgotten, nor had her
labors of love been entirely in vain. To her it was that Arthur had
alluded in his conversation with Miss Wiltshire, for childhood