bout having family-prayer. The mother is an old
Methodist. Saw another person, who is a widow, and in trouble; both
heart-touching visits.--In visiting, I met with the son of one of my
members, whom I requested to read six verses of scripture every
day; got the whole family together, and prayed with them. There was
considerable feeling among them.--I am now entered upon the last hour
of this eventful year, in which thousands have been swept away by
cholera, and many by sudden death; but it has not come nigh me. I
began it with the fixed purpose of living to God; but Thou, Lord,
knowest how often and wherein I have failed. I feel I can plead
nothing but the blood of atonement, to which I come; I want stronger
faith, and more love. The unhappy divisions in our Connexion have
rather done me good; for I feel a hungering after Bible Christianity,
and more of that love which 'never faileth,' and which 'thinketh no
evil.'"

XX.

THE STORM.

"THE LORD HATH HIS WAY IN THE WHIRLWIND AND THE STORM,
AND THE CLOUDS ARE THE DUST OF HIS FEET." Nahum i. 3.

The storm, that spreads ruin and devastation in its path, is no less
a proof of a wise and overruling Providence than the gentler phenomena
of nature, which, with such constant and unvarying regularity, refresh
and bless the earth. It cleanses the atmosphere, and sweeps away the
poisonous miasmata, which have been engendered during a period of
quiescence, and which must, if not removed, prove prejudicial to human
life. A similar effect is exerted by those painful dissensions which
too often arise in religious communities. God permits them for the
purification of His church. What is useless or injurious is swept
away; what is good is confirmed; and if unhappily many, that are weak,
are injured, it is because they do not seek shelter in Him, who is a
hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest. During
the fierce agitation, which swept as a whirlwind over the Methodist
societies in 1849 and 1850, Mrs. Lyth never lost sight of the great
purpose of life. She stood faithful and unmoved at her post; and
meddled no further with matters of strife than positive duty required.
The questions which many loved to discuss, and thought themselves
quite competent to settle, were never willingly the topic of her
conversation. They were the subjects of her prayers. She retired to
her closet; she wept in secret over the breaches of Zion; she sought
her refuge from the su