hile I was speaking I saw her falling over the side of the bed.
Springing forward, I put out my arm, and, with her head resting on it,
and her despairing eyes looking into my face, she expired. I could
scarcely believe it, when I saw that flush on her face fade away unto
the pallor of death. She was gone! I placed her poor head on the pillow,
and rang the bell for assistance. Her mother and sister came in, saying,
"Is it not dreadful?"

I said, "Look at her. She is gone. She said it was too late, and that
she was lost for ever."

"Oh," exclaimed the mother, "it is most dreadful!--most dreadful!" This
poor young lady used to be a Sunday-school teacher and district visitor;
but she was never converted, and she knew it. She had full
head-knowledge, but no heart experience, and thus she died in unforgiven
sins. Lost---for ever lost!

Notwithstanding this, and other solemn lessons which the Lord was
teaching me at this time, I was still restless and unhappy. I felt as if
my life, with its work, was cut off in the very beginning of its
usefulness, and that there was no more for me to do. As the weather
became hot with the advancing summer, I was more and more dejected in
mind and body. I lived now among strangers, and had no settled
occupation, nor could I apply myself to study.

One very hot and dusty afternoon, as I was slowly toiling up a steep
hill, two women overtook me; and as they were passing, I heard one say
to the other, in a very sad and disheartened tone, "I wish I had never
been born;" and the other responded much in the same spirit, though I
could not hear what she said. A fellow-reeling makes us wondrous kind,
and has the effect of drawing out our sympathies. I followed these poor
women, and when we were on the top of the hill, I spoke to them, and
then added, "You seem very weary. Will you come in and take a cup of tea
and rest a little?" They thanked me, and consented. So I took them into
the house, and asked for some tea. While it was being prepared, I said
to them, "I overheard you talking on the road as you passed me. Do you
really wish you had never been born?" The poor woman who had uttered
these words burst into tears; and as soon as she could command her
feelings sufficiently, she told me her sad tale of sorrow and trouble.
She was a soldier's wife, as was also the other, and they were both in
the same distress. "Well," I said, "trouble does not spring out of the
ground; and we may be equally sure