ne. I
had seen her some years before when on a visit to my native land. She
know of my skeptical tendencies, and though she had faith in my desire
to be right, she was afraid lest I should miss my way, and entreated me
with all the affectionate tenderness of an anxious mother, not to allow
myself to be carried away from the faith and hope of the Gospel. "Do
pray, my dear son," she said,--"Do pray that God may lead you in the
right path. I want to meet you all in heaven. It would be a dreadful
thing if any of you should be found wanting at last. Don't forsake God.
Don't leave Christ. Religion is a reality; a blessed reality. I know it,
I feel it, my dear son. It is the pearl of great price." These were the
last words I heard from her lips. I listened to them in silence. Though
I was too far gone to be able to sympathize with her remarks as much as
I ought, I was wishful that she should enjoy all the comfort that her
faith could give her. She wept; she prayed for me; she kissed me; and I
left her, to see her face no more on earth. I returned to my home in
America, and the next thing I heard of the dear good creature was, that
she had finished her course. I kept the sad intelligence to myself, for
my heart was too full to allow me to speak of my loss, even to those who
were nearest and dearest to me. I thought of all her love for me from my
earliest days; and of all her labors and sacrifices for my comfort and
welfare. I remembered her counsels and her warnings. I remembered her
last kind words, her kiss, her prayers, her tears. It seems dreadful;
but unbelief had so chilled my soul, that I could no longer indulge the
sweet thought of an immortal life even for the soul of my dear good
Christian mother. I had once had visions of a land of rest, a paradise
of bliss, and countless crowds of happy souls, and rapturous songs, and
shouts of praise, and joyous meetings of loving and long parted friends
in realms of endless life and boundless blessedness; but all were gone.
A sullen gloom, a deathlike stupor, a horrible and unnatural paralysis
of hope had come in place of those sweet visions of celestial glories.
My only comfort was, that though I had ceased to believe in the divinity
of Christianity myself, _she_ had retained her faith, and had lived and
died in the enjoyment of its consolations.

9. We had a young woman that had lived with us, with the exception of
two short intervals, all the time we had been in America. She had