service he lived, had sent down from London about two months since; they were from Suffolk, and though quiet were unused to work, and especially in such bad roads and hilly lands as we have here. The poor man had often expressed his fear that some accident would befal them; and yet was so proud of them as superior to all horses here, that he felt as if something very valuable were entrusted to his keeping, and that he must take the greater care of it. You can better imagine than I can describe the state of the poor widow's mind on hearing the dreadful tidings, for a time bordering on distraction. I lost not a moment in hastening to her cottage, where such a scene presented itself as the heart can indeed commiserate; but where, even in that hour of bitter agony, it was soothing to witness the true-hearted sympathy, the simple but touching tenderness of the villagers, each vying with the other in offering the most affectionate service to the bleeding heart of the bereaved widow. After administering all the consolation in my power, I left her for a time in the care of her kind neighbours, and yesterday I visited her again, when I found her better than I expected. She has indeed much to comfort her, and happily she can take comfort; for she has herself, during a long period of weak health, known by experience the consolations of real religion: but her present peace arose from that blessed source of all consolation, a well-grounded hope of her poor husband's safety. He was, I really believe, a man who feared God and desired to live as in his sight. He was constant in the habit of private prayer, and regular at public worship; he was a faithful servant, a fond father, and a loving husband, and what is more, he had been for some time (from conviction I believe) a regular communicant. His poor wife now comforts herself from many little circumstances which she can thankfully recal to mind: for instance, he had, about ten days before his death, had a few words with his sister about one of his children, whom she thought the mother indulged, but for whom he felt warmly. He told his wife of this; but at night, before he knelt down to prayer, she said, "Gilbert, do you forgive your sister, and are you at peace with her?" "Yes," he said, "I forgive her

from the bottom of my heart, and am very sorry if I spoke too hastily." On Whitsunday she reminded him early that it was the day for the holy sacrament, and said, "Now, Gilbert, are you at peace with all, with your sister and every one ?" "Yes," he again said, "I did fear that I could not have gone with a clean heart to the Lord's Table, but now, thank God, I can truly say I forgive every one, as I hope to be forgiven." He came as usual, and I trust was blessed in coming. His poor wife had been better in health than for some time, and in the afternoon of that sacred day himself, his wife, and their four children, all came to church. This was so happy an event for the family that one of the little ones said, "Father, shall we all go to church together again?" they were more than ordinarily happy; but the poor man with his usual thoughtfulness answered, "We must not say, my child, what we shall do next Sunday; there is time enough before then for one of us to be in the grave!" -he was in his coffin when the next Sunday came! "The last words he said to his wife were at dinner on Saturday, when he rose up to go away. "Do not," said he, "be alarmed if I am late to night; for I shall stay an hour or so to clean up my harness, that it may be bright when his honor comes down next week." She said, "You had better leave it till Monday; we like to be quiet on Saturday night; so bring it home and then I will help to clean the brass of it for you." "Well," he answered, perhaps I may; but do not be afraid if I am late: God bless you!" He left her happy, though ill in bodily health, and never returned alive! The shock has been, indeed, dreadful; but by God's mercy she is wonderfully supported. These are the times when religion appears in all her sublime realities! No other princi ple could have sustained poor Gilbert's bereft wife in this awful moment. I have again visited her and found her calm and submissive. I proposed to read with her some of the short psalms following the 119th, which she told me had often comforted her in her days of suffering, but more than ever precious were they to her now.

It is by such events as these, that our heavenly Father

is pleased "to open the ears of man to discipline;" by such events as these it is that the thoughtless should be warned, and the thoughtful consoled. Poor Gilbert D's example speaks volumes: "he was," says his esteemed pastor, "a man who feared God and desired to live as in his sight." And what were the fruits of this holy watchfulness? He was a man of prayer; he daily bowed his knees in secret prayer to his heavenly Father; and God who seeth in secret rewarded him openly by vouchsafing to him his Holy Spirit, graciously enabling him to check every wrong propensity to angry feelings, to exercise a spirit of forgiveness, of humility, of charity, and thus by faithfulness and tenderness in all the relations of life, and by a conscientious fulfilment of all his duties, he may be said to have adorned the doctrine of God his Saviour in all things. He has also, by his example, left to his bereaved wife and children a rich store of blessings, not only in the first bitter days of anguish, but for their remaining years. Truly "the memory of the just is blessed;" and we trust we do not presume when we venture to close the account of this afflictive dispensation in the words of our Lord, "Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing." M. H.:

ness;

THE CHURCH "THE FULNESS OF CHRIST."

EPH. i. 23.

THE Church is in this verse described in the very remarkable character of Christ's body, and of Christ's ful"the fulness of Him who filleth all in all." How little does the world, how little does even the Church of God, think of its own privileges and honour! After all the great and glorious things spoken of the Saviour, that this little flock, this poor despised company, composed of many of the weakest men, and the feeblest women, and the most helpless children, and treated as the off-scouring of all things, the very scorn and ridicule of a self-sufficient and ignorant world, should be declared by the immutable Word of God to be the Saviour's body and the Saviour's fulness, his honour, his glory, and his bride! So completely his purchased possession, the prize

for which He was content to pour forth his life's blood like water from the cross, that if it were possible that the gates of hell could prevail against her, so that she could perish, He would be robbed of his reward. If David could say of the mere type of the spiritual Church, "Very excellent things are spoken of thee, thou city of God," what ought the Christian to feel when considering the language in which that Church is itself described? But this we conceive to be one of the great faults of Christians at the present day; they look at the Word of God, and at the promises of God, as applying to themselves as individuals, and do not endeavour to take delight in them as applicable to the Church as a body, and to themselves as members of that body. What a powerful incentive to Christian concord and Christian unity is thus destroyed ! What an additional bond of love would it be, how much more would exist of that Christian sympathy which rejoices with those who rejoice, and which weeps with those who weep, and which delights in bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ, if we more prayerfully and more constantly cultivated the habit of looking upon ourselves and all our fellow worshippers as members of one redeemed family, and mystical body, whose head is Christ!-From the Rev. H. Blunt's Posthumous Sermons.

LITTLE CHARLIE.

I FEAR I cannot now do justice to the account of little Charlie which you wish to have, as many things he said, which struck me very much at the time, have escaped my memory. The first time I saw him, he was rocking himself in a little chair, evidently in great pain; so much so, that he took no notice of me when I went in. I took a chair, and sat near to him, and said to him, " You seem to be in great pain,-tell me where it lies." He told me, just as any little child would do, all about his ailments. The young person who asked me to go and see him had told me he was much afraid of dying, and she thought his mother did not like any one to speak to him on the subject; but she said he talked differently to any child she ever heard, and she wished I would just see what I

thought of him when I called. As I was quite alone with him, I thought I would ask a few questions, not having an idea of his state of mind, and he did not seem the least disposed to speak before I spoke on spiritual subjects. I said, "Charlie, have you ever heard of Jesus? do you love Jesus?" The last question seemed quite to rouse him, and he burst into tears, and looking at me as if he wondered I should ask such a question, or that I could have a doubt on the subject, he said, "Did you say, do I love Jesus? I believe I do love Him," he added with the greatest energy; "but," he added, "Jesus loves me, that is what I think of most-Jesus loves me," and whilst he spoke, the tears ran down his cheeks as fast as possible. I replied, "You are a happy little boy, if, in the midst of all your suffering, that is the case; tell me, how long is it that you have known and loved Jesus? He said, "Ever since God taught me to read and understand his own holy word. You know," he added, "it is all his own doing." I cannot remember exactly what followed, I was so overcome myself; but what the young woman told me of his fear of death came into my mind, and I thought I should like to prove whether that really was the case. I remember saying, "If then you love Jesus, and know He loves you, should you not like to be where Heris?" He simply replied, "Oh! that I should." I said, "We cannot be where He is without passing through death." He answered, "I know that flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." "Well," I said," should you be afraid of dying?" "Afraid of dying!" he said quite with surprise," why should I? Jesus has taken away the sting of death." Whilst I was sitting with him, he asked me whether Mr. Burnett (the clergyman) would come and see him. I replied that I thought he would, "Shall I ask him." He said, "I should be very thankful. I am very thankful you are come; and I should be very thankful to see him; but neither Mr. Burnett nor you can do for my soul what Jesus has." He added again," I should be very thankful if either of you would come, but I do not put my trust in man or princes. You know," he continued, “if I had only committed one sin since I was born I should go to everlasting woe if Jesus had not died for me; and now,