"I really do not exactly know; I have very little acquaintance with her; I have avoided it, because I think such people dangerous: but I have heard many things of her not at all consistent with a religious character. It is very easy to talk and profess, but when one knows she does not mean what she says, there is danger in having the form of godliness without the power."

I admitted the justness of this remark, but still desired to know wherein Miss N. stood more exposed than others to this danger: for I had been much pleased with her conversation in the short visit she made us. Urged again, Matilda said Miss N. wore feathers, which she thought not consistent with the sobriety of dress that becomes a Christian; then she had heard she went into gay company; she did not know whether it was true, but she supposed it was; she often saw her speaking to people of that sort, and the Scriptures had required us not to be conformed to the fashions of the world. I thought the Scriptures had also commanded us not to speak evil one of another, nor to judge one another; but I did not make the remark.

"I have heard," continued Matilda-"I do not remember where I heard it-but I know I heard it from somebody-that she is not particularly strict in the observance of the Sabbath: it is impossible a person can be a child of God, and break his positive commandments."

I thought it was one of the positive commandments that we should not bear false witness against our neighbours. But I made no remark, at this time not quite agreeing with my friend; for, if Matilda did not know what she said to be false, she did not know it to be true; and if it was true, she had only assumed what she began with asserting, that Miss

N. professed what she did not mean. How did Matilda know what Miss N. professed? In our recent conversation, confessedly the first she ever had with her, I am certain she had not professed not to wear feathers, or not to go into company; and supposing Matilda did not profess to speak no evil, and bear no false-witness, I considered that however wrong I might regard them, both or either, I could not well apply to them my favourite word, and it was a great disappointment to me.

Seated at tea in the balcony of our house, we were conversing one evening on a melancholy occurrence in a family of the neighbourhood, in which a young person had been reduced to a state of deep and morbid melancholy, by the effects of long-protracted anxiety, ending in severe and remediless affliction. It came to be considered, in the course of conversation, how far such a result was consistent with religious submission to the will of Heaven. It was very clearly proved, that by a mind entirely detached from the things of earth, the loss of earthly things could not consistently be felt; that a mind entirely trusting in the wisdom and power of God, could not consistently suffer from anxiety; that a mind totally acquiescent in the will of God, could not consistently feel regret at the dispensations of Providence and, above all, that where no loss, or anxiety, or regret, could be felt, the mind could not consistently be deranged by them. These were truths beyond all controversy, and we were thence successfully going on to deduce the inconsistency of this helpless sufferer in particular, and of every body else in general, ourselves excepted, when the rolling of distant thunder in the horizon announced a coming storm, called off our attention, and turned the conversation. The storm arose. The young ladies

became desperately frightened; they did not know for what, but lest some harm should happen to themselves, or somebody, or something that belonged to them. When I endeavoured to soothe them by assurance that no ill would happen, they grew angry. How could I be sure of that? Lightning often kills people-wind often blows houses downpeople sometimes lose their eyes or their hearing in a thunder-storm: in short, they thought it quite wicked not to be frightened when there was danger, and distressed when there might be suffering, to others, if not to ourselves.

The storm subsided-but not so the fears. They had now, indeed, a definite object; very considerable damage was supposed to have been done on a distant part of the coast, where they had property, and they might possibly be very material losers by the accident. Gloom, fretfulness, and anxiety, pervaded the house through all that night and the succeeding day. With the hopefulness generally experienced by the uninterested spectator of others' anxieties, I represented to them every probability or possibility, reasonable or unreasonable, that their property might not have been injured; but they persisted in expecting the worst, in rejecting all palliations of the possible mischief. They would not eat, they would not sleep, they would not divert their minds by employment, or relieve themselves by conversation; and when they thought they perceived in me an opinion that they showed more uneasiness than was warranted by a yet uncertain ill, and more impatience under an imagined loss, than might have been reasonable even under a known one, they observed, that to be less anxious than they were, would be unnatural, insensible, impossible: in short, inconsistent with common sense. It did not

happen to us at that time to renew the conversation of the balcony; of minds detached from earth; of trust that could not be shaken; of acquiescence that could not be moved; of that self-possession, in short, that could not be disturbed in a devoted and well-regulated mind.

Among our intimate acquaintance, there was one young person whose liveliness of manner and buoyancy of spirits made her the life of her family and the zest of every company she happened to mix with. She went gaily and cheerfully about every task that circumstance or choice imposed; she spoke of every thing with playful vivacity, and did every thing with an air of confident expectation. Meet her when you would, or where you would, there was always a brightness in her eye, and a smile on her brow, and activity and enjoyment in her whole demeanour. We allowed that this was agreeable, we confessed great pleasure in her society, but we could not approve her character; it was not consistent for a Christian to be always so light-hearted. The pilgrim, the penitent, the culprit, the suppliant dependent on Almighty pity, the combatant struggling through unequal warfare, the prodigal as yet almost a stranger in his home, the meek, the mournful, and the broken-hearted, emblems by which the Deity has described his people, are characters, we said, that consist not with so much gaiety and lightness of spirits, such sanguine, cheerful, fearless anima

tion.

There was another, on whose brow the shade of pensiveness for ever sat supreme: she seemed to be always feeling, one might have said, always suffering. If there ever came a smile on her features, it was gone, ere you could be sure you saw it there.

If there ever escaped from her a word of jest, the sigh came so quickly after, you felt forbidden to remark it: the liquid eye, and changeful colour, spoke intensity of feeling; but even in her feeling, there was a stillness imperturbable-in her very pleasures, if she knew any, there was a tone of melancholy. Her affectionate softness we felt was lovely, her gentle sadness interesting; we could even have loved her, had we not seen her so very inconsistent. A Christian who professes, as we supposed she did, to have found a real and substantial bliss in grateful anticipation of eternal joy, ought never to be melancholy habitual sadness, an air of habitual suffering, was not consistent with the security, and peace, and joy, offered in the Gospel to the believer, and professedly accepted by him.

There was a third person, whose busy, bustling, babbling nature, happily set in motion by a disposition to good, was for ever talking, and for ever doing. From sunrise to sunset, she was to be seen in motion; assisting every body, exhorting every body, teaching every body: sometimes laden with books to give away, sometimes with work to be done, or clothes to be bestowed. Her tables were strewed with tracts and baby-linen; her basket was filled with conserves and cough-mixtures. Nobody could live without her assistance, nobody could die without her administration. It almost seemed that nobody could go to heaven without her guidance. The days were too short for what she had to do; the hours were not long enough for what she had to say: her busy head was always devising something; her bustling step was always pursuing something; her rapid finger was always making something; her tongue outstripped them all; and of all,