To

ful agony, when her convulsive sobs pierced the remotest corners of the house? which she replied, "I was as sensible, as I am at this moment:" and added, "if such be the act of dying, what must death be? I had often been afraid of death, but never before of dying. O what a conflict was that!" Indeed it was a conflict! Well may we pray, in the striking language of our burial service: "Suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee." Perhaps not one in ten thousand recovers, as my daughter did, to tell us what these pains are: and unspeakably thankful ought those to be, whose friends pass calmly through the valley of the shadow of death, and who gently fall asleep in Jesus! I next asked her, why it was, that she viewed her case in so alarming a light? and why, particularly, she had spoken of herself as a hypocrite? She replied that, during the last winter, she had been less in earnest about religion than formerly; that she had gone to the sacrament without preparation; that she had

paid more attention to dress than she ought to have done; and that she had read too much of other books, and too little, her Bible. These were the overwhelming facts, which filled her with such inexpressible fears; and these were the sins, which brought such dreadful guilt upon her conscience, as to make her case appear to herself to be past hope! O how differently do actions appear, on the verge of the grave, in the light of eternity, to what they seem to the gay and careless, in the bloom of youth, and in scenes of pleasure! What self-abasement did this account of my dear daughter's delinquencies occasion in myself! May God Almighty make me more watchful, and more diligent in my proper work; and preserve me from laying up materials for an awakened conscience to work upon, on a dying pillow! It seems that what the world think little things will do this. The fact is, her habitual self-examination; her scriptural views of the holiness of the divine nature; and her acute sensibility of conscience, induced a similar feeling to that of

Job, when he said, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes:" or that of Isaiah, after he had seen "the Lord, sitting upon a throne:" "Woe is me! for I am unclean,―for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." I did not, however, attempt to comfort her, by assuring her (contrary to the truth) that there was no cause for humiliation, on these accounts; but I again referred her to the same sources of consolation as I had done before; and especially to the unlimited promises of the Gospel; and to the intercession of Jesus Christ for his people: telling her, that “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ, the Righteous." In reference to her agonizing fears of death, I told her that she brought most bitterly to my remembrance my sinful neglect, in not having taken more opportunities of talking with her on the subject of death; and bringing before her such considerations as were calculated to remove its terrors, and

make her familiar with it. In her usual strain of self-abasement, she replied, “O father! it was not you that have been remiss; but it was my backwardness to join in conversation with you, when you have entered on that subject. You have often introduced it; and it was discontinued, because I did not freely join in it." The fact, however, really is, that I had not properly, and at seasonable opportunities, turned the course of conversation to this topic; nor have I the least recollection that it was ever dropped, when it had commenced, from any indisposition, on her part, to take a share in it. Whatever subject of a religious nature I brought before her, was always attended to with a respect, bordering on reverence; and if she made but few observations on these occasions, it was because she felt it due to her father implicitly to receive his instructions. It was, however, a sad omission; and bitterly did I lament it, when I saw the distress, under which she laboured from mistaken conceptions of her own state, and of what

might be the result of her passing out of time into eternity.

In referring to the hymn, which she had repeated with so much feeling and emphasis, I illustrated the expression

Rock of ages, rent for me,

Let me hide myself in thee!

by observing that, in the wide and dreary deserts of the East, storms and tempests often suddenly arise, and threaten the traveller with instant destruction. It may easily, therefore, be conceived with what eagerness he looks around him for shelter; and with what haste he betakes himself to the cleft of a rock, if such a refuge should present itself, in his impending danger. Such a security is Jesus Christ, when we are brought to see our danger, and cry in our distress, "what must I do to be saved?" The prophet had this in view, when he said "a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." She exclaimed, "O how beautiful! how beautiful!" She evidently felt that this was