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THE OLD PLOUGHMAN.

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"Had you any idea of your soul, or its immor- has put in the foundation, and carried up the house tality?"

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Why, sir, I was always puzzled about it. Sometimes I thought that very wicked people went to hell when they died, especially the rich."

"Had you never any fears about going to hell?" "No, never. My common thoughts were, that when I died there would be an end of me; just the same as with the sheep or the horse."

"You believe there is a change in you now, and one for the better?"

"O yes, the Lord be praised! I know'd there was a change in me when I was in your vestry the night after I heard that blessed sermon; but I know it better now. I now find it lasts with me; but then I fear'd it wouldn't. If I had known fifty years agone what I know now, it would have been a good thing for me. I should have been all that long time . a power happier in my soul. I wish my poor wife had lived to see this day."

"To whom do you ascribe the great change that has been produced in you?"

"Yes, it is a great change, like changing a flint stone into bread, or a bog into a garden. The Bible calls it, being called out of darkness into marvellous light. This is a faithful account of it. Darkness,

I take, means ignorance, and light, I take, means knowledge. I have come from one state to another, and nobody can make me think otherwise. Why, if a blind man sees the sun, he must know that his eyes be opened."

a story or two, will not leave off, and let it tumble to ruins, when he wants to use it. No, he'll go on till he has finished it. And so I hope the Lord will finish the good work he has begun in my soul. It is wonderful. I sometimes think about it till I get so puzzled that I have to go a walk to get my thoughts back; and then my heart gets warm with gratitude to him for his great kindness."

"I suppose you sometimes long to have the good work brought to perfection?"

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Now, sir, on this point I'm a bit disappointed. I thought at first, when I felt the change, that I should soon get free from sin. But now I find, from reading the Bible, and from Master Dean's talking to me, that I sha'n't get free from sin till I get to heaven. The sermon you preached last Sunday morning brought a power of comfort to my soul; I put the text on my heart and don't think it will e'er get off We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' How wonderful! To see Jesus Christ in his glory so soon as we be dead, and to be like him! I should like that hour to come."

I was much gratified at this interview, and somewhat surprised to find the rapid progress he had made in learning to read. At the age of seventy-two he could not tell a letter, but now he could make out, with a little help, several chapters in John's gospel, and some other parts of the Bible. The 23d and 103d psalms greatly delighted him. In addition to the regular time he devoted to his studies, every Monday!

"Very true, but who produced the change which morning he went to the cottage, and got his friend, you say you have felt ?"

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"You have felt a great change, but do you feel perfect; or do you feel that your heart is still wicked?"

O, sir! there is a power of sin in my heart. The fallow is ploughed up, but it is not cleared yet. And this puzzles me. I pray the Lord to make me holy, but he hasn't done it yet. But I had great comfort when Master Dean read to me the seventh chapter of the Romans. I thought when he was reading, that the writer of that chapter felt that he had a wicked heart, as I often feel that I have one." "I suppose you believe that he who has begun the good work in you will carry it on, and bring it to perfection?"

"Yes, if you mind, sir, you proved that when you preached a sermon 'tother Sabbath from the gladsome works of Paul. I put them on my heart the next day. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. ""-Phil. i. 6.

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"Do you remember any illustrations which I brought forward to show the reasonableness of our expecting that the Author of the good work of grace will complete it?"

"Yes, sir, you said that a wise builder, when he

John Dean, to help him to read the texts of the preceding Sabbath; and he put many of them upon his memory, which soon acquired such an extraordinary power of recollection that he could repeat many verses, and relate the leading particulars of some of the more striking and interesting narratives of the Bible.

He came into my vestry one evening, and said, "I can't, sir, do much to serve Jesus Christ and his cause, as I'm old and poor; but I should like to do what I can, as the woman did you told us about on Sunday. I'm thinking as how I could get rid of some tracts among the boatmen that come to my son's tap-room. And perhaps the Lord may bless the reading of them to the conversion of some poor sinner, as old and as ignorant as I was once. If he should, I shall have a power of heart gladness."

In addition to his labour of tract distribution, he became a visitor of the sick; and from the devotion of his spirit, and the humble simplicity of his manners, he was always welcome in the chamber of affliction and death. On one occasion, when calling to see a member of the church who was dangerously ill, I found the old ploughman was with him, and, stepping up the stairs very cautiously, I had the satisfaction of hearing him in prayer. I could not catch every sentence of his prayer, but I heard the following confessions and petitions:

"O Lord, by nature we be poor, and wicked, and ignorant sinners. O Lord, we don't know ourselves. We don't know thee. We don't know Jesus Christ." "O Lord, we were once under a sentence of death,

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but we didn't know it. Pardon all our wickedness, his death, which deeply affected me; and, on inquiry, and all our sins, for Christ's sake."

"O blessed Jesus, we thank thee for living for us. We thank thee for dying for us. We thank thee for living again for us. We come to thee for rest of soul; and we come to thee for eternal life."

"O blessed Jesus, look upon our dying brother. Comfort his heart. Keep away the great enemy. Come and meet him on his way to thy kingdom. May he soon see thee, and be like thee !"

"O Lord, save me, a poor old sinner, who lived for threescore years and ten, and didn't love thee, Inor pray to thee. Make me fit for heaven, and take me there when I go out of this world of sin and sorrow."

"O blessed Jesus, we bless thee for going to get a place in heaven ready for us, that we may have a good home when we are taken out of this world of sin and sorrow."

After pursuing the noiseless tenor of his way for about the space of five years, growing in knowledge and in grace, developing his deportment in the great, and good, and lovely principles of the Christian faith, and highly esteemed by those of his brethren who knew him, his natural strength began to decline, and other symptoms indicated the approach of his latter end. I visited him during his confinement, and was much pleased, by finding him patient and resigned, anticipating, with subdued eagerness, his entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

"Are you suffering much?"

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'Yes, sir, my sufferings be great, but not so great as the sufferings which my dear Saviour suffered for me. When he was suffering for me he was forsaken, but the Lord does not forsake me. He was on a cross, but I be on a good bed. He was mocked when dying by the wicked, but all speak kindly to me." "You are not afraid to die?

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"Then you have no doubt of going to heaven?" "Why should I, when Jesus Christ says, Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out?'”

"Then you consider heaven as your future home ?" "Yes, sir, I do, and I believe my dear Saviour is waiting to receive me. This comforts my heart."

He was confined to his room during the whole of the winter, but in the spring he rallied, and recovered his usual flow of spirits; and as the summer advanced, he resumed his attendance on public worship, which he designated "the gate of heaven to his soul." The last time I saw him was when administering the Lord's Supper; his countenance indicated great intensity of emotion, and after taking the cup the tear of penitential joy was again visible. My eye followed him as he walked down the aisle with his friend John Dean, and had I then known that I should see his face no more, I would have stepped after him, and, bidding him farewell, I would have offered him my congratulations on the grand issue of his faith, now so near its consummation. In the course of the following week, I abruptly heard of

I found he died suddenly and alone, being found dead by his relatives when they arose in the morning.

"I didn't suppose," said John Dean, "that he would leave us so suddenly; though we have thought lately that he would not stay with us much longer, his common conversation was so much about heaven and heavenly things. When looking on a field of wheat we had both looked at the week before, he said, in allusion to a remark he heard from the pulpit on the preceding Sabbath, If we did but get ripe for heaven as fast as this bit of wheat has ripened for the reapers since a week agone, we should very soon be meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Having touched on this subject, which had been for some weeks his favourite theme of conversation, he exclaimed with great animation of voice, and look, and action, O what a wonderful world heaven must be !-how I long to get there !-how I long to see my blessed Saviour, and get like him! O how I long to bow down on my knees to worship him! how I long to sing his praises! What grand harmony there! What a power of voices to sing his honour and glory!-and they will sing for ever! O, if I had never left the country to live here, I should never know'd nothing about these grand and glorious things! What a mercy! the Lord be praised!"" "His conversion, sir," said Mrs Dean, as I was rising to leave the cottage, " is a grand proof of the power of the Lord Jesus over the stupid intellect and the stubborn heart of man; and it is a grand dis play of the exceeding riches of his grace, in the salvation of another of the chief of sinners. A joyous day for the angels when he heard the first sermon at the chapel."

With what rapidity did George Medway pass through a series of wonderful changes within the space of a few years! At the age of seventy-two he had never seen a Bible, knew not a letter of the alphabet, and was ignorant of all the facts of the Christian revelation, consenting to be led to a place of worship with no other expectation than merely enjoying a nap of sleep; and yet when there, his attention is riveted to the lips of the preacher, he hears the truth and understands it, feels its renovating power, and comes forth before the eye of the world a new creature in Christ Jesus. In his case there was no progressive training, no reiterated efforts to illumine his dark mind, no repetition of ingenious experiments to rouse up some latent faculty of intellectualism and moral sensibility; his spirit broke out of the prison-house of its long confinement by one thrust of its newly-acquired power-comes at once into open space-sees the great and grand facts of a spiritual theory of faith as clearly as though he had completed a long initiatory term under the most able professors-and instantaneously recognises his obligations to obey the laws of Jesus Christ, of which he had previously no knowledge. This does not turn out to be a day-dream-a passing illusion-a mere moral ignis fatuus, appearing and disappearing by some unknown power of spiritual enchantment; but a positive and palpable reality, confirmed by a considerable amount of mental improvement, and a life

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of practical devotedness to the service of the Lord force them into poetical excess; but we have known Jesus Christ.

The sceptic, who has never fairly examined the Christian theory, which makes ample provision for the appearance of such a moral phenomenon, may look on such a fact as this with as much indifference as a clown would look on a new comet; and might imagine that he had discovered the cause of it, in the strange magic power of enthusiastic fanaticism; but no man who takes a deep interest in phenomena, whether physical or moral, will feel at liberty to stop in his investigations till he has arrived at something like an adequate cause of its existence. To suppose that the old man effected this great change which took place in his mind and in his character would be absurd. And it would be equally absurd to refer it to the mere agency which was employed in its production, because there was wanting both the intellectual capacity and moral sensibility for that agency to act on. To what other cause can it be referable, but to the intervention of a divine power, rendering the preaching of the gospel effectual to the recovery of the fallen spirit of this old man from the dominion of ignorance and of sin, preparatory to his final salvation?

"We cannot close this subject," says Foster in his Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance, “without adverting to a phenomenon as admirable, as, unhappily, it is rare, and which the observers may, if they choose, go round the whole circle of their philosophy, and begin again, to find any adequate cause other than the most immediate agency of the almighty Spirit. Here and there an instance occurs, to the delight of the Christian philanthropist, of a person brought up in utter ignorance and barbarian rudeness, and so continuing till late, sometimes very late in life, and then at last, after such a length of time and habit has completed its petrifying effect, suddenly seized upon by a mysterious power, and taken with an alarming and irresistible force out of the dark hold in which the spirit has lain imprisoned and torpid, into the sphere of thought and feeling.

"Occasion is taken of adverting to such facts, not so much for the purpose of magnifying the nature, as simply exhibiting the effect, of an influence that can breathe with such power on the obtuse intellectual faculties, which it appears, in the most signal of these instances, almost to create anew. It is exceedingly striking to observe how the contracted and rigid soul seems to soften, and grow warm, and expand, and quiver with life. With the new energy infused, it painfully struggles to work itself into freedom from the wretched contortion in which it has so long been fixed, as by the impressed spell of some infernal magic. It is seen filled with a distressed and indignant emotion at its own ignorance; actuated with a resistless earnestness to be informed; acquiring an unwonted pliancy to its faculties of thought; attaining a perception, combined with intelligence and moral sensibility, to which numerous things are becoming discernible and affecting that were as nonexistent before. It is not in the very extreme strength of their import that we employ such terms of description; the malice of irreligion may easily

instances in which the change, the intellectual change, has been so conspicuous within a brief space of time, that even an infidel observer must have forfeited all claim to be esteemed a man of sense, if he would not acknowledge-This that you call divine grace, whatever it may really be, is the strangest awakener of the faculties after all.' And, to a devout man, it is a spectacle of most enchanting beauty, thus to see the immortal plant, which has been under a malignant blast while sixty or seventy years have passed over it, coming out at length in the bloom of life."

PEACE OF MIND.

BY THE REV. LEONARD BACON, D.D. IN the time of an epidemic, it is of great importance that the mind should be kept calm. Anxiety and fear are predisposing causes of the disease. In one state of the system a person may be exposed without danger to a contagious disease, which in another state of the system he would certainly imbibe. Imagination often produces in persons of an extremely nervous temperament symptoms akin to those of the prevailing malady, and thus invites or precipitates an attack of the disease itself. This is especially apt to be the case with respect to such a disease as that now prevalent in this community. So strong is the sympathy between the brain and the digestive organs, that the latter were regarded by the Hebrews, and are alluded to in the Scriptures, as the seat of the emotions and affections.

It is the unanimous recommendation of medical men, and of sanitary committees, that in the prevalence of cholera, all excitement, both physical and mental, should be avoided. Not only should excess in eating and drinking be guarded against, but also any excessive agitation of the mind through fear, or, which perhaps is no less hurtful, extreme depression of spirits from a like cause. A calm, cheerful temper, is hardly less important than a judicious regimen. This is good advice. But while the medical profes sion are unanimous in giving it, they fail to show how it may be followed. How shall anxiety and fear be allayed, or how shall depression and gloom be dispelled? What specific is there for preserving a calm and cheerful frame, while dangers thicken around us, and death seems at the door? Here the Board of Health are at fault; it does not lie within their gift to bestow this quiet and cheerful spirit, or even to point out how it may be attained. When the London Health Commissioners published certain valuable rules to be observed in time of cholera, a satirical journal of that city set forth in caustic terms the mockery of such recommendations to the poor: "You can eat"-say the doctors to the wretched, half-starved denizens of St Giles, who are glad to get even a crust of mouldy bread, or the refuse of the kitchen-"you can eat bountifully of good wholesome food, beef and wheaten bread, but you must abstain from this and that," specifying the commonest articles of food on the poor man's table; you must be careful also to keep yourselves well clothed by day and night "-you poor creatures who have nothing but rags to wear, and a heap of straw or the ground-floor to sleep upon-" be very particular to have warm and dry clothing;" and you miserable occupants of dingy and crowded cellars, "be especially careful to avoid sleeping in a damp chamber, or breathing confined and impure air. Now, the physicians were not to blame for this incongruity between their rules and the condition of those who were most exposed to the disease. The

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rules were excellent, and it was not within their province to supply the means of carrying into effect their own recommendations. But such is the condition of the poor in all large cities, that for them many of the rules laid down for preservation against cholera are but a mockery.

It is not so, however, with the rule prescribing peace of mind. Good food, good clothing, good beds, good homes, may be beyond the reach of thousands that are exposed to the pestilence; but a calm and cheerful spirit is within the reach of all. Physicians cannot produce it; there is nothing in the whole range of materia medica that can impart it; yet it is free and attainable by every one. There is a great Physician to whom all can resort for this blessing; there is an infallible prescription lying ever open, to be had without money and without price. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee."-Isa. xxvi. 3. The phrase translated "perfect peace," in the strong idiom of the Hebrew is " peace, peace;" thou wilt keep him in "peace, peace -"safe, safe "— whose mind is stayed on thee-a peace which is entire, constant, undisturbed.

This peace does not necessarily imply exemption from danger. One may be in outward prosperity, and yet have a heart ill at ease; another may be in the midst of troubles and dangers, and yet be quiet and self-possessed.

It is not the peace resulting from an unconsciousness of, or indifference to, danger. That which the French call nonchalance, whether it be the brute insensibility to fear or danger that marked the countenance of the Chaldean warrior of old, the stolid indifference of the savage to his fate when captured by a hostile band, or the careless levity of the Parisian sensualist, is quite another thing from this sacred peace of mind. True Christian peace is a feeling of security in one's essential wellbeing, based on a just confidence in Divine favour and protection. There may be a perception of danger; the danger may be realized in all its magnitude; the natural apprehension of danger, susceptibility to fear, may still exist; it may even be apparent that the particular danger which threatens cannot be avoided; but there is a feeling that, come what may. I am safe--not safe from sickness, accident, suffering, death-but my substantial happiness is secure now, and for ever. This feeling grows out of an assurance of Divine favour and protection, confidence in the government of God, a sense of the pardon of past offences, the present consciousness of a right state of heart, and a distinct, lively, well-founded hope of eternal life. Why should he be agitated, even in the fiercest storm, who is anchored in the living rock? In order to have this peace of mind, one must put a proper estimate upon his spiritual and eternal wellbeing, as compared with temporal good: he must learn wherein his true safety and happiness consist -not in exemption from poverty, misfortune, sickness, losses, pain, death-but in a heart made pure, and a heaven made sure.

This peace will be greatly promoted by the devout, believing study of the Word of God. The gospel is full of peace-so full that one almost wonders that there should remain any anxiety, trouble, or grief, to those who have embraced it. Christ left a legacy of peace, his own peace, to his disciples; "the peace of God"-"the God of peace "-" passeth understanding."

The heart should hold daily communion with God in prayer, and live in trustful reliance upon him. We keep God too much at a distance. He should be our nearest friend. The mind should be stayed on him, braced on him as on a pillar; its thoughts,

agitated for the moment by danger, should at once settle down upon him as their resting-place. He who thus walks with God, lives in God, and hopes as his highest felicity to dwell with God for ever, has nothing to fear. Such a one can sing with the Psalmist: "I'll go and core. nor fear to die,

Till from on high thou call me home."

Did we meditate as we should upon heaven as our home, and cherish an intimacy with its scenes, its occupations, and its inhabitants, our peace in prospect of any event that might conduct us thither, would even give place to "joy unspeakable and full of glory." The more sudden the event, the quicker the transit to that blessed abode.

THE CHARIOT OF FLAME.

[WE commend this story to the special attention of our young readers. It has been for some time published as a tract.]

In August last I went to visit a place in the neighbourhood of Shotts, between Edinburgh and Glasgow. While there I went into the school, and spoke to the boys and girls about the love of Christ in coming from heaven to give himself a ransom for poor sinners. I had been there several times before, and it was my custom to visit the school, to tell the children what the blessed Jesus had done for them, and for all little children. I used to tell them that he had shed his precious blood for them, that he loves them, and that he invites them to believe what he has done for them, that they may have eternal life. Having said these things, I would tell them a story about some little boy or girl who had already believed in Jesus, and were thus made happy and joyful in their King, and then I would beseech them to believe in Jesus and be happy too. And when I had done speaking to them, and praying with them, I used to give each one a little hymn or a tract, which they received with great pleasure.

When I last saw them I was anxious to know if any of them were believing in Jesus. They all seemed glad to see me, for they knew I had brought a little hymn for them. I spoke to them again much as I have described, I told them how happy Jesus would be to receive them, for he loves to carry the lambs in his bosom. I told them too, that this great Saviour was once as little as any of them, and that he grew up and began to preach the glad tidings that he had come to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. I told them how little children were brought to him that he might put his hands upon them and bless them, and that when his disciples forbade them, thinking that Jesus was too high to speak to little children, they were rebuked by Jesus, who said, "Suffer little children to come to me, and forbid

them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” I pressed upon them to flee to Jesus at once, and have their souls saved, reminding them that, young as they were, they might soon be required to leave this world, and what would become of them then if their souls were not saved?

After telling them a short story I gave each of them a little tract, and then bade them all good-by. Now there was at that school a little girl, about

THE CHARIOT OF FLAME.

ten years of age. Her name was Janet Baillie. She was not like some children who dislike to go to school, and whose parents have often great trouble to get them to go. No, Janet loved to attend school from her earliest years; she rejoiced to accompany her little sister regularly to school, and she soon attracted the teacher's attention by her meek, quiet, lamb-like behaviour. I gave this girl, on the last occasion, a beautiful little hymn, entitled, "The Fulness of Jesus: " the first line is,

"I lay my sins on Jesus,"

Janet thought highly of her little hymn, and as soon as she got home she began to commit it to memory, and often was seen siting with the hymn in her hand, repeating it aloud. Some days after this, when she had fully learned it, she came to her teacher in triumph to repeat it to him. She stood up in front of the desk, and recited it before the whole of her companions.

Not long after Janet had repeated her hymn, it came on a dreadful storm of thunder and lightning. Can you remember any time when you were at school during a thunder storm? If you do, you will remember how much you were afraid, and how terrified many of the other children looked.

This was just the case with the children of the school where Janet was. They all were busy with their lessons, when suddenly the school-room became unusually dark, the lessons were suspended, and the voices of the children were hushed in silence. Some trembled with fear, some stared wildly about them, and all crept close to one another. Nothing was to be heard but loud peals of thunder as it rolled over their heads, and every now and then the lightning's flash occasioned them to start, and showed their terrified faces. Ah! why is it that children are so much afraid of thunder and lightning? They see how easy it would be for God to call them into his presence now, and they feel that they are not ready to die. Their conscience begins to speak, and tells them of many sins they have committed, of many lies they have told, of many Sabbaths they have broken, and of the many times they have disobeyed their parents; and while all these thoughts arise within them, they know that their sins are not pardoned, they know that they have not fled to Jesus as their Saviour, that they have never believed on him; and they feel that if God was to call them into his presence they could not answer for one of a thousand of all their transgressions. Feelings of this kind were agitating the breasts of these children. But there was one in that school who was not afraid, and that was little Janet. And why was she alone calm? Why was she not afraid? Read the hymn carefully over, and you will perhaps find out the reason. She had laid her sins on Jesus, and it was this that stilled all her fears, and made her peaceful in the midst of danger; for they who have taken Jesus for their Saviour, and have laid their sins upon him, know that all things will work together for their good, and that nothing can hurt them without His permission who has all power in heaven and in earth; and that when they are called into the presence of God they will have no

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sins to answer for, because they have laid them on Jesus; and when they will be sought for, they will not be found, for they will be all blotted out by his atoning blood.

In the midst of the storm that was raging around them, Janet was sitting undismayed upon the form, her Bible was lying open upon her knee, and she was reading Paul's Epistle to Philemon. What a difference between Janet and the rest of the children! Many fears disturbed their bosoms, many troubled thoughts were passing through their minds, as they looked at one another in silent amazement. But no storm raged in Janet's bosom, no fears disturbed the peace of her breast: tranquil she sat, with the calm of heaven settled on her little brow.

For a short time all was silent-a loud peal of thunder had just died away, and they were waiting for the next flash of lightning. They had become a little accustomed to the flashes now, and were thinking the next one would be as harmless as those which had gone before it. Just when they were beginning to think that the storm was over, a bright and vivid flash lighted up the school, and all who were in it were stunned. The electric fluid had struck the school, and cast down the scholars on the floor. The flash had discharged its bolt, and again comparative gloom enveloped the school.

The cries of the little sufferers, however, broke upon the teacher's ears as the next peal of thunder was heard. He was left standing in the midst of them, scarcely seeing any of them, but hearing their sobs as they lay weeping around him. He rushed out of the school and called for assistance. The very next house which he entered into contained a poor woman, lying stunned upon the floor, having been struck with the lightning also. Fathers and mothers were soon seen fleeing to the afflicted teacher's aid; and, having entered the school, there were found, lying on the floor, the poor little scholars, screaming in fearful confusion.

Attention was now turned to restoring order in the school. Many of the children were still lying on the floor. One by one was lifted up and carried out. Some of the persons who had come to render help were thus engaged, while others were endeavouring to pacify the younger scholars, whose fears had been so greatly excited. While this work was going on an exclamation from the teacher arrested all in the "This little girl is dead!" "Yes, she is

room:

dead."

It was too true! While all had been frightened by the lightning, one, and one only, had received the deadly blow; but who was she? Now the whisper passed from child to child, Who is she? It was little Janet. Her teacher carefully lifted his pupil from the ground, wondering if it could be, that one of his little group was thus suddenly snatched away; but soon he discovered it was so. The Bible which she had been holding in her hand when the summons from heaven reached her, had fallen beside her. Her body was there, and her Bible was there, but her soul was not there. It had been carried away by a chariot of flame, I believe, to the mansions of glory. Janet's mourning parents were soon on the spot; but the beaming eye of their little girl no

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