"At the same time, Esther Patrick was legally informed of her good fortune by a deputation, in form of a clerk, from the solicitor who had made the will; but she was advised at the same time, that every thing was to remain in the house of the late Mrs. Stokes as it had been; the servants were to be kept on, and the household duly supplied from the estate for a certain period not yet expired, which was stated in the will.

"To this Esther replied: 'In course, every tittle of the will must be kept to; so, father, it's best that you and I should remain as we is ; and may be, you will like to live on here, and just keep to your old habits, though to be sure I shall see that you shall never want for nothing; and that was more than Loui could have done, had she kept what aunt left her; for she was not to help you direct nor indirect: did not the will say that, Mr. Smith?' she added, addressing the clerk, who repeated what passed to me. "Owing to the clause in the will, which forbade any immediate change in the arrangement of the household of the late Mrs. Stokes, poor Louisa was left in quiet with my daughter for some weeks, for I could not find it in my heart to desire Mary to come home; and sad as that interval was, for poor Louisa never went without the door, the time of the young people, as Mary often told me, passed very sweetly.

"It is remarkable that Louisa seldom spoke of what she meant to do when the household was broken up. Even when her old nurse put the question to her, as she often did, she would put it off, saying, I am sure that my heavenly Father will provide for me;' and she would then ask herself, how is it that I have no cares of this kind? All anxiety about worldly matters seemed to die within me when I took that decisive step, by which I forfeited all my aunt had left me.' Perhaps,' she would sometimes say to Mary, 'perhaps, when it is necessary to act, I shall become anxious again: at present, I do not understand it; but may it not be owing to the strong and beautiful views of Divine love, which you are always bringing before me when you read the Scriptures to me, and which, by the blessing from on high, inspire me with such feelings-such assurances--of the love of Christ for his redeemed ones; that I cannot be anxious about meats and drinks, and the common necessaries of this short state of existence!'

"Often then, would she speak of that state in which we shall

be like our Lord, because we shall see him as he is; and would add, "But I have thoughts of a state of salvation, which I cannot utter, a joy unspeakable and full of glory; and such an implicit leaning on the Beloved, that I fear nothing, but my own faithless heart." When I, who often visited her, said, that this was a common case with believers, she answered, because his life is hidden with Christ in God.'

"But though, as week succeeded week, bringing on the period when poor Louisa must leave the house in which she had lived so many years of her life, she was enabled to divest herself of care; my wife and I were full of plans respecting her, and constantly asking each other, what could be done for her. We feared she would be left to rude collision with her sister; and Mary had proposed, if nothing else could be done, that she should

come to us.

"But a better home awaited her, than any we had planned for her reception. She had spent a peaceful day, as customary, with my daughter: they had worked and read together, and she had answered one of the usual speeches of her nurse, by saying in a cheerful way, Well, my nurse, when you leave this, you must look for some neat little cottage, and I will come and live with you; we shall do vastly well; and I shall require no other visitors than dear Mary and her parents, and, perhaps my own father, when it pleases him, to visit his own poor daughter.' Before they supped, they read the first chapter of the first Epistle of Peter, and prayed, kneeling together with the nurse.

"Scarcely had they risen from their knees, when a sudden glow, followed by an unearthly paleness, passed over the features of our young friend. These were but the shadows of her Father's tender hand, changing her countenance,' not that he might 'send her away,' but meeten her for glory and take her to himself. He had numbered her with those of whom she had been just reading, who had obtained like precious faith with the apostle, and was now about to crown her ardent longings, by a momentary and abundant entrance to her home in light.

"I was sent for, about two hours after the first attack; every expedient was attempted which skill could devise, but she remained unconscious; and within four hours of her first attack, her soul departed with one deep sigh: the bitterness of death

was never experienced by her; and in this, we who stood by, received a farther evidence, if any were required, that she was numbered with those who never taste of death.

"Louisa died exactly one month previous to the time, when by her aunt's will, had she conformed to its terms, she would have entered into full possession of her inheritance below. To how infinitely more glorious a possession was she now inducted! Wafted, as it were, almost unconsciously over the swellings of Jordan, mortality had been swallowed up of life, and she was in a moment heir of all things in right of her Redeemer!

"Poor Patrick truly shewed a father's heart when informed of his daughter's death; he visited her cold remains, and mourned over them most bitterly, crying ‘And was this the child I gave up for worldly gain? Oh, that I might die as she has done, and my latter end be like hers!'

“And I, as I stood by, viewing my own faithlessness, could not help exclaiming, 'And is this that very young creature, on whom I thought my first words of admonition, were no more than the seed cast upon the stony and barren soil?'

'How truly,' observed Paternus, 'is unbelief described in Scripture, as our easily-besetting sin! And how few give credit to the apostle when he says, Faith without works is dead, being alone.' Who amongst us does not draw back, when the enquiry is proposed, Shew me thy faith by thy works?' But here we have a simple, child-like, trusting spirit, taking up the promise as it finds it, and never doubting for one moment, that the God who gave it means to make it good. I like high doctrine, as the world describes it, I confess; but I like,' he added with unusual emphasis, his eye kindling as he spoke, 'I like high practice too; and here we had it.''

(To be continued.)

M. M. S.

THE STATE AND PROSPECTS OF PALESTINE.* "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," (Luke 21, 24); in other words, when the Gentile lease is out, Jerusalem shall be trodden down

no more.

* See our volume for 1844, p. 2.

When a great city is overthrown, and the first outburst of sorrow dies away, it is either quietly rebuilt and re-occupied, or forsaken and forgotten. In either case, it is only one generation which suffers. If a new city rise on the ruins of the old, the conquerors and the conquered usually blend more or less together; and in some future age, they live promiscuously, and rejoice in common on a soil which their fathers moistened with one another's blood. What modern Roman lays it the least to heart, that the grass waves in theatres where his forefathers sat the long summer day, and laughed, and cheered, and shouted; or who feels it personally, that the bramble grows out of the riven altar on which Romulus or Numa laid the struggling victim? The chain of identity is broken, and the new race is clean severed from the old. If, on the other hand, no new city be suffered to arise, if the shock which overturned its walls have also dispersed its people, like the shattered fragments of the avalanche, they soon melt and are lost atoms in the stream of some mightier population. Where is the bosom in which Troy awakens the faintest throb of patriotic feeling? What nation pays its pilgrimage to the swampy sites of Nineveh and Babylon? And what emotion, beyond a vague and impersonal sadness, a general impression of the melancholy, a sense of dreariness without any touch of tenderness, is ever called forth among the broken shafts of Palmyra, and empty rock-nests of Petra? Where are the people who have the hereditary right to sit down among such ruins, and recognizing emblems of departed glory, the right to weep because their "house is left unto them desolate"? Where are the old inhabitants? They were not exterminated, and yet they have vanished. Merged in the nations, and mutually commingled, there is no precipitate which can decompose them, and bring them out in their original distinctness again. The house is desolate, but no one feels that the house is his, so no one mourns its desolation. But there is a city whose case is quite peculiar: captured, ravaged, burnt, razed to the foundation, dis-peopled, carried captive, its deported citizens sold in slavery, and forbidden, by severest penalties, to visit their native seats again; though eighteen centuries have passed, and strangers still tread its hallowed soil, that city is still the magnet of many hearts, and awakens from time to time, pangs of as keen emotion as when its fall was recent. Ever and anon, and from all

the winds of heaven, Zion's exiled children come to visit her, and with eyes weeping sore bewail her widowhood. No city was ever honored thus. None else receives pilgrimages of affection from the fifteenth generation of its outcast people. None else, after centuries of dispersion, could at the first call, gather beneath its wings the whole of its wide-wandering family. None else has possessed a spell sufficient to keep in remotest regions, and in the face of the mightiest inducements, its people still distinct; and none but itself can now be re-peopled with precisely the same race which left it nearly two thousand years ago. The reason of this anomaly must be sought, not in Jerusalem, but in the purposes of God.

There are two familiar facts :-the Jews are still distinct; and to the Jews, Jerusalem still is dear. What is the final cause, the Divine reason for these singular facts? Why, when all other scattered nations mingle, why is it that, like naptha in a fountain, or amber floating on the sea, this people shaken hither and thither, are found, after all their tossings and jumblings, separate and immiscible? And why, again, when every other forsaken city, after an age or two, is forgotten by its people, why has Jerusalem such strong affinity for its outcast population, that the city refuses any other permanent inhabitants, and the old inhabitants refuse any other settled home? Why these anomalous and mutually adapting facts, unless God has some purpose with the place and with the people; and unless the place and the people have yet something to do with one another?

This presumption becomes an absolute certainty, when we consult the sure Word of prophecy; and, in order not to confuse your ideas, and oppress your memories with a multitude of quotations, I would by way of specimen, select the following three:

"In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign to the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass IN THAT DAY, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dis

sea.