tage, where poverty and affliction reign together. There let him behold the difconfolate widow fitting - steeped 66 in tears; thus forrowing over the infant, she knows not how to fuccour"O my child, thou art now left ex" posed to a wide and a vicious world, too full of snares and temptations for "thy tender and unpractised age. Per"haps a parent's love may magnify " those dangers. - But when I confider " thou art driven out naked into the "midst of them, without friends, with out fortune, without instruction, my " heart bleeds beforehand for the evils "which may come upon thee. GOD, " in whom we trusted, is witness, fo " low had his providence placed us, " that we never indulged one wish to "have made thee rich, - virtuous we "would L3 would have made thee; for thy "father, my husband, was a good man " and feared the Lord, and though "all the fruits of his care and industry were little enough for our fupport, yet he honeftly had determined to "have spared fome portion of it, fcanty as it was, to have placed thee safely " in the way of knowledge and inftrucBut alas! he is gone from us, "tion But let the man, who is the leaft friend to distresses of this nature, conceive some difconfolate widow uttering her complaint even in this manner, and then let him consider, if there is any for 1 Y row like this forrow, wherewith the Lord bas afflicted her? or, whether there can be any charity like that, of taking the child out of the mother's basom, and rescuing her from these apprehenfions. Should a heathen, a stranger to our holy religion and the love it teaches, should he, as he journeyed, come to the place where she lay, when be faw, would be not have compaffion on her? Gop forbid, a christian should this day want it; or at any time look upon such a distress, and pass by on the other fide. Rather, let him do, as his Saviour taught him, bind up the wounds, and pour comfort into the heart of one, whom the hand of God has so bruised. Let him practise what it is, with Elijah's transport, to say to the afflicted widow いい -See, 1 liveth by my -See, thy son liveth ! "Much peace and happiness rest up" on the head and heart of every one " who thus brings children to CHRIST 66 - May the blessing of him that was "ready to perish come seasonably upon "him. - The Lord comfort him, when " be most wants it, when he lays fick |