of fixing their eyes on these glories, made all the shining trifles, which compose the mass of things below, at last appear in their own diminutive littleness. For it was in this case particularly true, that things are only big or little by comparison; and there was no other way of making the things below appear as small as they really were, but by comparing them, by means of the telescope, with the things above. But I observed that the false judgment of the pilgrims ever kept pace with their wrong practices; for those who kept their eyes fastened on the things below, were reckoned wise in their generation, while the few who looked forward to the future glories, were accounted by the bustlers, or heapers, to be either fools or mad.

Most of these pilgrims went on in adorning their tenements, adding to their heaps, grasping the things below as if they would never let them go, shutting their eyes, instead of using their telescope, and neglecting their title-deed, as if it was the parchment of another man's estate, and not of their own; till, one after another, each felt his tenement tumbling about his ears. O! then, what a busy, bustling, anxious, terrifying, distracting moment was that! What a deal of business was to be done, and what a strange time was this to do it in! Now, to see the confusion and dismay occasioned by having left every thing to the last minute! First, some one was sent for to make over the yellow heaps to another, which the heaper now found would be of no use to himself in shooting the gulf; a transfer which ought to have been made while the tenement was sound. Then there was a consultation between two or three masons at once perhaps, to try to patch up the walls, and strengthen the props, and stop the decays of the tumbling tenement; but not till the masons were forced to declare it was past repairing (a truth they were rather too apt to keep back), did the tenant seriously think it was time to pack up, prepare, and be gone. Then what sending for the wise men who professed to explain the title-deed! And, O! what remorse that they had neglected to examine it till their senses were too confused for so weighty a business! What reproaches, or what exhortations to others, to look better after their own affairs than they had done! Even to the wisest of the inhabitants, the falling of their tenements was a solemn thing; solemn, but not surprising; they had long been packing up, and preparing; they praised the Lord's goodness, that they had been suffered to stay so long; many acknowledged the mercy of their frequent warnings, and confessed that those very dilapidations which had made the house uncomfortable, had been a blessing, as it had set

them on diligent preparation for their future inheritance; had made them more earnest in examining their title to it, and had set them on such a frequent application to the telescope, that the things above had seemed every day to approach, nearer and nearer, and the things below to recede and vanish in proportion. These desired not to be "unclothed, but to be clothed upon, for they knew that if their tabernacle was dissolved, they had house not made with hands, eternal iñ the heavens."

THE

VALLEY OF TEARS,

A VISION;

OR,

BEAR YE ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS.

ONCE upon a time, methought I set out upon a long journey, and the place through which I travelled appeared to be a dark valley, which was called the Valley of Tears. It had obtained this name, not only on account of the many sorrowful adventures which poor passengers commonly meet with in their journey through it, but also because most of these travellers entered it weeping and crying, and left it in very great pain and anguish. This vast valley was full of people of all colors, ages, sizes, and descriptions. But whether white, or black, or tawny, all were travelling the same road; or rather they were taking different little paths which all led to the same common end.

Now, it was remarkable, that notwithstanding the different complexions, ages, and tempers of this vast variety of people, yet all resembled each other in this one respect, that each had a burden on his back, which he was destined to carry through the toil and heat of the day, until he should arrive, by a longer or shorter course, at his journey's end. These burdens would in general have made the pilgrimage quite intolerable, had not the Lord of the valley, out of his great compassion for these poor pilgrims, provided, among other things, the following means for their relief:

In their full view over the entrance of the valley, there were written, in great letters of gold, the following words

BEAR YE ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS.

Now, I saw in my vision that many of the travellers hurried on without stopping to read this inscription; and others,

though they had once read it, yet paid little or no attention to it. A third sort thought it very good advice for other people, but very seldom applied it to themselves. They uniformly desired to avail themselves of the assistance which, by this injunction, others were bound to offer them, but seldom considered that the obligation was mutual, and that reciprocal wants and reciprocal services formed the strong cord in the bond of charity. In short, I saw that too many of those people were of opinion that they had burdens enough of their own, and that there was therefore no occasion to take upon them those of others; so each tried to make his own load as light, and his own journey as pleasant as he could, without so much as once casting a thought on a poor overloaded neighbor. Here, however, I have to make a rather singular remark, by which I shall plainly show the folly of these selfish people. It was so ordered and contrived by the Lord of this valley, that if any one stretched out his hand to lighten a neighbor's burden, in fact he never failed to find that he at that moment also lightened his own. Besides, the benefit of helping each other was as mutual as the obligation. If a man helped his neighbor, it commonly happened that some other neighbor came, by and by, and helped him in his turn; for there was no such thing as what we call independence in the whole valley. Not one of all these travellers, however stout and strong, could move on comfortably without assistance, for so the Lord of the Valley, whose laws were all of them kind and good, had expressly ordained.

I stood still to watch the progress of these poor wayfaring people, who moved slowly on, like so many ticket-porters, with burdens of various kinds on their backs; of which some were heavier, and some were lighter; but from a burden of one kind or other, not one traveller was entirely free. There might be some difference in the degree, and some distinction in the nature, but exemption there was none.

The Widow.

A sorrowful widow, oppressed with the burden of grief for the loss of an affectionate husband, moved heavily on; and would have been bowed down by her heavy load, had not the surviving children with great alacrity stepped forward and supported her. Their kindness after a while so much lightened the load, which threatened at first to be intolerable, that she even went on her way with cheerfulness, and more than repaid their help, by applying the strength she derived from it to their future assistance.

The Husband.

I next saw a poor old man tottering under a burden so heavy, that I expected him every moment to sink under it. I peeped into his pack, and saw it was made up of many sad articles; there were poverty, oppression, sickness, debt, and, what made by far the heaviest part, undutiful children. I was wondering how it was that he got on even so well as he did, till I spied his wife, a kind, meek, Christian woman, who was doing her utmost to assist him. She quietly got behind, gently laid her shoulder to the burden, and carried a much larger proportion of it than appeared to me when I was at a distance. It was not the smallest part of the benefit, that she was anxious to conceal it. She not only sustained him by her strength, but cheered him by her counsels. She told him, that "through much tribulation we must enter into rest;" that "he that overcometh shall inherit all things." In short, she so supported his fainting spirit, that he was enabled to "run with patience the race that was set before him."

The Kind Neighbor.

An infirm blind woman was creeping forward with a very heavy burden, in which were packed sickness and want, with numberless other of those raw materials, out of which human misery is worked up. She was so weak that she could not have got on at all, had it not been for the kind assistance of another woman almost as poor as herself; who, though she had no light burden of her own, cheerfully lent a helping hand to a fellow-traveller who was still more heavily laden. This friend had indeed little or nothing to give; but the very voice of kindness is soothing to the weary. And I remarked in many other cases, that it was not so much the degree of the help afforded, as the manner of helping, that lightened the burdens. Some had a coarse, rough, clumsy way of assisting a neighbor, which, though in fact it might be of real use, yet seemed, by galling the traveller, to add to the load it was intended to lighten; while I observed in others, that so cheap a kindness as a mild word, or even an affectionate look, made a poor burdened wretch move on cheerily. The bare feeling that some human being cared for him, seemed to lighten the load. But to return to this kind neighbor. She had a little old book in her hand, the covers of which were worn out by much use. When she saw the blind