to watch over the deep, confiding tenderness of your heart, which will expose you to acute suffering in this world of sorrow. You have heard me allude to the happiness of my early home, but if you have never been an inmate of such a dwelling, you cannot know the peace and harmony of that home. My health was delicate from my infancy, and around me clustered the tender cares and fond solicitude of parents, brothers and sisters. Oh! how often in later years have I regretted that the confiding, trusting, and warm affections of my heart had been so cherished. Had it been otherwise, had I been trained to more hardihood of feeling, and in a spirit of self-dependence, I might perhaps, have let indifference and neglect pass by me unregarded. But why do I say this? Dependence, love, and gentleness are inwoven in woman's nature-and if, in some rare instances, the hardships of her lot compel her to shake them from her as incumbrances in her lonely course, in parting with them she throws off likewise half the grace and loveliness of her character. My father was devotedly pious, and often did he entreat me to give my young heart to the Saviour. But my sky was then without a cloud, and I could not believe that days of darkness would ever come upon me, or that I should ever need other light to guide my footsteps than what beamed from my own domestic hearth. I fancied the time could never come when the voices of my kindred would not speak peace to my troubled spirit, and bid every anxious fear subside. But alas! how little I knew of the fearful capacities for intense agony of soul, which lie hushed, like the sleeping spirit of the tempest, deep in the recesses of woman's heart. When the voice of some master-spirit has awakened these powers to torture, no voice, save His, who said to the tempest, "Peace, be still," can speak peace to the tempest-tossed soul of the sufferer. To love and to be beloved was a necessity of my nature; yet I have seen the time when I felt a glowing pleasure in the thought that no sister was near to sympathize with me, and when even my gentle mother's voice. would but have increased my anguish. "We lived in extreme seclusion, and at the age of eighteen I was as ignorant of the world, as if bred in a convent. Then it was that Mr. N., at that time a student in college, came into our neighborhood as an instructor. I believe the simplicity of my character won his heart, and my admiration of his splendid talents soon became a deeper feeling, when I saw the real generosity of his nature, and the deep impassioned tenderness which shed a charm over manners at times haughty and forbidding. We loved and frequented gay society and convivial parties, and once my cautious father said to me, "I hope, Emma, you will have influence enough to induce N. to leave the gay wine-drinking friends, of whom he speaks so often. I have known habits of intemperance hus formed." I smiled incredulously; "My dear father, he drinks nothing but wine, and surely, he can be in no danger." Oh blind, ignorant that I was! I knew not that the bite of the serpent was equally deadly, whether twined around the brim of the glass of "fourth proof spirits," or closely, secretly coiled at the bottom of the sparkling wine cup. Death-death to the body, the mind, and the soul, ever follows his fang, and in abstinence from every beverage where he lurks, is the only safety. But I knew it not then, nor did I indulge fear for myself, or distrust for him. Secure in his devoted attachment to me, I asked no more. "Some years passed before our marriage, and during that period I looked to him as a hiding-place from the storm, a covert from the tempest. I knew he would wish to shield me from all the ills of life, and, blind in my idolatry, I fancied he would possess the power. Oh! Anna, my dear girl, take warning from me, and beware of depending with such entire faith on any human being. There is one friend, only one, who can never change, and never fail -a friend who will endure when a mother's voice is hushed in death-who will whisper of rest when brothers are far away, and the soft tones of a sister's love are powerless, and will throw around the defenceless and forsaken one the arms of His protecting love, when even a husband has become estranged and heartless. But for that friend there was then no place in my affections. "We were married and came to this place with the fairest prospects, and for a few short months I was happy. I had indeed new cares, and I was in a land of strangers, but my husband's kindness supplied the place of my early friends. He then possessed powers of conversation rarely equalled, and when the cheerful evenings came, the toils of the day were forgotten, while listening, as he spread before me the stores of a gifted and highly cultivated mind. I saw him too, caressed and flattered, and in business at the bar, which afforded the promise of a princely income, and I willingly shut my eyes to the rocks and quicksands by which he was surrounded. Principles and habits, more firm than his, could hardly have withstood the temptations which assailed him. His associates at the bar, were men whose principles were liberal and their habits free; and here nothing was seen or heard to remind us that we were to live beyond the grave. No settled pastor-the Sabbath was made a day of pastime-pleasure seemed the only object of pursuit, while intemperance, with all its kindred vices, stalked abroad with unblushing front. I shrank with disgust from the scenes I witnessed, and for a time fancied I should find in my home a sacred retreat. But, alas! it was not long ere my peace was invaded even there. I now found that home was losing its attractions for him who was "My all of earth, my more than all of Heaven." His evenings were no longer spent with me, and when at a late hour he would return, his fine mind seemed clouded, and his temper harsh. I wondered and wept, and redoubled my efforts to please and to soothe him. For a long time I knew not what to fear, but felt a vague, undefined apprehension that some dreadful calamity was impending. But at length a friend who thought I might yet have power to save him, revealed the astounding truth-My husband was intemperate! And now the whole mystery of the sad change was solved. Oh! Anna, I know not yet, what the pangs of that death I must soon pass through may be—but they cannot be more terrible than what I then endured. I knew well what was before me; I saw the utter wretchedness that followed in the train of intemperance, though the half had not been told, for the keenest pangs are concealed from view-buried deep in the heart of the sufferer. Intemperate! I cannot recall even now the sound of that word in my ears without shuddering; it rung the death-knell of all my hopes; years of misery were crowded, condensed into that single hour of agony. I entreated and expostulated, but in a little time he scarcely heeded me, and my tears were received with heartless ridicule or bitter scorn. He sunk downdown; his business was neglected, and in a few years, poverty stared us in the face. But for that I cared not; my cup of sorrow was full before, and nothing could be added. Indeed I almost welcomed its approach, in the vague hope that it might arrest his ruinous course. My days were spent in toil, and my nights in hopeless weeping. I had then no God to go to, no Saviour to whom I could confide my sorrows. "But at length the voice of God apparently bade my husband pause in his mad career. One of his gay associates at the bar became a devoted Christian, and faithfully warned him of his danger. He was alarmed-conscience was awakened, and he avowed a deliberate purpose to abstain from all that could intoxicate-nor that alone he seemed in earnest seeking his soul's salvation. The neglected Bible was opened-the house of God revisited, while kindness animated his countenance, and his tones and words were those of earlier and better years. His little ones now clung fondly around him, and he trod the earth with a freer and firmer step, like one released from a galling slavery. Weeks passed away in this manner, and my heart once more beat high with hope. I saw him as he was, ere the dark cloud overshadowed him, and I felt that with him and for him I could gladly endure toil and privation. But then, just when I began to feel secure in my new happiness, I learned that he had once more tasted the fatal poison-only tasted -but ah! that first drop! I knew full well the danger. I will not attempt to tell you what then passed in this bosom. For a while I was stunned by the blow-I thought I did not feel it. But there was a weight at my heart, and a fire in my brain; my eyes were tearless, and my lips parched, as by fever. There he stood in all the pride of manhood, on the crumbling verge of the precipice; I saw the ruin that yawned beneath, and yet had no power to rescue; there, with all his kindly feelings fresh about him, and I knew that all would soon be scathed and blasted by the deadly fires that would burn within him. I could have watched alone by his death-bed, had it been illuminated by the cheering hopes of the Gospel, and could have forgotten my own sorrow in the happiness to which he had departed. But thus to love him, for time and eternity-oh! it was heart-rending. "Since that period my worst fears have been realized. My path has been dark and dreary, neither cheered by kindness nor hope. Yet he has never been abusive; had he been, I might, perhaps, have become indifferent to his fate; and though the world would have pitied more, my anguish would have been less enduring. But my affections will linger around him to the very lastchanged, indeed, from the confiding trust of a wife, to the care of a mother for an erring and lost child. With such feelings, what think you, my Anna, was the grief of Gertrude compared with mine? She witnessed the torture of the body for a single night, but the soul was unstained. His parting look was one of unchanged affection, and when the last agony was over, she could find sweet consolation in the hope that the freed spirit had found refuge in that home of the blest, whose deep sound of joy no mortal ear hath heard. But I stood by, a powerless spectator, and saw an immortal spirit writhing in the deadly grasp of the destroyersaw him enduring the gnawings of the undying worm at his heart,. whenever he opened his eyes upon his situation-beheld his feeble efforts to escape, while with every attempt, the folds of the monster were drawn yet tighter around him, till one after another every kindly and virtuous feeling, and all his high powers of intellect, were crushed and trampled to the dust. This I witnessed, not for one day or one night only, but through long months and years of watching and weeping, of trembling hope, and withering despair. I saw all this, and yet lived-lived because I could not die because woman is formed to endure, till the last drop of her heart's blood" oozes out in bitterness," or rather, let me say, with heart-felt gratitude to Him who, in the midst of judgment, remembers mercy-I lived because he had thoughts of love towards me. A thousand times I wished for death, thinking little of the retributions of eternity, but only of the grave as a place of rest for the weary and broken-hearted. For some years I stood alone. By almost convulsive efforts I concealed my feelings in the presence of others, and with a firm purpose that the world should never know what I suffered. During the day I pursued my avocations calmly, and with apparent cheerfulness-night, and my God alone witnessed the intense agony of my spirit. I asked not for sympathy, and I could not pray. I had heard it said, indeed, that reli gion had power to soothe the bitterest griefs, but thought it would be powerless in my case; the fountain of all my joys was turned into bitterness, and what could it do for me? "It was after one of those long nights spent in hopeless weeping, that I opened the volume of inspiration, and read the simple narative of the bitter waters of Marah, which were healed by the Hebrew Prophet at the command of his God. I saw there a beam of hope for me, I felt that the same power might cleanse, even for for me, the bitter and troubled fountains of earth. I thought of that fountain of which if a man drinks he shall never thirst again. I seemed to myself like the weary and fainting wanderer in the desert, who seeks for the hidden and pure well-springs, only when the common streams are dried, and from that hour I longed intensely to drink of Bethesda's waters. Long and earnestly did I desire and seek the consolations which religion alone can give. And blessed be my Saviour's name, He has given me his peacea peace that passeth understanding-such a deep rest and quiet of the soul, as I never knew before I was afflicted. (To be continued.) IS THERE NO MEMORY IN THE GRAVE. BY MRS. EDWARD THOMAS. On some fond breast the panting soul relies, GRAY THE Sorrowed dead in the sepulchre sleep! The God enkindled ray to 'lume their dream? When He arouses everything that sleeps |