CHAPTER XII.

"Some minds are so constituted, that it is not great misfortunes, but only the misfortunes of the great, that are able to command their respect and sympathy."

THOUGH life has been described as a vain show, as a shifting scene, as a dream of the night, as swifter than a weaver's shuttle, as a vapour that appeareth for a little, and then passeth away; yet to many, though time is passing, the scene remains stationary, and the actors pass along together. So that, though all acknowledge the fleeting nature of time, yet, by their words and actions, some seem to infer that it is time which fleets away, but that they remain, and shall never be moved; and seem as unconscious of this truth as the untaught savage is, that it is the world on which he stands that is moving, and that it is the sun which is fixed, and shall remain the regulator of years and months, and nights and days to man, till he himself grow dim with years, and dissolve in the fervent heat which shall consume the heavens and the earth.

The ways and pleasures of Roe Park had re

mained the same for many years. Lady Amelia alone, of all its present inhabitants, found the day too short for her various pursuits; and while others of its inmates sought only how to escape from themselves, to pass, lull, and kill the time, she attended much to the Scripture direction to redeem the time, because the time was short, and the fashion of this world passeth away. She often recalled and realized these beautiful lines

With peaceful mind thy race of duty run.
God nothing does, or suffers to be done,

But what thou would'st thyself, if thou could'st see
Through all events of things as well as he.

But we shall leave Roe Park and its inhabitants for the present, while we return to Edinburgh to take a look at Mrs Miller, and see how the world is passing with her.

"The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." This scripture was exemplified in her experience, for she became daily more strong in the faith, daily more abundant in good works, and her knowledge and discernment were daily increasing. Yet the cup of suffering had been poured out to her," whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," she had known sorrow, great sorrow; but her heavenly peace was never taken away. A year had

now elapsed since the object of her fondest affections had been taken away from her; her daughter Anna was numbered with the dead-but it was with the dead who die in the Lord." Yet nature claims some tears, and Mrs Miller had all the feelings of nature in a powerful degree. Oh how her heart was wrung! oh how she wept before God! "My daughter, my daughter, would to God I had died for thee; oh, my child, my child!” This was the language of nature, the natural outpourings of an affectionate heart; but soon she found comfort. "I shall go to her, but she cannot come to me-she is now with her Saviour, whom from her childhood she had learned to obey-whose death was the life of her soul." Whatever her daughter might have died of, Mrs Miller would have had no self-upbraiding reflections. "It is the Lord," was her thought. But even Mrs Careful's animadversions were put a stop to by the nature of this event, for Anna Miller died, after a few days' illness, of an influenza, which raged at that time in Edinburgh, caught no one knew how or where; and she had the best medical attendance, and she could not even be said to have been injured by apprehension, for hopes were entertained of her, and hopes were given to her, to the very end.

Mrs Miller wrote no memoir of her daughter, though strongly urged to do so by those who had

known the virtues and Christian graces of Anna. "If they hear not Moses and the Prophets,” said she, "neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.' My daughter's life and example have been useful to many of her own age, but I am doubtful if the experience of the dead can profit the living. There is a danger, a great danger, of nurturing hypocrisy in the young, by attaching too much weight to the sayings of the dying— and surely if we wish for examples in which we cannot be mistaken of those who died in faith, let us look for them in the unerring word of God." "My children," said she, the first evening she was able to see her Sunday scholars, "you all knew Anna; she was a good girl, and you know that if that was the case, she must have been a Christian; her heart must have been changed, for by nature she and all of us are corrupt and desperately wicked. The Scriptures, which cannot lie, declare this to be the case. But, blessed be God, grace was given to Anna to subdue her evil propensities, and grace will be given to us all according to our need, if we diligently seek it with a humble believing heart. Anna had the advantage of a religious education, and so have you all, if you choose to profit by it. But even if that had not been the case, the Bible contains examples of children, who, without these advantages, have been known to seek God;"

and she read and commented to them on the history of the good Abijah, the son of the wicked King Jehoram; and they sung this evening that beautiful paraphrase so appropriate to the occasion

"Take comfort, Christians, when your friends

In Jesus fall asleep;

Their better being never ends;

Why then dejected weep ?"

Before they departed, Mrs Miller divided her daughter's books amongst her young pupils. Though not worn, they had evidently been much read. Jeany Bennet shed some tears, and so did Kitty Brown, and all the scholars behaved with attention and gravity becoming the occasion, for Anna Miller had been much and justly regretted.

Mrs Miller's two sons had gone out into the world, and were settled far away from her. She therefore now found herself quite at liberty, and indeed called upon, to use her utmost endeavours in applying her experience and knowledge, for the benefit of the poor in particular, and of Christians in general; and above all, in examining into the state of her own mind, and in labouring to subdue the sin that easily besetted her, not indeed in her own strength, but in the strength of the Lord. "Train up a child in the way he should go," she had long considered as of no private application, and, though deprived and bereaved of her own, she