while our blessed Lord lives to intercede for the chief of sinners."

a more composed When she saw his “I am glad to see

These tender and simple appeals coming from the lips of his mother, reduced his spirit to state, and for the first time he wept. tears, she wept with him, and said, you weep; it is the first sign of returning mercy." "Mercy! no!" replied the mourner, mercy, I fear, will return no more! I have despised and insulted her, and am consigned over to the offended justice of Heaven.

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'Involv'd in fathomless despair

I each self-centering hope resign!
The aid such ruin can repair
Must be divine.'

"Very true, my child, it must be divine aid, that can repair such a ruined state of happiness as yours; but if you are enabled to resign every self-centering hope, and look by faith to Christ, he will lift you out of your fathomless state of despair, and put a new song into your mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

On another occasion when drawing near the hour of his departure, his deeply agonized parent asked him, if he yet felt more composed, or if he could indulge a good hope of future happiness. "Composed, my mother!" he said, "No, I am in a tempest of anguish, and expect to be lost." "But he who raiseth the whirlwind, and directeth the storm, is the God of salvation, and though he allow all his waves and his billows to go over you, yet he will command his loving-kindness in the daytime; and when the thickest darkness of the night comes upon you, then his song shall be with you, and you prayer shall be unto the God of your life." "O, mother, I feel I am about to leave you, and you, my wife, andI leave you with a full conviction, that we shall never meet again. A few hours will decide the long agitaed question,

'Am I his, or am I not?'

I wish you would retire and leave me, nor suffe any one to disturb me."

They withdrew to an adjoining room, when his mother said to his afflicted wife, "This is a solemn moment. You are about to lose a husband, and I a son; but if it should please the Lord to visit him with the light of his reconciled countenance, I trust we should then be enabled to bow down in submission to his sovereign will." They knelt down, and prayed, as Elijah prayed when he besought the Lord to send back the rain of heaven to refresh the parched lands of Israel; and when she had made an end of praying, she said, "let us go, like the servant of the prophet, and see if there be yet any signs of returning mercy." "But," said Mrs. Beaufoy, "perhaps he is now wrestling with the Lord, and if we go we may disturb him and ruffle his spirits." But such was the overpowering anxiety of his mother's heart, that she could not refrain from going to listen, if, peradventure, she might hear something to comfort her. She heard him repeat again and again, "Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me. Lord, save, or I perish !"

Just as she was returning to inform her daughter-inlaw, that the silence of despair was broken by the voice of prayer, the bell rang, and they entered the room together." Well, my child, I hope the Lord is now dealing graciously with you." "He is dealing righteously; and against the equity of his conduct, I am not disposed to raise any objection.

'If sudden vengeance seize my breath,
I will pronounce him just in death:
And if my soul were sent to hell,

His righteous law approves it well.'

After a long pause, during which time the terror of unabated agony was depicted in every countenance, he raised his down-cast eyes towards heaven, and with a voice modulated to the subduing tenderness of the expression, he said,

'Yet save a trembling sinner, Lord,

Whose hope still hovering round thy word,
Would light on some sweet promise there,
Some sure support against despair.'

He now became exhausted, and having reclined his head on the pillow, fell asleep, and slept several hours, and when he awoke, he assumed an air of cheerfulness, and

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said, "My sleep has been refreshing to me." "I hope," said his mother, "that your soul is refreshed, as well as your body." "I am more composed than I ever expected to be; but I am not happy. My composure is no less a source of terror, than my former agitation; as I know that the cessation of pain is sometimes an indication that the fatal disorder is arriving to a crisis, even when the patient may be anticipating his recovery." But," said Mr. Llewellin, who had just entered his room, the terror you feel under an apprehension that your composure is the fatal apathy into which the human spirit sometimes falls after its convulsive throes of agony, is a proof, that you are unwilling to seize a premature hope; and may be regarded as an unequivocal evidence, that the Lord who refused to appear in the whirlwind, in the earthquake, or in the fire, is graciously appearing in the still small voice of his love." "Oh, my friend, my friend!

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'Here on my heart the burthen lies,
And past offences pain my eyes;
My lips with shame, my sins confess,
Against his laws, against his grace.'

"But, Sir, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin; and he is sent, not only to proclaim liberty to the captive soul, but to heal the broken-hearted." "I would believe. Lord help my unbelief." He was now suddenly seized for death, and having pressed most tenderly the hand of his aged mother, and given the last expression of conjugal love to his wife, he reclined his head on her bosom, and fainted. On recovery from this fit, which lasted several minutes, he once more opened his eyes, and casting a mournful look on those around him, he said, "I die an unworthy and guilty sinner at the foot of the cross,

and

Will he e'er permit

A soul that fain would see his face
To perish at his feet??

Impossible!!" and then expired.

[83

"Even the horrors of a tempest did not awaken him. At length being roused and reproved by heathens, and marked out by lot as the guilty person, he confesses who he is, and what he had done, and advises them to cast him into the sea." Page 12.

London:

ON APOSTACY.

PART IV.

"It is well, when threatened with decay, or apostacy in religion, to go back to the early stages of our own history; to that happy season of life, when under the visitations of Providence, or the preaching of the word, we first awoke from the sleep of sin and ruin, to devote ourselves to the service of God.” Cunningham.

THUS terminated the mortal life of Mr. Beaufoy, who in his youthful days bid fair to rise to distinction in his Christian profession; but having been seduced from the paths of wisdom and of piety, by the influence and example of his wife, entailed on himself a portion of misery which brought him to a premature grave, and rendered the closing scene too dark and dismal, to be accurately sketched. His uniform admission of the equity of the judicial visitation of the Almighty-his partial composure on the eve of his departure-and the avowal he made when yielding up the ghost, gave to his surviving friends a hope that he died in the Lord, and is at rest from the sorrows that so deeply pierced his breast; but still the shadows of a gloomy fear would sometimes fall upon their spirits, and they often sighed and wept over his memory, as the fond mother sighs and weeps, when she gazes on the cold and lifeless form of her first-born son.

As female influence is so powerful, and has often been employed to seduce the man who fears the Lord, from the paths of righteousness and the ways of peace, let him be on his guard when forming his connection for life, and not suffer any accomplishments to become a substitute for decided piety. He may think that he shall be able to stand against every ensnaring art, and every fond entreaty, and ultimately gain over his wife to the obedience of faith; but he may be deceived, and have cause to mourn over the consequences of his imprudence, when it may be too late to remedy them. But, if a man should violate the sanctity of the divine law, and marry a female who is not decidedly pious, let her be on her guard, lest she become the cause of