comfortable to my heart is this persuasion! how pleasing to contemplate the characters of these dear relatives-each a Christian, both in faith and practice. Yes, my honoured father, I am glad to have my mind awakened to a remembrance of thy virtue and goodness: from thy instructions I derived those principles which have proved to me the source of unspeakable comfort. O my father, I pay thee the tear of grateful esteem; and I hope thou hast found a rich reward from the universal Parent, the great Governor of the universe!

My dear mother, I owe thee also a return of gratitude for thy maternal cares: I hope to meet thee in a better world. My brother! O my brother, the first object of tender affection, unmixed with reverence and awe, that my soul ever knew! how greatly did I feel thy loss! but thou wast, I trust, exalted to a higher state. I submitted, and was comforted; but I have not forgotten thee: my affection is revived in its full force. O my brother! I will strive to follow thee to the realms of bliss; to which, I trust, the soul of thy dear Eliza has winged its way. From what a state of suffering is she delivered! My husband too! my dear tender husband! While all the sensibility of my heart is awakened, can I forbear to feel for thee! No, my beloved, witness the tears of gratitude and esteem which now fill my eyes! O, my beloved, I am awfully affected; I feel as if I was entering the regions of the dead. God only knows how soon I may do so in reality. O that

I may keep in a state of constant preparation for the summons, whenever it shall please the Almighty to send it."

Having already shown, in some degree, what the sentiments of Mrs. Trimmer were as a wife and a parent, a daughter and a sister, her attention to her servants should next be noticed.

She was a most kind and considerate mistress, keeping their interest, both temporal and spiritual, constantly in view. She was careful so to arrange her domestic concerns, even when she had a young family, that each servant might have an opportunity of frequenting the house of God, at least once on every Sabbath; and she frequently contrived that they should go to both morning and evening service. She also devoted a part of the Sunday evening to their particular instruction.

When about to dismiss from her service a young man, whom she had taken great pains to instruct, and who but ill repaid the trouble bestowed on him, she thus speaks in her Meditations.

"Thou knowest, blessed Lord, the zeal and sincerity of heart with which I have admonished my servants; with what regret I part from one, who may not meet again with a friend who will take pains to train him in the way in which he should go. O Lord, I beseech thee, give to him the help of thy Holy Spirit, and impress on his mind those instructions which he may have received from me, or from others; and let him not be drawn away by the vanities of the world, into the paths of destruction. O that I may have a

household serving God, and loving one another. Adorable Saviour, may every heart in my family be thine. O may thy blessed Gospel have its due efficacy with every one of us, through the help of thy Holy Spirit !"

In a letter to one of her friends, Mrs. Trimmer, after speaking of her various avocations, in conseof her numerous family, says: quence "In addition to my own family, I have a large adopted one, in the schools of which I have given an account in the Appendix to my Economy of Charity." Her anxiety for the welfare of these poor children was indeed unremitting, and no means were left untried to train them in the right way. In a 66 Short Address" to the parents of these children, she exhorts them, after the following manner, to set a good example to their respective offspring.

"O consider! you who have children, the importance of the trust committed to you; that their welfare in this world, and their eternal happiness in the next, depend, in a great measure, upon the principles and habits which they acquire in their early years; and let them not lose, through your carelessness and misconduct, the favour of those, whose kindness they may stand in need of, or the blessing of God, and everlasting happiness; but rather strive, by all the means in your power, to make them good Christians, and useful members of society. If you are not qualified to teach them to read and understand the Scriptures, that will

be done for you, without money and without price; but it still remains incumbent upon you to watch their conduct while they are under your own eyes, and to set them good examples. If parents, who send their children to learn their duty, forget their own, what consequence can be expected, but that every good impression made in the schools will be destroyed?"

The reader, having already been informed of the manner in which Mrs. Trimmer passed the close of the Sabbath, will naturally suppose that the whole of that sacred day was kept by her with becoming reverence. There was indeed nothing that she considered of greater importance to the happiness and comfort of man, than the proper observance of the Sabbath. She regarded the fulfilment of this duty as bringing with it a peculiar blessing, as the sign which was to distinguish the servants of the Lord, and mark them as his people; and often would she recur to those passages in the Scriptures which speak of it as such.

Verily my SABBATHS ye shall keep; for it is a SIGN between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the SABBATH therefore, for it is holy unto you.

Of the threatenings and denunciations also in the Scriptures against those who violated the Sabbath, she would often make mention; and the punishments which the Israelites brought down upon themselves, for their neglect of that holy day.

Let it not, however, be supposed, that the Sunday was marked by Mrs. Trimmer as a day of gloom and severity; on the contrary, it was a day of rest and peace, of satisfaction and innocent cheerfulness, not only to herself, but to all around her; but then it was the cheerfulness which accorded with the sanctity of the day.

The Sunday was passed in frequenting the house of God, in teaching the children of the poor, in giving religious instructions to her own children, or grand-children, and also to her servants, and in all the pleasures of domestic happiness and quiet enjoyment.

Her children can go back with delight to the days of their youth, when the happy party was gathered around their fond mother to receive the lessons of piety which she gave, or to listen to the persuasions to goodness, which flowed from her lips. And in later years, when her family was increased by a second generation, with what satisfaction did she behold the groups of her descendants scattered about her little garden in the summer, or drawn around the fire-side in the winter, beguiling the time with converse serious, though not dull.

Never shall we forget the sparkling eyes of one of her little grandsons, who lived for some time under her roof, when the Sunday returned. It was to him a day of perfect felicity; and, whether he sat with his book under a tree, when the weather suited, or explored, with his venerable