bringing under my observation the quiet | during as her hardy, though delicate-lookhumility, retiring modesty, and child-like ing type, which fades, indeed, and bows simplicity of her character, assigned her a its head beneath the sod under a rough locality the fitness of which none who visitation, yet starts up again with the reknew her could dispute. In loveliness, de- viving year, and re-asserts its prelicacy, grace, and sweetness, Zelia claimed eminence of place among the ornaments to be the Lily of the Valley among my of the earth. Zelia, restored to the full treasures. She would have smiled, with bloom of health, and in the increased a farther resemblance to the innocent and radiance of beauty, was, by the will of happy-looking flower, had she heard me God, removed from the comparative retiresay so but she knew it not. I have seen ment where we had met, to a scene so far her fair face bent over these chapters, dissimilar, that, had I not known her to with emotion heightening its bloom, little have been a child of God, I should have thinking that they were to become the re- despaired of her retaining the resemblance cord of her own short transit across my to my simple Lily. It was so far the path path. of duty that no choice could be exercised: but the call which fixed the sphere of her husband's labours in the midst of metropolitan society, exposed them both to the deadliest of all snares, popularity and adulation.

Never did the most enthusiastic florist watch the pride and glory of his parterre as I have seen the appointed cherisher of Zelia fulfil his happy charge. Ardent and affectionate even beyond the common characteristic of his race, he superintended the transplantation of his delicate blossom to this rougher atmosphere from the more genial west; and even when the lip restrained its language, which was not always the case, I have marked the proud glance, scanning a whole cluster of fair girls, as in defiance of any competitor who should dispute the palm of beauty with her. I have marked it, and trembled; for I knew the frailty of the tenure whereby he held his treasure; and in the very tenacity of his grasp I read an augury of bereavement. Yet the contrast gave a finish to the picture; his passionate admiration threw a light, as it were, on the beauty of her calm unconsciousness of that which called it forth. I never traced in her look or gesture a movement of vanity: nor observed a ruffle on her quiet aspect, save when disturbed by the solicitude for his peace, whose extreme sensitiveness laid him open to many a wound that would have been an unfelt collision to one of colder temperament. "Awake to the flowers," he was peculiarly liable to be "touched by the thorns;" little would he have heeded them had he foreseen the poignard that was being sharpened for the bosom of his earthly peace and joy!

The tenderness of her concern for him rendered her delicate constitution more susceptible of injury: some severe trials of health quite undermined it; but we thought this Lily of the Valley would prove as en

Poor, blind, unbelieving creatures that we are! If a man but devote himself to a pursuit, if he rear and nurse a flower for his proper credit and renown, no less than his pleasure, we never suspect that he will carelessly leave it, in its promise of prime, to be rent by the gale or trampled by the hoof. We trust him that for his own sake he will guard the work of his hands. But even this poor measure of confidence we are slow to place in Him who plants trees of righteousness that he in them may be glorified. Knowing that the Lord doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men, we cannot doubt the meaning of his dispensations. If we pass by and miss the flower, and behold no vestige thereof in its wonted place, what are we to conclude, but that the careful gardener foresaw some coming storm, or the rude intrusion of some defiling tread, and housed the delicate shrub from harm? Oh, it would have been sad to see the petals of the beauteous lily withering under a burning sun, or disfigured by the reptile's trailing course, or bruised and prostrate in the unclean soil, from which it had been lifted to bloom in the pure atmosphere of heaven. It was better to contemplate the vacant spot, and to mourn over a temporary separation, with the sweet assurance that such occurred only because the Author of its being would preserve it unharmed and undefiled, to flourish in his presence, fai removed from every foe.

sublime victory when "Aaron held his peace!"

It was by no lingering ailment that the removal of our sweet Lily of the Valley was affected. She had bided her time, But nature, thus subdued, is not crushed and rejoiced that a man was born into the beneath the iron fetters of a pitiless conworld, and smiled back, in returning con- queror. "Cast down, but not destroyed," valescence, the fond father's redoubled de- she weeps, and finds the tenderest of all light as he looked on the soft blossom that sympathy in him whose mercy smote bereposed on her pillow. But the pestilence cause he loved. We know the flower is walking in darkness found unsuspected ad- but removed from the breath of unconmission to the scene-she was no subject genial air, and in that we cannot mourn; for its sharp visitation-a few, a very few but the eye has lost its delight, the heart short days, and no more remained of that its treasure, the home its sweetest charm. young wife and mother than what claimed How desolate now, and blighted appears the last sad office of agonized love-to be the spot that was as the garden of Eden! shrouded in darkness, and laid low, till the How cold and comfortless the earth that Lord himself shall descend from heaven her presence clad in beauty! It would with a shout; with the voice of the Arch- seem as though the very sunbeam was angel, and the trump of God: till the life-only attracted by the flower; and now on restoring mandate is issued, "Gather my saints together unto me," and the dead in Christ, rising first, shall encircle the throne of Him who comes not again to suffer, but to reign; and to fulfil the blessed promise that they who here suffered with him shall then reign with him also.

the naked soil it strikes harshly and glaringly, repelling the gaze that it formerly gladdened. An unsupplied want oppresses the mind; a strange vacancy sickens the heart. Restless, wearied, terrified at the newness of his position, where shall the mourner find a solace commensurate with "If we suffer with him"-it is a start- his need? In this-"If we suffer with ling "if" Suffer we must, for we are Him we shall also reign with Him." born to it, in virtue of our inbred guilt There is an immeasurable distance beand corruption; but to suffer with Christ tween submission to the cross and acis a mysterious privilege alike inaccessible ceptance of it. Simon the Cyrenian, and unintelligible to the carnal mind. He compelled to bear it, and Paul glorying alone who knows that Christ has suffered in his infirmities that the power of Christ for him can suffer with Christ. It is not might rest on him, are the representatives ours, as in the days of the infant or awa- of two classes whom man may confound, kening church, to receive the cup of perse- but who are severally discerned of God. cution: the sword does not flash above The one bends in silent acquiescence beour heads, nor the faggot kindle at our neath the burden that a stronger hand feet; nor are the untamed beasts of the has fixed beyond his power to shake off: wood let loose upon our bodies. But since the other regards his affliction as a heato suffer with Christ is the decreed path-ven-appointed means of bringing him to a way to the kingdom of his glory, we may rest assured that He who has secured the end will prepare the appointed road. To contemplate the Saviour in his humiliation and affliction, and to arm ourselves with the like mind, is all that rests with us. "Be still; and know that I am God," is alike the language of preparative warning, and of subsequent support. It is a terrible lesson for flesh to learn-yea, impossible that flesh should ever learn it: but that which is contrary to the flesh receives the stroke, and bends, with the might of a renewed will, the otherwise immoveable sinew of the neck. Oh the stupendous working that achieved the

fuller participation in what Christ's sufferings have purchased for him—even that strength proportioned to his day which is doubly precious as being a fulfilled promise. A strength that he marvels atperhaps almost murmurs to find so mighty: for the disposition of the heart is that of Jonah, when fainting he wished in himself to die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live." It loves to brood over the loss, to conjure up a thousand torturing phantoms of past happiness, and to contrast the present gloom with the most vivid of all the day-beams that preceded it. Under this influence, many a mind has wrought itself to frenzy, and

succeeding that colloquy, when the Lora being in his temple, all that is earthly keeps silence before him, is perhaps the nearest approach to heavenly peace that his redeemed people can know while yet in the body. The heart knows that it may sorrow; that no prohibition has been uttered to stifle the voice of woc. Rachel was not chid when she wept for her children; and that grief in itself is perfectly innocent, who shall deny, when we point to the Holy One, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," throughout the whole course of his visible abode among the sons of Adam. The stillness com

ference, or of forced acquiescence: it is a patient waiting for the promised crown, while bending under the predicted cross.

either become a wreck-a blank in the intellectual world, or nerved the hand to the commission of a crime for which there is no repentance. No! nature does not welcome the voice that, coming with power to appease the tempest, says, "Be still, and know that I am God." Poor comfort indeed it were to receive that message, if its purport respected only the absolute sovereignty with which he wields the power of life and death! The experience of one whose pride had been crushed into the dust of earth, and his glory changed into unexampled vileness, and who had learned to tremble before Omnipotence, suggested that sublime lan-manded is not that of apathy or of indifguage, "All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" But such helpless submission to irresistible power belongs not to the Christian. To him the declaration, "I am God," comes fraught with the sweet assurance, "I am love." The hand that smote him was guided not by despotic authority, but by compassionate tenderness. He knows God as one who doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. It pleased the Lord to bruise his beloved Son: to put Him to grief in whom he delighted, and to deal with him as a sinner, who did no sin. And this was love-infinite, everlasting love, in its highest exercise. The Christian knows it to be so; and he is still, even in spite of the desperate struggles of corrupt nature, desiring to rebel; for in the Godhead of his Master he acknowledges the pledge of power to save to the uttermost; and he joyfully takes hold of the strength that prostrates and paralyzes another. It is an amazing work, so to subdue the will of man; and in the mightiness of its operation the mourner feels not only that his God can do all things with him, but that he, poor worm as he is, can also do all things through Christ who strengtheneth him.

The Lily of the Valley will shortly appear as tranquilly beautiful as ever, as gracefully mantled in its broad leaf, as rich in the fragrancy of its delightful perfume. And shall the feeling be denounced as unsubmissive that draws a sorrowing contrast between the gardener's acquisition and the mourner's bereavement? If so, I claim my portion of the censure; for I shall assuredly lament over it, and wish the flower that I love had been altogether blotted from the fair face of creation, so that the husband had not been widowed, or the babe left motherless. The form and the hue that bring her with more vivid fidelity before my recollection will almost appear intrusive; for nature secretly says, "Why should these pale blossoms be found in their wonted station, while the place that knew her, knows her, alas! no more for ever?" But although thus coldly greeted, the beauteous Lily will be dearer than before, for it brings a message of hope, ripening, as I contemplate it, into joy.

Last autumn I had occasion, through some changes in the arrangement of my little garden, to take up the roots of the Lily of the Valley for an hour. It was a hackneyed subject, I confess, but while looking on the small unsightly heap, as it These are solemn seasons indeed, when lay at my feet, I could not but be struck God presents himself to the soul which he anew with the wonder-working skill that has afflicted, and says, “Lovest thou me?" was to weave such a tissue of elegance And if the soul be enabled with sincerity and loveliness from materials so unto answer, with Peter, "Lord, thou know- promising. For the hundredth time I est that I love thee;" the stillness of spirit pondered over the nothingness of man in

CHAPTER II.

THE AMARANTHUS.

It is not in the power of winter, however severe and sweeping in his operations among the flowers, to deprive me of all my store. Though every leaf should wither, and every root become a mass of corruption, and not a blossom remain in the conservatory, I am always provided, not only with one, but a complete bouquet of bright and showy flowers. The Amaranthus, in all its varieties of form and colour, with everlastings of purple or of gold, and a rich assemblage of grasses that appear quite indestructible, form this magic group. I bought it in the street, of a poor, sickly

his best estate, supposing the uttermost of his power and craft to be expended on one of those ordinary objects. Deprived of the aid of three elements, earth, air, and water, could he, by any effort, cause it to reproduce the form that, if left to the unassisted operation of those elements, it would certainly exhibit? Impossible: he might by violence destroy the principle of vegetable life; but to call it into action, otherwise than by the way that divine wisdom had appointed, was beyond the reach of his contrivance. Glorious in creation, how much more glorious is the Lord our God in redemption! Man may reach the mainspring of his fellow's mortal existence, and wrench it away, and stop the complicated machinery in its course: but neither man nor Satan can approach the life of the soul, when re-looking, aged woman, who evidently stored by Him who first breathed into Adam's nostrils "the breath of life." Dying in Adam, made alive in Christ, he that believeth on the Son of God HATH everlasting life. It is a prize in possession, not in prospect-it is what no power could confer but that which in giving stamps the gift with immortality.

wanted the price of her "Christmas posy" to supply the craving of hunger; but this common-place mode of acquisition by no means lessened the interest of the purchase. What has been touched by the poor, possesses a peculiar character in my eyes: and I could not but think, when taking the gay bouquet from a withered hand, how tenderly the Lord provides for their wants, whom we so little consider in the midst of our festivities.

I buried the roots again, and smoothed over them the earth, and left a little stick to mark where I might confidently look for their re-appearance in due season. And The intense cold that followed, soon left she, the fair, the gentle Zelia,-she too my winter nosegay without a rival, and, has been laid low beneath the surface of excepting the border of box that encircled the ground, and the sod is growing it, not a change has yet appeared, not a smooth above her, and the record of la- tint has faded, not a leaf fallen. These mented love distinguishes it from sur- flowers are an exception to the general rounding heaps. Many a successive crop rule; they have been cut down, yet of Lilies of the Valley may rise and neither dried up nor withered; even the bloom, fade and die, before the appointed "flower of grass," that impressive emblem time of her bright change shall come. of man's glory and goodliness, waves in But come it will; the Lord will have a its pristine grace, and shines brightly desire to the work of his hands. He will when a sun-beam falls aslant upon the call, and she will answer. Imagination cluster. I must needs apply this: not incannot realize the scene, when the vile deed to an individual, but to a race, far body-vile at its best estate-shall be more to be wondered at than these imperchanged like unto Christ's glorious body, | ishable flowers. A race long since deand become like Him. Imagination can-prived of the life-giving fatness of the root; not look into those glorious revelations ; dead, yet continually before us in all the but faith which is the evidence of things un-reality of bustling life. Need I name seen, beholds it all. Affection itself sorrows them?—the Lord's own ancient people, not as being without hope: and that hope, the dispersed of Judah, the "nation scatthat precious hope, steals upon the lacer- tered and peeled," and trodden under foot; ated heart, sweetly whispering the pro- familiar with every storm that can rage mise, and bidding the mourners in Zion without, and preyed upon by every cor"comfort one another with these words." rupt principle within, separated from the

stem, deprived of spiritual nutriment, yet surviving all; and destined to survive, in pre-eminent glory, the pride of that earth which now scorns them. Oh, I cannot look upon the unfading Amaranthus without recalling those precious words, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." | I read in it at once the promise and its fulfilment; I see what the Lord has said he would do: I see what he actually does, and I know assuredly what he will yet do. I have no more doubt of the literal restoration of Judah and Israel to the literal Canaan, no more doubt that in their own land "they shall possess the double," and shine the brightest in a bright and glorious church on earth, than I have of my existence. The time is not now far off when the Lord will be gracious to his land, and pity his people; when he will heal their hurt, and gather them, and watch over them to do them good, and show the world how dearly his poor Israel is "loved for the fathers' sake." The whole church sends up the petition, "Thy kingdom come," and the coming of that kingdom will be to the despised Jew a receiving again into God's favour; and that receiving again of the Jew shall be to the Gentiles, "life from the dead."

Indissolubly connected with this delightful subject is the name, the image of one who has often rejoiced with me over those sweet promises to Israel, which none can gainsay without depriving the holy scriptures of all literal meaning, and debasing them into a cluster of shadows. He was

abode, and range them before him, and hold sweet converse with them concerning their own Messiah, the Prince. There was no flashing enthusiasm about him, but a deep, calm, settled conviction that Israel should yet be gathered, and that in having his own portion of labour assigned in that field, he was honoured above all others. He was a man of thought, of study, and of prayer, and this was the element wherein he dwelt-the exceeding great and precious promises given to the children of the fathers and the prophets. Others might rise in the church, or seek the promotion of their worldly interests: to him it sufficed that he came within the scope of that oft-repeated declaration, "Blessed is he that blesseth Thee."

Seven years have now passed since I sojourned under that roof with the good old Simeon for my fellow-guest; and very dear to me is the recollection. I had before been privileged there beyond all other places: I had caught some sparkles from the brilliant, though eccentric flashes of Wolff, and had identified myself with a little circle whose great bond of union was the heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel, that they might be saved; and whose hourly study it was to devise plans for forwarding the blessed work. I had sat, many a summer's day under the tall. branching tulip trees, that threw their refreshing shadow on the smooth grass plat: and while the lovely group of youthful faces-for my friend had a goodly array of olive-branches round about his tableadded life and beauty to the scene in itself most sweet, I have conversed with him and his beloved partner on the coming day, when Israel should sit each one under his own vine and under his own figtree, with none to make them afraid.

At the period of my first and successive visits there was one present also, whose joyous temper brought mirth into every circle. They loved him much, and greatly did he enjoy the social freedom that dwelt

a Gentile by birth, but in spirit an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile. Awake to all that concerned the kingdom and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, he was peculiarly alive to the rich portion secured to the children of Abraham; and dearly did he prize the privilege of devoting himself to them. Often have I seen him, in his pulpit, with the little ones of the Hebrew schools ranged in the opposite gallery, catching new zeal, new energy, new confidence from a glance at that precious A thousand little incidents crowd charge and often have I beheld him, in on my recollection as I recall those days: the midst of the Hebrew boys, lost in but Mr. H. knew and deeply sympathized thoughtful contemplation of the harvest in my chief solicitude for that beloved one; that should follow that first-fruits offering, and I trust they are now rejoicing together presented in faith and hope. I have also in the presence of the Lamb. Never can known him send for a considerable num- I forget the sweet words of comfort given ber of the children to his own hospitable me by Mr. H. when the terrible stroke of

there.