elation of spirits. Her appearance satisfied me, at once, that she was amiable and thoughtless.

Louisa (for by that name I shall call her) manifested no particular hostility to religion, but wished to live a gay and merry life, till just before her death, and then to become pious, and die happy. Upon whatever subject I preached, her countenance retained the same marks of indifference and unconcern.

One evening, I invited a few of the young ladies of my society to meet at my house. She came with her companions. I had sought the interview, that I might, more directly, urge upon them the importance of religion. All in the room were affected-and she, though evidently moved, endeavored to conceal her feelings.

At our next meeting, I conversed with each one individually. Most of them manifested much solicitude respecting their eternal interests. Louisa appeared different from all the rest. She was anxious, and unable to conceal her anxiety, and yet ashamed to make it known.

Louisa," said I, "do you now feel the subject of religion to be more important than you have previously?" "I do not know, sir; I think I want to be a Christian." "Do you feel that you are a sinner, Louisa ?"

"I know that I am a sinner, for the Bible says so; but I suppose that. I do not feel it enough."

"Can you expect that God will receive you into his favor while you are in such a state of mind as that? He has made you, and he is now taking care of you, giving you every blessing and enjoyment you have, and yet you have lived many years without any gratitude to him, and continually breaking his commandments. Now, Louisa, you must be lost unless you repent of your sins, and ask, earnestly and humbly, for forgiveness.'

Another meeting was appointed on the same evening of the succeeding week. Louisa again made her appearance, with the same young ladies, and a few others, who were not present the first evening. She appeared much more deeply impressed.

Well, Louisa," said I, "I was almost afraid that I should not see you here this evening."

"I feel, sir," said she, "that it is time for me to attend to my immortal soul. I have neglected it too long." "Do you feel that you are a sinner, Louisa ?"

66

Yes,

"Do you think, Louisa, that you have any claim upon God to forgive you?"

'No, sir: it would be just in God to leave me to perish." 'Well, Louisa, are you ready to give up all for Christ? Are you ready to turn from your gay companions, and lay aside your frivolous pleasures, and acknowledge the Saviour publicly, and be derided, as perhaps you will be, by your former friends, and live a life of prayer and effort to do good ?"

She hesitated a moment, and then replied, "I am afraid not."

The next week, about the same number were present, but Louisa was not with them. A slight cold had detained her. But the week after, she again appeared. To my great disappointment, I found her interest fast diminishing. The Spirit was grieved away. This was the last time she called to see me. These social meetings continued some time, and many of Louisa's associates, I have cause to hope, became the disciples of Jesus.

Two or three months passed away, when one day I was informed that Louisa was quite unwell, and desired to see me. In a few moments I was in her sick chamber. She had taken a violent cold, and it had settled into a fever. She seemed agitated when I entered the room, and, the moment I inquired how she did, covered her face with both hands, and burst into a flood of tears.

I was fearful that the agitation of her feelings might seriously injure her health, and did all in my power to soothe her.

"But, sir," said Louisa, "I am sick, and may die. I know that I am not a Christian; and, oh! if I die in this state of mind, what will become of me? What will become of me?" And again she burst into tears.

What could I say ? Every word she said was true. Sickness was upon her. Delirium might soon ensue. Death might be very near. She felt it all. Fever was burning in her veins. But she forgot her pain, in view of the terrors of approaching judgment.

I told her of the Saviour's love. I pointed to many of God's precious promises to the penitent. I endeavored to induce her to resign her soul calmly to the Saviour. But all that was offered was unavailing. The interview was,

indeed, an affecting one; anxiety was depicted upon her flushed countenance, and she was restless, and groaning under the accumulated ills of body and mind.

The next day, I called to see her again. Poor girl! thought I, as the first glance upon her countenance showed me the strong lineaments of despair. I opened the Bible, and read the parable of the prodigal son, "Oh, sir," said she, none of those promises seem meant for me. I can find no peace to my troubled spirit.. If my sins were forgiven, how happy should I be; but now-oh!"—her voice was stopped by a fit of shuddering, which very much agitated those around her bed-side with the fear that she might be dying.

Another morning came. I went into her chamber. Despair was pictured more deeply than ever on her countenance. Death was drawing nearer. She knew it. A few of her young friends were standing by her bed-side. She warned them, in the most affecting terms, to prepare for death while in health. She said she knew God was ready to forgive the sincerely penitent, but that her sorrow was not sorrow for sin, but dread of its awful penalty.

I called again, late in the afternoon, but reason was disenthroned. The senseless moanings of delirium showed the distress even of her shattered mind. Every eye in the room was filled with tears, but poor Louisa saw not, and heeded not, their weeping.

Early the next morning, I called to inquire for Louisa.

She is dead, sir," was the reply to my question.

"Was her reason restored to her before her death?"

"It appeared partially to return a few moments before she breathed her last, but she was almost gone, and we could hardly understand what she said."

Her body now moulders in the grave-yard, and her spirit has entered upon its eternal home.

LESSON XXXII,

December.-WILLIAM HOWITT.

Na

WE are now placed in the midst of wintry scenes. ture is stripped of all her summer drapery. Her verdure,

her foliage, her flowers, have all vanished. The sky is filled with clouds and gloom, or sparkles only with a frosty radiance. The earth is spongy with wet, hard with frost, or buried in snows.

The winds that, in summer, breathed gently over the nodding blooms, and undulating grass, swaying the leafy boughs with a pleasant murmur, and wafting perfumes all over the world, now hiss like serpents, or howl like wild beasts of the desert; cold, piercing and cruel. Every thing has drawn, as near as possible, to the centre of warmth and comfort.

The farmer has driven his cattle into sheltered homeenclosures, where they may receive, from his provident care, that food which the earth denies them; or into the farm-yard itself, where some honest Giles piles their cratches plentifully with fodder. The laborer has fled from the field to the barn, and the measured strokes of his flail are heard day by day from morning till evening.

It amazes us, as we walk abroad, to conceive where the infinite variety of creatures that sported through the air, earth and waters of summer can have concealed themselves. Birds, insects, reptiles, whither are they all gone?

The birds that filled the air with their music, the rich black-bird, the loud and cheerful thrush, the linnet, lark and goldfinch, whither have they crept? The squirrel, that played his antics on the forest-tree, and all the showy and varied tribes of butterflies, moths, dragon-flies, beetles, wasps and warrior-hornets, bees and cockchafers, whither have they fled?

Some, no doubt, have lived out their little term of being, and their bodies, lately so splendid, active, and alive to a thousand instincts, feelings and propensities, are become part of the wintry soil; but the greater portion have shrunk into the hollows of trees and rocks, and into the bosom of their mother earth itself, where, with millions of seeds, and roots, and buds, they live in the great treasury of Nature, ready, at the call of a more auspicious season, to people the world once more with beauty and delight.

LESSON XXXIII.

The Skies in Winter.-WILLIAM HOWITT.

THE heavens present one of the most prominent and splendid beauties of winter. The long and total absence of the sun's light, and the transparent purity of a frosty atmosphere, give an apparent elevation to the celestial concave, and a rich depth and intensity of azure, in which the stars burn with resplendent beauty; the galaxy stretches its glow across the northern sky, and the moon, in her monthly track, sails amongst the glittering constellations with a more queenly grace; sometimes without the visitation of a single cloud, and at others, seeming to catch from their wind-winged speed an accelerated motion of her own.

It is a spectacle of which the contemplative eye is never weary though it is one, of all others, which fills the mind with feelings of awe at the immensity of the universe, the tremendous power of its Creator, and of the insignificance of man.

1

A breathing atom, a speck, even, upon the surface of a world, which is itself a speck in the universal world, we send our imagination forth amongst innumerable orbs, all stupendous in magnitude, all swarming with existence, vainly striving to reach the boundaries of space, till, astonished and confounded, it recoils from the hopeless task,' aching, dazzled, and humbled to the dust.

What a weary sense attends the attempt of a finite being to grasp infinity! Space beyond space! space beyond space still! There is nothing for the mind to rest its wearied wing upon, and it shrinks back into its material cell, in adoration and humility.

Such are the feelings and speculations which have attended the human spirit in all ages, in contemplating this magnificent spectacle. David has beautifully expressed their effect on him. The awful vastness of the power of the Deity, evinced in the scenes which night reveals, is sure to abase the pride of our intellect, and to shake the over-growth of our self-love; but these influences are not without their benefit; and the beauty and beneficence, equally conspicuous in every object of creation, whether a world or an atom, come to our aid to reassure our confi