6

and in a moment were bathed in tears. I could scarce utter my words through heaviness of heart, and the abundance of tears which flowed down my cheeks; and to almost every petition I offered, Amen, amen, amen. God grant it may. Amen, amen,'-was the language both of their hearts and lips. I was too much affected to be able to converse with them; I therefore referred them to two or three passages of Scripture, and left them. The next evening again, about the same time, I visited them, and, as before, we wrestled in prayer, with strong cries and floods of tears. Nor was I better able to converse with them than before, so deplorable did their situation appear, and to such a degree were all our hearts overwhelmed with sorrow. As before, I left a few Scriptures for their consideration, that they might plead in prayer with our promise-keeping God, and returned the third evening about the same hour. Then I began with some conversation, and afterwards went to prayer; but though we were earnest, our whole souls were not drawn out as on the two preceding evenings. When we had risen from prayer, I sat down to talk with them; and after I had spoken a little time, the young woman addressed me to this effect, and, as nearly as I can recollect, in these words, Now, sir, I will tell you what the Lord has done for me: When you called me in the churchyard, (which was nearly two miles off her house,) I had been there five hours. I went to my sister, who lives close by, to tell her my distress; but she, instead of assisting me at all, or even pitying my situation, sent me away with reproaches. I thought God had utterly forsaken me, and left me and my children to starve, and it did not signify what became of me. I found my misery insupportable, and therefore was determined to put an end to it; and at the instant you spoke to me, I was going to drown myself; thus I should, in one moment, have left my aged mother and my little helpless children without a friend in the world, and have plunged my own soul into irretrievable ruin! And now, Sir, instead of despairing of bread to eat, I am enabled to see that God, who is the Father of the fatherless, and the husband of the widow, is my friend; that Christ Jesus has washed me from all sin in the fountain of His own blood, and that it is my privilege to be careful for nothing; and, blessed be God, I am enabled to cast all my care on Him who careth for me. I have hitherto laboured on the Lord's Day to support my family, and I now see how little I can do without the blessing of God. Hencefor

ward, by grace, I never will work again on the Sabbath, but devote it entirely to the service of God, the concerns of my soul, and the instruction of my children.' This was the last time of my seeing her during my stay in town; but on my return to town, about a year afterwards, I made inquiries of a gentleman who lived very near her, and whom I desired to watch over her conduct, and found that it had been perfectly consistent with the professions she had made to me of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; that she was, in every respect, sober and discreet, and at all times regular in her attendance on the means of grace. Having heard this character of her as to the external conduct, I was very desirous of seeing whether the life of godliness also were in her soul, and went to visit her. At my entering into the house, she caught hold of my hand, utterly unable to speak, and I was apprehensive she would have gone off into a fit, through excess of surprise and joy. When she was composed, I asked her where her mother was? She told me, that she had died about three months before; and that her departing words were, Come, Lord Jesus, I am ready, it Thou art willing: Come, Lord Jesus;' and then addressing the young woman,

May God bless you, my dear daughter,' she expired without a groan. Such was the end of her who had been for years, I believe, a close walker with God. In the course of conversation, the young woman told me, that she had herself, in the winter, been at the point of death, and that she was enabled to commit her children into the hands of her heavenly Father, without a doubt of His taking good care of them, and that she desired to depart and to be with Christ; in short, her whole conversation then, and at several times since when I have seen her, as well as her general character from those who live near her, have fully convinced me that her soul is quite alive to God; and I pray God that it may continue so to the end.

"We may observe from hence, how mistaken those physicians and apothecaries are, who imagine that religious conversation with patients has a tendency to impede their cure. Here is a case where the woman was very ill in body, as well as distressed in mind, whom all the drugs in their dispensary could not have cured. When she had found Christ Jesus, that great physician, healing her soul with the balm of Gilead, her troubles immediately subsided, and her health was quickly reestablished; for her subsequent illness, in the winter, was of a very different nature."

So strong an impression did this event make on the mind of Mr. Simeon, that when alluding to it just thirty years after, he says, "If my whole life had been spent without any other compensation than this, my labours had been richly recompensed."

MATERNAL GRIEF.

Departed child! I could forget thee once,
Though at my bosom nursed. This woeful gain
Thy dissolution brings, that in my soul
Is present, and perpetually abides,
A shadow never, never to be displaced

By the returning substance, seen or touched,
Seen by mine eyes, or clasped in my embrace.

Absence and death, how differ they? and how
Shall I admit that nothing can restore
What one short life too easily removed?
Death, life, and sleep, reality and thought,
Assist me, God, their boundaries to know,
Oh! teach me calm submission to thy will!

The mother does not miss

Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf
In prayer, yet blending with that solemn rite
Of pious faith the vanities of grief;
For such by pitying angels and by spirits
Transferred to regions upon which the clouds
Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed
Those willing tears and unforbidden sighs,
And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow,
Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace of
heaven,

As now it is, seems to her own fond heart
Immortal as the love that gave it being.
W. WORDSWORTH.

We had not proceeded many paces after crossing the boundary line of France and Sardinia, when the valleys of the Waldenses, sleeping in their own loveliness amid the glories of an Italian sky, burst upon our view. The setting sun was, at the moment, gilding the sunmits of the Cottian Alps; the projecting cliffs were casting their deep shadows upon the valleys beneath; the tinklings of the distant sheep-folds broke, with their pleasing melody, the stillness of the scene; and a hundred rivulets, bounding from the rocks, wound their way to swell the torrent below.

Descending the rocky sides of the Col de la Croix, we came to a few scattered huts at Pras; thence, skirting the banks of the rapid stream which waters the valley of Lucerna, masses of rock, of enormons size, obstruct its waters; and a continued succession of cataracts are formed nearly the whole way to Bobi. We had now exchanged the steeps of the mountain for the thickets of the valley; and evening having set in, the lofty trees which overshadowed the footpath, effectually screened out what light was still remaining, with the exception of those artificial lights which form so remarkable

a feature in the Italian nightly landscape

myriads of fire-flies fluttering around. We were compelled thus to sacrifice much noble scenery; but there was no help for it; and another hour's walk found us seated in the midst of a circle of Protestants in the little inn of Bobi. Next morning, we called for M. Muston, the respected pastor of the Commune, and were received with much kindness. He conducted us to the interior of his church, an old-fashioned fabric, capable of containing 500 people. Its construction was similar to those in our own land—a pulpit, a precentor, or reader's desk-the communion-table below-and no altar. They employ a liturgy, recently imported (as its title-page indicated) from the printing-presses of our fellow-townsman, Andrew Shortrede, Edinbourg." M. Muston inform.ed us, that they have office-bearers corresponding to our elders (“ ancienne”)— individuals advanced in years and piety, whose office is to visit the sick, and minister to the temporal, as well as spiritual interests of the flock. At the dispensation of the Lord's Supper, these lay elders assist; but take no part in the distribution of the elements. They generally amount to eight or ten in num

66

ber in each parish, and, along with the clergyman, compose the "Consistory." Three festivals are observed-Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost; on each of which occasions the Sacrament is dispensed, and the ceremony of confirmation takes place. There are two sets of churches in the valleys the one embracing the mountainous districts, where the population is scattered, and the work consequently more arduous. These are supplied by the younger and more active pastors. The other set include the lower and more accessible, as well as more fertile valleys, and are reserved for the older and more infirm. Their pastors thus ascend, or, rather, descend, by a regular gradation-the last ordained being presented to the remotest parish, and from this obtaining promotion as the aged ministers die out. This rule is perhaps not invariably, but generally, followed, unless there be some special disqualification. The period of study for probationers is fifteen years, seven of which are spent at their native college at La Tour, for literature and belles-lettres, and the remainder at Lausanne, for theology and philosophy.

This and other information we obtained from M. Muston, who left us in the afternoon to prosecute the route to La Tour, through the valley of Lucerna. No spot in Switzerland combines more of the grand and beautiful than this. In the back-ground are mountains whose top is lost amid the clouds; nearer, rocky hills clothed with wood to the summit, while the valley below is studded with gigantic chesnut trees, its gentle slopes covered with vines, hanging in graceful festoons over the soil. The banks of the river are clothed with pasturage of the brightest emerald green, or occasionally enlivened with patches of yellow corn, amid which the reaper was then busied with his sickle. The whole scene forcibly brought to mind that verse in the noblest of pastorals:

"With flocks the pastures clothed be, The vales with corn are clad; And now they shout and sing to Thee, For Thou hast made them glad." Passing the night at La Tour, we proceeded, next morning, to wait on M. Revel,

Professor in Trinity College, an Institution which owes its existence to the devoted efforts of Dr. Gilly, to prevent the necessity of the Vaudois students leaving their native valleys to prepare for the work of the ministry. Till within a recent period, Geneva or Lausanne were the only schools for their training; and the consequence was, that many of them returned contaminated with the rationalism and socinianism of Switzerland.

We inspected, in the neighbourhood, a large manufactory for the winding of silk. Upwards of sixty women were em. ployed in hanking the exquisitely slender fibres from the cacoons of the silk-worm. The manager was kind enough to permit us to inspect the whole works, and to explain the process. The cacoons are, first of all, placed in large baskets, in a small room, heated to a very high temperature by means of steam, which, in the course of two or three days, causes the death of the worm. After this, they are taken to a room and picked,-the good ones being ascertained by their sound when shaken. If no sound is produced, it shews that part of the thread is still attached to the worm, and is, consequently, of little or no value. Those of a yellow hue are then separated from the white, which is the prevailing colour, and put into the hands of the sixty women referred to, to undergo their last process of winding. This is done by first steeping them in a small vat, into which there is a continual influx of boiling water, and by the repeated appliance of a coarse brush, the glutinous substance is removed, and the end of the thread obtained. Five or six of these are wound simultaneously; and great expertness is displayed in attaching new threads, when any of these happen to break, or to be finished.

On Sabbath, our kind friend, M. Revel, conducted us to the morning service in the Church of St. Giovanni, the richest commune in Piedmont, embosomed in vineyards and oliveyards. On entering, the aspect of the congregation was novel and imposing. Immediately in front of the pulpit, sat the male part of the audience; behind them the women, who were neatly arrayed in a uniform costume,-a