domestic as if enjoying their organs of vision. At the hour appointed for the meeting of the lyceum there were about one hundred blind persons seated in the assembly-room. I believe every person in the room was blind, and I do not know whether there was any light in the room or not. Their president called the meeting to order, when the secretary read the proceedings of the last former meeting. They then considered and passed upon some resolutions, all done in the most regular parliamentary order. An address was delivered by Mr. Berry, a graduate of that institution, which was very appropriate, and spoken in an elegant manner; after which I made some remarks, with a heart overflowing with gratitude at seeing, or rather perceiving, so many of my blind companions made so comfortable, and furnished with such excellent facilities for cultivating their minds, and for becoming masters of the useful arts, by which to procure a livelihood. I think a majority of them had embraced religion. As I was about to leave, they gathered around me to bid me farewell, with as much sympathy and cordial fellow-feeling as could be manifested by a band of brothers and sisters, who were about to give the parting hand to one of their own number. All were there comparatively happy; but, alas! not one knew what lay in his pathway to the lonesome grave-how many sunless days and starless nights. Who can sympathize with the blind but the blind? Who can properly value the facili

ties which God bestows till deprived of them? Who can duly estimate the value of time but he to whom time is no more?

"On all important time, through every age,

Tho' much, and warm, the wise have urged, the man

Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour.

'I've lost a day '-the prince who nobly cried,

Had been an emperor without his crown:

Of Rome? say, rather lord of human race!
He spoke as if deputed by mankind.

So should all speak: so reason speaks in all :
From the soft whispers of that God in man,
Why fly to folly, why to frenzy fly,

For rescue from the blessings we possess?
Tine, the supreme !-Time is eternity;

Pregnant with all eternity can give ;

Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile;
Who crushes time, he crushes in the birth

A power ethereal, only not adored."

Think of this, ye rich worldlings, who are robbing God of his tithes and offerings. You will never gather together enough of this world's goods to buy an hour, or purchase a wedding-garment for the supper of the Lamb. May the Lord give you wisdom to lay up treasures in heaven, by properly improving on the gifts which God has bestowed, that when earth, with all its specious wealth, shall have passed away, you may have an inheritance with the saints in light.

At twelve o'clock that night I was seated in the cars, for Greencastle, with my little family and my apparatus and stock for brush-making, and that night we were welcomed home by the kindly greet

h

ing of many good neighbours, about one hundred and sixty miles from Philadelphia, and just one mile from Greencastle village, Franklin County.

You remember we have just returned from the North. After adjusting our little household affairs we resumed housekeeping. I fitted me up a brushmaking bench, and went to work at my new trade, fully testing my faith, courage, and patience. In a few weeks I could turn out a brush elegant enough to dust the pontifical cloak of his holiness the Pope. I can now make twenty-five brushes in less time and with much less trouble than it took to make my first two at the Blind Institute; so that by brushmaking and broom-making, through the blessing of a kind Providence, I have been able to keep my little barrel and cruse from being entirely empty, although I have seldom had beforehand more than five dollars worth of provisions at a time. But then, you know we are required to ask, day by day, for our daily bread. Yet I am often rebuked for my distrust of Providence by these words of our Saviour, "O, ye of little faith!" There is one text of Scripture to be found in Isaiah xlii, 16, which I claim as peculiarly my own, both as regards temporal and spiritual things, for I have often realized, in both these, the precious promises which it contains: "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight; these things will I do unto them,

and not forsake them." Yes, glory to his holy name! he will never forsake them that love him.

"E'en down to old age my people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;

And then, when gray hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.

"The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to his foes;

That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake,
I'll never-no never-no never forsake."

I have proved the Lord thus far, and found him as good as his word; and I am willing to trust all things in his hands for all future time. O, Lord, help me to fight a good fight and to keep the faith, that I may exclaim, even in death, like pious Edwards, "Trust the Lord!" "When thy heart and flesh fail thee I will be thy portion, saith the Lord of hosts." Yea, we may trust him still farther; he has promised to watch over our dust until the morning of the resurrection.

"Roll on, roll on, ye wheels of time,

And give the joyful day."

No difference whether we fall on the land or the sea; still, like the family of Abraham, we like to be buried with our fathers and friends. I took up the remains of my little daughter from the lonesome hills of Virginia, and bore them, as the sons of Jacob bore their brother Joseph, to the land of her fathers, and laid her in the family burying-ground in Pennsylvania.

"There sweet be her rest, till He bid her arise,
To hail him in triumph descending the skies."

CHAPTER XIV.

ALTHOUGH religion, or rather the hankering and thirsting after it, in many places and among most denominations of Christians is languishing, yet I think, in all meekness and humility, and, notwithstanding my waywardness, through the mercy of God I have constantly grown in grace and in the knowledge of God: every month and year has been found better than its predecessor, and my faith has never been stronger nor my prospect brighter for the promised land than at present, while dictating this little narrative. Says the apostle, "When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." As earthly parents pass over many imperfections and follies in the little child which they would by no means tolerate in one of mature age and judgment, so my Heavenly Father has borne with numerous of my imperfections and blessed me abundantly, which he would not by any means do now that I have received more light and knowledge. When I entered into the spiritual kingdom I carried with me, like Peter, many errors and prejudices of earlier life, which I have reason to thank God are now far removed through the instrumentality of holy preaching which was confirmed by the word of revelation.