living were at my command at all times! O, cousin, cousin, I tremble to think of it. And then again, had the Lord allowed me my own way about my beloved Rachel, what would her situation have been now, had she lived and married an unprincipled young man! How different would have been her situation, I say, compared with what it is now, in glory everlasting, never changing glory! And then, to think how the great work of salvation was wrought for my husband and child wholly and entirely through the mercy of God, unsought by them, and undesired by me! Surely, Henry Goodman, you have not in all your experience met with a case like mine. I may indeed be compared to the labourer, who having wrought only one hour in the Lord's vineyard, was made equal to those who had borne the burden and heat of the day. But I have not wrought even my one hour; I have never done any thing for my Lord; I never can do any thing; and yet the Almighty showers down upon me the best of his blessings, and satisfies me with every precious thing.”

It cannot be doubted that Mr. Goodman was much astonished to hear these words from the lips of the same person who, a little less than three years ago was ready to charge Providence with injustice for those very dispensations which she now considered as real blessings. Not being informed of the change in her character, thus wonderfully wrought by regenerating grace, and having more fresh in his mind by far than she had the unsatisfactory conversation he had held with her in his first visit, he could hardly restrain his expressions of amazement, while he gazed upon her with mute astonishment. But observing that her countenance was calm and placid, and that the expression of her eye was meek and lowly, as she lay reclining upon her pillow, he began to feel a persuasion that her heart was really changed, and that she truly felt all she expressed. However, he thought it right to try her with some searching questions respecting the ground of her faith, as well as relating to the sense which she had of her own accumulated guilt and utter helplessness.

She hearkened to him a while in deep silence, when bursting into tears, and clasping together her sallow and emaciated hands, she exclaimed, "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief!"

Pleased with these expressions of humility, Mr. Goodman was filled with thankfulness, and could not forbear exclaiming, in the triumph of his feelings, "O my God! I thank thee; my prayers, my unworthy prayers, have indeed been heard for this my poor afflicted friend: for she was dead, and is alive again-was lost, and is found."

He then proceeded to point out to Mrs. Bennet that which had most struck him in the two conversations which he had held with her. "You perhaps," he said, "do not recollect the tendency of our first discourse, because you spoke then only as you always spoke; all you then said consisted of complaints respecting your hard destiny: and it is remarkable that you then pointed out those very events of your life as being the most cruel inflictions of Providence, which you have numbered this day among your greatest mercies. I need not name what these were; but I wish you to observe this circumstance, as it indicates, I trust, that blessed change in your own mind which must take place in every one before he can be admitted into the kingdom of God. For it is written-Unless a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven: and certain it is, that when the heart is changed, that which before was sweet to the natural man becomes bitterness to the saint, and that which was gall and wormwood to the natural man becomes full of sweetness to the regenerate creature. Hence the servant of the Lord is enabled to rejoice evermore: he no longer puts darkness for light and light for darkness, nor bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter; but he rejoices in hope, is patient in tribulation, and triumphant in death."

The little party, thus assembled in their humble garret, united in a prayer, which was led by the excellent Mr. Goodman; after which the holy man tendered his purse to his afflicted cousin, afflicted indeed in the body, but blessed in the spirit. His offers of this kind were not, however, accepted, as Mrs. Bennet made it appear that she had sufficient left for all her necessities.

From that time Mr. Goodman frequently visited his poor cousin, and received every desirable evidence of her daily growth in grace, until the bitterness of death was past, and the redeemed soul received into everlasting glory.

And now, my reader, let us look to ourselves, and inquire whether we are not still in the number of those who put light for darkness, and bitter for sweet; and let us give all diligence to shun the woes denounced against characters of such a description.

END OF THE BITTER SWEET.

COMMON ERRORS.

In a small town in Gloucestershire there lived, about thirty years ago, an industrious man, by name John Wilmot, who maintained his wife and only son by keeping a small shop, in which he sold needles, thread, pins, laces, and other such small articles.

This man was a quiet, inoffensive person, but unfortunate in his wife, who, though a tidy, hard-working woman, was very self-willed, and so full of pride on account of the cleanliness of her house, togetlier with her saving management, by which she enabled her husband to put by a few pounds every year, that he had no little to suffer from her imperious temper.

Mrs. Wilmot was a tall, bony, hard-featured woman, and, inasmuch as she had passed her youth without falling into any of those grievous offences so frequent among the lower orders of females, whose sense of morality and decency, I am sorry to say, is for the most part exceedingly slight, she failed not to hold herself very high upon the notion of her extraordinary virtue, not unfrequently telling her husband, and especially whenever he offended her or complained of her temper, that she only wished he had taken some one of her neighbours to wife, since that might have taught him how to value a virtuous woman. And as Mrs. Wilmot prided herself on her morality, so she entertained a high opinion of her religion; since she was a constant church-goer, and brought the text home every Sunday the year round.

I have before intimated that John had an only son, whose name was Joseph; a boy who had been of a weak constitution from his childhood, and who, in consequence of his inability to go out among other boys, had been always at home with his mother. Mrs. Wilmot had as little tenderness in her nature as any woman can be supposed to possess; nevertheless, she had a great affec

tion for her son, he being, as she often represented the matter, a part of her own flesh and blood: in consideration of which she indulged him to the utmost extreme which her circumstances would admit, waiting upon him hand and foot, and pleading his want of health for these extraordinary indulgences. She allowed him an easy chair, and the warmest seat in the chimney-corner; and by pampering his sickly appetite with every nicety within her reach, she confirmed that weakness of constitution which better management might, perhaps, have removed. When a healthy lad is improperly indulged, he very soon makes his parents feel the ill effect of such treatment, by breaking out into excesses. But this was not the case with Joseph Wilmot. His infirmities compelled him to stay at home, and his weakness obliged him to be quiet; so that as all his comforts depended on his mother, he naturally clung to this parent. And though he was sometimes fretful and impatient, yet, as I said before, that very weakness which made him fretful, prevented him from breaking out into any excesses of riot or disobedience; insomuch that he was generally considered by his neighbours as a good son.

As Joseph Wilmot advanced in age without acquiring strength, he became fond of reading, as one means of passing away the time without weariness. And as his mother, who was herself very ignorant, entertained the common persuasion of illiterate and unenlightened persons, that reading of any kind, no matter what, must be a kind of religious exercise, she became more than ever confirmed in the opinion of her son's merits, often making her boast of his good life, and strict observance of every duty.

In the mean time the young man advanced in years, and being thus constantly restrained from open and glaring transgressions, he displayed that selfishness which is natural to the unregenerate man, in a spirit of censoriousness against those vices from which he was himself withheld by the peculiar circumstances of his case. This formality was, however, much admired by his partial mother, who verily believed that the bitterness with which he spoke of the sins of his neighbours was a proof of his own purity of mind and hatred of vice.

In the mean time his constitution became gradually weaker, till he was at length laid upon his bed with the