shall see fit to take away. Your extreme fondness was perhaps as displeasing to God before, as now your extreme affliction is; and your loss may have been a punishment for your faults in the manner of enjoying what you had. It is at least pious to ascribe all the ill that befalls us to our own demerits, rather than to injustice in God. And it becomes us better to adore the issues of his providence in the effects, than to inquire into the causes; for submission is the only way of reasoning between a creature and its Maker; and contentment in his will is the greatest duty we can pretend to, and the best remedy we can apply to all our misfortunes.

*

*

When young children are taken away, we are sure they are well, and escape much ill, which would, in all appearance, have befallen them if they had stayed longer with us. Our kindness to them is deemed to proceed from common opinions or fond imaginations, not friendship or esteem; and to be grounded upon entertainment rather than use in the many offices of life. Nor would it pass from any person besides your ladyship, to say you lost a companion and a friend of nine years old; though you lost one, indeed, who gave the fairest hopes that could be of being both in time, and everything else that is estimable and good. But yet that itself is very uncertain, considering the chances of time, the infection of company, the snares of the world, and the passions of youth: so that the most excellent and

agreeable creature of that tender age might, by the course of years and accidents, become the most miserable herself; and a greater trouble to her friends by living long, than she could have been by dying young.

Yet after all, madam, I think your loss so great, and some measure of your grief so deserved, that would all your passionate complaints, all the anguish of your heart, do anything to retrieve it; could tears water the lovely plant, so as to make it grow again after once it is cut down; could sighs furnish new breath, or could it draw life and spirits from the wasting of yours, I am sure your friends would be so far from accusing your passion, that they would encourage it as much, and share it as deeply as they could. But alas! the eternal laws of the creation extinguish all such hopes, forbid all such designs ; nature gives us many children and friends to take them away, but takes none away, to give them to us again. And this makes the excesses of grief to be universally condemned as unnatural, because so much in vain ; whereas nature does nothing in vain ; as unreasonable, because so contrary to our own designs; for we all design to be well and at ease, and by grief we make ourselves troubles most properly out of the dust, whilst our ravings and complaints are but like arrows shot up into the air at no mark, and so to no purpose, but only to fall back upon our own heads and destroy ourselves.

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.

GOD GRACIOUS IN HIS JUDGMENTS.

BUT for myself, I bless God I have observed and felt so much mercy in this angry dispensation of God, that I am almost transported; I am sure highly pleased with thinking how infinitely sweet his mercies are, when his judgments are so gracious. -JEREMY TAYLOR on the loss of two children,

THE TWINS.

'TWAS summer, and a Sabbath eve,
And balmy was the air;

I saw a sight that made me grieve,
And yet that sight was fair:

Within a little coffin lay

Two lifeless babes as sweet as May.

Like waxen dolls which children dress,

The little bodies were;

A look of placid happiness

Did in each face appear:

And in the coffin, short and wide,
They lay together, side by side.

Their mother, as a lily pale,

Sat by them on their bed;

And bending o'er them told her tale,
And many a tear she shed;

Yet oft she cried amidst her pain,

66

"My babes and I shall meet again."

THE BITTER CUP DECLINED.

THE cup of life just to her lips she prest, Found the taste bitter, and declined the rest: Averse, then turning from the face of day, She softly sighed her infant soul away.

I SEE THEE STILL.

I SEE thee still;

Remembrance, faithful to her trust,

Calls thee in beauty from the dust :
Thou comest in the morning light,
Thou 'rt with me through the gloomy night;
In dreams I meet thee as of old;

Then thy soft arms my neck enfold,

And thy sweet voice is in my ear;
In every scene to memory dear

In

every

I see thee still.

I see thee still

hallowed token round; This little ring thy finger bound,

This lock of hair thy forehead shaded,
This silken chain by thee was braided,
These flowers, all withered now, like thee,
Sweet Sister, thou didst cull for me;
This book was thine; here didst thou read;
This picture ah! yes, here, indeed,
I see thee still.

I see thee still;

Here was thy summer noon's retreat,
Here was thy favourite fireside seat;
This was thy chamber-here, each day,
I sat and watched thy sad decay;
Here, on this bed, thou last didst lie;
Here, on this pillow, thou didst die.
Dark hour! once more its woes unfold;
As then I saw thee, pale and cold,
I see thee still.

I see thee still;

Thou art not in the grave confined-.
Death cannot claim the immortal Mind;