A few more gloomy days, and the sad remains will be deposited in their "long home," and the survivors will be left to their reflections. Many there are who in such circumstances will experience a sweet mitigation of their sorrows, in the recollection of their past conduct; and some there may be, to whom the retrospect can afford little satisfaction. Is there a reader who has been remiss in attention to a drooping parent, whose heartless services must have been well understood, and keenly felt by her who was so well skilled in the offices of kindness? Every apartment of the house, almost every common circumstance of the day, may bring to the recollection scenes which would gladly be recalled, or forgotten. this room," may such a one say, grieved her spirit by my pert or rebellious carriage. In that chair she sat, when I refused to comply with such her request-I do not now think it was unreasonable. It was there that I witnessed her feeble air and languid look, when, instead of offering my services, I turned away in quest of my own pleasures. This, and this, and this, are tokens of love I received from her on various occasions-Oh I

"It was in

"" that I so

shall value them more than ever now!

It is just so long since she complied with my wishes, evidently for peace, sake. This is the room in which she watched over my bed during my tedious sickness: methinks I see her anxious looks, her unremitting care, as though she was guarding the choicest treasure. Unhappy me! My grief admits of no cure-I will follow my injured mother in sorrow to the grave.-But stay-I will go to my afflicted father, and pour the balm of filial consolation into his bereaved bosom. Departed saint!-If you can look down on mortals once dear to you, behold your repenting child, rendering that tribute of duty to your torn and lonely partner which was once your due.— Yes, if aught in this lower world can assuage his bleeding wounds and mitigate his woes, the task shall be mine to administer that consolation. If aught can mitigate or assuage my own, it must be the tender offices of filial love, which I will ever render him till he joins your happy spirit in the mansions above."

We would hope there are few comparatively to whom the former part of this soliloquy would be at all applicable; but there

are none, having a surviving parent duly sensible of his loss who may not adopt the latter. Their utmost assiduities, although unable to heal such a wound, may do much towards mitigating the smart. To whom can parents look for comfort when thus bereaved, with such reasonable expectation as to their own offspring? On whom have they such imperious claims? If children did but consult their own interests, they would by their attentive and affectionate conduct often prevent the necessity for second marriages, and parents would not be forced to solicit happiness from strangers, because it cannot be found in the bosom of their own families!

CHAP. XII.

TO CHILDLESS PERSONS.

“What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless.”

GENESIS, XV. 2.

ALTHOUGH the preceding pages have been exclusively addressed to parents and children, a few words to those who stand in neither of those relations, it is hoped will not be deemed so unpardonable a digression, as to be altogether unacceptable.

There are those who have had years of married life embittered, because it has pleased Providence to withhold from them a family, and who, while they hear others complain of the various trials to which they are thereby exposed, are ready to think that such troubles are not to be compared with their own, "so foolish are we, and ignorant!" So apt to forget that

"the heart knoweth its own bitterness." The hackneyed methods of consolation have probably hitherto been tried in vain; in vain they hear, that the ill-inclined and vicious, the amiable and deserving, severally excite in the bosoms of parents the deepest sorrow, although on very opposite accounts: the misconduct of the former, the misfortunes of the latter, each rending their hearts and banishing their repose. They hear, that in all their afflictions we are afflicted, and that our anxieties multiply with our children. Let childless persons who repine at their lot, read the heart-rending lamentation of David over a rebellious Absalom, or hear him in bitter anguish supplicating for the life of a dying infant! Let them attend to the pathetic story of Rispah, the daughter of Aiah, who watched night and day the corpses of her slain family, and they will no longer attempt to say that "there is no sorrow like unto their sorrow; ' especially if they recollect that to these, or woes equally bitter, every parent is liable. But this is not a view of the subject calculated to afford solid consolation: that can be derived only from an humble submission to