family, in a strange land, invested by the troops of your enemies; so that those two or three friends whom fortune had left you could not come near to relieve you. In a word, you have experienced every hardship, but imprisonment and death. But what do I say? You have felt all the horrors of the former, when your faithful wife and children were shut up by your enemies: and even death followed you, and took one of those children, for whose loss you would willingly have sacrificed your own. In you have been united the fortunes of Pompey and Marius: but you were neither arrogant in prosperity as the one, nor discouraged in adversity as the other. You have supported both in a manner that has made you loved by your friends and admired by your enemies. There is a peculiar charm in the serene and tranquil air of virtue, which enlightens all around it, in the midst of the darkest scenes, and the greatest calamities. My ancient friendship for you has caused me to quit every thing for you to perform a work, in which, as in a glass, you may adjust and prepare your soul for all events; and be able to say, as Eneas did to the Sybil, "Nothing of this is new to me; I have foreseen, and am prepared for it all." I am sensible that, in the disorders of the mind, as well as those of the body, discourses are not thought the most efficacious remedies; but I am persuaded also that the malady of the soul ought to be cured by spiritual applications. If we see a friend in distress, and give him all the consolation we are able, we perform the duties of friendship, which pays more attention to the disposition of the heart than the value of the gift. A small present may be the testimony of a great love. There is no good I do not wish you, and this is all I can offer toward it. I wish this little treatise may be of use to you. If it should not answer my hopes, I shall, however, be secure of pardon from your friendship. It presents you with the four great passions; Hope and Joy, the daughters of Prosperity, Fear and Grief, the offspring of Adversity; who attack the soul, and lance at it all their arrows. Reason commands in the citadel to repulse them: your penetration will easily perceive which side will obtain the victory. 225.-The Victories of Love. HERMAN HOOKER. [HERMAN HOOKER, a native of Rutland County, in the State of Vermont, was ordained in the Episcopal Church of America; but has retired from the discharge of his pastoral duties through continued illhealth. He has written two works-The Philosophy of Unbelief,' and The Uses of Adversity,' from the latter of which the following is an extract.] Love is represented as the fulfilling of the law-a creature's perfection. All other graces, all divine dispensations contribute to this, and are lost in it as in a heaven. It expels the dross of our nature; it overcomes sorrow; it is the full joy of our Lord. Let us contemplate its capacities and resources as applied to the experience of life. Property and business may fail, and still the eye of hope may fix itself on other objects, and confidence may strengthen itself in other schemes; but when death enters into our family, and loved ones are missing from our sight, though God may have made their bed in sickness, and established their hope in death, nothing can then relieve us but trust and love. Philosophy and pleasure do but intrude upon and aggravate our grief. But love, the light of God, may chase away the gloom of this hour, and start up in the soul trusts, which give the victory over ourselves. The harp of the spirit, though its cords be torn, never yields such sweet notes, such swelling harmony, as when the world can draw no music from it. How often do we see strokes fall on the heart, which it would be but mockery for man to attempt to relieve, and which yet served to unlock the treasures of that heart, and reveal a sweetness to it which it had not known before. See that mother. She loves and mourns as none but a mother can. Behold the greatness and the sweetness of her grief! Her child is dead, and she says, "It is well with me, and it is well with my child. It is well because God has taken him; He has said, 'Of such is the kingdom of Heaven,'—that he doth not willingly afflict; and I know it must be well." Can there be any greatness greater than this? Did ever any prince at the head of invincible armies win a victory like it? Her heart is in heaviness and her home is desolated; but she has been to her heavenly Father, and unbosomed her griefs before him. There is peace on her saddened countenance, peace in her gentle words; the peace of God has come down, and is filling her trusting soul. How sweet and soft is her sorrow, and how it softens and awes without agitating others! It is related that on a small, and rocky, and almost inaccessible island, is the residence of a poor widow. The passage of the place is exceedingly dangerous to vessels, and her cottage is called the "Lighthouse," from the fact that she uniformly keeps a lamp burning in her little window at night. Early and late she may be seen trimming her lamp with oil, lest some misguided bark may perish through her neglect. For this she asks no reward. But her kindness stops not here. When any vessel is wrecked, she rests not till the chilled mariners come ashore to share her little board, and be warmed by her glowing fire. This poor woman in her younger, perhaps not happier days, though happy they must have been, for sorrow cannot lodge in such a heart, witnessed her husband struggling with the waves and swallowed up by the remorseless billows— “In sight of home and friends who thronged to save.” This directed her benevolence towards those who brave the dangers of the deep; this prompted her present devoted and solitary life, in which her only, her sufficient enjoyment is in doing good *. Sweet and blessed fruit of bereavement! What beauty is here! a loveliness I would little speak of, but more revere! a flower crushed indeed, yet sending forth its fragrance to all around! Truly, as the sun seems greatest in his lowest estate, so did sorrow enlarge her heart, and make her appear the more noble the lower it brought her down. We cannot think she was unhappy, though there was a remembered grief in her heart. A grieved heart may be a richly stored one. charity abounds, misery cannot. "Such are the tender woes of love, Where A pious lady who had lost her husband was for a time inconsolable. She could not think, scarcely could she speak, of any thing but him. * This anecdote has supplied Miss Martineau with the most interesting character of her little tale, The Billow and the Rock '—Ed. ་ Nothing seemed to take her attention but the three promising children he had left her, singing to her his presence, his look, his love. But soon these were all taken ill, and died within a few days of each other; and now the childless mother was calmed even by the greatness of the stroke. The hand of God was thus made visible to her. She could see nothing but his work in the dispensation. Thus was the passion of her grief allayed. Her disposition to speak of her loss, her solemn repose, was the admiration of all beholders. The Lord hath not slain her; he had slain what to some mothers is more than lifethat in which the sweets of life were treasured up-that which she would give life to redeem; and yet could she say, "I will trust in Him." As the lead that goes quickly down to the ocean's depth, ruffles its surface less than lighter things, so the blow which was strongest did not so much disturb her calm of mind, but drove her to its proper trust. In We had a friend loved and lovely. He had genius and learning. He had all qualities, great and small, blending in a most attractive whole-a character as much to be loved as admired, as truly gentle as it was great, and so combining opposite excellencies that each was beautified by the other. Between him and her who survives him there was a reciprocity of taste and sympathy-a living in each other, so that her thoughts seemed but the pictures of his-her mind but a glass that showed the very beauty that looked into it, or rather became itself that beauty-dying in his dying she did not all die. Her love, the heart's animation, lifted her up; her sense of loss was merged for a while in her love and confidence of his good estate. strong and trusting thoughts of him as a happy spirit, and of God as his and her portion, she rested as in a cloud. A falling from this elevation, was truly a coming to one's self from God-a leaving of heaven for earth. Let her tell the rest in words as beautiful as they are true to nature: My desolating loss I realise more and more. For many weeks his peaceful and triumphant departure left such an elevating influence on my mind, that I could only think of him as a pure and happy spirit. But now my feelings have become more selfish, and I long for the period to arrive, when I may lie down by his side and be reunited in a nobler and more enduring union than even that which was ours here." 66 Thus does the mind, when it ceases to look upward, fall from its elevation. Thus is the low note of sadness heard running through all the music of life, when ourselves are the instruments we play upon. The sorrow that deepens not love, and runs not off with it, must ever flood the spirit and bear it down. Our best and sweetest life, that which we live in the good of others, is richly stocked with charities. The life which we live in ourselves, that which depends on our stores, is master only of chaff and smoke, when they are taken away, and destitute of that last relieving accommodation, a resigned spirit. The young man whom Jesus told to sell all his goods, and give to the poor, and he should have treasure in heaven, should be truly enriched"was sad at that saying." He understood not the riches of love, which never feels itself so wealthy as when it has expended all in obedience to the commands it honours; never so well furnished against want and sorrow, as when best assured of the approbation of its object. In that we are creatures, we see how poor we must be, having nothing laid up in the Creator. Selfishness is poverty; it is the most utter destitution of a human being. It can bring nothing to his relief; it adds soreness to his sorrows; it sharpens his pains; it aggravates all the losses he is liable to endure, and when goaded to extremes, often turns destroyer and strikes its last blows on himself. It gives us nothing to rest in or fly to in trouble; it turns our affections on ourselves, self on self, as the sap of a tree descending out of season from its heavenward branches, and making not only its life useless, but its growth downward. If there is any thing about us which good hearts will reverence, it is our grief on the loss of those we love. It is a condition in which we seem to be smitten by a Divine hand, and thus made sacred. It is a grief, too, which greatly enriches the heart, when rightly borne. There may be no rebellion of the will, the sweetest sentiments towards God and our fellow-beings may be deepened, and still the desolation caused in the treasured sympathies and hopes of the heart gives a new colour to the entire scene of life. The dear affections which grew out of the consanguinities and connections of life, next to those we owe to God, are the most sacred of our being; and if the hopes and revelations of a future state did not come to our aid, our grief would be immoderate and inconsolable, when these relations are broken by death. But we are not left to sorrow in darkness. Death is as the fore |