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had received her as entirely their own, and heard not the voice of the giver, saying, "Nurse this child for me and I will pay thee thy wages;" no fearful weight of responsibility rested on their spirits. And their illusion continued. Religion, therefore, found no place in their system of education; a defect so great that Eternity alone can unfold its magnitude. "Holiness to the Lord" was never written upon their domestic arrangements. No altar was there erected for the morning and the evening sacrifice. And having "no fear of God before their eyes," they seemed totally unconscious that wisdom from Him above, to guide their daughter in the way of truth, was at all essential to the perfection of her character. Under such tuition, we cannot wonder that there should have been a dreadful vacuity even in the intelligent mind of Anica; God was not in all her thoughts. The beauty and variety of natural objects interested her, and from nature's ample page, she added to her stock of useful knowledge; but she studied and admired with the coolness of philosophy. No "ray of heavenly light" gilded their forms. It did not occur to her to inquire "who gave its lustre to an insect's wing?" She had never been taught that "Nature is but a name for an effect Whose cause is God."

She had studied "heaven's golden alphabet," and loved astronomy as a science, but never read in those emblazed capitals a declaration of the glory of God; nor discovered in the laws by which they were governed, an exhibition of his handy work. She never inquired who hangeth the earth upon nothing? Nor, who hath set a tabernacle for the sun, and ordained the moon and the stars? The exclamation of the Psalmist, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all," might have been quite strange to her. And so would have been the assurance we have that "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all his work." I have given the history of only six days in the week. Anica was never taught to "remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." She was not led to the house of God, to worship in the beauty of holiness, and to be instructed in the things of His kingdom. She never enjoyed the privilege of a Sunday-School, nor the benefit of those precious volumes which constitute so large a part of our invaluable juvenile libraries. How then, it may be asked, could she have been occupied during the Sabbath which is to be sanctified by a holy resting even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful.

on other days; when we are to know God by "not doing our own ways, nor finding our own pleasure, nor speaking our own words?" (Isa. lviii. 13.) If she neither read the Bible, nor attended worship, nor the Sabbath-school, nor had good books at home, how did she spend those sacred hours? I can only reply,-the pleasure gardens, the promenades, the gay streets and worldly amusements of Paris, absorbed them all.

"Death rides on every passing breeze,

He lurks in every flower;
Each season has its own disease,
Its peril every hour."

Taught to think of this world only, and preparing to shine in the gayest scenes of fashionable life, Anica was "quite unfurnished for the world to come." In the providence of God, however, she was called to severe suffering. A violent inflammation, proceeding from a very slight cause, terminated fatally. No alarm was felt respecting her until the disease had gained too much power to be overcome. When her danger was fully apprehended, the anguish of her parents was indescribable. All that could be done by medical skill or

unwearied care and tenderness, to check the progress of the disease, to save her life or alleviate her pain, was done, but it was too late. Her fair and graceful form was soon and sadly changed. Her parents stood over her hour after hour, in fearful suspense, as the current of her life slowly ebbed. At length the last glimmering ray of hope is extinguished. And who is it that in agony of soul now calls for the neglected Bible-remembering that Jesus once had said, "I am the resurrection and the life?" It is her mother! The closing scene approaches, and the ravings of delirium are heard But we will not trespass on that hour of

domestic anguish.

All that remained of Anica was placed in a leaden coffin, enclosed in a sarcophagus, and carried to a ship in which the bereaved and desolated parents embarked for their native country. A dreary voyage brought them to the land of her birth, and a messenger was despatched to a distant village to make preparations for the funeral rites.

It was late in the evening, and a storm was gathering, when the tolling of a bell, borne over the waters, gave signal that a barge, bearing the remains of Anica and a group of mourners, was approaching the shore, which was lined by persons whom sympathy had assembled, awaiting its reception.

They bore their "treasure through the midnight gloom !" A long procession followed, bearing lanterns which deepened the awful impressiveness of the solemnity-and while we stood by the cold damp grave performing the last sad offices, the moaning blasts of the night mingling with the suffocating sobs of the funeral circle, filled every heart with a deep consciousness of desolation. I thought, poor wretched parents! Surely Eternity was too near, to have given so much to Time! My tears fell upon the clods that were thrown upon her coffin-and when I turned from the sad scene, I said-Lovely Anica! How fitted mightest thou have been to adorn and bless a world in which thou hast only found a grave!

It was on this grave that the distracted mother was wasting her strength in loud lamentations, and spending, in vain regrets, that breath which should have been employed in prayer and instruction and entreaty, to save her daughter from the perdition of the ungodly. O that worldly mothers would look to the end of these things, and if they would have their daughters to become as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace, let them be led, in the days of childhood, to know and serve the God of Israel.

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