Command

solitude. Arouse from reveries. your attention to fix on passing objects, and interest in them will by degrees follow. Task yourself to converse. Task yourself to listen. to conversation. Withal, seek God's blessing on all your endeavors, and, ere long, the first sentence of this letter will cease to apply to my dearest

LETTER XII.

MY DEAR YOUNG Friends,

I HAVE not been so long a sojourner in the household of which you are members, without becoming tenderly interested in the welfare of each; and as the days approach when our pleasant intercourse must be broken up, and to most of you I must become but a name and a remembrance-dear girls, suffer me to leave one general record of my regard.

This is my birthday; and feeling on the one hand how frail I am, and on the other how short my remaining life may be, can I be otherwise than serious? Beholding your youthful vigor, and remembering that as ye are, so once was I, can I be otherwise than admonitory? My feelings acquire a yet deeper

character from the circumstance, that only a few days since, the majority of your number publicly pledged yourselves to the fulfilment of your baptismal vows, and this, under a solemn sense of the duty and difficulty of so doing. To none was Confirmation a light thing, and the day on which it occurred was a day long to be remembered. Will it not be more? Will it not be the commencement of a new era in the life of each? Nay, will it not be the commencement of a new life itself? Shall the solemn sense of God's presence which pervaded your souls when assembled in his sanctuary, exhale like the dew-disperse like a cloud? Must the sweet serenity which now fills your hearts, while they are seeking him whose favor is life, be blighted, because that search becomes gradually intermitted—that favor more lightly esteemed? Must the sacred union which now binds you together, because striving to walk in one way you desire to walk in one spirit, to watch over, admonish, pray for, and love one another-must this fervent fellowship be jarred and disturbed? Shall the wind of vanity and dissension blow upon and scatter

it, leaving each to bear her own burden, to grieve, rejoice, succeed, or fall-alone? The very God of peace forbid! But "by whom shall Jacob arise, for he is small?" and with youthful fickleness added to human infirmity, both destined to be tried and drawn forth in a vain, bewildering, tempting, troubled world, who amongst you shall stand? Who shall hold on her way growing stronger and stronger, her eye fixed on the bright, if distant, goal of eternity? Who shall walk in the path of Christian duty, diverging neither to the right hand nor to the left-treading down alike the briars that would hinder, and the flowers that would allure? Who, having an eye to the great recompense of reward, shall esteem "the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt?" Who shall wage victorious warfare with a proud, ambitious spirit, cast down every high imagination, bring every thought into subjection to the cross of Christ, and in that despised object behold the fountain of all true glory? What unyielding temper shall be conformed to the meekness and gentleness of Christ? What "dry root" shall "grow as the lily?"

What unstable plant "cast forth its roots as Lebanon?" Will the bruised reed become a stately pillar, or the smoking flax "a burning and a shining light?" Will the day whereof "the light is neither clear nor dark," become "a day known to the Lord?" Who among you will "run and not be weary, will walk and not faint? I know that similar questions have agitated your own minds, -I know that each in turn has said with despondency, "Alas! not I." Have I then suggested these obstacles only to dismay and dishearten? Would I in any mind discourage hope and implant doubt? Would I be to you a "grieving thorn and a pricking briar; "a needless Micaiah? O no! The gospel states the difficulties of becoming a follower of Christ in plain terms, because it provides a sufficiency of strength to overcome them; and God is absolute in requiring our obedience, because royal in his promises of all that we need to enable us to obey. Our necessities may be many as the sands upon the sea-shore; our desires boundless as the ocean they encircle; our hopes and aspirations high as the heaven that looks