still-house make if moved upon the rising ground?' The question puzzled his sons, but after a little conversation it was explained, and it was decided to commence the following morning removing the still-house for the purpose of a sheep-pen, instead of lighting the fires at midnight, as was the custom. This was brought about, as the sequel proved, by the Judge having been engaged during the day in reading the now antique tract entitled 'Enquire at Deacon Giles's Distillery."

The reading of that very tract proved afterwards one of the providences on which depended so greatly the future happiness and usefulness of my whole life. It led to my first acquaintance with Miss Wetmore, through the circumstance of her becoming by the friendship of her very dear friend Mrs. Washington-a pupil with a class of young ladies attendant on a course of lectures by myself, on the History of English Literature from Alfred and Wycliffe and Tyndale and the Reformers and Bunyan and Sir Walter Raleigh and the poets and prose-writers, down to Addison and Irving and Goldsmith and Burke. The preparation of those lectures was a constant delight to me. But who could have imagined that it might become the determination of my happiness through

life! I am reminded of Cowper's beautiful poem, so exquisitely beautiful and true!

"Mysterious are His ways, whose power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds that never met before,
Shall meet, unite, and part no more.
It is the allotment of the skies,
The hand of the Supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connections;
Directs us in our distant road,

And marks the bounds of our abode.
So day by day, and year by year,
Will make the dark enigma clear;
And furnish us perhaps at last,
Like other scenes already past,
With proof that we and our affairs
Are part of a Jehovah's cares.
For God unfolds, by slow degrees,
The purport of his deep decrees,
Sheds every hour a clearer light,
In aid of our defective sight,

And spreads at length before the soul
A beautiful and perfect whole,
Which busy man's inventive brain
Toils to anticipate in vain.

Say, loved one, had you never known

The beauties of a rose full blown,

Could you, though luminous your eye,
By looking on the bud, descry,

Just so the Omnipotent, who turns
The system of a world's concerns
From mere minutiæ can educe
Events of most important use,
And bid a dawning sky display
The blaze of a meridian day.

The works of man tend, one and all,
As needs they must, from great to small;

And vanity absorbs at length

The monuments of human strength.
But who can tell how vast the plan
Which this day's incident began?

Too small, perhaps, the slight occasion
For our dim-sighted observation.

It passed unnoticed, as the bird

That cleaves the yielding air unheard;
And yet may prove, when understood,

A harbinger of endless good."

A deep, exquisite, grateful delight in the beauties of natural scenery was always a source of happiness in my dear wife's habitual traits of character. She enjoyed the cultivation of a sense of the beautiful and grand in the opening minds of children. The love of Nature was a ruling element of her own creative imagination, a power which, in whatever degree it may be possessed, is an original endowment of the soul, a divine gift, along with that of the idea and sense of Eternity, and combining, for its highest exercise, clearness of perception, purity and power of conscience, judgment,

refinement of taste, and deep religious veneration. It is thus a faculty greatly dependent for its development on careful discipline, example, and instruction, but always essential to the highest genius, and a source of the purest intellectual and devotional pleasure.

A delicate, judicious perception of the qualities of excellence in literature and art is more dependent upon this mental and emotional endowment, and its careful education, than almost any other possession. Besides being essential to the perfection of a moral and religious nature, it is a pure and life-long fountain of domestic happiness, and will always take a commanding authority among all the means of usefulness in our earthly state. It is next to a spiritual acquaintance with the word of our Heavenly Father, when we have learned to

look through

Nature up to Nature's God. In neither case could we have done this, unless God had originally set the idea of his own eternity in the human mind and heart. There could never have been the idea of God without the kindred idea of eternity.

The following stanzas are in my dear wife's handwriting, and were the simple expression in brief of her own feelings:

How thankless art thou,

Child of Man,

For favors that abound!

Thy God hath given thee eyes to scan

The glory all around,

Yet seldom for this priceless sight
Hast thou been heard to praise aright.

This world's not all a fleeting show,
For man's delusion given;

For, from his station here below,

Bright prospects rise, high duties flow,
That show him heir of heaven!

Writing immediately afterwards to some dear correspondent, appreciating her own delight in the beautiful scenes unfolding all around her, she adds her own experience, as follows:

"I cannot tell you how I enjoy this rural life. To me beautiful fields and flowers and May weather and lovely walks are almost as intoxicating and reviving as they were in early youth; and the far brighter sun of another life seems to illumine all. In every sweet and lovely view I sit and look over the leafy woods, the running stream below sweetly murmuring in my ear. A peace and rest mingled with sadness, even my lonely rambles and revellings in the luxuriant beauty of these lanes and fields, how soothing, how enchanting! How I wish you could see the loveliness of Nature all around! At this time one always fancies every