with his whole heart, to continue to love him as I had done before. He could not imagine what had led him to form such a naughty resolution, and assured me he had determined not to allow any punishment to overcome his obstinacy, but had been quite unable to resist the kind and gentle means I had used to convince him of his fault. He begged me to tell him how it had been possible for me to bear with this wicked behavior as I had done. To this I answered, "dear child, I cannot exactly explain. that to you; but if I must express it in a few words, it is because I have myself received much mercy from the Lord, that I have been enabled to show mercy towards you." Thus spoke this venerable man, and concluded his narrative with the satisfactory intelligence, that the boy had, from that day, become his best scholar, and was still living in Stuttgard, esteemed by all who knew him as an honest and virtuous citizen.

The Widow and her Shipwrecked Son.

In the north of England, in a small inland village, a lieutenant of the British Navy, after serving his country for many years, took up his abode. He had a pious wife, and six or seven children. She sent them to the village Sabbath school; but the eldest, a boy of fourteen years, seemed determined to profit by neither maternal love, nor pious instructions at school. He played and mingled with a class of wicked idlers that infested the village, and would have been as bad as the worst of them, but for his father's rigid discipline. That, alone, restrained him from rushing into excesses of wickedness and riot. But that father died, and left his widow to combat the idleness of her boy alone. No, not alone; for she sought the help of her heavenly husband.

The father being dead, the son grew worse. He was ungovernable; and the afflicted widow wept, as with a broken heart, over her recreant child. Unable to restrain him, she adopted a very common mode in England of disposing of idle lads. She resolved to send him to sea. It was a painful alternative; but he could not grow worse there, she thought. and possibly, the severe disci

pline of a ship might humble his proud spirit and lead him to reflection.

A ship was obtained for him. The bustle of preparation began and was over. Unknown to the youth, the mother placed a Bible in his chest, with a secret hope that its light might lead him to his heavenly Father, when he should be far off on the deep blue sea. Many were the prayers that mother offered for her son; many the counsels she gave him from the fulness of her heart. The day of separation came. O it was a day of trial to all but to him who was the occasion of all the sadness of that family. Warm were the tears she shed, as, pressing him to her bosom, she bade him adieu, and commended his wayward heart to God.

Many years had passed, and the wanderer had not returned. The ship had perished at sea, and the widow mourned her son as dead; and what was worse, she trembled for the safety of his undying soul. Could she have been assured of his safety in the better world, her pained heart would have been at rest. But she wept over him as doubly lost.

It was a stormy night in mid-winter. The wind howled, the rain poured down in torrents, and deep darkness obscured the sky. The widow, and her children, sat beside the cheerful fire, and a chastened cheerfulness overspread the circle, though now and then a cloud of melancholy gathered over the mother's brow, as the driving storm reminded her of her lost son, when a slight tap was heard at the door. It was opened. A sailor stood there, way-worn and weather-beaten. He begged a shelter from the storm. It was not in that mother's heart to refuse a sailor on such a night, and she offered him her fireside and her food.

When he had refreshed himself, she modestly questioned him of his condition. His tale was soon told. He had been shipwrecked, and was going home poor and penniless to his mother. He had been shipwrecked before. The widow asked him to tell the story of his sufferings.

He said that in a violent gale the ship ran ashore and went to pieces. The crew were either drowned or dash. ed to death upon the rocks. Himself and another were

the only persons who reached the shore. They were thrown high upon the beach by a powerful wave. His companion was senseless at first, but at last revivedalas! but to die. "He was a sweet youth," the sailor observed: "once he had been the terror of the ship, for his excessive devotion to vice. But suddenly he had changed. He became a serious, praying man; as remarkable for piety now as for vice before. When he revived a little on the beach," said the sailor, "he pulled a Bible from his bosom, and pressed it to his lips. It was this blessed book, he told me, that led him to change his way of life. Rummaging his chest one day, he found a Bible; his first impression was to throw it away; but chancing to see his mother's writing, he paused to examine it. It was his name. It made him think of his mother; of her instructions and the instructions of his teachers; and then he saw his sins, and felt he was a sinner. Overwhelmed, he sunk upon his knees, beside his chest, and wept and prayed, and vowed to change his way of life. And he did change it; for he became a decided christian. After telling me about this change," continued the sailor, "he gave me his Bible, and bade me keep it for his sake; and then falling back upon the sand, he expired with a half-offered prayer upon his lips."

As the sailor concluded, the widow, who had listened with deep interest and feeling, inquired,

"Have you got that Bible, my friend?"

"Yes, madam," said he; and he took from his bosom what appeared to be a bunch of old canvass. Carefully removing several envelopes, he at last produced a small pocket Bible, and gave it into the hands of the lady.

Tremblingly and hastily she seized it. She turned to the blank page, when lo! her child's name in her own writing. A death-like paleness overspread her usually pale cheek, as she made the discovery, and exclaimed, 'Tis his! 'tis his! my son! my son!"

Nature could bear no more, and she fainted.

Here, then, we see the idle Sunday scholar, at sea, away from the means of grace, suddenly profiting by the instruction of years past. His soul felt the inspiring leaven a teacher had placed within it, and grew ripe for paradise, when the teacher mourned his labor lost. How

encouraging! How cheering! Labor on, dear teacher, in hope. Parents, despise not Sabbath school instruction for your child may in like manner be saved.

Prayer at the Mast Head.

A SAILOR recently returned from a whaling voyage, and in conversation with a pious friend, spoke of the enjoyment he had in prayer while afar on the deep. "But," inquired his friend, "in the midst of the confusion on ship-board, where could you find a place to pray?" "Oh," said he, "I always went to the mast-head." I have heard of closets in various places, but never in one more peculiar than this. Peter went upon the house-top to pray. Others have sought the shades of the forest. I remember hearing a youth who came home from the camp during the last war, and his pious mother asked him, "Where, John, could you find a place to pray ?" He answered, where there is a heart to pray, mother, it is easy to find a place."

And yet the sailor's closet was a favorite spot. The ear of man could not hear him as he cried mightily unto God. The gales that wafted his ship on its voyage, would bear his petitions upward toward the throne. "The voice of many waters would be the music of his sanctuary, and the angels that had charge concerning him, would listen to the swelling song." As he lifted up his heart and his voice in prayer, he was surrounded with the majesty and glory of his Maker. The "deep, deep sea" spread its illimitable expanse around him. The heavens spread out like the curtains of Jehovah's chamber, and the stars, like the jewels that adorn His crown, hung over im as he climbed the giddy mast, and bowed down to ray. Perhaps he had little imagination, and entered not to the grandeur of the scene around him. But he had soul; a soul that felt the power of God; that loved high and holy communion with the Father of spirits, and while e others below were rioting in the mirth of a sailor's jolife, his joy was, literally to rise above the world and intercourse with heaven.

What peace there was in that sailor's heart. The storms might "rudely toss his floundering bark," but they could not shake his confidence in God. The ocean might yawn beneath him to swallow him in its fathomless depth, but he was sheltered in the bosom of his Father's love. The frail bark might be driven at the mercy of the winds, or be dashed on the rocks, or be stranded on the shore; but he had a hope that was an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, entering into that within the vail. Through the thickest darkness that enveloped him, the "Star of Bethlehem" shed its loveliness over his path in the trackless deep, and guided him onward and upward to the heaven of his eternal rest. Thitherward from mast-head he strained his eye, and true as the needle to the pole, he pursued his way. When tempted he sought the mast-head to pray; when in despondency, at the mast-head found joy; when the taunts of his companions filled his ear with pain and his soul with grief, he fled to the mast-head and poured out the desire of his heart, into the ear of Him who hears the humblest supplicants that cry.

I love to think of this sailor, I wish I knew him, and could kneel down with him and hear him converse with God. How few would be as faithful as he. How many would neglect their closet and seldom pray in secret, unless they could have a more safe retreat; a more sacred chamber than the mast of a wave-rocked whaler. But He "when here a sailor's pillow pressed," walks now on the mighty deep, and when the tempest-tossed mariner cries, he answers, "It is I, be not afraid."

Mrs. Sarah Lanman Smith.

A MEMOIR of this beloved and devoted woman has been published. The Biblical Repository contains a review of it, from which we copy an extract relating to her death:

Two years and four months ago, she had embarked from Boston as a missionary. How much she left behind! How short her missionary life, how great the disappoint