of utterance. He tried to speak and could not! The attempt only convulsed the life less jaws. He looked on his wife and Lefevre, with indescribable anguish.

"O Wilson!"-cried Lefevre "cannot you speak to us?-Make a sign-Are you not happy ?"

He endeavoured to shake his head but, having inclined it one way, he could not turn it in the opposite direction. They understood his awful, half-expressed nega-> tive and wept.

"Do you not" continued Lefevre, "repent of your sins, and renounce them?—If you do, lift up your hand"-and his eye fell upon. the nerveless hand, as though the sentence of life or death were within its power.

It arose !-An insupportable weight fell from Lefevre's heart.

"Are you," he resumed, "enabled to cast yourself, as a perishing, condemned sinner at the feet of the divine Saviour?".

He had lost the power to raise the hand: but he slowly raised both his arms, while the feeble hands hung dangling upon each other.

"Oh! Thank God!" cried the wife. "Oh! Thank God!" cried Lefevre. This burst of joyful gratitude over, their attention was fixed in sympathy with the sufferer. A few moments would now end his sufferings. The blood had retired from his clay-cold extremities. The light of his eye was quenched. His breath was short, spasmodical, and rattling. Convulsions, like the fangs of death, writhed his whole body. An attack severer than the former came on. It terminated in a deep groan. Lefevre thought it announced the departure of the soul-he sunk on his knees exclaiming-"Lord Jesus receive his. spirit!" He paused to listen for his breathing-nothing was heard! He held his watch glass over his mouth-its surface was not steamed! Awful was the moment! Awful was the stillness that succeeded! Neither Lefevre nor Mrs. Wilson dared to interrupt it, by word, or sob, or movement. You might have thought, that death had not only triumphed in one instance, but that his seal was set on every thing in this chamber of woe. The neglected taper was flickering

away its last light in the socket. The exhausted cinders on the hearth were, as the fire forsook them, crackling like the death-watch. The child lay at the feet of the exanimate body of its father, breathing so softly, that it seemed to respire not at all. The mother and Lefevre were so paleso motionless, that you might have questioned whether they had power to move, or to think. And the room itself, with its low arched ceiling, blackened by the smoke of numerous years, and containing only light enough to reveal the darkness, was much more like a sepulchre for the dead, than an abode for the living.

Mrs. Wilson was the first to shew signs of life. She arose, and moving to the head of the bed, closed the eyelids of the dead body. This act of delicacy to the deceased stirred all her grief; she sunk on the bed, and, kissing the pallid forehead, wept aloud, without seeming to have power to arise. Lefevre did all that christian sympathy could suggest, to console her beneath the affliction. He tarried with her till break of day; and then, taking his leave, assured

her, that he would wholly relieve her from the painful duties connected with his funeral.

"Poor Wilson!" thought Lefevre as he went towards the residence of Douglas"Poor Wilson! thy sun is gone down at noon!-and behind a heavy, impenetrable cloud! But I trust, by the grace of God, it shall arise, on the morning of the resurrection, bright with glory, and changeless as immortality!"

CHAPTER XXXIII.

AFTER having obtained slight repose, Lefevre did what was immediately necessary for the remains of Wilson; and then went with Douglas, to call on the Russells.

Nothing could exceed the joy of these excellent persons in this interview. At the first sight of Lefevre Mrs. Russell ran forward to greet him, exclaiming-"Thanks be praised! Thanks be praised! here he is!"

"My son! my son!" said Mr. Russell, with a calmer, but as deep a joy, embracing him with open arms, as if he remembered his promise on last parting with him.

"O what a blessed moment is this," continued Mrs. Russell, pressing his hand between hers, "To see your face again! and to see you smile so sweetly as you used to do! It makes one's heart dance again! Ever since Mr. Douglas told us you were come, my food has done me no good, for the longing I had to see you!-Ha! my