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"In the midst of sufferings too painful to describe," said her sister in a note, "Martha could smile, and tell us Jesus was near to her. Her countenance, at all times animated and happy, was unusually so

it beamed with ineffable brightness, and was a strong and beautiful evidence that all was perfect peace within. When she could no longer articulate, she looked all we could wish her to say. About five minutes before she expired, her agonies ceased-she recognized all of us—and as though to bid a last farewell, she smiled, and exclaimed-' Happy, happy!! Blessed state of mind! to smile and exclaim, 'Happy, happy!' even in the cold arms of death!

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So died Martha S. Her last farewell to earth was uttered with the consciousness and the feeling that she was treading at that moment upon the very threshold of heavenly glory; and who, then, need wonder,

that she could speak of happiness, even in dissolution? As she drew near her everlasting home, she saw the lights of her Father's house, and unconscious of the gloom of the dark valley of the shadow of death, from the midst of which she beheld them, she gave expression to her feelings in a shout of holy rapture, and left the world with accents which we may easily imagine were also the first she uttered as she touched the heavenly shore-"happy! happy!"

Youthful Reader,-behold another convincing proof and beautiful display of the power and excellence of religion, in the deep submission, the solid peace, the joyful content, of this young lady, when called not only to resign life in the very morning of her day, but to turn from the altar to the tomb. When the symptoms of decline appeared, and the sad presages of her disease showed themselves in a form not to

be mistaken, there was no terror, no determined clinging to life, no dreadful recoil from death-but a meek, gentle, and peaceful acquiescence in the will of God. What opportunity did not a consumption leave her, through sleepless nights and months of confinement at home, to think on all she was leaving; and yet through all this time, she could see, without repining, the visions of earthly bliss successively vanish, because she knew that, in their place, she was going to receive joys which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.

It cannot fail to be remarked, that although her dying experience was eminently characterized through the whole of it by her own selected term "happy," yet was a total stranger, like Clementine Cuvier, to the ecstacies into which some have been transported in the hour of transition from time to eternity; but far more was she a

stranger to those alternations of hope and dread which now raise the soul to the very gate of heaven, and now fill it with despair; "least of all was she likely to be haunted by those spectral forms of departed guilt, which sometimes steal back even on the forgiven and accepted spirits, under cover of that cloud of night, in which anguish and the terrors of approaching death so often involve mortality. She was full of joy and hope, but it was joy and hope, tranquil, serene, and unfaltering. This, of all states of mind in which the Christian can meet the dying hour, is surely the most enviable; the most satisfactory to herself, and the most impressive to spectators. Such deep, solemn tranquillity of soul at such a moment, is the surest evidence of the reality of religious character, and best illustrates the power of religious truth. It can in no degree be attributed to a fictitious source; to the illusions of a

perturbed imagination, or to that morbid excitement,--that preternatural radiance, which disease [or opium] will sometimes impart to the intellect, and which resembles the delirious splendour it can sometimes kindle in the eye." Such was the state of mind of both the young persons whose death is narrated in this volume: it was not the rapture of imagination, excited by either material or spiritual stimulants, but the joy of reason, elevated, sustained, and sanctified, by faith.

You have seen, Reader, in the foregoing narratives, two bright and beautiful, though by no means unfrequent examples of early piety. Such as these are continually occurring and may be repeated, if you are willing, in your own case: and while your heart is softened, it may be hoped, by the contemplation of them, for receiving the impression of divine truth, I would lay before

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