The Hymn.

O WHITHER shall I fly? What path untrod
Shall I seek out, to 'scape the flaming rod
Of my offended, of my angry God?

No, sea, nor shade, nor shield, nor rock, nor cave,
Nor silent deserts, nor the sullen grave,
What flame-eyed fury means to smite, can save.

'Tis vain to flee; 'tis neither here nor there, Can 'scape that hand, until that hand forbear; Ah me! where is He not, that's every where?

'Tis vain to flee, till gentle Mercy show
Her better eye; the farther off we go,
The swing of justice deals the mightier blow.

I know thy justice is thyself; I know,
Just God, thy very self is mercy too;
If not to thee, where, whither shall I go?

The Scripture.

WHEN thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to cousume away like a moth.

O my God, my soul is cast down within me:-Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and billows are gone over me. I am desolate and afflicted; I am like a broken vessel.

Thy arrows stick fast in me: Thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones, because of sin for my iniquities have gone up over my head as a heavy burden:-they are too heavy for me. I am troubled. I am bowed down greatly. I go mourning all the day long. I am feeble and sore broken, by reason of the disquietness of my spirit.

O that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away, and be at rest.

CHAPTER III.

As a tame dove's,

Grasp the dread whirlwind's stormy wing;
Or, with thy lullaby, like sleeping babe,
Hush the great deep's billowy thunders :-Then
To a spirit wounded, speak of repose.

AT last, however, several months after her father's death, she was excited, as she had never been before, and filled with new emotions. While reading Walker of Truro's 'Christian,' a condition of the immortal soul was made known to her, without which she saw there could be no comfort or blessedness. "She would do something, would do any thing," yet knew not what to do to secure it. "Some eternal nerves were now waked within her;" passionate longings to be what that book described, that now took all quiet from her mind. The new creature there set up before her, she felt she was not; while it seemed, as she looked on it, death to all peace and happiness in any other condition. At this crisis I do not know how her feelings could be better described than in the eloquent language of Gambold's Sermon "On the reasonableness and extent of religious reverence. ." "A tame and feeble bird that accidentally has hatched an eagle's egg, and is afterward affright. ed at the strength and impetuous tendency of what has been fostered under its own wings, cannot find itself in a more critical case than a man when holding dialogue, like Adrian, with his own soul. He perhaps hath been an indolent, unmeaning thing; but that immortal part within him carries a keener edge than has ever yet been unsheathed;

and how its edge is likely to be employed in a long hereafter, he has but either bad omens of, or at least must be in a trembling suspense till grace gives a competent determination."

Such a

So roused now was Isabella. Every new conversation she held with her soul occasioned only anguish. feeling, indeed, was progressive, not immediate, in all its depth and energy; but at this period it originated, gathering, from time to time, power, and terror, and agony, which, as we shall see, unless the compassions of God had interposed, must have rendered her existence one dark, desolate, unmitigated misery. What, however, hastened its progress was the manner her mind was impressed, or rather startled suddenly, by the words "This is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation; to-day, if ye will hear my voice."

:

Two great facts were thus at once before her the necessity of a certain condition which Walker had portray. ed, and the peril of delay. She was truly in a sore extremity, conscientiously alien from God, and helpless in her ungodly misery; while she felt the essence of that misery to consist in hatred of that which alone could make her happy. She recoiled from the unholiness of the new creature as the image of him who is holy; while unbelief of his power to change her would not allow her to enter into the rest he has prepared for the most miserable and impious human rebels. In this state, she at last turned to the Bible, in search of counsel; but, although in every age it has been full of light, to her it was all darkness. The field of the word, where the Spirit of the Lord had, from the beginning, led believers by a river of life, spread before her as the valley of the shadow of death. She began reading the gospels, in the hope of finding something suited to her ne. cessitous condition; but as she proceeded, in every declaration there, she seemed to see only the record of her own

condemnation. Successive blasphemies filled her mind; as the word condemned her, she hated it; and in a tumult of despairing anguish, as if the arrows of the Almighty Avenger were all piercing her spirit, she would cast it from her, fearing, lest in reading more, she should perish as she read, although she felt, that would have been a blessing. Yet again, without the word, her desolation seemed intolerable. She would snatch it up again and read; but such blasphemies would return, stirring up unspeakable distrac. tions of soul, that in her ignorance of any refuge from such sore misery, she would in mute and motionless amazement, sit as if within the grasp of final despair. That some heavy sorrow possessed her soul, was obvious to those around her; although not one word had yet indicated what she felt. At midnight, however, all was revealed: yet why should I say all; for what words can tell to the ear of man, the deep things of the spirit; the anguish and the bitterness felt, when it knows and sees itself engaged in terrible warfare with its Maker :—but, in the dead of night, when all in the house was silent, a voice was heard from the apartment where Isabella lay-a voice of lamentation and anguish, and of bitter wailing:-" O Lord, I can see nothing but the blackness of darkness for ever: I feel that I am far from thee, and that is misery." It awoke Mary, and made her sore afraid. She would have fled beyond the reach of its sound, but she could not; while once and again she heard from the sister she loved so tenderly, these awful and solemn words-" O Lord, I am far from thee: I can see nothing but the blackness of darkness for ever."

From this period, her sorrows multiplied beyond all expression, and often as if beyond endurance. From time to time her mind was torn and buffeted by such suggestions as only seemed fit to confirm the utter hopelessness of her condition. The sin against the Holy Ghost, for example, was charged upon her conscience with resistless