or pine away disconsolately to their graves?--Think not that they, who
were Christians indeed, could be guilty of such ingratitude. "The Lord
giveth, and the Lord taketh away--blessed be the name of the Lord!" were
the first words they had spoken by that bedside; during many, many long
years of weal or woe, duly every morning and night, these same blessed
words did they utter when on their knees together in prayer--and many
a thousand times besides, when they were apart, she in her silent hut,
and he on the hill--neither of them unhappy in their solitude, though
never again, perhaps, was his countenance so cheerful as of yore--and
though often suddenly amidst mirth or sunshine, her eyes were seen
to overflow! Happy had they been--as we mortal beings ever can be
happy--during many pleasant years of wedded life before she had been
born. And happy were they--on to the verge of old age--after she had
here ceased to be! Their Bible had indeed been an idle book--the Bible
that belonged to "the Holy Child,"--and idle all their kirk-goings with
"the Holy Child," through the Sabbath-calm--had those intermediate seven
years not left a power of bliss behind them triumphant over death and
the grave!

_Blackwood's Magazine._

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NOTES OF A READER.

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