"Dear sir," said the pastor, "they seem to have left you alone."

He had been sitting, somewhat out of sight, at the foot of the bedstead; but, it was evident, from several signs, that his feelings were deeply moved.

The pastor took his arm, and, bidding the wife an affectionate but hasty adieu, he went with him to the sitting-room below.

"I need no arguments," said the husband, "to satisfy me, further, that you are right. You have a system of religion which, I see, is good for everything, and for everybody, and for all times, and places, and circumstances. Sir, I have been sceptical; but I must confess that a religion which can come into a family, like mine, and do what it has done, through you, sir, to mine, and to me, must be from God. Sir, I shall always respect our pastor for his consistency with his principles, and for many other reasons; but I prefer principles like yours, which can go to the sick and dying, and to little children whose mother——"

Here he began to weep. The pastor said, "To take a mother from a young family of children, like yours, Mr. Peirce, is just the thing which we should prevent, could we have the ordering of affairs."

"I feel," said Mr. P., "that God's hand is upon me. Passages from the Bible, which I learned at sea, from love to my mother, come to me now. She put a Bible in a box, and covered it up with a dozen pairs of woollen hose, knit with her own hands. I have been saying to myself, in the chamber, 'Behold, he cometh with clouds.' It is growing dark over my dwelling; God is descending upon us in a cloud. 'Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? Who will say unto him, what doest thou.' O, you never lost a wife, my dear sir, nor looked on a motherless family, as I begin to do. God help me, for I shall lose my reason."

"No, my dear sir," said the pastor; "think what has just taken place up stairs. You now seem to say, as Manoah did, 'We shall surely die;' but his wife said, 'If the Lord were pleased to kill us,—he would not have showed us all these things.' God has bestowed on your children, through their believing mother, his covenant, to be their God.—You are a Notary Public, I believe, sir."

"I am," said Mr. Peirce.

"Then," said the pastor, "you know the importance of seals."

"O, yes," said Mr. P. "A gentleman, last week, came near losing the sale of a large property, situate in one of the Middle States, because he had had some papers executed, here, before a court not having a seal. I told him, beforehand, that he was wrong; but he wished to know of what possible use a seal could be, when the judge and the clerk used printed forms, and the blanks were filled under their own hands. The papers came back, and he had to do his business over again, and before a court having a seal."