"The calm retreat, the silent shade
With prayer and praise agree;
And seem by thy sweet bounty made
For those who follow thee.
"There, if thy Spirit touch the soul,
And grace her mean abode,
Oh! with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her God!
"There, like the nightingale, she pours
Her solitary lays;
Nor asks a witness of her song,
Nor thirsts for human praise.
"Author and guardian of my life,
Sweet source of light divine,
And—all harmonious names in one—
My Saviour! thou art mine.
"What thanks I owe thee, and what love!
A boundless, endless store,
Shall echo through the realms above
When time shall be no more."
I lingered here some time after the music had died away, luxuriating in my own hallowed reflections; and then advancing a few steps, I perceived, seated in a hollow, a decent middle-aged woman, and, apparently, her daughter, who were thus pouring forth their evening hymn of praise. I then returned to the inn, had my supper, and after engaging in prayer with the family, retired to rest. In the morning I rose early and revisited the vale, humming over, as I sauntered along, the following suggestive and consolatory lines of a modern poet:—
"God is here; how sweet the sound!
All I feel and all I see,
Nature teems, above, around,
With universal Deity.
"Is there danger? Void of fear,
Though the death-wing'd arrow fly,
I can answer, God is here,
And I move beneath his eye.
"When I pray, he hears my pray'r;
When I weep, he sees my grief:
Do I wander? He is here,
Ready to afford relief."
I reached the end of the walk before aware of it; when I saw a cottage, towards which I bent my steps. It was small, yet tastefully adorned with jessamine, honey-suckles, and rose-trees, with a neat flower-garden in front, inclosed by a hawthorn hedge; and while admiring its varied beauties, an elderly female made her appearance, whose physiognomy and whose manners were very prepossessing. After a little desultory conversation, as I stood resting my arm on the top of her little wicket-gate, she invited me to come in and rest myself. I accepted her invitation, and soon found that I was in the society of one of the Lord's "hidden ones." My hostess was a widow, whose husband had been dead about seven years. She informed me that her father, a man of piety and of wealth, had given her an education becoming his station; that at the age of seventeen she yielded herself to God, as one alive from the dead, and before she reached her twentieth year, she was married to one of the most amiable and one of the most attentive men that ever became a husband. A kind Providence smiled upon them during the first twelve years of their wedded life, when a series of disasters befell them, which turned their paradise of bliss into a valley of weeping. Her father having made some large speculations in the wool-trade, lost the whole of his property, and not having been inured to affliction in his earlier days, his vigorous constitution gave way, and he died, exclaiming, "Though I have lost all my worldly substance, yet the pearl of great price is still mine." The insolvency of her father shook public confidence in the commercial respectability of her husband, who was soon obliged to call together his creditors; and though there was more than sufficient property to meet their demands, yet, by making him a bankrupt, they did not receive quite half their amount. When his affairs were wound up, and he had obtained his certificate, his friends raised a subscription for him, and he recommenced business; but the hand of the Lord was against him, and he could not succeed.