PART I.
One morning, while musing on the changing scenes of my eventful life, recalling the past, and speculating on the future, I received a letter from an old friend, requesting that I would call on her as soon as I could make it convenient. From the tone of the letter, and some expressions contained in it, I judged she was in trouble, and accordingly proceeded immediately towards her house. As I was passing along, I remembered that, several years before, I had received a similar note, written by the same hand, and in a similar strain of grief. The writer was a widow, whose husband had been cut off in the flower of his days, leaving her to provide for their children, who were at that time all dependent on her. On the occasion I speak of, I found her bewailing the alarming illness of her only son, a youth of about fifteen years. She complained with bitterness that the Almighty, who had taken away her husband, was now about to take away her first-born also. I attempted to bring her mind into a state of acquiescence to the Divine will, by reminding her that no affliction came by chance—that he who works all things after his own counsel, often sends an early affliction, to prevent a more painful one—and that when he is pleased to take from us our choicest comforts, it is "for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness." She replied that the Almighty might tear her son from her, but she could not surrender him. When I expostulated with her, she did not attempt to justify her opposition to the will of God, but excused herself from the affection she bore her son; and earnestly requested me to pray for him, and pray that his life might be spared. We prayed together for the lad, and in due time he was restored to health. Having removed soon after this to a different quarter of the town, I had seen but little of him or his family for a considerable time.
Perhaps, thought I, as I drew near the house of sorrow, the life of this son is again in danger. He has been spared a few years, as the staff of his mother's strength, and now she is inured to her troubles, he is about to be taken from her. Indulgent, yet mysterious Providence! The lines of the poet recurred to my recollection with peculiar force—
"The ways of heaven are dark and intricate.
Puzzled with mazes and perplex'd with errors,
Our understanding traces them in vain—
Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search. Nor sees
With how much art the windings turn,
Nor where the regular confusion ends."—Addison.
JAMES GODWIN. W. L. THOMAS.
THE MOTHER'S HOPES BLASTED.
Vol. ii. page 179.