her child to
receive instruction, but also to set it home and seal it there.

Her solicitude for the spiritual welfare, of the child was such, as
often to attract the notice of the writer; while the results forced upon
her mind the conviction, that the tender bud, nurtured with so much care
and fidelity, and watered with so many prayers and tears, would never be
permitted to burst into full flower, in the ungenial soil of earth.

Mary Jane had hardly numbered three winters, when a little sister of
whom she was very fond, was taken dangerously sick. Her mother and the
nurse were necessarily confined with the sick child; and she was left
very much alone. I would fain have taken the little girl home with me;
but it was feared that a change of temperature might prove unfavorable
to her health, so I often spent long hours with her, in her own home.
Precious seasons! How they now come up to me, through the long vista of
the dim and distant past, stirring the soul, like the faint echoes of
melting music, and wakening within it, remembrances of all pleasant
things.

I had been spending an afternoon with her in the usual manner, sometimes
telling her stories, and again drawing forth her little thoughts in
conversation, and was about taking leave, when I said to her, "Mary
Jane, you must be sure and ask God to make your little sister well
again." Sliding down from her chair, and placing her little hand in
mine, she said with great simplicity, "Who will lead me up there?"
Having explained to her as well as I could, that it was not necessary
for her to go up to heaven; that God could hear her, although she could
neither see him nor hear his answers, I reluctantly tore myself away.
Yet it was well for the child that I did so; for being left alone, the
train of her thoughts was not diverted to other objects; and she
continued to revolve in her mind, as was afterwards found, the idea of
asking God to make her sister well.

That night, having said her usual evening prayer, "Our Father," "Now I
lay me down to sleep," &c., the nurse left her quietly composed to
sleep, as she thought, but having occasion soon to pass her door, she
found that Mary Jane was awake and "talking loud." On listening, she
found that the little girl was praying. Her language was, "My dear
Father up in heaven, do please to make my little sister well again."

Before her sister recovered, she was taken sick herself. A kind relative
who was watching by her beds