tried her with almost every pang
that attends the attachment of such beings to the mortal and the
suffering, the erring and perverse; and when those sorrows came,
that reached her heart through its deepest and most sacred
affections, the passion burst forth, that showed what the energy
of that principle must have been, that could have brought such a
mind to a tenor of habitual calmness and serenity. When every
element of anguish had been mingled together in one dreadful cup,
and reason for a week or two was tottering in its seat, she was
seen to resume the struggle against the passions that for a
moment had conquered. The bonds that attached her to life were
indeed broken for ever, but she recovered her heart-felt
submission to God, and she learned by degrees again to be happy
in the happiness she gave.

"It was this depth and strength of feeling that gave her a power
over others, seldom surpassed, I believe, by any other mortal. In
her the erring and the wretched found a sure refuge from
themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the
scorn of others, could be poured out to her as to one whose
mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the
whole range of human infirmity, and that the wisest have the
roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring
the fallen to their connexion with the honoured, she never held
out a hope that they might parley with their temptations, or
lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all
self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she
inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that
was wrong, she never advised what was too hard for the "bruised
reed;" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the
misguidings of passion, nor of weakness to point out the rigour
of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring
with her irresistible evidence that any thing could be done which
she said ought to be done. The truths of religion, stripped of
fantastic disguises, appeared at her call with a living reality,
and for a time, at least, the troubles of life sank down to their
just level. When our sorrows are too big for our own bosoms, if
others receive then with stoicism, it repels all desire to seek
relief at their hands; but the calmness with whi