no blessing for me?" said the husband, as the pastor rose
to go.

"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 Mi