y, whose laws were all of them kind and good, had
expressly ordained.

I stood still to watch the progress of these poor wayfaring people,
who moved slowly on, like so many ticket-porters, with burdens of
various kinds on their backs, of which some were heavier, and some
were lighter; but from a burden of one kind or other, not one
traveller was entirely free.

THE WIDOW.

A sorrowful widow, oppressed with the burden of grief for the loss of
an affectionate husband, would have been bowed down by her heavy load,
had not the surviving children with great alacrity stepped forward and
supported her. Their kindness, after a while, so much lightened the
load, which threatened at first to be intolerable, that she even went
on her way with cheerfulness, and more than repaid their help, by
applying the strength she derived from it, to their future assistance.

THE HUSBAND.

I next saw a poor old man tottering under a burden so heavy, that I
expected him every moment to sink under it. I peeped into his pack,
and saw it was made up of many sad articles: there were poverty,
oppression, sickness, debt, and what made by far the heaviest part,
undutiful children. I was wondering how it was that he got on even so
well as he did, till I spied his wife, a kind, meek, Christian woman,
who was doing her utmost to assist him. She quietly got behind, gently
laid her shoulder to the burden, and carried a much larger proportion
of it than appeared to me when I was at a distance. She not only
sustained him by her strength, but cheered him by her counsels. She
told him that "through much tribulation we must enter into the
kingdom;" that "he that overcometh shall inherit all things." In
short, she so supported his fainting spirit, that he was enabled to
"run with patience the race that was set before him."

THE KIND NEIGHBOR.

An infirm blind woman was creeping forward with a very heavy burden,
in which were packed sickness and want, with numberless other of those
raw materials out of which human misery is worked up. She was so weak
that she could not have got on at all, had it not been for the kind
assistance of another woman almost as poor as herself; who, though she
had no light burden of her own, cheerfully lent a helping hand to a
fellow-traveller who was still more heavily laden. This friend had
indeed little or nothing to give; but the very voice of kindness is
soothing to the weary. And I remarked in many other cases, that