n you die?' I thought I must leave off all my bad
ways, or where shall I go when I died?"

"And what effect did these thoughts produce in your mind?"

"Sir, I tried to live better, and I did leave off many bad ways; but the
more I strove, the more difficult I found it, my heart seemed so hard:
and then I could not tell any one my case."

"Could not you tell it to the Lord, who hears and answers prayers?"

"My prayers (here she blushed and sighed) are very poor at the best, and
at that time I scarcely knew how to pray at all as I ought. But I did
sometimes ask the Lord for a better heart."

There was a character in all this conversation which marked a truly
sincere and enlightened state of mind. She spoke with all the simplicity
of a child, and yet the seriousness of a Christian. I could scarcely
persuade myself that she was the same girl I had been accustomed to see
in past time. Her countenance was filled with interesting affections,
and always spoke much more than her tongue could utter. At the same time
she now possessed an ease and liberty in speaking, to which she had
formerly been a stranger: nevertheless, she was modest, humble, and
unassuming. Her readiness to converse was the result of spiritual
anxiety, not childish forwardness. The marks of a Divine change were too
prominent to be easily mistaken; and in this very child, I, for the first
time, witnessed the evident testimonies of such a change. How
encouraging, how profitable to my own soul!

"Sir," continued little Jane, "I had one day been thinking that I was
neither fit to live nor die: for I could find no comfort in this world,
and I was sure I deserved none in the other. On that day you sent me to
learn the verse on Mrs. B---'s headstone, and then I read that on the one
next to it."

"I very well remember it, Jenny; you came back, and repeated them both to
me."

"There were two lines in it which made me think and meditate a great
deal."

"Which were they?"

"'Hail Glorious gospel! heavenly light, whereby
We live with comfort, and with comfort die.'

I wished that glorious gospel was mine, that I might live and die with
comfort; and it seemed as if I thought it would be so. I never felt so
happy in all my life before. The words were often in my thoughts,--

'Live with comfort, and with comfort die.'

Glorious gospel, indeed! I thought."

"My dear child, what is the meaning of the word gospel?"

"Good news."

"Goo