"The next day I called again. Her fever was still raging, and its fires were fanned by mental suffering. 666 And can you not, Louisa,' said I, 'trust your soul with the Saviour who died for you? He has said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."' 6 "O, sir, I know the Saviour is merciful; but somehow I cannot go to him; I know not why. O, I am miserable indeed!' "I opened the Bible, and read the parable of the Prodigal Son. I particularly directed her attention to the twentieth verse: When he was a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion on him, and ran, and fell upon his neck, and kissed him.' 'O sir,' said she, none of these promises are for me. I find no peace to my troubled spirit. I have long been sinning against God, and now he is summoning me to render up my account. O, what an account have I to render! Even if I were perfectly well, I could hardly endure the view God has given me of my sins. If they were forgiven, how happy I should be! but now, O-' Her voice was stopped by a fit of shuddering, which agitated those around her with the fear she might be dying. Soon, however, her nerves were more quiet, and I kneeled to commend her spirit to the Lord. "I rode home; and as I kneeled with my family at evening prayer, I bore Louisa upon my heart to the throne of grace. Another morning came. As I knocked at the door I felt a painful solicitude as to the answer I might receive. 'How is Louisa this morning?' 666 Failing fast, sir; the doctor thinks she cannot re cover.' 66 6 66 6 'Is her mind more composed?' O no, sir; she has had a dreadful night. She says she is lost, and that there is no hope for her.' "I went to her chamber. Despair was pictured more deeply than ever upon her countenance. A few young friends were standing by her bedside. She warned them, in the most affecting terms, to prepare for death while in health. She told them of the mental agony she was enduring, and of the heavier woes which were thickly scattered through that endless career on which she was about to enter. She said she knew God was ready to forgive the sincerely penitent; but that her sorrow was not sorrow for sin, but dread of its awful penalty. 'I had already said all I could say to lead her to the Saviour. Nothing more could be said. 'By many a death-bed I had been, Every eye in Louisa saw not, "Late in the afternoon I called again. the room was filled with tears, but poor and heeded not their weeping. Her reason was gone. For some time I lingered round the solemn scene. At the present moment that chamber of death is as vividly present to my mind as it was when I looked upon it through irrepressible tears. I can now see the restless form, the swollen veins, the hectic, burning cheek, the eyes rolling wildly around the room, and the weeping friends. In silence I had entered the room, and in silence and sadness I turned away. 66 Early next morning I called at the door to inquire for Louisa. "She is dead, sir.' "Was her reason restored before her death?' "It appeared partially to return a few moments before she breathed her last, but she was almost gone, and we could hardly understand what she said.' 66 'Did she seem more peaceful in her mind?' "Her friends thought that she did express a willingness to depart; but she was so weak, and so far gone, that it was impossible for her to express her feelings with any clearness.' "This is all that can be said of one who wished to live a gay and merry life till just before death, and then become pious, and die happy.' Reader, 'Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to defer."" 19. MADAME DE POMPADOUR. "Ah! fleeting spirit! wand'ring fire, That long hast warm'd my tender breast, To what dark undiscover'd shore? MADAME DE POMPADOUR before her death became a victim of ennui and disgust at the world. The objects for which she had sacrificed honour and virtue in the court of Louis XV., had lost their charms, and one of her last letters describes, in most affecting terms, her abject wretchedness. "What a situation," she writes, "is that of the great! They only live in the future, and are only happy in hope; there is no peace in ambition! I am always gloomy, and often so unreasonably. The kindness of the king, the regards of courtiers, the attachment of my domestics, and the fidelity of a large number of friends-motives like these, which ought to make me happy, affect me no longer. I have no longer an inclination for all which once pleased me. I have caused my house at Paris to be magnificently furnished; well, that pleased me for two days. My residence at Bellevue is charming; and I alone cannot endure it. Benevolent people relate to me all the news and adventures of Paris; they think I listen, but, when they have done, I ask them what they said. In a word, I do not live, I am dead before my time. I have no interest in the world. Everything conspires to embitter my life. I have imputed to me the public misery, the misfortunes of war, and the triumphs of my enemies. I am accused of selling everything, of disposing of everything, of governing everything. This hatred and this general ex asperation of the nation grieve me exceedingly; my life is a continued death." Oppressed by such sentiments, she died, probably of a broken heart, occasioned by the sense of deserved public hatred. She but reaped the fruit of what she had sown; affording a melancholy example of the retribution her conduct had merited. As a proof of the heartlessness which habits of vice engender, it is related that, on the day of her funeral, the king, walking on the terrace at Versailles, and thinking, as he took out his watch, that it was the moment for the interment of her whom he had professed to love so well, said, with great unconcern, "The countess will have a fine day!" SECTION II. The Dying Backslider. 1. WILLIAM POPE. "Laugh, ye profane, and swell, and burst Yet shall ye live forever curst, And seek in vain to die. Soon you'll confess the frightful names No more shall look like idle dreams, Like foolish names no more."-WATTS. THE awful and affecting cases of Newport, Altamont, and Spira, have long confirmed the weighty truth, that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." The following narrative, though less known, is not less awful nor less impressive. Its truth is confirmed by the joint testimony of various respectable witnesses. One of these is Mr. Simpson, the wellknown author of "A Plea for Religion." He saw the unhappy subject of this narrative once, but declared he never desired to see him again. The melancholy affair happened in the year 1797, and excited considerable attention in the town and neighbourhood of Bolton. The deistical brethren of the unhappy man, whose miseries this account describes, wished to persuade the public that he was out of his mind, which was by no means the case. He was in the possession of his reason; but evidently given over, by God, to a hardened heart. William Pope, an inhabitant of Bolton, in Lancashire, was a member of the Methodist society; and appeared to have been formerly a partaker of genuine repentance, and of such faith in the adorable Saviour, as |