have read that Book, that I can trace characters which are the record of my Heavenly Father's love and remain unmoved? Oh! God the Father, who hath loved me.; God the Son, who hath redeemed me; God the Holy Ghost, who hath sealed me, I trust, unto the day of redemption, have mercy upon me. I stand astonished at the love which has not given me over to hardness of heart.

'Jesus, thou art all compassion,
Pure, unbounded love thou art.'

"Unbounded! or it would not have so long spared me who have but cumbered the ground. I come to the mercy-seat, even as at first I came, with— 'No other hope, no other plea,

Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.'

"On this blessed Sabbath evening I renew my vows of consecration :

With a view to their mutual improvement, Miss Hessel and her attached friend at Leeds, had wisely agreed to read the same works at the same time as frequently as practicable, and compare notes of their criticisms. Young's Night Thoughts was now in hand.

66

Many thanks, my dear girl," she writes on Nov. 9th, "for the packet which came so seasonably on Saturday morning. I have been so much occupied with 'the basket,' and other things, that I have read but little of Young. However, in conning the first, and part of the second, 'night,' I have found many a passage which

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YOUNG'S 66 NIGHT THOUGHTS."

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my girlish admiration, long years ago, led me to pencil, and which my taste now, true to early instincts, most admires. Some of them are those you quote. This coincidence has gratified me. It would require more time than I have this afternoon to tell you my thinkings on these sublime and often startling 'Thoughts.' I am strongly tempted to delay my communication until another day, but it occurs to me that I have read Young to little purpose if I have not learnt that

'Thoughts shut up want air,

And spoil, like bales unopened to the sun.'

Even 'good sense will stagnate,' and as I am not overburdened with either the one or the other, I will endeavour to make use of what I have, and may be I shall acquire more in the effort.

"I may tell you that I admire the paragraph beginning 'Know'st thou Lorenzo! what a friend contains?' and also that on the next page, 'Celestial happiness,' &c. think I need scarcely repeat to you now that

'True love strikes root in reason, passion's foe.'

I

I find I have read part of the third 'night,' and have shuddered at the awful spectacle of human depravity which is suggested by

'That hideous sight, a naked human heart.'

"And now turn we from what you have aptly termed a mine of mental wealth, for just a word on the huge volume lying before me, 'Southey's Works Complete.' Mr. W- brought it me the other night, and read us the greater part of 'The Curse of Kehama.' 'Tis a strange, wild tale, founded on the mythology of that vast, strange, and to me, fascinating country, India. I think I like it best of all the poems of that mighty

minstrel, who 'sang of Thalaba, the wild and wondrous tale.' I wish we could read it together. It would just suit you. I have found in it, like yourself in Young, many a little gem of thought, and many a beautiful passage which have long been familiar in my mouth as household words, and nearly all those old ballads which charmed my fancy, or froze my young blood, I find are Southey's. I wish I had time to copy you a few of the splendid passages from 'the funeral of Arvalan.'"

For the next six or eight months her energies flowed in a purely practical channel. For the purpose of relieving their "holy and beautiful house" from an oppressive debt, the Wesleyan ladies at Boston Spa had resolved, amongst other expedients, to get up a bazaar. While at Ventnor Miss Hessel had cheerfully complied with a request to render "her best aid." At that period she was devoting her leisure to a similar project in that island to pay off a debt upon a Sabbath-school. "I am the more interested in it," said she, with characteristic sympathy for every thing generous, “as a Yorkshire friend, now residing at Newport, has been the means of pushing the matter, and has formed a variety of schemes creditable to his head and heart for removing the debt. This is the more generous as he has not been long in Newport, and does not intend staying many more months."

Her conduct evinced that she was no mere consenting party to this bazaar at Boston Spa. Associated with other ladies no less devoted, she begged, stitched, shaped, and sold, till a handsome sum was realized. An itinerating "basket" furnished by benevolent hands, was enlisted as auxiliary, and these, with munificent private donations, aided by a loan to be paid without

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HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

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interest, ultimately issued in an amount which virtually annihilated the debt. This achievement was a source of great gratification.

During the preparations for this bazaar, I apprehend, the annexed letter was written to her brother: "I have sat down to commence a letter to you while mother is deeply immersed in the fascinations of Uncle Tom,' which has been undergoing a second and audible reading in our little family circle. As it is many weeks since I read it first, I am quite gratified with a second reading, or rather hearing, for I generally work while some kind friend or other reads to us. Do not Mrs. Stowe's descriptions remind you of Charles Dickens, although possessing somewhat more refinement? She is a noble woman, fit only to be ranked with Clarkson, Wilberforce, Elizabeth Fry, and such benefactors of their race. Is it not a noble instance of generosity that the two thousand five hundred pounds which her American bookseller has handed over to her, has every penny been given to the abolition fund? I suppose she has no interest in the English editions. I hope, however, the proposed penny subscription will be carried out, one-half to be presented as a testimonial to the authoress, and the other half to be given to the abolition fund. Such a tribute is only fitting and proper from Britain to her daughter in the far west. I cannot tell you how proud I feel that the hand which has come forth to inscribe on the tottering walls and crumbling towers of slavery their irreversible doom-which in the sight of all Christian Europe and America has held up to the 'Belshazzars' enthroned on the necks of two millions of God's human children, 'the Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,' of the wanton empire over the bodies and souls of men--I cannot tell you how proud I feel

that that hand which has traced no shadowy mystic lines to endure but for a day, is a woman's. Mrs. Stowe is a fine woman, and there is a rich glow of true old English freedom in her noble heart, which has maintained all the characteristics of the mother country in spite of the associations and influences of the western world."

During the bazaar Miss Hessel was favoured with the presence and help of her friend from Leeds, and at its close accompanied her home. On August 8th she writes, "I have just returned from Leeds. My journey home was a pleasant one. We had no sooner fled from the smoke of Leeds, and got a glimpse of the luxuriant valleys waving with corn, than a majestic rainbow appeared, spanning the whole horizon, and deepening in intensity of colouring until its brightness dazzled the eye. As our train whizzed on immediately under its glorious arch, it seemed to me the visible sign of my Heavenly Father's covenanted protection. And as I watched it dripping its skirt of emerald and sapphire in the waving corn fields, and spanning tower and village with its gorgeous tints, I was reminded with peculiar force of the words of Jehovah: 'I do set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.' The valleys, standing thick with yellow corn, and the hills clothed with verdure, seemed to rejoice in that covenanted sign of a faithful, promise-keeping God. I cannot describe all the hallowed influence sent down into my heart by the reflections which were awakened while gazing upon this scene. My faith's dimmed eye was cleared to behold that better covenant; her feeble yet outstretched hand was strengthened to grasp more firmly the Angel of that covenant; and her drooping wing was