away from home, and, in consequence, went to the window to communicate this fact to the person knocking. On opening the window he beheld a female, who told him that she had come to obtain assistance from friends who, to her sorrow, she now found were not at home; that her husband was dying, having been seized with a fit of apoplexy. On hearing this sad news, he told the woman, that as she was in need of assistance and consolation, he was prepared to go with her. He speedily dressed himself, and, in the course of a few minutes, was standing with the afflicted woman at the bedside of her husband. The latter appeared to be as ill as he could well be. After having rendered him some services, he set out in quest of a medical man with whom he was acquainted, and was not long before he returned with him. Bleeding, and some other remedies which were at once adopted, very speedily caused a disappearance of the more alarming symp. toms, so that, ere long, the medical man was able to leave without the apprehension of any serious results. The colporteur, however, remained behind, and installed himself until morning as the nurse of the sick man.

"During the period that he thus spent by the bedside he became aware, to his great surprise, that the man whom the Lord had thus confided to his care, was the identical sub-inspector of the shipbuilding yard, who had so violently opposed him in his labours. The dread of doing harm, led him to abstain from making the least allusion to their first meeting; but he could not refrain from one thing, namely, proposing to the sick man, as well as to

his wife, to unite in rendering thanks to God for the deliverance which it seemed to be His good pleasure to grant. The sick man accepted this proposal with so much eagerness, that our friend felt no hesitation about reading some few verses of Scripture, and the 'Amen' which the sick man added to the 'Amen' of the Christian man who was on his knees at his bedside, told more plainly than any words could possibly have done that his soul had been comforted and gladdened. The morning having arrived, the colporteur took his departure, almost overwhelmed with expressions of thanks for the devotedness of which he had given proof.

"But a work commenced under such interesting circumstances could not be suffered to remain incomplete, and on the evening of the same day, the colporteur was again in the same apartment, and at the same bedside. He then learned that the improvement which had taken place in the morning had not continued, and that there had been internal ravages, which plainly indicated that the end of the sick man could not be far distant. So close at hand did this end appear that he could not refrain from again offering his services for another night. What occurred during the night will now be related.

"On the wife leaving the room to have a little rest, the sick man asked the colporteur to come as near to him as possible; and, on his doing this, he addressed him as follows, in an under tone:-'I do not know whether you have recognized me; for my part I have recognized you. You are the seller of the Word of God who paid a visit to the yard

belonging to I am the sub-inspector of that yard, the same man who so violently prevented your selling the copies of the Word of God which you had with you; who likewise so grossly insulted you, and who uttered such blasphemies with respect to the things written in the book. I am the man to whom, in such solemn tones, you said, "Take care that all this does not recur to your memory in order to drive you to despair on your death-bed.', On hearing these words from you I became still more angry, and drove you with scorn from the yard; but, would you believe it, these words were written as with letters of fire on my heart, and have haunted me without respite ever since that time, the very thought of my death-bed brought me into a state of frightful terror, and I could scarcely contain myself. When, the other evening, I was struck with apoplexy-at the first moment of my returning to consciousness, I found myself lying on this bed-I said to myself, in inexpressible anguish. "This then is my death-bed!". . . . and judge of my inconceivable astonishment, when, on turning towards those who were at my bedside, the first face on which I fixed my gaze was yours.

"The first thought which entered my mind was that God had sent you to me to confirm, by word of mouth, his sentence of condemnation. I wished to cry out, Mercy! mercy! but my paralyzed tongue absolutely refused to utter the words. By and by my spirits returned, more especially after I had persuaded myself that you did not recognize me; but when you proposed to pray for me, and more particularly when you offered to read some passages from

the Word of God, it was just as if a miracle were being wrought before my eyes. I thought that God Himself had assuredly sent you to pardon me; and certainly what you read from the Gospel seemed to me as if pronounced by the voice of the Saviour Himself, and the expressions you used in your prayer were, for my heart, like words coming down from heaven.

"I here abridge the narrative in order to come to its conclusion, which is both encouraging and gra. tifying.

"In the morning of the day which followed that night, the whole of which had been spent in searching the Scriptures, and in imploring the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the man in question, who formerly had been so opposed to the Bible, had become one of its warmest and most fervent friends. With humility and with joy he felt that he had a right to apply to himself all the glorious promises made to believers, and even whilst mortification was seizing the different parts of his body, he was able to say that he had passed from death unto life, and that, although his mortal body was being destroyed before his eyes, his spiritual life was being renewed from moment to moment. Never, it would seem, has such a striking work of grace been manifested with so much rapidity. The colporteur was truly amazed at what he saw and heard, and, although quite exhausted with fatigue, after two nights without any sleep, whilst returning to his own home to seek a little rest, he, in spite of himself, could not refrain from singing a hymn of praise and adoration.

"A few hours afterwards, his new brother in