The night passed, how wearily!  None could sleep, for through all the air there was a presage of sorrow, a solemn “tingling silentness,” to which their senses were painfully alive.  Who, that has passed the interminable gloomy hours that preceded the departure of a loved and venerated friend into the world of spirits, does not remember this unutterable suspense, this fruitless struggle with eternal decrees, this clinging of affection to the parting soul?  What a sinking of the heart even the recollection of such a scene produces!

The day dawned upon sleepless, tear-stained eyes.  The dying man was conscious, cheerful, and calmly breathing.  In the adjoining room the family sat beside the table on which was spread their untasted breakfast.

The bell began to ring for meeting.  Mr. Hardwick roused up at the sound, and called for his children.  He blessed them again, and placed his hands on their bowed heads in turn.  He thought of the psalms which he had so often led, and he asked all to join in singing Billings’s “Jordan.”

  “There is a land of pure delight,
    Where saints immortal reign;
  Infinite day excludes the night,
    And pleasures banish pain.”

With faltering voices they sang the triumphal hymn.  The old man’s eyes were fixed upon the steeple, which pointed upward through the clear air, and shone in the golden light of the sun.  He kept time with a feeble movement, and once or twice essayed to raise his own wavering voice.  A smile of heavenly beauty played over his pallid features as the music ceased,—­a radiance like that crimson glow which covers the mountain-top at dawn.  He spoke almost inaudibly, as if in a trance; then repeating with a musical flow the words of his favorite author,

  “Where the bright seraphim in burning row
  Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow,
  And the cherubic host in thousand choirs
  Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
  With those just spirits that wear victorious palms
  Hymns devout and holy psalms
  Singing everlastingly,”—­

his voice sank again, though it was easy to see that a prayer trembled on his lips.  As a strain of music fades into silence, his tones fell away, fainter and fainter; and with the same seraphic light on his countenance his breathing ceased.

THE BIRTH-MARK.

A.D. 12—.

  See, here it is, upon my breast,—­
    The bloody image of a hand! 
  On her white bosom it was pressed,
    Who should have nursed—­you understand;—­
  I never yet have named her name,
  Nor will I, till ’tis free from shame.

  The good old crone that tended me
    Through sickly childhood, lonely youth,
  Told me the story:  so, you see,
    I know it is God’s sacred truth,
  That holy lips and holy hands
  In secrecy had blessed the bands.