Courage to meet any emergency, firmness to resist temptation when presented in its most alluring form, was blended with that genuine kindness of manner, that deference towards the weak and defenceless, which renders its fortunate possessor not only esteemed, but beloved.  Yet with so much that was admirable in mind and heart, of him it might be said, as it was of one of old, “One thing thou lackest.”  Strange, that the subject of the greatest importance should be, too often, the one most seldom dwelt on, too frequently thrust aside, until, in the season of affliction and the hour of death, its terrible magnitude is first realized—­realized, perhaps, forever too late.  Regular in his attendance on all the ordinances of worship, his heart had remained unaffected; but this indifference was owing, it may be, in a measure, to the discourses to which he was in the habit of listening from Sabbath to Sabbath,—­discourses which, while they portrayed in fairest colors the beauty of a moral life, seemed to forget the natural depravity of the human heart, and the necessity of the mind being fully renewed, in order that it might carry those principles into effect.

Mrs. Bernard, though a devoted mother, and, in many respects, an excellent woman, had never realized, for herself, “the blessedness of things unseen.”  She had been contented to sail smoothly along the stream of life, which for the most part had been ruffled by few storms, and she almost forgot, as day after day and week after week glided past, they were bearing her frail bark swiftly on to the ocean of eternity.  There was a time,—­it seemed to her now like a dream as she looked back,—­that she had thought more of these things, for they were presented to her in a living form, embracing, as it were, in the daily walk and conversation of a relative, who had been for some time an inmate of her dwelling.  The lovely traits developed in the character of this lady, had won the matron’s heart, and especially had she appreciated the unbounded care and tenderness which her friend exercised towards her children, Ella and Arthur.  But this messenger of peace passed away to a brighter clime, and the impression made by her brief sojourn seemed to have become erased from the memory; like the morning cloud and the early dew, it soon passed away.  Yet was she not altogether forgotten, nor had her labors of love been entirely in vain.  To her it was that Arthur had alluded in his conversation with Miss Wiltshire, for childhood’s heart is tender and impressible, and from her instructions he had imbided many of those lofty and noble sentiments which now characterized him; and often, when the tide of worldliness rushed in to bear him away on its fierce current, that gentle form would seem to stand before him, and he would hear again, in fancy, the soft tones of that voice, beseeching him to pause, and consider his doings.