mother was going to make them happy.”  This meeting was strictly in keeping with the sacredness of the day.  It was also a social meeting, each little one as soon as it could speak, being required to take some part in it, the little Mary Jane setting the example, encouraging the younger ones in the most winning manner; and always making one of the prayers.  The Bible was not only the text book, but the guide.  It furnished the thoughts, and from it the mother selected some portion which for the time, she deemed most appropriate to the state of her infant audience.  Singing formed a delightful part of the exercises.  The mother had a fine voice, and the little ones tried to fall in with it, in the use of some hymn adapted to their tender minds.

These meetings were also very serious, and calculated to make a lasting impression on the tender minds of the children.  At the close of one, the mother who had been telling the children of heaven, turned to Mary Jane, and said, “My dear child, if you should die now, do you think you should go to heaven?” “I don’t know, mother,” was her thoughtful reply; “sometimes I think I am a good girl, and that God loves me, and that I shall certainly go to heaven.  But sometimes I am naughty.  J——­ teazes me, and makes me unthread my needle, and then I feel angry; and I know God does not love me then.  I don’t know, mother.  I am afraid I should not go to heaven.”  Then encouraging herself, she added in a sweet confiding manner, “I hope I shall go there; don’t you hope so too, mother?”

Oh, who of our fallen race would ever see heaven, if sinless perfection only, were to be the ground of our admittance there?  True, we must be free from sin, before we can enter that holy place; but this will be, because God “hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."[A]

How much of the great doctrine of Justification by Faith in Christ this little girl could comprehend, would be very difficult to tell.  But, that she regarded him as the medium through which she must receive every blessing, there could be no doubt.  He died that she might live; live in the favor and friendship of God here, and live forever in his presence hereafter.

Since commencing this simple narrative, I have regretted that more of her sweet thoughts respecting Jesus and heaven could not be recalled.  Every thing relating to the soul, to its preparation for another and better state of existence; to the enjoyments and employments of the blessed, had an almost absorbing power over her mind; so that she greatly preferred to read of them, and reflect upon them, to joining in the ordinary sports of childhood.  Yet she was a gentle and loving child, to her little companions, and would always leave her book, cheerfully and sweetly, when requested to join their little circle for play.  But it was evident that she could not as easily draw back her thoughts from their deep and heavenly communings.