It was on a stormy winter night, I remember it well, that I turned weeping from the door of my only home. All day I had wandered through the cottage; I had sat by my friend's death-bed, and laid my head upon her pillow. I had placed her chair as she was wont to place it; had realised her presence in every well known spot, and bidden her a thousand and a thousand times farewell. When I left the house, the closing door sounded as drearily as the earth which I had heard rattle on her coffin. It seemed the signal, that I was shut out from all familiar sights and sounds for ever. The storm that was beating on me became, by a natural thought, the type of my after life; and when all there seemed darkness, my mind wandered back to the sorrows of the past. I recalled another time when the wide earth, which lodges and supports her children of every various tribe, and opens at least in her bosom a resting place for them all, contained no home for me. I remembered a time when I had felt myself alone, though in the presence of the universal Father,--destitute, in a world stored with his bounty,--desolate, though Omnipotence was pledged to answer my cry. My deliverance from this orphan state,--from this disastrous darkness, rushed upon my mind. I thought upon the mighty transformation which had gladdened the desert for me, and made the solitary place rejoice. The cry of thanksgiving burst from my lips, although it died amidst the storm. 'Oh Thou!' I exclaimed, 'who from pollution didst reclaim,--from rebellion didst receive,--from despair didst revive me,--let but Thy presence be with me; and let my path lead where it will!' As I passed the village churchyard, I turned to visit the grave of her whom I had lost. The stone had been placed upon it since I had seen it last; and I felt as if the performance of the last duty had made our separation more complete. 'And is this all that I can do for thee, my friend?' said I. 'Are all the kindly charities cut off between us for ever? Hast thou, who wert so lately alive to the joys and the sorrows of every living thing, no share in all that is done or suffered here? Hast thou, who so lately wert my other soul, no feeling now that owns kindred with any thought of mine?--Yes. On one theme, in one employment we can sympathise still. We can still worship together.' Kneeling upon the grave of my last earthly friend, I commended myself to a heavenly one, and was comforted. CHAPTER XIX _They hate to mingle in the filthy fray, Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows Imbittered more from peevish day to day._ Thomson.