I am satisfied that between the functions of life, as developed in the material and moral world, there is an analogy as instructive as it is beautiful. It overcomes external circumstances by the power of an invisible law. Philosophers have discovered that the human body maintains a uniform temperature, whether it shiver in the snow-hut of the Esquimaux, or drip with perspiration in the cane-fields of the tropics. But let life depart, and it falls to that of the surrounding objects. Decay immediately begins. So, when religious vitality is maintained in the heart, the corrupting influences of the world remain inoperative. This vitality having been infused into the heart of Miss Hawley, the fervor of her spirit rose to a higher temperature than that of all surrounding objects. She could no longer assimilate with them. If her strong personal pride, her obsequious deference to appearances and the opinion of the world, were henceforth overcome or kept in subjection, it was only as she took up the cross in obedience to the convictions of duty. She told me it was the hardest trial of her life to come to this public school; it was the greatest cross to her natural affections she had ever experienced. But the bitterness of the cup had now measurably passed away from her. Strength came with animating promptitude as the answer to prayer. Her spiritual life became more healthy and vigorous as her approaches to the mercy-seat were humble and frequent. Cheerfulness became an ever-present attendant. She had put all pride behind her, and because of her abasement had risen above the world. Henceforth she was to support herself by her own acknowledged labor. She had been so changed by the grace of God in her heart, that she regarded with astonishment the secret insincerities she had formerly been guilty of in seeking to conceal the extent of the necessity to which she had been reduced. I have never seen nor heard of her since I left the school; but the remembrance of her subdued and patient spirit cannot soon be effaced. How true it is, as some one has beautifully said, that infinite toil would not enable us to sweep away a mist, but that by ascending a little we may often look over it altogether,--and that so it is with our moral improvement! We wrestle fiercely with vicious habits that would have no hold on us, if we ascended to a higher moral atmosphere. Another has declared that at five years of age the father begins to rub the mother out of his child; that at ten the schoolmaster rubs out the father; that at twenty a trade or a profession rubs out the schoolmaster; that at twenty-five the world rubs out all its predecessors, and gives a new education, till we are old enough and wise enough to take religion and common sense for our pastors, when we employ the rest of our lives in unlearning what we have previously learned.