little stream that winds beneath the house into a mighty and irresistible torrent, sweeping every thing before it towards the lake with rapid and resistless fury. But what most impressed my mind at the moment, was to see a poor innocent sheep, as well known to me by face as Dash himself, hurled down by the current, and bleating piteously, but in vain, for help! This scene, and scenes like these, made a deep impression on my mind; and I began to entertain a constant and solemn feeling of the continual presence and irresistible power of GOD. This thought was uppermost in my mind from morning till night; in the fields and on my bed. It was doubtless valuable to me as a guide to duty, but it gave a gloomy turn to my thoughts which was inconsistent with the buoyant feelings of youth, and, as I have since discovered, not in harmony with the true spirit of the Gospel.” But I must now introduce to you another member of our family, to whom I have as yet hardly alluded, for many painful reasons, but whose history now begins to be blended with mine in a manner which renders all farther avoidance of her tale impossible. I refer to my poor sister Martha! She was several years older than myself; and at the time I am now speaking of, had arrived at woman’s estate. She was a splendid specimen of a fine well-grown mountain girl, except that she was rather paler than exactly suits the taste of the hardy mountaineer; her paleness, however, arose, I believe, not from any delicacy of frame, but from habitual thoughtfulness. How she was admired and sought after by the shy rustics of the neighbourhood! and, above all, how she was beloved by myself! Alas!—in the language of a friend of mine, who, though unknown to fame, is a true poet—at that period of her short life, ‘The liquid lustre of her eye Had ne’er been dimm’d by fond hopes blighted; The halo of serenity Still kept her marble forehead lighted!’