inflicted a wound in her heart, which was attended with an unusual depression of spirit. She felt the stroke, but knew not from whence it came, nor could her father tell her who could heal it. He was advised to try what effect a change of air and society would have on her spirits; and hence he removed his family to Dawlish in Devonshire, where they spent the whole of the summer; but still her morbid melancholy increased, and the physician recommended a visit to Bath for the winter, as the only expedient which was likely to prevent the entire loss of health, if not of her reason. Here she was hurried, by the ardour of parental solicitude, into scenes of gaiety and amusement, which now had lost their charm; and though she often refused to go, saying that they could afford her no pleasure, yet, her reluctance being regarded as an inveterate symptom of her complaint, she was compelled to yield, till she frankly said, "If you wish me to regain my long-lost tranquillity, cease to force me where the gaiety of others increases my mental depression, and let me return home, that, in the retirement of solitude, I may find rest from the aggravating amusements of human gaiety and folly." Mrs. Stevens, who was intimate with the family, and had held some religious conversation with Miss Roscoe before she left home, made a morning call on her return, when she found her alone. Referring to Doddridge's _Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul_, which she had presented to her on a former occasion, she received a reply which gave her great pleasure; and, from some incidental expressions, she was convinced that the cause of her depression lay in the deep recesses of her heart. She therefore suggested to her, as the only effectual means of its removal, a perusal of the Scriptures. "I once felt," she said, "what you now feel, and though my mental anguish was not so acute as yours, nor so overwhelming in its influence, yet I should have sunk under it, had it not been for the consolations of mercy which I found in the Bible." This communication, which was not less unexpected than the appearance of the angel of God to Hagar, as she sat in the solitude of maternal grief, mourning over her child in the agonies of death, raised the spirit of Miss Roscoe from beneath that load of depression which was sinking her into despair, and she inquired, with singular emphasis of expression:-- "And do you indeed think that the Bible will afford me any relief? I have not been permitted to see it since the commencement of my illness; but if you recommend it, I will peruse it." "Yes, my dear; that book, which a thoughtless world despises, is Heaven's best gift to man. 'I know and feel it is a blessed book; And I remember how it stopp'd my tears In days of former sorrow; like some herb Of sov'reign virtue to a wound applied.'"