"Poor creatures, how ignorant must they be of the nature and tendency of pure religious truth! If a person be renewed in the spirit of his mind, and if he feels the love of God shed abroad in his heart, there is no subject which will have such a delightful effect as the immediate prospect of entering heaven. I lately sat beside the bed of a dying Christian, who, not long before her departure, after praying in the language of Stephen, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,' repeated the following lines with an emphasis and melody of voice which still sounds in my ear:-- 'Dissolve Thou the bond that detains My soul from her portion in Thee: O strike off these adamant chains, And set me eternally free. When that happy moment begins, Array'd in thy beauties I'll shine; Nor pierce any more with my sins The bosom on which I recline.' And if a person be ignorant of the scheme of salvation which is revealed in the Scripture, there is no subject which ought to be pressed more upon his attention. If he have but a short time to live, no portion of that time ought to be lost. To-day he is here--to-morrow in eternity. For the physician to interpose, to keep him in a state of ignorance, is an act of cruelty which no language can adequately describe; and, notwithstanding the frivolous reasons which he may assign for his conduct, it is an act for which he will stand responsible at the last day." As I was returning from a solitary walk, I accidentally met the ladies, and on reaching the end of the grove through which we were passing, we seated ourselves on a garden chair, which stood under a very fine beech tree, from whence we had a distinct view of the rectory and its church, and also of Mr. Stevens' unobtrusive chapel. "These Dissenting chapels," I remarked, "are what may be called ecclesiastic retreats; spiritual places of refuge for the gospel when it is driven out of the church." "They are spiritual Bethels," Miss Roscoe replied, "where God unexpectedly visits his chosen ones with the manifestation of His unseen but not unfelt presence; often astonishing and delighting them; constraining them to exclaim, in the language of the venerable patriarch, '_Surely the Lord is in this place_.'" "Yes," said Mrs. Stevens, "and sometimes in these chapels He conveys the grace of life to the spiritually dead. This reminds me of what I should have told you before, but it escaped my memory. You know that we have seen Mrs. Pickford at our chapel several times lately, and last Sabbath evening, when she was passing my pew after the close of the service, I spoke to her, expressing the pleasure I felt on seeing her there; and inquired after the welfare of Mr. Pickford and the family. She then very modestly, for she appears to be an amiable woman, referred to the benefit which had resulted from your visit, and asked me to remind you of your promise to visit them again."