"Yes," said Mr. Lewellin, "her sun did not go down till the evening; and even then it was light. She told me that for several days before her last illness she suffered great mental perplexity and horror, that she not only doubted her personal piety, but the truth of revelation. She was driven almost to a state of despair; and on the Sabbath morning, when she left her cottage for the house of prayer, she resolved not to receive the memorials of the Saviour's death. The text from which the Rev. Mr. Bates preached, was taken from Judges viii. 4, 'Faint, yet pursuing.' There was one paragraph in the sermon which gave her sweet relief. It was to this effect: 'The most favoured servants of the Lord are liable to momentary seasons of suspicion and depression; and some have been left for days, and some for months, not only without consolation, but even without hope. But shall we say that as soon as they lose their enjoyments they make a shipwreck of their faith? Shall we say that the design of God--the practical efficacy of the atonement--the continual indwelling of the Holy Spirit--depend on the ever fluctuating and ever varying temperament and feelings of the mind, which is sometimes so perplexed and distracted by unknown causes, as to be incapable of _believing_ its own faith, or deriving felicity from its own sources of blessedness? Oh! no. There are periods in the mysterious life of an heir of salvation when he is left without comfort, if not without hope, and then comes on the hour and the power of darkness; but this singular dispensation does not disinherit him, or leave him an orphan, in a state of privation and abandonment; neither does it destroy the vitality of his religious principles, but it is intended to let him feel a portion of that misery which he deserves, but from which he is delivered through the blood of the Lamb.'" "Had my sister left us under this mental gloom, I should have had no doubt," said Mrs. Stevens, "of her present happiness; but it would have been an additional cause of grief."