After walking on a considerable distance, I saw a cottage, towards which I ran for shelter, and was welcomed in. The honest woodman immediately ordered his eldest boy to fetch a large bundle of sticks to throw on the fire; and I was requested to draw near and dry myself. Up in the chimney-corner sat a fine-looking girl, about nine years of age, whose eyes were bedewed with tears; another, about three years older, sat in the window seat wrapped in pensive sadness; an athletic youth, still older, was reclining himself against the table; and the father soon drew, from the deep recesses of a wounded breast, one of the most piercing groans that ever vibrated across the sensibilities of my heart. These symptoms of grief soon convinced me that I had retreated from the disorders of the physical world, to witness the convulsive throes of the social; and my spirits, which usually ebb and flow with the tide of feeling on which they are borne, began to sink within me. "I fear," addressing myself to the father, "you are in trouble?" "O yes, Sir! our hearts are all bursting; for death is coming to bear off our little Jemima. She is up stairs, where she has now been these eight days, and her mother has never left her, night or day. She is one of the best girls a father ever loved." "But death does not come by chance." "O, no; 'the Lord gave, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord;' but it is hard work to part. Do walk up and see her before she dies; but she is so changed!" [Illustration: THE WOODMAN'S FAMILY IN TROUBLE. Vol i. p. 105.] I entered her room, and soon perceived that death had cast his fatal shadow on her countenance, which still retained its beautiful form and expression. Addressing myself to the child, I said, "Do you think you shall die?" "Yes, Sir." "And if you die, where do you expect to go?" "To heaven." "What makes you think you shall go to heaven?" "Jesus Christ has said, 'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'" "What do you understand by coming to Jesus Christ?" "Believing in him, and loving him." "Did you always believe in him, and love him?" "No, not till he inclined me; for if we love him, it is because he first loved us." "Then you can leave father, and mother, and all your brothers and sisters, to go to heaven?" "Yes, Sir; I have no wish to live on earth when I have the prospect of living a happier life in heaven."