"Be strong then in faith, be strong in hope; for thou art well loved of Heaven, and of him whom it hath been its will to place near thee as its minister on earth! "Be strong in faith! Kneel down, sweet friend!--even now, as thine eye reads these characters traced by the hand of one who would give his life to guard thee from harm, kneel down, and ask that Heaven may be with thee,--well assured that he who bids thee to do so will at the same moment be kneeling, likewise, to invoke blessings on thy fair and virtuous head! "At a moment when the heart is drawn heavenward, as mine is now, how hateful--I may say, how profane, seem those worldly appellations and distinctions with which the silly vanity of man has sought to decorate our individual nothingness! How much more befitting a serious Christian is it, in such a moment as this, to use that name which was bestowed by a higher authority! You have three such, my sweet friend. The two first are now appropriated, as it were, to your daughters; but the third is more especially your own.--Clara! On Clara may the dew of Heaven descend like healing balm!--Kneel then, sweet Clara--thou chosen handmaid; kneel down, and think that William Cartwright kneels beside thee! "Written on my knees in the secret recesses of my own chamber--W. C." No sooner did Mrs. Mowbray's eye reach the words "kneel down," than she obeyed them, and in this attitude read to the end of the epistle. Mrs. Mowbray's feelings whenever strongly excited, either by joy, sorrow, or any other emotion, always showed themselves in tears, and she now wept profusely--vehemently; though it is probable she would have been greatly puzzled to explain why, even to herself. She would certainly, however, have declared, had she spoken on the subject to any one, that those tears were a joy, a blessing, and a comfort to her. But as she had nobody to whom she could thus open her heart, she washed her eyes with cold water, and descended with all the composure she could assume to Helen and the tea-table. Notwithstanding this precaution, Helen's watchful eye perceived that her mother had been weeping, and, forgetting the unnatural coldness which a breath more fatal than pestilence had placed between them, she exclaimed with all her wonted tenderness, "What is the matter, dear mamma?--I trust that no bad news has met you?" If all other circumstances left it a matter of doubt whether evangelical influence (as it is impiously called) were productive of good or evil, the terrible power which it is so constantly seen to have of destroying family union must be quite sufficient to settle the question. Any person who will take the trouble to inquire into the fact, will find that family affection has been more blighted and destroyed by the workings of this fearful superstition than by any other cause of which the history of man bears record.