inevitably fall short of accomplishing the end of saving the floating population around them from the vortex of worldliness which threatens their destruction. Hence the imperious necessity of a thoroughly organized system of city missionary operations, a system that cannot much longer fail of drawing to its support the best counsels and most efficient pecuniary assistance of Zion's friends.

A

While Mr. G. took care to feed the flock of which the Holy Ghost had made him overseer, he neglected no opportunity of extending his affectionate attentions to others who had "no guide nor overseer." He sought out the stranger. He gave him the hand of friendship. He poured instruction into his mind, kindled the flame of love in his heart, and led him to the house of prayer. single fact may be given in illustration. A family connected with a church in the country had removed into the city; strangers, they knew not the churches nor the pastors of the city, and sometimes found their way to one place of worship, sometimes to another, and sometimes to none. Occasionally they worshipped in Essex Street. Mr. G. called on them, found that their attendance on the ordinances of God had become irregular; that for some time they had even neglected family prayer, and had fallen into a state of great coldness. A solemn conversation followed; motives to an immediate return to duty were suggested and urged; the criminality and danger of their course, the dishonor they were bringing on the Saviour, their liability to sickness and death, or other tokens of God's displeasure against sin, were affectionately stated. The desired effect seemed to be produced; tears of contrition fell. It was but about a week afterwards that Mr. G. was called to see the gentleman on a sick bed. Mrs. informed him that she had

related to her husband the whole conversation which had

passed, that his heart was melted, and that they then both

resolved to return to God. The same night family prayer had been resumed, and they resolved on a regular attendance thenceforward on all the ordinances of religion. This gentleman lived but a few days, but manifested deep sorrow for his recent forgetfulness of God and unfaithfulness in duty, and also a firm trust in his Saviour. So far as could be judged, he died in the well grounded hope of heaven. The widow, too, though she soon removed from the city, continued to adorn her profession, and to manifest her gratitude to him, whose faithfulness had delivered her and her husband from the snare of the fowler.

CHAPTER VII.

HIS SYMPATHY WITH THE AFFLICTED-LETTER ON THE DEATH OF HIS CHILD-LETTER TO MR. P.-TO MRS. P.TO MR. A. K.-TO MR. C. S.-TO MISS C. L.

No where is the tender and faithful pastor more cordially welcomed than into the chamber of sickness and death. In the hour of nature's severest trial, his countenance, beaming with the reflected glory of heaven, brings peace to the troubled soul, lights up the valley of the shadow of death, and guides the eye of death's victim to Calvary, and thence to the bright worlds where He who suffered on Calvary has gone to prepare mansions for his disciples. And then, too, how soothing to the heart of sympathizing friends are those words of grace and truth which fall from the lips of their spiritual father, as he directs them to the throne of God, and unveils the ineffable glories of Him who "doth all things well," among

the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth ! Few men have been so admirably fitted, both by nature and by grace, to stand between the living and the dying, to hold the censer with an even hand, and offer acceptable incense to the Most High, while scattering around him the richest consolations divine love has prepared for the relief of the sorrowful. In all the afflictions of his people,

he too was afflicted.

Who was weak, and he was not

weak? Who was offended and he burned not? If he rejoiced with them that rejoiced, so he wept with them that wept. As his heart was gladdened by the smiles of Providence on the enterprise of the more prosperous, so it yielded to the softest sympathy in the variegated sufferings of others, who seemed marked for disappointment and wo by the same Providence. And if in his congregation the complaint of neglect was heard from any quarter, it was never from the lips of those that God had smitten; nor from the poor and the wretched, the blind and the naked; for he was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, and a father to the poor. He knew what affliction was himself. Like the great High Priest of our profession, he had been touched with the feeling of those sorrows that others felt, and was thus prepared to mingle his tears and prayers with theirs.

On the decease of his own child, February 19, 1825, he thus writes to a brother:

"The Lord has seen fit in his righteous providence to afflict us in removing our dear little boy. The stroke is peculiarly heavy, as it was our only child, especially so to the mother. But we trust we can both say, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord.' We had solemnly given him up in baptism, and repeatedly in secret; and we are under covenant obligations to be submissive. God hath done whatsoever it hath pleased him. Not only would we acquiesce but rejoice that he reigneth over all. My strongest desire is, if I know my own heart, that this affliction may be so sanctified to us, as to wean us from the world, and prepare us the better to promote the glory of Christ, and the interest of his kingdom on the earth.”

What he was in the hour of affliction to his people when present, that he endeavored to be when absent; and in this connection a few of his letters to individuals suffering under the hand of God will be read with interest. The following were written while he was absent from Boston for the recovery of his health.

To Mr. P., on the death of a child.

"My very dear Sir,-I have just noticed in a Boston paper the death of your little son; and although it is possible this may not reach you much before my own arrival, yet I feel constrained to write you a few lines expressive of my Christian sympathies under your bereavement, and my earnest prayer that you may have spiritual consolations. I know that both you and Mrs. P. must have felt deeply the hand of God in this chastisement. In removing a child by death, God comes exceedingly near the hearts of the affectionate parents; it seems like tearing away a part of themselves, like transporting a portion of themselves into eternity, and closely linking them with the world of spirits.

"But I trust you are not without consolations, such as the world can neither give nor take away. You both know where to go in time of trouble. Your little son had been consecrated to your covenant God and Saviour, not only by the external ceremony, but, as I trust, sincerely and heartily. You have often repeated those vows and acknowledgments that he was the Lord's property, that God was the sovereign owner, and you but stewards under him. How reasonable, then, that he should dispose of your child just as he pleased; and how unreasonable that the parent, under such circumstances, should have any other will than the will of God. As for your dear child's future condition, that you must now leave, without any further anxiety, to God. When king David knew that his child