follow."

Much more he added, to reconcile me to the previous day's defeat, and to
animate me to new trials. Never did I so much need incentive and
upholding, never before had I esteemed the value of a spiritual
counsellor and friend.

In a small cottage, distant about three miles from the residence of Mr
Clayton, there lodged, at this time, an old man with his sister, a blind
woman about seventy years of age. He had communicated with Mr Clayton's
church for many years. He was now poor, and had retired from the
metropolis, to the hut, for the advantage of purer air, and in the hope
of prolonging the short span within which his earthly life had been
brought. To this humble habitation I was directed by Mr Clayton.

"The woman," said the minister, "is without any comfortable hope; but
the prospects of the brother are satisfactory and most cheering. Go to
the benighted woman. Her's is a melancholy case. Satan has a secure
footing in her heart, and defeats every effort and every motive that I
have brought to bear against it. May you be more fortunate--may her
self-deceived and hardened spirit melt before the force and earnestness
of your appeals!"

I ventured for a second time on sacred and interdicted ground, and
visited the cottage. The unhappy woman, to whom I had specially come,
was smitten indeed. She was blind and paralyzed, and on the extreme
verge of eternity. Yet, afflicted as she was, and as near to death as
the living may be, she enjoyed the tranquillity and the gentleness of a
child, ignorant of sin, and, in virtue of her infancy, confident of her
inheritance. I could discover no evidence of a creature alarmed with a