that beautiful verse in Job: ‘The young men saw him and trembled, the aged arose and stood up.’ Well, there he sat, that warm summer morning, in his new striped banian, turned back from his neck, and turned carelessly over one knee, to keep it from sweeping on the grass. He had on black satin lasting pantaloons, and a black velvet waistcoat, that made his shirt collar look as white as snow. He lifted his eyes, when he heard the wheels of my carriage rolling along, and made a sort of motion for me to stop. ‘Good morning, little Patty,’ said he, ‘I hope you are very well this beautiful morning.’ We always thought it an honour to get a word from his lips, and I felt as if I could walk without a crutch the whole day. He was very kind to little children, though he looked so grand and holy in the pulpit, you would think he was an angel of light, just come down there from the skies.”
“Did he preach in that calico frock?” asked Emma, anxious for the dignity of the ministerial office.
“Oh! no, child—all in solemn black, except his white linen bands. He always looked like a saint on Sunday, walking in the church so slow and stately, yet bowing on the right and left, to the old, white-headed men, that waited for him as for the consolation of Israel. Oh! he was a blessed man, and he is in glory now. Here,” added she, taking a piece of spotless linen from a white folded paper, “is a remnant of the good man’s shroud. I saw him when he was laid out, with his hands folded on his breast, and his Bible resting above them.”
“Don’t they have any Bibles in Heaven?” asked little Estelle, shrinking from contact with the funereal sample.
“No, child; they will read there without books, and see without eyes, and know everything without learning. But they put his Bible on his heart, because he loved it so in life, and it seemed to be company for him in the dark coffin and lonely grave.”
The children looked serious, and Emma’s wistful eyes, lifted towards heaven, seemed to long for that region of glorious intuition, whither the beloved pastor of Aunt Patty’s youth was gone. Then the youngest begged her to tell them something more lively,
