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The heavenly sweetness of that countenance, mingling majesty and love, can never fade away. He spoke to me in accents of kind

ness.

"That figure which leads you on is the destroyer of your soul. Another step, and you are lost! Come to me, and your are safe!"

I rushed into his open arms- I was delivered from my dreadful foe.

In the morning William arose, and tried to shake off the strange vision of the night. He went to his school, again sought the book which failed yesterday to amuse, and had scarcely opened it, when, to use his own words, "the question came with singular power, will you return that book to the library?" "I will," said I, and handed it to a scholar to be instantly returned.

This day was still worse. The dream, the figure, the yawning gulf, the Divine Person, each stood up by turns. "Deep unto deep uttered its voice," and the billows rolled over his soul.

In a letter, he soon after wrote, he says, "at tea-table, that evening, I heard Dr. Wilson's church-bell. I sprang up, took my hat, rushed into the street.

I took my

"It was preparatory lecture. seat in the pew. The Dr. rose, and when he commenced his sermon, the text was, "Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

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"The Dr. went on to describe the being who uttered these words, and it was the very same I saw in my sleep. It is He! It is He!' I exclaimed, the Deliverer, the Saviour. He was all ready for me, and I was ready for him. I became his entirely and forever, as I sat alone in the pew.

"I went out of church a new man. How lightly I walked the streets that night; never was evening so tranquil, never stars so bright, never was creation so lovely. All my life I have been under delusion, and this may be another still; but I will never part with this.

Too happy, I returned to my home, that my dear wife might share the blessedness.

"Next day I called on Dr. Wilson, and proposed myself for admission to his church. He received me with the kindest greeting, for he had long wished it, so little did he know how far I had strayed away."

Thus was William led fully home to the Saviour. Step by step, did he afterward reach the ultimatum of his ardent, early hopes. He stood upon the walls of Zion, and preached that Saviour to whom he gave himself in the pew.

His genial nature, lovely countenance, and engaging manners, made him the children's friend, the children's preacher. They loved him, and they reared a monument to his memory when he had finished his beloved work. Faithfully he labored in the vineyard - well did he execute the trust in the sabbath school department, till, at the age of fifty-two, he suddenly left his earthly work, and was called home. The promise was fulfilled to the letter.

The God of the fatherless not only "preserved. him alive," but honored him as an instrument of winning many souls to Christ.

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CHAPTER V.

THE CLERK.

"THE greatest safeguard to a young man, is the society of intelligent and virtuous young ladies." A very trite aphorism, but none the less acceptable because it was uttered by a worthy friend who had tested its truth in his own experience. "Young ladies saved me from ruin," said he. "Cultivate by all means acquaintance with a few good girls of the right stamp, and they will be the making of you, my good fellow."

"Good advice," thought James, "not the least objection in the world to good girls-the more of them the better."

Our country friend is now a clerk in a very respectable dry goods store in Main Street. A

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