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and was engaged in a battle fought at Edgehill, in the county of Warwick, on October the 23rd, 1642. In a battle fought on the 18th of June, 1643, at Chalgrove-field, in Oxfordshire, he was wounded, and six days after died. The following prayer is said to have been offered by him when he was dying: "O Lord God of hosts, great is thy mercy, just and holy are thy dealings unto we sinful men. Save me, O Lord, if it be thy will from the jaws of death. Pardon my manifold transgressions. O Lord, save my bleeding country; have these realms in thy special keeping. Confound and level in the dust those who would rob the people of their liberty and lawful prerogative. Let the king see his error, and turn the hearts of his wicked counsellors from the malice and wickedness of their designs. Lord Jesus receive my soul." He died at Thame, in Oxfordshire, and was burried at Hampden.

Awful were the effects of this war. The king was much to be blamed, and also to be pitied. He had evil counsellors, and they brought evil upon him, and upon the country. We pray and hope that this country may never again be ravaged by civil war-but that its inhabitants may ever enjoy the blessings of peace at home- and we pray that Great Britain may be at peace with all the nations of the earth.

The last male descendant of the Hampden family, and occupant of the family mansion, died in the year 1754. The property then passed into the possession of the Right Hon. R. Trevor, and from him descended to the Duke of Buckingham.

BROTHER AND SISTER UNITED IN DEATH.

BY STELLA.

As I sit alone, in the long winter evenings, gazing vacantly upon the dying embers, the village where I was born rises up, forming a beautiful fresco painting upon the chamber of my soul. There, in the foreground, is the little white cottage which resounded to our childish mirth. Opposite is the village church. I remember sitting in it, a very little girl, and hearing the venerable pastor, who had laboured there many years, discourse on this beautiful

text: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto souls; your for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Leading down from the cottage, is the street by which our father approached his home, after the business of the day was over; and along which my curly-headed sister and I ran to meet him. She always outstripped me, though nearly three years younger than I; but he took us both up in his arms, and brought us to the house; where our careful mother sat, sewing or knitting, by the side of our little sister's cradle. Our little sister! She was fair and beautiful as an angel! She was lent to us five summers, and then God took her home. Dear sister, you are now nineteen years old, and fourteen of those years have been spent in heaven!

In one corner hung the black velvet bag, which we had designated "Noah's Ark," because our grandmother regularly filled it with cakes, and nuts, and all sorts of sweet nondescripts. Behind the house is the garden, where black Tom dug among the flower-beds in the beautiful spring time. He used to tell us stories of "Peggie," and "Little Red Riding Hood," a thousand times over, and yet the thousandth time they possessed all the charm of novelty, and we awaited the recital with the same breathless anxiety with which we had listened at first. Back of the garden stands the old walnut-tree, beneath which we used to sit and crack the nuts, and stain our fingers and lips with the rinds.

All around are the hills upon which the village was built, dotted over with houses nestling down amid the green trees; and, overlooking all, to the north-east, is a high hill, upon which stands the house of one of the happiest families of our village. Nothing about the house was northeast, but its direction from the town; all else was warm and south, and sunny. The family consisted of the father, a man of consideration and dignity; the mother, the noble daughter of a noble father; and eleven children, all bright, and cheerful, and merry-hearted; for the spirit of the mother ever pervades the household, like latent electricity in water. It was a lovely sight to see them! They all

grew up to manhood and womanhood; for when the angel of death looked in upon them, and saw their beaming faces, with the happy mother in their midst, and heard their ringing voices of joy, his mournful eye filled with tears of pity and pleasure; and whispering, "Nay, but let these be spared awhile!" he turned away, his shadow only-the sickness of an hour-having fallen upon them.

But time wore on, and necessity loosened, or rather lengthened, the bonds which death had hesitated to sever. Several of the daughters had married, and found other homes; still throwing out, like candelabra, the light they had imbibed at their own father's hearthstone. A vacancy was also made by the departure of a son, who went to cast himself amid the wrestling and struggling of the anxious world. He was the quietest and gentlest of them all, at least they loved to think so afterward; and when he was gone, and his chair stood unoccupied, his parents looked upon it, and felt as if they loved him best-the absent one; and the time seemed to grow very long while he was away.

When his mother and sisters thought of him, there was still one drop of pain that ever mingled with the sweet recollections that came bubbling up in their hearts. Though kind, and gentle, and tenderly obliging, "he was still without God in the world." Ah, who can tell the desolation conveyed by those words "without God," who is our all of light, and hope, and comfort! Far from him, wandering over the bleak and barren mountains of sin; struggling on, we know not whither; and at times pausing amid the dreary wild, when our hearts stand still for terror, and we listen again for the "still small voice" which has said to us so often and so beseechingly

"Come back, this is the way;

Come back and walk therein!"

but all is a dreadful silence, and we fear that we have grieved the Spirit of the Lord, and He has left us for ever; and yet, peradventure, He has not forgotten us; and when we lie gasping for breath, and dying, He shows us the well of water in the wilderness.

Thus it was with John; mindful of the demands of every

being but God; outwardly obeying many of the precepts of the Gospel, yet wanting its spirit.

At this time a camp-meeting commenced in the neighbourhood where he was sojourning; and thinking it would be a pleasant way to spend the Sabbath, as all the world flocked thither, he went. Unfortunately he had had a quarrel with a young acquaintance, the first he had ever had; for he was unobtrusive, and courteous, and regardful of the feelings of others. But now the worst passions of his nature were aroused. Supposing he might meet his opponent at the meeting, he armed himself with a bowie-knife, and went forth.

He arrived at "the ground." The white tents stood silent and solemn, like sentinels around the worshippers. The blue smoke curled up behind them as incense toward heaven. The rays of the sun, like threads of gold, interweaving with the green branches, formed a fairy network above their heads. The voice of human prayer was answered by the song of praise, poured forth by the little birds-sweet choristers of heaven. It was "a Sabbath kept unto the Lord."

As the young man gazed, perchance the scenes of his childhood came back, and the prayers of his pious mother. Perhaps in that hour he was again a little boy, kneeling at her knee, with his tiny hands put together, sending up petitions which he but half understood, though he knew they were something very solemn, for he was talking to God.

The preacher arose, and took his text, and as he unfolded the doctrines of sacred truth, "the bread which had been cast" many days before, upon the waters of the young man's soul, began to be found. There, upon the outskirts of the congregation, the Saviour whispered to him, and said, "Son, give me thy heart!" How often before had those imploring words been spoken to him! how often had he ungratefully turned aside and said, "To-morrow!" and when the morrow came he answered still, "To-morrow!" but now his heart was touched with the patient longsuffering of the Saviour, and he responded, "Take it, O Lord, and me, and all I am!"

When the sermon was closed, and mourners were called, he hesitated a moment. It was but a moment that his moral courage forsook him; then walking steadily up to the place, he knelt, and there he wrestled in prayer, until he saw the glory of God "clear shining in the face of Jesus Christ." By faith he looked up to the cross, and his burden rolled off, and then he was very joyful. He drew the bowie-knife, and cast it from him, calling for his enemy, that he might clasp him to his bosom, and prove to him that love was more powerful than the dagger or the polished sword.

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He returned from the camp-ground, his spirit chiming with the grand harmonies of nature, sending up also its song of praise to the Eternal. Light was in all his dwelling." But few days had passed before his body began to droop. The fever-spirit was hovering over him, and he felt its scorching breath upon his cheek; and as his head throbbed painfully upon his pillow, and the blood ran boiling through all his veins, he thought of his pleasant home in Kentucky, and longed for the soft, cool hand of his mother upon his burning brow, and prayed that he might yet gaze again upon the faces that he looked on first and loved most. This might not be; yet, like the martyr Stephen, he gazed up to heaven, and there saw his "elder brother," who had suffered for him, looking upon him with ineffable love, and all the innumerable family of God beckoning him away; and he could almost hear their notes of welcome borne upon the breeze across the dark river which was still between him and them. A few days more, and the spirit-land was to him a reality; he stood upon the shining banks of Canaan, and methinks I hear now the glad shout and hallelujah that rose from his enraptured soul.

Why grieve we for the departed?

"They are the living, they alone,

Whom thus we mourn as dead."

When his family heard that he was gone, although it was to heaven, they deeply felt that he was gone, and they sat down in bereavement and sorrow.

His body was brought home to rest near his father's

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