THE ORPHAN GIRL.

To exhibit instances of the care of Providence over the orphan, is likely to promote the interests of piety, by the strong impressions which it produces of the tender compassion of the Deity, to encourage the hearts of parents in the prospect of a separation from their families, and to form friendless and neglected children to that confidence in God which will enliven their dreariest prospects, and to that desire to obtain his favour which will lead them to the diligent use of all the means of salvation.

With this view I shall direct the attention of my readers to a young person, who, when a child, was deprived of both her parents, and in whose life and death the tender mercies of God were conspicuous. After the death of her parents she was neglected by all her relations; but though this conduct of theirs was base and cruel, it was overruled by Providence for her best interests. Had she remained under their care, it is highly probable that she would have learned their ways, and would have grown up in the utter disregard of all that is serious; but by their neglect of her she was taken from their

evil communications, and had reason to bless God that he had brought her out from among them. In circles where relatives are able to do much more for the orphan than her connexions could have done for her, such children have been treated in a manner in which few strangers would have acted to them. They are spoken. to in language which cannot be used to servants; tasks are assigned to them which servants would not submit to; correction is administered with a merciless severity; and while not the smallest remuneration is offered to them for their toils, boast is made of the condescension and humanity which keep them under their roof. In the hands of strangers, such helpless creatures might have fared better,-worse they could not fare. They only act in the spirit of religion and the law of nature, who treat the orphan child thus committed to them, as they do their own.

In these circumstances some religious persons near her took a lively interest in her welfare, were at great pains to make her acquainted with the principles of religion, and induced her to attend regularly on the preaching of the gospel. No species of charity is so gratifying to the hearts of the benevolent, or more useful, than thus to watch over the tender plant which no

parent's hand protects, to cherish what no pårent's tears water, to guard it from being trodden down by the rude or the thoughtless, from being cropt by the spoiler, or blighted by noxious insects. To these counsels of the pious the grace of God disposed her to listen, and though she had no father nor mother to follow to the house of God, she delighted to go up to it, to adore the Father of the fatherless, and to look on the surrounding worshippers as her sisters and her brethren. It is a beautiful sight to behold the young following their parents to the sanctuary of God; but it is still more affecting to see the little orphan repairing to it alone. The Father of mercies led her to his holy hill, and blessed her there.

Of the multitudes of boys and girls who are seen on the highways or fields on the Lord's day, there are some who belong to thoughtless and profligate parents, who are more to be blamed than they; but there are many fatherless children among them, who have no parent to restrain them from evil, or to guide them to piety. The Sabbath in its return brings with it to them no remembrancer of its duties; but while the gospel is calling the children of Zion to glory and to virtue, evil communication is forming them to profanity and theft and lewd

ness. Were the wise and the pious to stir up thoughtless parents to their duty, to take these outcasts under their charge on the Lord's day, and to use methods for rendering public worship desirable to them, they would perform an important service to society, and offer a sacrifice of mercy on the altar of God, which in memorial before Him.

would go up

While thus regular in her attendance on religious ordinances, she was early made to feel the power of the gospel. On the first Sabbath of a new year, the minister in whose chapel she attended, discoursed on that text, "I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister." An allusion was made in the sermon to the dying exercise of a young lady, who, by faith in Christ, as the resurrection and the life, could triumpl in the view of the putrefaction of the grave, and the solemnities of eternity, and who expressed her feelings in that beautiful hymn of Dr.

Watts:

1.

And must this body die!

This mortal frame decay!

And must these active limbs of mine

Lie mouldering in the clay!

2.

Corruption, earth, and worms
Shall but refine this flesh,
Till my triumphant spirit comes
To put it on afresh.

3.

God, my Redeemer, lives,
And often from the skies

Looks down, and watches all my dust,

Till he shall bid it rise.

4.

Arrayed in glorious grace

Shall those vile bodies shine,
And every shape and every face
Look heavenly and divine.

5.

These lively hopes we owe

To Jesus' dying love;

We would adore his grace below,

And sing his power above.

6.

Dear Lord, accept the praise

Of these our humble songs,

Till tunes of nobler sound we raise

With our immortal tongues.

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In listening to this statement, she was struck with the beauty and the influence of piety. To the youthful heart, the idea of death is very painful, and the corruption of the grave is pe culiarly disgusting; but religion can render both welcome. Instances of conversion among the young have often made a strong impression on the minds of others at that age. Religion, when seen as the friend and the ornament of youth, is much more attracting to them than when beheld as the support and the consolation of age: all their pretexts for delay are silenced by the earnestness of early piety, and the solemnities