having been a shelter to the covenanters of other days: and the mother blesses God for the privilege of having reared such a child. She follows that child's sweet example, by forgiving the low insults to which her touching appeal exposed her; and seeks a refuge at the foot of the cross whereto her daughter clung. And if a thought of sorrowing pride will wander to the old bastion of St. John, under the shadow of which her gallant husband moulders in the far-off island of Malta, while the heart asks, Is this the recompence for all his toils and achievements?' a calming recollection will raise her eye from the things and creatures of an hour, to that eternal throne where the King of kings dispenses equal justice, by giving to each believer the reward of Christ's perfect obedience; and where her Flora is now singing the praises of Him who loved her, and redeemed her to God by his blood. She never pleaded either merit or suffering of her own: she openly acknowledged, in all the afflictions that terminated in the body's death, a gracious dispensation to keep her humble under the dangerous temptation to self-applause that lurked in the unreserved approval of her countrymen. Such was indeed her horror of even appearing to take pleasure in those demonstrations, that when on the race-ground at Ascot, whither her official duty compelled her to accompany her royal Lady, the acclamations of the people made the air resound, and One cheer more for Lady Flora,' was repeated again and again by the vast assemblage, she described its effect, implying too as it did a cutting rebuke where she never wished rebuke to fall, as having brought on the last alarming symptoms of her fatal illness.

What torments did that finely-constituted mind undergo! One of the little instances that touched me most, was that of her having frequently attempted to calculate in how many months her time would be up"-that is to say, how long a space must elapse before the infamous slander would be for ever crushed, by her having remained in the daily view of her calumniators, beyond the latest point for justifying their foul aspersions. Until that period should come, she was chained to the court, by the resolution she had so fixedly formed to disprove even thus what none-no not even its assertors-had ever really believed: and when she found deliverance from the strife of tongues and from every other trouble was at hand, she put the seal to her consistency, by enjoining that her innocent remains should be mangled to the uttermost, and the result of such investigation made most public. So short, so terrible a combat, so speedy and perfect a victory, few of God's children have known in modern days. realized in a very little space the fulness of meaning contained in these emphatic words; "In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." She too overcame it, by the exercise of that living faith which enabled her, in the Lord's strength, to do all things. In the bitterest inflictions that human cruelty could practise, she recognised the directing hand of fatherly chastisement; and never was she heard to breathe one resentful word against those who, through maliciousness, volunteered to be the scourge. They were the subjects of her intercessory prayers, the objects. of her tender compassion. Full well she knew, and so did they, that the chief and only provocation given

She

on her part had been found in the profession of Christian faith, the example of Christian practice, which, despite the difficulties of her situation, could not but be manifest, like Paul's, "to all in the palace." Like Paul, too, she was there in bonds which she could not break, and that retirement for which her heart panted could not be attained but at the sacrifice of personal and family character. The Lord, who knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, sent down from above and took her out of many waters. The religious world might disclaim her, because she could not yet openly have come out and be separate from what they knew to be in enmity against God; the irreligious world might hate her, because they discerned in her many fruits of the Spirit abhorrent to the carnal mind; but it was a small matter to her to be judged of them, or of man's judgment. She was cleaving with full purpose of heart to One who never yet broke the bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax; and he claimed his child, and took her out of the iron furnace, and has wiped away for ever all tears from her eyes.

In the eyes of those who knew her not, it may have seemed that the course pursued by Lady Flora Hastings, under the dreadful circumstances of her unprecedented persecution, was dictated by the pride of birth, of station, or of female character, apart from any higher or holier principle. It was not so her disposition was such that any measure of undeserved reproach would have been preferable in her sight to the endurance of a far less terrible ordeal, whether in its private or public nature. From notoriety in any shape she always shrunk ; and SUCH a notoriety as the evil machinations of others

forced upon her was torture inexpressible—it killed her. Yet she felt herself placed in the gap, called upon to fight a battle, the result of which the matrons and the maidens of England may have cause to bless, even through far distant years. Had court profligacy been permitted to triumph, in driving forth with reproach a character of female purity and honour from the precincts of the court, on the strength of an infamous fabrication, how rapidly might the plague-spot, first manifesting itself in high quarters, have overspread the land! Evil communications, corrupting good manners, would have tainted society downwards, from the palace to the cottage, and have issued in such fearful consequences as when, during the universal licentiousness that demoralized England under our second Charles, the enemy of our faith and nation so practised and prospered, as to acquire in the succeeding reign power to excite a sanguinary civil war in the attack on and defence of our liberties and our Protestantism. The plot against Lady Flora Hastings, and in her person against female character in general, had nothing English in its aspect. It wears a look utterly foreign: it savours rankly, alike of the subtilty of the Jesuit and the arbitrary inquisitorial cruelty of the Dominican. They who demanded that this innocent lady should submit to the torturing 'question,' might fairly calculate, from their knowledge of her shrinking delicacy, that she would prefer to its infliction the ignominy with which they longed to brand her spotless fame, more particularly as they also knew that she would enjoy the strong support of conscious integrity, under the vain branding of their guilty tongues. They were deceived; they had a

character to deal with, unto the depths of which they could not enter. Lady Flora Hastings was, it is true, a most modest, delicate, sensitive British maiden; but then Lady Flora Hastings was also a Christian patriot, and of the component parts of such a character what could they know? They have seen it in its glorious fruits, and may God give them all, whosoever they be, grace to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the solemn lesson that they have received!

When, with an overflowing heart, I hastened from St. James' Park, and resumed my station at the window in time to see the slow procession pass by along the sunshiny but perfectly silent and deserted street, where one so dissimilar in appearance had wound its gorgeous way through acclaiming thousands just one year before,-when I looked on the touching spectacle of mortality, that young and gentle victim, borne from the scene of her cruel conflict towards the sepulchre of her fathers, unnoticed by a single toll from any bell, and precluded from those tokens of respectful love and sympathy with which, at any other hour, the people of England would have honoured her obsequies-and when towards evening I went to fix a farewell gaze upon the vessel that contained her mortal remains, as it lay on the unruffled surface of England's royal river, I could only deprecate, on my country's behalf, the wrathful visitation of Him in whom, while the fatherless findeth mercy, the oppressors of the fatherless are warned to look for swift and terrible judgment. May her prayers and, ours be answered in the repentance and conversion of all who did her wrong! CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH.