The Annals of the Poor | Page 4

letter which I had received, and made me anxious both to comply with the request and to become acquainted with the writer. I promised the good dairyman to attend on the Friday at the appointed hour; and after some more conversation respecting his own state of mind under the present trial, he went away.
He was a reverend old man; his furrowed cheeks, white locks, weeping eyes, bent shoulders, and feeble gait, were characteristic of the aged pilgrim. As he slowly walked onward, supported by a stick, which seemed to have been the companion of many a long year, a train of reflections occurred, which I retrace with pleasure and emotion.
At the appointed hour I arrived at the church, and after a little while was summoned to the churchyard gate to meet the funeral procession. The aged parents, the elder brother, and the sister, with other relatives, formed an affecting group. I was struck with the humble, pious, and pleasing countenance of the young woman from whom I had received the letter. It bore the marks of great seriousness without affectation, and of much serenity mingled with a glow of devotion.
A circumstance occurred during the reading of the Burial Service, which I think it right to mention as one among many testimonies of the solemn and impressive tendency of our truly evangelical Liturgy.
A man of the village, who had hitherto been of a very careless and even profligate character, went into the church through mere curiosity, and with no better purpose than that of vacantly gazing at the ceremony. He came likewise to the grave, and during the reading of those prayers which are appointed for that part of the service, his mind received a deep, serious conviction of his sin and spiritual danger. It was an impression that never wore off, but gradually ripened into the most satisfactory evidence of an entire change, of which I had many and long-continued proofs. He always referred to the Burial Service, and to some particular sentences of it, as the clearly ascertained instrument of bringing him, through grace, to the knowledge of the truth.
The day was therefore one to be remembered. Remembered let it be by those who love to hear "the short and simple annals of the poor."
Was there not a manifest and happy connection between the circumstances that providentially brought the serious and the careless to the same grave on that day together? How much do they lose who neglect to trace the leadings of God in providence as links in the chain of his eternal purpose of redemption and grace!
"While infidels may scoff, let us adore!"
After the service was concluded I had a short conversation with the good old couple and their daughter. She told me that she intended to remain a week or two at the gentleman's house where her sister died till another servant should arrive and take her sister's place.
"I shall be truly obliged," said she, "by an opportunity of conversing with you, either there or at my father's when I return home, which will be in the course of a fortnight at the furthest. I shall be glad to talk to you about my sister, whom you have just buried."
Her aspect and address were highly interesting. I promised to see her very soon, and then returned home, quietly reflecting on the circumstances of the funeral at which I had been engaged. I blessed the God of the poor, and prayed that the poor might become rich in faith, and the rich be made poor in spirit.


PART II.
A sweet solemnity often possesses the mind whilst retracing past intercourse with departed friends. How much is this increased when they were such as lived and died in the Lord! The remembrance of former scenes and conversations with those who, we believe, are now enjoying the uninterrupted happiness of a better world, fills the heart with pleasing sadness, and animates the soul with the hopeful anticipation of a day when the glory of the Lord shall be revealed in the assembling of all his children together, never more to be separated. Whether they were rich or poor while on earth is a matter of trifling consequence: the valuable part of their character is, that they are "kings and priests unto God;" and this is their true nobility. In the number of now departed believers, with whom I once loved to converse on the grace and glory of the kingdom of God, was the Dairyman's daughter.
About a week after the funeral, I went to visit the family at ---, in whose service the younger sister had lived and died, and where Elizabeth was requested to remain for a short time in her stead.
The house was a large and venerable mansion. It stood in a beautiful valley at the foot of a