nance brightening as she spoke, "I must tell you, Signor, the end of my story:

66

:

My little Antoine had been parted from us for more than two years before I was in possession of another treasure, precious as the first. My second little Antoine is not inferior in beauty to his angel brother, and I trust he will be spared to us for our good for like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; he knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are but dust, Psal. ciii. 14. No, indeed; he does not willingly afflict the children of men, unless for their good; but, Signor, when our second Antoine had passed his first birth-day, the young English lady who I have mentioned before, paid us a visit at St. Hospice. She had been married then for some time to a young clergyman, and they did us the honour of spending a day with us, and our baby boy was baptized under the olive tree beside his brother's grave. The young clergyman and his dear lady also took some oranges and figs, for we had laid out our best in hopes they would take something. Before they left, the kind gentleman read to us from his Bible, and advised us to be careful of our children, and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. He also presented Antoine and Sylvestre each with a nice French Bible. And the lady, after kissing my boy, bid us adieu, and she is now, I believe, in happy England amongst those of her own faith."

As the peasant finished, she brought her baby, who had been asleep during our conversation, that I might behold the second little Antoine, to whose beauty I can not do sufficient justice. I shall only now conclude by saying, that should this short account fall into the hands of the young clergyman, or his excellent lady, I think it will encourage them in their duty, reminding them of the words of Solomon,

'Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days,' Eccl. xi. 1.

NICE, 18

THE ROSARY;

OR,

ROSÉE OF MONTREUX.

PREFACE.

As the little Antoine carried us to St. Hospice, which lies on the shores of the Mediterranean, close to the famous city of Nice, we must needs now travel northward to where the little valley of Montreux lies encompassed with the snow-crowned Alps, and there we shall be brought into a scene of such simplicity as we should hardly find any where else than in some sweet valley of beautiful Swisserland, nor even there unmixed with much evil, although that evil may not always be discovered by a person passing hastily through these glorious scenes.

But I have myself known a few young children, who, from the time they have been able to speak,

have seemed to try to please God and their parents, in every thing they did or said. I remember two in particular, they were sisters, and they came from a very distant land; and I have often heard one of these say to the other, we must not do this, and we must not do that, because it is wrong, it will not please God. I think that I may say of these children that they never sinned wilfully, and that when they had done wrong, they looked on Him whom they had pierced, and mourned sincerely. What made these fair little ones to differ from other children, but that same divine influence which makes a holy man to differ from a wicked one? in other words, it is this, that the Lord the Spirit had entered into their hearts, and ever dwelt within them.

When God made man he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, that is, the Holy Spirit; which breath of life was lost by Adam when he departed from his God; at which time the natural man became to be little better than the beast that perisheth; therefore the wise man says, Eccl. iii. 18, 19. “I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a

man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity."

But when through grace, or free favour, the Lord the Spirit again makes his temple in the heart of any man; or when he condescends to inhabit the breast of a little child, then that child becomes such as is described in the Rosary, and such as I have sometimes seen, such in truth as were those two lovely sisters, whom I shall remember, though I shall never behold them together again.

I now speak of them to you, my young reader, in order that you may understand that God sometimes condescends to manifest his power even in the heart of a little child.

its

ALTHOUGH I am not acquainted with you, my indulgent little readers, yet I much suspect that some of my small volumes are not altogether unknown to you, but that one of them, at least, has already found way into your libraries. I now will tell you what you have not heard before, that I am a very great traveller, not only on the continent of Europe, but in sunny Asia. I have navigated the Indian ocean, and visited the stormy promontory of South Africa; I have been tossed on the bosom of the Mediterranean, and wandered over the cloudy heights of the terrible Corniche; I have seen orange groves, and clusters of palm trees, and heard the cry of the Gondolier in the