port. O, dear lady-five thousand francs! it is a great deal-yes, it is a great deal; but you see I could employ even more. I have also nephews and nieces, who are all poor, and who, having large young families, naturally look for some assistance from their only aunt. Blessed be the Lord, a thousand times, who is the source of every good and perfect gift! Blessed be the generous donor, who already reaps the fruits of His benevolence in a happy eternity! and may the Lord abundantly bless all my dear friends, and grant to his unworthy servant wisdom and prudence, rightly to occupy the talent thus entrusted to her care.

"Receive, dear and honoured friend and benefactress of the Ban de la Roche, this imperfect assurance of the sincere gratitude of

"Your devoted servant,

"LOUISA SCHEPLER."

The schools she had superintended for fifty-eight years occupied her time and thoughts almost to the last. After the death of her beloved master she continued to reside with his daughter and son-in-law in the old parsonage, to the day of her death. When she had attained her seventy-sixth year her strength evidently decreased; and, on the 25th of July, 1837, after an illness of only four days, it pleased God to take her to Himself, through the atonement of that Saviour whose merits constituted her only hope.

Her funeral sermon was preached by her dear master's son-in-law, M. Rauscher, and the following address was pronounced by Oberlin's grandson over her tomb.

"My brethren, I willingly come among you this day, to fulfil a last duty towards our good and dear Louisa. She has entered into rest. She now contemplates with holy rapture the Saviour who redeemed

her with His blood. She is happy. Never could those words be pronounced with more entire confidence. Surely there is not an individual among us but will be ready to exclaim 'Let me die the death of the righteous!' But let us take care, my brethren, that we do not mistake the cause of her salvation, nor build our own hopes on a wrong foundation. Let us take care that we are not so absorbed in works as to forget Him who alone can give power and ability to perform them. The example of our dear departed friend will not at least be the cause of leading us into so deplorable an error. You know whether she ever gloried in any other thing than in her own infirmities, and this only that the strength of Christ might be made perfect in her weakness. You know if ever she was ashamed to confess her misery and defilement, and to attribute all the good which God enabled her to do to the effects of His mercy in Christ Jesus!

"Like us, she was devoid of all merit in the sight of God. Like us, she was placed under the yoke of condemnation and death. But she had heard the good news, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and had received it with joy. She had cast herself at her Saviour's feet, under a deep sense of her own innate corruption and spiritual misery. Thus it was that she obtained mercy, and was made to pass from death unto life.

"Her pure and holy life, her good deeds, her patient endurance of trial, her charity, her zeal, were the results, not the origin of her faith: fruits, by which the Lord will mark her for His own, and by which He will distinguish her from those who, being destitute of genuine faith, serve Him with their lips while their hearts are far from Him.

"Well, my brethren, poor and unworthy sinners as we are, we shall be capable of doing that which was done by our dear departed friend, if we have the same

faith, the same implicit trust in our Redeemer, the same humility.

"If we feel ourselves to be far behind her, it is not that we have less personal strength than she had; it is the help of God that we want. We are not sufficiently aware of our own weakness and inability; we are not little enough in our own eyes; and, consequently, we do not cast ourselves with sufficient abasement at the foot of the cross.

"But, brethren, shall we, who in this highlyfavoured country have witnessed so many bright tokens of our Saviour's presence, have witnessed them in vain? Shall not we, who have met to deplore the great void left by the death of our dear Louisa, pray the Lord to raise us up new instruments of usefulness, and to pour into our hearts an abundant measure of that spirit which He so graciously vouchsafed to His departed servant? Lord! under a deep sense of our unworthiness, we beseech thee to breathe life into our dead souls; and grant that here and everywhere all hearts and voices may confess that Jesus is the Lord, to His glory and the salvation of us all!"

RUTH CLARKE,

THE history of this excellent woman is so well known, that we should not insert it here, were it not that a collection of "Lives of Good Servants" would be incomplete without it.

Ruth Clarke was born in Yorkshire, in the year 1741. Her father had been well off, but, either through misconduct or misfortune, had been reduced to the condition of a waggoner on his own account, between London and Leeds. Having accidentally damaged some bales of scarlet cloth which he was too poor to make good, he absconded, and was never heard of again. His poor wife, who was daily expecting the birth of her tenth child, had a bad confinement, from which she never recovered; and, after lingering a few years, died, leaving her children entirely dependent on their own exertions.

The eldest girl was already in service; Ruth was the second, and about nine years old when she lost her mother. From that time the good little creature endeavoured to supply a parent's place to her younger brothers and sisters. She already earned something by spinning, and her earnings at the week's end were immediately laid out in corn, which she carried to the mill to be ground, and then brought home the flour, which, at ten years old, she was well able to make into good bread for the use of the family. Her brothers and sisters were often so hungry when she brought home the flour on Saturday, that she would make a large cake for immediate use, which she divided into shares, keeping the smallest for herself.

After a year or two, it was thought desirable for her to enter service. What became of her little brothers and sisters we know not; but she obtained a poor place at a small public-house, as undesirable a beginning for her as could well have been found. She soon had the sense to see this, and left the situation in a few months, to live with a mistress who had known service herself, having been housekeeper in a gentleman's family. Under her teaching, Ruth became an excellent cook. The house she lived in was in a court; and most of the families living in the court had a general wash on one particular day of the week. It was a matter of rivalry among the servants who should get their washing done first, and their tubs cleaned, scoured out, and set at the door. So eagerly did Ruth enter into this competition, that she often lay down on her bed the previous night without undressing, and even then was afraid to sleep, lest she should not wake early enough.

Long afterwards, when she was speaking to the lady with whom she lived of the power the world had over the young heart, and how she had striven in vain to conquer it, her mistress said, "Why, Ruth, what world had you to conquer?"

"Surely, ma'am," replied she, "standing at t'yard end with other servants!" And certainly this was as much the world to her as a ball-room could be to a gay lady. It is not merely the place, but the feelings it nourishes, that constitute the dangers of the world. A poor barefooted girl, who envies a prosperous tradesman's wife sallying forth in her Sunday finery, may be as much endangered by "the pomps and vanities of this wicked world' as the wealthy dame herself; and the wandering eye may tempt the wandering heart to sin in a church as well as in a theatre.

When Ruth was about twenty years of age she became the servant of the Reverend Henry Venn, vicar of Huddersfield. Some of her acquaintance laughed at