New Hampshire Statesman

Moral and Religious
From the American Messenger.

A TALE OF LONG AGO.

A strange old city is Chester, England, where
Matthew Henry and Richard Knill lived and labored. No one can tell how long it is since it was
founded first; for the Romans, when they built a
fortress and town upon this spot, built them on the
ruins of a British town which had been there for
ages.

Of course by this time most of the very ancient
places were gone, but many of the houses are two
or three hundred years old, and make the whole
city look venerable.

In one of those, while the house was yet almost
new, there lived a good man and his family. It
was a time of trouble in the city, for the plague
was there, and hundreds were dying every day.
The shops were all shut, and the grass was grow-
ing in the forsaken streets. All that could stayed
in doors, and those who were forced to go out held
a scented handkerchief to their mouth and nose,
and fled when they saw any one coming, lest they
should catch from them the terrible plague.

In the midst of this solemn stillness our godly
family lived on in their old-fashioned house. When
evening prayer was over, and the little ones went
to rest, perhaps they lay awake and trembled to
hear the heavy rumble of the death-carts in the
street below, and the awful cry, " Bring out your
dead;" but in the morning none were missing
round the family table. Little brothers, sweet
baby-sister, fond mother, dear and honored father,
faithful servants, all were there to join in the song
of praise.

Day after day it was the same, until the worst
was over, and the more venturesome tradesmen
began to take down their shutters, and the coun-
try people brought their wares into the grass-
grown market place, and the church bells ceased
their constant tolling, and the children returned
to school, and to their merry street games, and the
plague was almost forgotten. Yet it had been a
fearful time. Every family was in mourning.
But from the favored dwelling of our pious citi-
zen what sweet thanksgiving arose to heaven.
While they wept for others' sorrow, they thanked
God for his care over themselves. And now, had
you passed his house one morning, you would have
seen a long ladder reared against its front, and
him upon it going up. What is he going to do ?
There he stands, carving with his busy chisel upon
the huge crossbeam. That finished, he has the
letters painted white upon the black ground of the
beam. There you can read them yourself: " God's
Providence Is Mine Inheritance."

" What does it mean?" It means that as a
Christian, God's loving, watchful, providing care
is his portion; that be has just had a proof of it.
and that he is thankful for it, rejoices in it, and
trusts it for the future. " Why did he write it
there ?" As a memorial of God's love to him, and
a testimony of his gratitude to God.

" Who is he?" Ah, that I do not know. If he
had wished his name to be remembered, he might
have carved it also upon the beam. But it was not
himself, it was the Lord whom this good man de-
lited to honor, and so his name has perished from
the earth, though it is written where no time can
fade the letters, and no pen can blot it out.

The old beam, with its blessed record, is there
still, doing work for God. Anxious eyes, seeing
it, have been raised with renewed confidence to
heaven: burdened spirits have thanked God, and
taken courage; and grateful, loving hearts have
echoed its "hallelujah."

By it be who has been dead for 200 years yet
speaketh. It does not matter much, does it, that
his name is forgotten ? Let us try to live and act
now, so that wbat we do may live after us, glorify-
ing God when we are gone; and may your name
and mine, when they are faded from every earthly
memory, be found written, side by side, with that
of this boly man of old " in the Lamb's book of life.'