EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.

"A WIDOWED WIFE!" That announcement on the title-page of this little work naturally excites attention and demands explanation. When a person ventures on the task of advising others, in reference to particular duties and situations, we require to know what have been the experiences that authorize the assumption-how far the opportunities of observation have been so extended, or the discipline of life so peculiar, as to render the opinions valuable, and to sanction the selfimposed office of a mentor.

A memoir of the writer of the following pages, by her sister,* informs us that she was a native of Ireland, of respectable Protestant family and education; that she grew up

* "A Tribute of Affection to the Memory of a beloved Sister, contained in a Sketch of the Life of Mrs. B--." Houlston & Stoneman.

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amidst a family of affectionate and intelligent brothers and sisters; and that all the circum-stances of her youth were favourable to the formation of a superior character. She was early remarked for possessing many natural advantages of mind and person, and for having profited by a good education. In opening womanhood, her hand was sought by many suitors; she felt a distinguished preference for one among them, and her choice was happily sanctioned, by the approbation of her family. At the time of her marriage, all was bright and fair in her opening prospects; her husband was a military man of high rank in the service, and he and his family connexions delighted to lavish the utmost affection and attention on the new member added to their relative circle. The esteem and love of every near relative of her husband she appears not only to have won, but to have retained through life; they were (particularly her husband's sisters), as much attached to her as were her own family, by whom she was almost idolized. This speaks highly, indeed, for her amiability and sweetness of temper. Alas! instances are not rare

where the close connexions of a husband view the young wife somewhat as an interloper they must endure, but cannot cordially welcome; or the wife feels jealous of the influence of early affections and kindred ties on the mind of her husband, as if they usurped some portion of the love that ought to be her's. No such misconceptions checked the full tide of friendly sympathy between the subject of our remarks and her new relatives. But though thus eminently successful in winning the esteem and love of all her kindred, the principal object of her own devoted tenderness, he on whom her earthly happiness depended, after a brief period of apparently ardent and assiduous attachment, became indifferent, cold, faithless;-deserted his amiable and accomplished wife; and she, "a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit," returned to her own family, to her widowed mother's roof, to bear, as best she might, the wreck of her happiness, the shattering of the bark in which she had treasured up her earthly hopes and affections.

Fortunately, most fortunately for her, in the midst of this desolation and sorrow, she

was not without consolation. In her years of happiness and joy, religion had been to her something more than a mere name, an empty form. It had been a vital reality— felt-lived!-subordinating her will, sublimating her affections, regulating her actions. And in the hour of sorrow she found, that He in whom she trusted was a 66 very present help in time of trouble." In time she was able to understand the deep experience of the Psalmist, "It was good for me to have been afflicted."

Thus invigorated by a closer walk with God, a more constant contemplation of the man of sorrows, she was enabled to bear her lot, not only with resignation, but serenity. She uttered no reproach against the author of her affliction, repined not at the painful position in which a woman so circumstanced is always placed—a mark for the lynx-eyed detraction and equivocal pity of the surmising and censorious world; nor made any attempt at self-justification. Possessed of considerable talents, and the power of expressing her thoughts and feelings in fluent and graceful verse, she disdained to use those

gifts as many would have done, in either justifying herself, or accusing her husband, or arousing the sympathies of society. It was enough for her to know, that she had wilfully neglected no office of love, no deferential attention, no duty of social life, that could have either prevented her husband's dereliction from rectitude, or won him back again to virtue; she felt acquitted before God, and she did not wish her husband should be condemned by man.

That her heart, though cruelly bruised, was neither chilled nor alienated, is evidenced in her letters to intimate friends, and corroborated by the testimony of her family. Very beautiful, and right womanly, is the following letter to a sister, whose husband was on foreign service:

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"Oh! M-, when you are tempted to repine at your separation from dear W THINK OF ME- -think of the woman forsaken and grieved in spirit,' of her who would give —what would she not give?—for the same hope that you have. He (her husband) was lately dangerously ill; until this circumstance