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There is a perceptible gradation in these Letters and Diaries, showing the growth of the writer in wisdom and in grace; it may be added, also, in favour with God, and man. The fastidious reader, who may only tolerate the compositions of her youth, and think them too prematurely good, to hope for any amendment afterwards, will feel more and more conciliated and charmed with those written during her happy marriage; and still more deeply and devoutly will he find himself enchained in attention by those of her mournful, yet rejoicing widowhood. Her mind appears to have expanded, her heart softened, and her piety purified to the end; the energy and eloquence of her effusions for such are all her reliques here, the overflowings of a soul poured out into the bosom of friendship, or before her God are increased, and appear at the very height in her latest days. But her sun went down suddenly. When she was most fitted for earth, and for doing her Father's will upon it, she was quite matured for heaven; and thither removed by an excruciating illness, wherein, she glorified God by the death which she died, as she had done by the life which she lived.

Towards the close of any book of biography, in which we have been peculiarly interested, there is something of apprehension experienced, as we ap proach the last pages; we know the catastrophé which consummates every work of the kind, because the same is the consummation of every human life. Whose heart has not palpitated? whose hand has not trembled, as if it felt a feebler pulse at turning over leaf after leaf? and whose eye has not keenly,

eagerly, yet afraid and revoltingly, glanced on to the very line in which the last agony is described, as though it saw the dying look of one, who had been

very pleasant in life," and from whom, even in the volume of the book," it was hard to be divided? Yea, and we read, with prophetic anticipation, the record of the last moments of our endeared companion, as one warning more of our own being so much the nearer than when we first became acquainted, though it were but a few days ago. In the instance of early mortality before us, those who have reached the eminence of life, and passed their half century, will naturally look back on a time, when they lived, and moved, and had a being, while she had onone; and still they live, and move, and have their being, when she is no more. She has been born, grown up, and blessedly fulfilled the purpose for which a body and breath were given to her, and is gone into eternity, within the date of our remembered and continued existence. The whole circle of her life has been enclosed in the yet unperfected compass of our own. And where is she? and whither are we going? Death, to survivors, is but the disappearance of one among those on whom we are accustomed to look with indifference or affection, according to our degree of relationship with them. What death is to the departed, those who have not experienced it can no more comprehend, than we ourselves could have anticipated our present state, had wer been pre-existent spirits in another, and threatened, for some breach of duty, with the punishment of being born into a world, where we should be confined in houses of clay, which are

crushed before the moth," and suffer hunger, thirst, pain, anxiety, and "all the ills that flesh is heir to." Both kinds of knowledge will soon be ours. Angels cannot conceive what it is to be man; to know that, in a manner which Deity itself could not otherwise know it, the Son of God became man; and through his humiliation to our estate, we may be made partakers of the divine nature. To this end he was born, and for this cause came he into the world; to the same end, and for the same cause, the lives and deaths of those in whom the glorious object of his incarnation was accomplished, are held in remembrance, that by their examples we may be led to become followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Among these we cannot hesitate to place the amiable and exalted woman, whose name and worth, as illustrated in these pages, will not soon be forgotten.

Mrs. Huntington's Letters and Diaries, which compose the main part, the best part, indeed the only part of the volume which warrants its publication, are principally valuable because they are genuine and true, in the best sense of those terms;→→→ genuine, as written for the sole purpose of conveying her sentiments to others, or preserving memorandums for her own self-improvement, without any sinister reference to the possibility of their being ever laid before the world; and true, because they express the real, present feelings of the author, under various trials, in which heart and mind were equally and se

verely exercised from time to time.

In these ingenuous and unsophisticated productions, there is little either of the warmth or colouring of imagination; no

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brilliancy of ornament; few descriptions of natural scenery; the narratives are brief, except the account of the last hours of her husband; but that indeed,

penned under the inspiration of the subject, displays a power and pathos, rarely exhibited on other occasions. Her English is remarkably pure, for the language of an American-having few national corruptions of phrase, or uncouth words, equally shocking to the eye and the ear; the diction is flowing, and her compositions in general are distinguished by maturity of thought, and correctness of style, without extravagance in the one, or efflorescence in the other.

The blossoms of her mind were like the delicate bloom of wheat, not the pageantry of flowers; they were the promise of precious seed, good for food; not the evanescent attractions of the butterfly and the bee. The Letters and Diaries grow more tenderly, and at length more intensely interesting, as the sorrows and troubles of the writer increase. The sufferer herself, indeed, grows brighter and brighter to the eye of the reader, as she passes through the fires, glorifies God in them, and more deeply receives the impression of the divine image. We must have delineations of human feelings and infirmities, to touch our hearts, in works of this kind; or we should soon be weary of reading meditations, and precepts, however excellent in matter, and unexceptionable in delivery. Were the writer of this introduction to describe Mrs. Huntington's character, as it has been fixed in his mind, by the perusal of this volume, he should prefer her own description of Harriet Newell's, as fixed upon her mind, after reading the memoirs of

that illustrious handmaid of the Lord, who died as a missionary in India, at an earlier age than Mrs. H. herself: Such ounreserved and disinterested devotedness to the cause of Christ, in so young a person, appears very extraordinary in these times of religious indifference and sloth. There was an elevation and spirituality in her character, seldom met with in the present day. No one can help admiring her excellence. Christians will be humbled by its contemplation, and stimulated to greater activity in the service of Christ."

Mrs. Huntington had always a great desire to serve the cause of God, and benefit her fellow-creatures. She did both, in an eminent degree, according to her limited means, and in her narrow circle, during her brief life. In this respect, however, her heart's desire and prayer has been granted, in a manner which she never could have contemplated. She is already one of those invisibles, whose thoughts perished not in the day when their bodies died. Through the medium of her Letters and Diaries, here rescued from oblivion, she may continue to serve the cause of God, and benefit thousands of her contemporaries, if not millions of her successors. ››

Returning to the idea, with which this Essay commenced,—not by the invisible agents alone, whose memory and works are preserved to exercise unceasing influence, in civilized countries, over successive generations, is such influence monopolized. Every individual who has been born into the world, and lived long enough to excite any emotion of love, antipathy, or fear, in the breast of another, has done something towards making the world of the living