may I seek and strive to live for the world to come! What has this earth for me? Once I was blessed as has fallen to the lot of few to be blessed; but now, though I have many blessings to be thankful for, yet in my repinings I regard them not, in the loss of her who was so incomparably my greatest earthly blessing. Forgive me, O my heavenly Father, and may thy love draw me nearer and nearer to thee! May I take increasing delight in thy holy word, in thy precepts, in thy precious promises! May I live for thee, may I learn of thee, and be enabled to train up my darling boy in thy fear! May I, in part, make up for him the loss of his mother! O may I watch over him, to shield him from influences of evil, and may he prove a blessing to me, even to me!" "Saturday, April 25, 1846. At one o'clock this day my son, William Armstrong Baker, was baptized by Rev. J. C. B. in the house of my mother-in-law. I have taken upon me vows to train up my child in the way he should go; he has thus been consecrated to Christ. O may the great Head of the Church enable me to fulfil my duty to this precious immortal one whom he has intrusted to my charge! May I watch over him with Christian vigilance and love, set before him at all times, in my own actions and daily conversation, the example of a follower of Jesus, teach him betimes the precepts of the Bible, and instill into his opening mind principles of virtue! May I be guided aright, sustained and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, so that my instructions may be profitable; and O may my child be one of those who shall realize the precious promise, that 'they that seek me early shall find me!' May we, while on earth, walk together in the paths of holiness, and when our pilgrimage here shall be ended, may we join the hosts of the blessed in heaven, and with my own sainted Margaret sing the praises of the Lamb, and rejoice before his throne for evermore. "Mr. B. prayed before the baptism, and afterward addressed me and prayed. His kindness has not ceased to the living, as it did not to the dead." This dear child, the parting gift left to its bereaved father, was a babe of rare loveliness. It had the beauty of health, yet there was a delicacy of form and feature, and so much of that ideal spirituality on which the imagination embodies infancy in heaven, that it seemed like an angel child. Every one who saw it, even the passing stranger, was attracted by its calm, sweet countenance; but those who had known its sainted mother, and felt for its stricken father, regarded it ever with melancholy interest and peculiarly tender affection. To its father, though it was, as he called it, "a child of sorrow," yet it was also a child of consolation, a promise of happiness left on earth even for him. What portion have I in the low dim earth, Where time wrecks something with its smoothest waves, ""Tis ever thus-'tis ever thus with creatures heavenly fair, Too finely framed to 'bide the brunt mere earthly natures bear; A little while they dwell with us, blest ministers of love, Then spread the wings we had not seen, and seek their home above." His THE breaking down of health and energies, under which Mr. Baker had heretofore suffered from his professional toils, became still more painfully apparent under the crushing weight of sorrow. friends, knowing the benefit he had always received from traveling, urged him to leave home, in the hope that the restoration of physical strength might better enable him to bear his absorbing grief. Though the supporting grace of God was graciously given him, yet his heart was stricken to its inmost depths; the living tide of its warm affections was so suddenly checked that nature gave way, as though ready to sink utterly. When his prostration was merely physical, he knew that the remedial agencies of relaxation from his labors, a change of air and scene, would soon strengthen him; but now he had little faith in their restorative powers. He acceded to the wishes of his friends, and, leaving his child in the care of a faithful nurse, and under the watchful supervision of its devoted relatives, he started on his melancholy tour. During his absence the preparations for his contemplated removal to Friendsbury were completed, and on his return from his summer travel he again became an inmate of the home of his childhood. His own cherished wedded home was broken up; she who had filled it with happiness was gone. For her sake he had retained some of its precious memorials, and it gave him a melancholy pleasure to transfer these to his own room, that he might keep the sense of her presence ever before him. The little pictures she had valued were hung upon the walls; the toilet glass that had mirrored her living form had its place; the couch on which he had seen her a happy mother, looking in fondness on her child, and |