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Mr. Stanton rose, and adapting part of his sermon paper to the handle of the teakettle, poured the boiling water on some herb drink for his wife, and then recommenced.

“I sha’n’t have much of a sermon!” he soliloquized, as his youngest but one, with the ingenuity common to children of her standing, had contrived to tip herself over in her chair, and cut her under lip, which for the time being threw the whole settlement into commotion; and this conviction was strengthened by finding that it was now time to give the children their dinner.

“I fear Mrs. Stanton is imprudent in exerting herself,” said the medical man to the husband, as he examined her symptoms.

“I know she is,” replied her husband, “but I cannot keep her from it.”

“It is absolutely indispensable that she should rest and keep her mind easy,” said the doctor.

“Rest and keep easy”–how easily the words are said! yet how they fall on the ear of a mother, who knows that her whole flock have not yet a garment prepared for winter, that hiring assistance is out of the question, and that the work must all be done by herself–who sees that while she is sick her husband is perplexed, and kept from his appropriate duties, and her children, despite his well-meant efforts, suffering for the want of those attentions that only a mother can give. Will not any mother, so tried, rise from her sick bed before she feels able, to be again prostrated by over-exertion, until the vigor of the constitution year by year declines, and she sinks into an early grave? Yet this is the true history of many a wife and mother, who, in consenting to share the privations of a western minister, has as truly sacrificed her life as did ever martyr on heathen shores. The graves of Harriet Newell and Mrs. Judson are hallowed as the shrines of saints, and their memory made as a watchword among Christians; yet the western valley is full of green and nameless graves, where patient, long-enduring wives and mothers have lain down, worn out by the privations of as severe a missionary field, and “no man knoweth the place of their sepulchre.”

The crisp air of a November evening was enlivened by the fire that blazed merrily in the bar room of the tavern in L., while a more than usual number crowded about the hearth, owing to the session of the county court in that place.

“Mr. Lennox is a pretty smart lawyer,” began an old gentleman, who sat in one of the corners, in the half interrogative tone which indicated a wish to start conversation.

“Yes, sir, no mistake about that,” was the reply; “does the largest business in the state–very smart man, sir, and honest–a church member too, and one of the tallest kinds of Christians they say–gives more money for building meeting houses, and all sorts of religious concerns, than any man around.”

“Well, he can afford it,” said a man with a thin, care-taking visage, and a nervous, anxious twitch of the hand, as if it were his constant effort to hold on to something–“he can afford it, for he makes money hand over hand. It is not every body can afford to do as he does.”

A sly look of intelligence pervaded the company; for the speaker, one of the most substantial householders in the settlement, was always taken with distressing symptoms of poverty and destitution when any allusion to public or religious charity was made.

“Mr. C. is thinking about parish matters,” said a wicked wag of the company; “you see, sir, our minister urged pretty hard last Sunday to have his salary paid up. He has had sickness in his family, and nothing on hand for winter expenses.”

“I don’t think Mr. Stanton is judicious in making such public statements,” said the former speaker, nervously; “he ought to consult his friends privately, and not bring temporalities into the pulpit.”