Without entering into an abstruse point of divinity, one thing is plain;--namely, that the person who lays open his doubts and distresses in prayer, with feeling and sincerity, must necessarily, in the act of doing so, purify his mind from the dross of worldly passions and interests, and bring it into that state, when the resolutions adopted are likely to be selected rather from a sense of duty, than from any inferior motive.

Jeanie arose from her devotions, with her heart fortified to endure affliction, and encouraged to face difficulties.
"I will meet this unhappy man," she said to herself--"unhappy he must be, since I doubt he has been the cause of poor Effie's misfortune--but I will meet him, be it for good or ill.

My mind shall never cast up to me, that, for fear of what might be said or done to myself, I left that undone that might even yet be the rescue of her." With a mind greatly composed since the adoption of this resolution, she went to attend her father.

The old man, firm in the principles of his youth, did not, in outward appearance at least, permit a thought of hit family distress to interfere with the stoical reserve of his countenance and manners.

He even chid his daughter for having neglected, in the distress of the morning, some trifling domestic duties which fell under her department.
"Why, what meaneth this, Jeanie ?" said the old man--"The brown four-year-auld's milk is not seiled yet, nor the bowies put up on the bink.