THE SNOW DROP 19 



the death-bed of her husband. Consumption, 

 lingering but confirmed, had shown itself before I 

 saw her ; grief had bowed her once elegant fig- 

 tire, and I cannot look at a snow-drop without re- 

 cognizing her very aspect,— every lock of her hair 

 concealed beneath the widow's cap, which scarce- 

 ly surpassed in deadly whiteness the countenance 

 that drooped beneath it. 



But let me render thanks to God, that, speedily 

 as the outward form decayed, the growth of spirit- 

 ual life within was far more rapid. She had 

 found mercy, and I never beheld such intense 

 application of every faculty to the one work of 

 searching the scriptures ; such fervent importuni 

 ty for divine teaching ; such watchful discrimina- 

 tion in securing the wheat and rejecting the chaff 

 while listening- to the various instructors who 

 proffered their aid to this interesting inquirer. In 

 trembling humility and self-distrust, she no less 

 resembled the snow-drop, which looks as though 

 the lightest zephyr would rend it from its stem : 

 but, strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, 

 rooted and grounded in faith, she still, like the 

 snow-drop, maintained her assigned place,unmoved 

 by storms that carried devastation to loftier plants 

 around. Popery, infidelity, antmomianism, were 

 casting down many wounded in her path ; but God 

 had indeed revealed to her the pure doctrines of gospe 

 truth, and beautifully did her growing conformity 



