voice still sounded in his ear, a trumpet-call, and he could not disobey. In solemn loneliness, the final consecration was at last made; and, in a few months more, young Boardman was an accepted missionary.

But the voice from the grave of Colman had reached a yet gentler spirit—a spirit as enthusiastic, as devoted, as noble as his own; but one which, in its meekness and feminine delicacy, could reply only by sorrowful harpings. Thus sung young Sarah Hall; and though by no means in her most poetical vein, there is a genuine heart-throb in every line.

"'Tis the voice of deep sorrow from India's shore,

The flower of our churches is withered, is dead, The gem that shone brightly will sparkle no more, And the tears of the Christian profusely are shed. Two youths of Columbia, with hearts glowing

warm,

Embarked on the billows far distant to rove, To bear to the nations all wrapped in thick gloom, The lamp of the gospel-the message of love. But Wheelock now slumbers beneath the cold

wave,

And Colman lies low in the dark, cheerless grave;

Mourn, daughters of Arracan, mourn!
The rays of that star, clear and bright,
That so sweetly on Chittagong shone,
Are shrouded in black clouds of night,
For Colman is gone!

At that sorrowful hour, that moment of woe,

When his cheek, lately glowing with health, was all pale;

And his lone wife, disconsolate, feeble and low,
Was sad, and no Christian replied to her wail;
Did not angels in sympathy shed the soft tear,
As they gazed from their thrones far beyond the
blue sky?

Oh no; for the seraph of mercy was near,

To bid him rejoice, wipe the tear from her eye. They saw, and with rapture continued their lays, Ho great is Jehovah! how deep are his ways! The spirit of love from on high,

The hearts of the righteous hath fired;
Lo! they come, and with transport they cry,
We will go where our brother expired,
And labour and die.

Oh, Colman! thy father weeps not on thy grave; Thy heart-riven mother ne'er sighs o'er thy dust; But the long Indian grass there most sweetly shall

wave,

And the drops of the evening descend on the

just;

Cold, silent, and dark is the narrow abode,

But not long wilt thou sleep in that dwelling of gloom,

For soon shall be heard the great trump of our God,

To summon all nations to hear their last doom;

A garland of amaranth then shall be thine,
And thy name on the martyrs' bright register shine;
Oh, what glory will burst on thy view,

When are placed by the Judge of the earth
The flowers that in India grew

By thy care, on the never-pale wreath
Encircling thy brow!

The elegy found its way to the public eye, and to the eye and heart of the student. Whence came it? where could the chord be hidden, whose strings gave so true an echo to that vibrating in his own bosom? Boardman was no poet, and he did not pause to weigh words, or carp at sentiments because of some plainness in their setting; but by the light of his own soul, he read the high enthusiasm of another. At last they met, in the words of the only witness to that first meeting, "their spirits, their hopes, their aspirations, were one." And then, again, yet fonder, tenderer, though not stronger ties were broken, and beautiful was the living sacrifice laid on the altar.

Thrice difficult, at that day of few precedents, must have been such a self-consecration to a woman. Madness, the world calls it even now; and if treasure, if gold and diamonds, if earthly honors, if the fame which endures to the end of time, were the object,

such madness would be too deep for measurement. Who for any of these-what delicate, timid woman, would turn from the land of her birth to voluntary exile? Who, for these, could cast upon the roof which has sheltered her, the hearth-stone which has been wet with her tears, the walls which have rang with her childish laughter, the habitation which the smiles of the holiest earthly love have made precious by their sunlight-who could cast upon all these the abiding shadow which must needs darken all the places once blessed by her beloved presence? Who could look upon the mother who bore her, and whose arms are even then closed about her with that peculiar tenderness which has its birth only in the mother's bosom; upon the father, whose eye once lighted with pride at the sight of his darling, but is now dim with the blinding tears; the sister, the brother, who were the playmates of her childhood, and bosom friends of her youth-who could look into all these dear, fond, tearful faces, and then turn away her eyes and never look again? Who could cast away all the refinements of civilization, relinquish the sweet pleasures of social life, the beautiful associations, which cluster, like the spring-violets by her brook sides, around

every fair New-England town-who could leave all these for a wilderness, where the glance of appreciation, the smile of sympathy, are never seen, where the refined affectionate circle never gathers, and the Sabbath bell never sounds? For earthly treasure, none! none! But the Christian, she who knows that, in obedience to her Father's voice, she can never go beyond his smile-what has she to fear? What is the duty for which her spirit cannot be strengthened? Yet, none the less to her, is there anguish in such partings; and who can guess the additional heart-ache caused by one unkind or unwilling word. The first of these we are not told that Sarah was called to bear, farther than always falls upon those who turn aside from the common beaten track; but who, without more than Abraham's faith, could part willingly with such a child? and such faith was reserved to the last painful moment; for we have been told that poor Sarah received no encouragement from those she most loved, through all the indescribable, unimaginable struggles, anticipatory of the final self-sacrifice.

Mrs. Allen, in her beautiful obituary notice, contained in the Mother's Journal of December, 1845, says :