about her apartment, just distinguishable from the gray shadows? The lamp was soon relighted, and startling was the scene which it revealed. There lay, in odd confusion, trunks, boxes, and chests of drawers, all rifled of their contents; and strewed carelessly about the floor, were such articles as the marauders had not considered worth their taking. While regarding in consternation, not appreciable by those who have access to the shops of an American city, this spoiling of their goods, Mrs. Boardman chanced to raise her eye to the curtain, beneath which her husband had slept, and she thought of the lost goods no more. Two long gashes, one at the head and the other at the foot, had been cut in the muslin; and there had the desperate villains stood, glaring on the unconscious sleeper with their fierce, murderous eyes, while the booty was secured by their companions. The bared, swarthy arm was ready for the blow, and the sharp knife or pointed spear glittered in their hands. Had the sleeper opened his eyes, had he only stirred, had but a heavy, long-drawn breath startled the cowardice of guilt-ah, had it! But it did not. The rounded limbs of the little infant lay motionless as their marble counterfeit; for if the rosy

lips had moved but to the slightest murmur, or the tiny hand crept closer to the loved bosom in her baby dreams, the chord in the mother's breast must have answered, and the deathstroke followed. But the mother held her treasure to her heart and slept on. Murderers stood by the bedside, regarding with callous hearts, the beautiful tableau; and the husband and father slept. But there was one Eye open-the Eye that never slumbers; a protecting wing was over them, and a soft, invisible hand pressed down their sleeping lids.

Nearly every article of value, that could be taken away, had disappeared from the house; and though strict search was made throughout the neighborhood, no trace of them was ever discovered. After this incident, Sir Archibald Campbell furnished the house with a guard of Sepoys during the night; and as the rapid increase of the population soon gave it a central position in the town, the danger of such attacks was very much lessened.

In a simple, child-like letter to a little sister, dated December of the same year, Mrs. Boardman writes: "I have a Sabbath-School of little Burman girls, who are learning their catechism and their prayers. We have no hymns in the Burmese, or I should teach them hymns also.

We have, beside this, a school during the week," (Mrs. Wade's school, mostly from Amherst,) "in which the tawny little girls learn to read and sew. They are also learning the multiplication table; and they are just beginning the first part of the same arithmetic which you study, translated into the language. These poor little girls would have nobody to tell them of God and of Christ, of heaven and of hell, if there were no missionaries here. Are you not glad that your sister Sarah has come to tell them of these important things?"

In January she announces, with earnest warmth of language, the first baptism she had looked upon in Burmah-two native converts, by the senior missionary; she adds, "there is also one more person, a Karen, who will probably soon be baptized. He is a poor man, and has been for some time past in the employ of Doct. Judson." Probably she did not know that this poor man had formerly been one of the most desperate of his race, a robber and a murderer; and, certainly, she could not foresee to what honour God had reserved him. This singular man, whose first ideas of the Christian religion were gleaned from a tract presented him at Rangoon, was the famous Ko Thah-Byoo; whose rough and undis

ciplined genius, energy and zeal, have won for him an enviable reputation, as one of the boldest pioneers in the Karen mission. He was, soon after this mention in the letter, examined and approved by the Maulmain church; and was baptized by Mr. Boardman on his first arrival at Tavoy.

Perhaps something ought to be said of the general character of Mrs. Boardman's letters, if for no other reason, as an excuse for less copious extracts than we could wish, and for these being usually in fragments. She says but little in them of herself-her doings and feelings; but she seems full of interest in those she addressed, sympathizing in their minutest concerns, with that unselfish kindness which is sweet to the recipient, though to a stranger uninteresting. They must have been delicious indeed to those she loved; but, like some of the most important passages in every human life, they are not fitted for the public eye.

I have unfolded a letter, since finishing the above sentence, in which every member of her father's large family is thanked by name for having written her; and each allusion is accompanied by some affectionate comment, or word of praise or encouragement, suited to the age of her young correspondent. At last she

says, "You must let the dear little twins and my sweet sister, whom I have not seen, make each a mark upon a paper, that I may have some token from their little hands." There is something exceedingly touching in the affectionate simplicity of this request, which will not fail to find its way to many a heart.

It has been said of Mrs. Boardman, (though referring to a much later period of her life,) that she excelled in the maternal relation. With her letter before me, and the various anecdotes gathered from different sources, fresh in memory, I cannot but conclude that she excelled in all domestic relations. The tender devotedness of the daughter, the affectionate, sympathetic faithfulness of the sister, (to say nothing of a tie yet stronger and holier,) were only different developments of the same character, which was perfected in the mother. The following fragment, showing how her thoughts still turned homeward, though she says that the "wide world would not induce her to return," is from a letter written to her parents on the third anniversary of their parting day. We give but a few of the opening lines.

"I see the dear parental dwelling-place,

Where love and happiness were constant guests;