MRS. STEWART,

WIFE OF THE REV. C. S. STEWART, A.M., CHAPLAIN IN THE UNITED STATES NAVY,

AND LATE AMERICAN MISSIONARY IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.

"Hath not thy voice been here amongst us heard?
And that deep soul of gentleness and power,
Have we not felt its breath in every word,

Wont from thy lips as Hermon's dew to shower?
Yes, in our hearts thy fervent thoughts have burned?
Of heaven they were, and thither have returned !"

HARRIET BRADFORD STEWART was born near Stamford, Connecticut, in the United States of America, on the 24th of June, 1798. She was the youngest daughter of Colonel Tiffany, a distinguished officer in the war by which the independence of America was secured. Her mother was a daughter of the Hon. W. Bradford Whiting, of Colombia county, New York. Her ancestry embraced many of the most pious and illustrious of the early pilgrims, among whom may be mentioned the Rev. S. Whiting, a learned nonconformist clergyman of Oxford; the Rev. John Laythrope, of London, who, with his church, was driven to the wilds of America by the persecutions of Laud; and the Hon. W. Bradford, one of the most distinguished pilgrims from Leyden, through whom she traced her ancestry to the Rev. John Bradford, chaplain to Edward VI., who perished at the stake in Smithfield, in 1555.

The childhood and youth of Mrs. Stewart were passed under the guardianship of an amiable and pious maternal aunt; but though herself distinguished by great sweetness and gentleness of natural disposition, and carefully instructed in the principles and duties of the Bible, she does not appear to have experienced the decisive influence of religion in her own heart till she had attained her twenty-first year, when, during her recovery from

an alarming illness, she was enabled, through the aboundings of Divine mercy, to believe with the heart unto righteousness, and was filled with consolation and joy. Her mind was first led to contemplate the missionary enterprise as her future walk of usefulness, when reading, shortly after the period of her conversion, Melville Horne's " Letters on Missions." In June, 1822, she became the wife of the Rev. Charles Samuel Stewart, and in the month of November following, embarked, with him and other missionaries, for the Sandwich Islands. After a passage unusually pleasant and favourable, they reached the Sandwich Islands in the month of April, 1823. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Stewart accompanied her husband from Oahu to Maui, where she sustained with cheerfulness the trials, and engaged with activity and devotedness in the arduous duties, inseparable from the commencement of a mission among uncivilized tribes.

Mrs. Stewart was not long favoured to occupy the post in which she had found much enjoyment, and had been the means of most important benefit, especially to many of her own sex. In the summer of 1825, her health was so impaired, as to excite the most painful apprehensions, and no prospect of life remained but by returning to her native land. For several months, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart waited in great anxiety for a vessel bound to America, and during this period the family received the most polite and kind attentions from Lord Byron, then at the islands in H. M. S. Blonde. At length an English ship, homeward bound, put into Oahu for refreshments-the captain generously offered them a passage to England—and, in October, 1825, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, with two dear children, left the islands, followed by the tender sympathy and ardent affection, not only of their fellow-labourers in the mission, but of many of the chiefs and people, by whom the memory of Mrs. Stewart is still held in grateful remembrance. They reached this country in April, 1826,

and, after spending some months in London, Mrs. Stewart's strength was so far restored as to allow her to proceed to America, where she had the satisfaction of once more meeting many endeared friends, with whom (occasionally cheered by hopes of restoration to health) she enjoyed delightful Christian intercourse, until her sufferings were terminated by death, which took place in the month of September, 1830. Her end was peace, her record is on high; and she has entered upon her reward and her rest.

THE MISSIONARY'S WIFE.

How many a woman, young and pale,
Hath sat to watch while fickle day
Spread in the west his crimson sail,
Impatient of delay;

And listened with an aching ear

For tread of foot or cry of hound,

Till weary hope, with sigh and tear
Expiring looked around,

O'er darkened vale, and wood, and plain,

For one who came not back again.

And weary is that woman's lot,
If in a fertile land she dwell,
Where war and famine riot not,
Nor even sickness fell:

But if, in hovel cold and rude,

On rugged rock, or windy moor,
Ye find her in her solitude,

At eve, beside her door,
Sad thoughts her only company-
O dismal, then, her fate must be !

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Oh! dismal, in the bitter north!
Where, over wastes of trackless snow,
Coy summer rarely peepeth forth,

And flowers forget to blow.

Where, with a wan and spectral light,
Short time the sun his journey takes,
And winter falls with heavy night

On frozen seas and lakes,

And, through their icy caverns drear,
The deep wind murmurs sounds of fear.

A lone one watches in her hut,

By dark desponding thoughts possessed, And fancies strong-nor force can shut Their phantoms from her breast: Her own sweet Germany she sees, Its laughing fields, its cities grey, Its hamlet-churches bowered in trees, Where first she learned to pray,

And spirits are whispering in her ear,

What, dreamer, wouldst thou perish here ?

"Thy pious father lies asleep,

Among his children, all but thee,-
Thy mother hath not ceased to weep
Her daughter's face to see,-

And thou must leave thy sheltered home,
To die, ere youth's best years be told,
In this dark land of cheerless gloom,
Of hunger, and of cold;
Return-forsake its wilds austere !

Thy place, fair woman, is not here."