spot. Habits grow with our growth. The thorn that germinated yesterday, and deceives with a specious beauty to-day, will wound full many a hand to-morrow. And the rose-tree planted in early youth, soon puts forth a score of branches opulent in bloom and fragrance. Without a figure, my youthful readers may now gem every feature of the character with adornings, which shall only appear more lovely when youth has faded, and time is furrowing the cheek and brow. I have time for but another thought—and that thought runs through all my solicitude for the young. Religion— must I not point you to Religion? Nay, do not think it gloomy and repulsive. It is fresh with the dews of everenduring youth; it wears an angel's smile, and sings with an angel's voice. It bids you be happy. It entreats you to exchange the gross and puerile for the chaste and ennobling. I know of nothing, save this, which certainly achieves the incipiency and maturement of those habitudes which at once make home happy and heaven secure. A 66 Shame to those who are ashamed of a scheme so measureless and magnificent; honor to those who honor it. Religion is the charm of childhood, the fascination of youth, the strength of maturity, the glory of age, and the sweetness of the soul's eternal banquet. She shall give to thy head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee." And those who, under her ennobling sway, form well their home-habits, shall find all the endeared relations of a life of discipline sweetly preparatory to the felicities and fellowships of a life of radiant promise. NIGHT. ITS RELATIONS TO SCENERY, THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT, AND POETRY. BY ABEL STEVENS. "O Night And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman!" THE night comprises one half of our time. Does Nature thus indicate that half of our existence ought to be spent in the oblivion of sleep? Does she spread darkness over us, merely to compel us from the drudgery of our work-shops and marts, that we may gain in slumber energy to renew again the daily toil? On the contrary, the instinct for sleep which she herself has implanted, does not admit of so large a waste of our lives. But little more than half of our nightly hours is necessary for its demand. What, then, does she indicate by this long and ever recurring interval of darkness? She would remind us that the chief end of life is not toil and gain; that toil and gain are but the means of sustaining life for its nobler ends. She would lure us by her tranquil night-spell from the sordid drudgery of Mammon, to the converse of our hearths, to meditative tranquillity, to the counsels of good books, to quiet devotions, or to the contemplation of her most impressive scenery; there is appointed us a period of devout rest, not only every seventh day, but at the close of every day-hours in which she would remind us of herself and of her God. This indication is made clear and impressive by the display of solemn splendors with which she arrays the night. Under its incantation the invisible worlds are disclosed, the landscape is dimly veiled as with mystic shadow, or the moonlight gilds the clouds, the streams, and the mountain crags. Why is the scenery of our own sphere thus beautified below, why the heavens above crowned with resplendent lights, if the night is not designed as the high and solemn time of man's best thoughts the time of his inspiration and consecration? Why this infinite disclosure of the Universe, if it is not that man may be reminded of his relations to it, and commensurately expand his thoughts and hopes The very obscurity which darkness spreads over the slighter scenes around us, adds to the impressiveness of the grander features of nature. Daylight is necessary to appreciate the beauty of individual objects—the shrub, or tree -but the great forest appears most imposing in the subdued light of the night. The flower-garden needs the day, but the firmament, the mountains, the far-extending plains, receive new grandeur from the night. Whatsoever is sublime in nature is enhanced by the night. Nor is it deficient in beauty. Though minuter beauties fade from the sight under its shadows, they only give way to beauty more extended, more tranquil, and more elevating. The moon-lit lake; the river, gliding now in shadow, now in the mild brightness; the half-illumined landscape; the forest glades, with their shadowy aisles and colonnades, and cathedral solemnity; the stars, "beautiful as the eyes of cherubim;" the Queen of the night herself, with her bland radiance and placid majesty — these have a beauty which no day scenes can rival. Night is not only rich in the beauty and sublimity of its picturesque relations, but also in their variety. Its successive periods present a series of striking dioramic scenes. First comes the twilight, with its poetic associations and tranquillizing effect. The shadows subtended from the mountains, are prolonged and deepened, filling the ravines and vales with the growing darkness, while the declining light still lingers in tints upon the clouds of the horizon, as in the dim golden suffusion of the zenith. The heated atmosphere is refreshed by a cooler temperature; animated nature ceases its toiling activity, and its din is hushed into the murmur of the insects and the evening notes of here and there a solitary bird. The lowing herds wend their way over the landscape to their night shelter, and the husbandman, fatigued with labors, seeks repose at his cottage door. The evening star emerges from the deepening gloom of the heavens, and then planet after planet, |