ing support. With him is no change; he is unmoved from age to age; his mercy, as well as his being, endures forever; and, if we rely on him, and live in obedience to his laws, all tears shall be wiped from our eyes, and all sorrow banished from our hearts. If we are rebels to his cause, slaves to vice, and followers of evil, we must expect the displeasure of a holy God, the just punishment of our folly and wickedness; for a righteous retribution will be awarded to the evil as well as to the good. Let it be the highest, the holiest, the unceasing concern of each one of us, to live the life, that we may be prepared to die the death, of the righteous; that, when they who come after us shall ask, Where is he? unnumbered voices shall be raised to testify, that, although his mortal remains are moldering in the cold earth, his memory is embalmed in the cherished recollections of many a friend who knew and loved him; and all shall say, with tokens of joy and confident belief, If God be just, and piety be rewarded, his pure spirit is now at rest in the regions of the blessed. THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.-SHElley. Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light Will thy pinions close now? Tell me, moon, thou pale and gray' MAN'S HIGH DESTINY.-TAYLOR. We have spoken of the "perpetual pleasures" that surround the throne of God. But what has man to do with themes so high, and so little in harmony with his actual condition? Look at him in the guise he wears! Does he seem like an aspirant eye to immortality and glory? Is such an one as he indeed on his way to the royal abode of universal dominion ?-Is not his anxiously fixed upon the low path he is treading? is not his brow knit with care, and soiled with degrading labor? is he not in heart ignoble? is he not emaciate? are not his garments worn-his feet lacerated-his provision corrupted? Yes, and has not his spirit bowed to the humiliations of his lot; so that he even consents to the scorn that belongs to it? All this is true, and more might be said; nevertheless, man must not surrender his pretension to the heavens. He has a special reason for his hope-a reason stronger than all contradictions. REPETITION. "I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY."-EPISCOPAL WATCHMAN. I would not live alway: no, no, holy man ; Not a day, not an hour, should lengthen my span; I would not live alway: I ask not to stay I would not live alway: thus fettered by sin, E'en the rapture of pardon is mingled with fears, I would not live alway: no, welcome the tomb; Who, who would live alway? away from his God; Where the rivers of pleasure flow o'er the bright plains, That heavenly music! What is it I hear ? YOU WOULD LOSE YOUR REASON.-MASSILON. Are you placed upon earth only to live in an indolent calm, and to occupy your minds with none but pleasant and cheerful objects? We should lose our reason, you say, if we were to think closely upon death. You would lose your reason! What! Have the many pious people who mingle this thought with all their actions, and who, from reflecting on their last r, learn to restrain their passions, and derive the most pow THE CALM AT SEA.-COLERIDGE. Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'T was sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break erful motive to fidelity,-have the saints who, like the apostle, die daily, that they may not die eternally, have all they lost their reason? You would lose your reason! That is to say, you would regard this world as a state of banishment; pleasures, as intoxicating; sin, as the greatest of evils; places, honors, favor, fortune, as dreams; and salvation, as the great, the only business of life. Happy folly! I wish from this day you might all be of the number of those thus wisely bereft of reason! You would lose your reason!-Yes, that false, worldly, proud, carnal, foolish reason which seduces you; that corrupt reason which obscures faith, which authorizes the indulgence of passion, which makes people prefer time to eternity, a shadow to a substance, and which leads all men astray; that deplorable reason, that vain philosophy, which considers the fear of an hereafter as a weakness, and which, because it fears it too much, pretends or endeavors not to believe it. All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody sun, at noon, Day after day, day after day, Water, water, every where, The very deep did rot: O Christ! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs About, about, in reel and rout And every tongue, through utter drought We could not speak, no more than if There passed a weary time. Each throat At first it seemed a little speck, It moved and moved, and took at last A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, THE SONG OF DEBORAH. Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake; utter a song: arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of AbiThen he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the people: the Lord made me have domin noam. |