poet has no piety, and he is about to task his powers of mind to the utmost, what is his field? He may read and study and converse with men-travel and examine cities and battle-fields-gather the costumes and the customs of all nations and ages and languages; he may lay before him the map of time, and at a glance read all the past. He may then look for imagery, and the world is full of it. Not a plant grows by the hedge, but it is full of life; not a flower opens in his garden, but it is pencilled with the most exquisite skill. He goes to the desert and to the mountain-side, and a hand has already been there to plant and paint the flower which smiles at his approach; he looks into the dark, deep lake of the forest, and nimble swimmers, all mottled with gold and purple and carmine, are there to excite his wonder and admiration; he looks into the deeper chambers of the ocean, and there the coral and the shell, inimitably beautiful and in unmeasured profusion, astonish his inquiring mind; or, he looks abroad on the surface of the earth, and * the mountains heave up their huge rocks like the skeletons of worlds not yet made; or the ocean lifts its awful voice and shuts out

the limits between what is finite and what is infinite; or the storm comes through the forest like a destroying spirit, and sports with what seems immoveable, and the hoarse voice of the thunder and the bright flash of its fire, are all his, and he may press them all into the service of his song, and make them all sit at his feet and tune their harps at his bidding.

But these are all finite in space, in time, in measure, and, at the very point where the sublime begins, the materials are exhausted and the poet must stop. The soul can never be satisfied with what is finite. Now, at the spot at which the poet who rejects the Bible stops, because the poor elements which he handles pall upon him like the toys which children have turned over until they loathe them, the Christian poet starts. He can use all these; but all these materials, the hills, the mountains, the ocean, the planets, and the heavens, all that the eye sees, are only images of what is yet to be seen— the mere scaffolding of the building, which is yet to be reared. What poem could Milton have produced, had he been confined to all that God has revealed through his works, provided he must shut out the Bible?

As to materials, then, the Christian poet stands on ground as much superior to the poet of this world as spirit is superior to matter, as the infinite is greater than the finite, and as eternity is greater than time.

Then, as to fame. The gospel carries light in its path. It will not long have disciples who cannot read and reflect; who are not intelligent, virtuous, and rising in the scale of knowledge. There will be more intelligent readers among Christians, ten fold at least, than among those who reject the Bible. The number of readers and admirers of thinking minds, which will attend to the song of the Christian poet, is altogether in his favor. And what is more, love is the genius of the gospel. While others admire and gaze as they would upon an iceberg, the Christian takes his poet to his heart and gives him his heart and love. Who would not prefer to have the warm hearts that have been given to the pages of the sweet Cowper, than to have all the ditty-music and all the bacchanalian admiration that has been bestowed upon all the amatory songs that have ever been written? Who would not prefer the warm-hearted admiration which is so cheerfully given to

Milton, than all the praises which have been ever meted out to old Homer-father of song? It is one thing to walk around a temple and gaze and admire its cold marble, and another to view it with a beating heart, because it contains the shrine at which the heart worships. The irreligious poet may, at immense expense, erect his splendid mausoleum, but it contains only the bones of dead men; the Christian poet shall be at the same expense, and living angels shall walk there, and Hope, in the mantle of undecaying youth, shall be there to receive the offering made to the God of hope.

How short is the life of almost every book, and how little does it effect!

"Thou wonderest how the world contained them

all!

Thy wonder stay: like men, this was their doom:

That dust they were, and should to dust re

turn.

And oft their fathers, childless and bereaved, Wept o'er their graves, when they themselves

were green;

And on them fell, as fell on every age,

As on their authors fell, oblivious Night,—
Which o'er the past lay darkling, heavy, still,
Impenetrable, motionless and sad,

Having his dismal, leaden plumage stirred
By no remembrancer, to show the men
Who after came, what was concealed beneath."

As to the good done, and the rewards of that good, it were vain to attempt any comparison between the Christian and the mere poet of time. All honors drop at the grave, and the voice of fame and applause falls dead as it strikes the tomb. Then, at the very spot at which the creature of time has emptied his cup and received his reward, the rivers of pleasure begin everlastingly to flow for the servant of Christ. What worms of earth can bestow shall be the reward of the one, while the eternal smile of the infinite God shall be the reward of him who gives his powers to Christ.

We cannot close these remarks upon the gifted young poet, without distinctly holding him up as an example of encouragement to youth in humble life. He was the son of a * poor butcher, as were also Dr. Moore, archbishop of Canterbury of the present day, and Cardinal Woolsey of former days; but this was a barrier that could be easily surmounted. The most favored and honored of men, and the choicest instruments raised