And, oh! if tears of woe can nourish
The flowers of memory in the breast;
Then these in mine will surely flourish-
And each succeeding hour invest

Their stems with charms unknown before,
Till we three meet, to part no more!

ALARIC A. WATTS.

TO MY MOTHER'S MEMORY.

My Mother! weary years have pass'd, since last
I met thy gentle smile; and sadly then
It fell upon my young and joyous heart.
There was a mortal paleness on thy cheek,
And well I knew, they bore thee far away
With a vain hope to mend the broken springs-
The springs of life. And bitter tears I shed
In childhood's short-lived agony of grief,
When soothing voices said that thou wert gone,
And that I must not weep, for thou wert blest.
Full many a flower has bloom'd upon thy grave,
And many a winter's snow has melted there;
Childhood has pass'd, and youth is passing now,
And scatters paler roses on my path;

Dim and more dim my fancy paints thy form,
Thy mild blue eye, thy cheek so thin and fair,
Touch'd, when I saw thee last, with hectic flush,
Telling, in solemn beauty, of the grave.
Mine ear hath lost the accents of thy voice,
And faintly o'er my memory comes at times
A glimpse of joys that had their source in thee,
Like one brief strain of some forgotten song.
And then at times a blessed dream comes down,
Mission'd, perhaps, by thee from brighter realms ;

And wearing all the semblance of thy form,
Gives to my heart the joy of days gone by.
With gushing tears I wake; O, art thou not
Unseen and bodiless around my path,
Watching with brooding love about thy child?
Is it not so, my mother? I will not

Think it a fancy, wild, and vain, and false,
That spirits good and pure as thine, descend
Like guardian angels round the few they loved,
Oft intercepting coming woes, and still
Joying on every beam that gilds our paths;
And waving snowy pinions o'er our heads
When midnight slumbers close our aching eyes.
ANONYMOUS.

ON THE LOSS OF A FATHER.

LITTLE did I think that a letter from you would afflict my soul; but yours received this morning has indeed done it. Seeing your hand and a black seal, my mind foreboded what had happened; I made an attempt to read it to my daughters, but I could not; I got no further than the first sentence, burst into a flood of tears, and was obliged to retreat into the solitude of my study, unfit for any thing, but to think on what had happened; then to fall on my knees, and pray that God would evermore pour down his choicest blessings on the children of my departed friend; and, as their "father and their mother had forsaken them," that he would "take them up," and support them in time and eternity. Even so, Amen.

You ask comfort of me; but your truly excellent etter has suggested comfort to me, from all the proper topics; and I can only reflect it back to you

again. All things considered, the circumstance which first marked the disorder may be termed a gracious dispensation. It at once rendered the event, one may say, desirable, which otherwise car. ried so much terror and sorrow in the face of it. Nothing else in the world could so soon and so effectually have blunted the edge of the approaching calamity, and reconciled to it minds full of the tenderest love and affection.

To complete the only consolation that remained, which we all know to be the fact, your dear father stood always so prepared, so firm in his faith, so constant in his Christian practice in every duty, that he could not be taken by surprise, or off his guard. The stroke must have been to himself a blessing, whenever or however it came. His death was his birth-day; and, like the primitive Christians, we should keep it as such, as a day of joy and triumph.

Bury his body, but embalm his example, and let it diffuse its fragrance among you from generation to generation. Call him blessed; and endeavour to be like him; like him, in piety, in charity, in friendship, in courteousness, in temper, in conduct, in word, and in deed. His virtues compose a little volume, which your brother should carry in his bosom; and if that be well studied, it will make him the gentleman and the Christian.

FUNERAL HYMN.

BISHOP HORNE.

BROTHER, thou art gone before us,

And thy saintly soul is flown
Where tears are wiped from every eye,
And sorrow is unknown.

From the burthen of the flesh,

And from care and fear released, Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest.

The toilsome way thou 'st travell❜d o'er,
And borne the heavy load,

But Christ hath taught thy languid feet
To reach his blest abode;
Thou 'rt sleeping now, like Lazarus
Upon his father's breast,

Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.

Sin can never taint thee now,
Nor doubt thy faith assail,

Nor thy meek trust in Jesus Christ
And the Holy Spirit fail:

And there thou 'rt sure to meet the good,
Whom on earth thou lovedst best,
Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.

"Earth to earth," and "dust to dust,"
The solemn priest hath said,
So we lay the turf above thee now,
And we seal thy narrow bed:
But thy spirit, brother, soars away

Among the faithful blest,

Where the wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest.

MILMAN.

ON THE DEATH OF AN ONLY SON.

I SINCERELY Sympathize with you, says Dr. Erskine, in a letter to a friend, on your heavy and unexpected trial. I have drunk deep of the same cup; of nine sons, only one survives. From what I repeatedly felt, I can form an idea what you must feel in so promising an only son taken from you. I cannot, I dare not say, weep not. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus, and surely, he allows you to weep; surely, there is a "needs be" that you feel a heaviness under such a trial. But O, let hope and joy mitigate your heaviness. I know not, how this, or a former trial, shall work for your good, but it is enough that God knows. He that said, "All things shall work together for good to them that love God," excepts not from this promise the sorest trial. You devoted your son to God; you cannot doubt that he accepted the surrender. If he has been hid in the chamber of the grave from the evil of sin, and from the evil of suffering, let not your eye be evil, when God is good. What you chiefly wished for him, and prayed on his behalf, was spiritual and heavenly blessings. If the greatest thing you wished for is accomplished, at the season and in the manner Infinite Wisdom saw best, refuse not to be comforted; you know not what work and joy have been waiting for him in that world, where God's "servants shall serve him."

Should you sorrow immoderately when you have such ground of hope that he, and his other parent, are rejoicing in what you lament? I know that nature will feel; and I believe, suppressing its emotions in such cases is not profitable, either to soul or body; but, I trust, though you mourn, God will