cerned. I wondered that he could smile while sentence of death rested upon him. My unconverted reader, a far more dreadful sentence than the one we have just considered rests upon you. "He that believeth not is condemned already." Condemned to everlasting death. You bear about with you a forfeited life, or rather a forfeited soul. Is it not strange that one can be cheerful and unconcerned while this sentence of death rests upon him-a sentence which may be executed at any moment?

THE OLD AND NEW YEAR.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die!

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly-dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right;

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old;
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

THE STREAM OF LIFE.

"LIFE bears us on like the stream of a mighty river. Our boat, at first, glides swiftly down the narrow channel through the playful murmurings of the little brook, and winding along its grassy borders. The trees shed their blossoms over our young heads, and the flowers on the brink seem to offer themselves to our young hands; we are in hope, and we grasp eagerly at the beauties around us; but the stream hurries on, and still our hands are empty.

"Our course in youth and manhood is along a wilder and deeper flood, and amid objects more striking and magnificent. We are animated by the moving picture of enjoyment and industry passing before us; we are excited by shortlived success, or depressed and rendered miserable by some short-lived disap pointment. But our energy and our dependence are both in vain. The stream bears us on, and our joys and griefs are left behind us; we may be shipwrecked, but we cannot anchor; our voyage may be hastened, but cannot be delayed; whether rough or smooth, the river hastens towards its home-the roaring of the waves is beneath our keel, and the land lessens from our eyes, the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our last leave of earth and its inhabitants, and of our further voyage there is no witness but the Infinite and Eternal."Bishop Heber.

"HOW OLD ART THOU?"

COUNT not thy days that have idly flown,
The years that were vainly spent ;
Nor speak of the hours thou must blush to own,
When thy spirit stands before the throne,
To account for the talents lent.

But number the hours redeemed from sin,
The moments employed for heaven—

Oh, few and evil thy days have been,
Thy life a toilsome and worthless scene,
For a nobler purpose given.

Will the shade go back on thy dial plate?
Will the sun stand still on his way?

Both hasten on, and thy spirit's fate,
Rests on the point of life's little date-
Then live while 'tis called to-day.

Life's waning hours, like the sybil's page,
As they lessen, in value rise;

Oh, rouse thee and live! nor deem that man's age
Stands in the length of his pilgrimage,

But in days that are truly wise.

[Anonymous.