fires, choked with poisonous gases, and surrounded with the stench of sickening odors and rank corruption, doth your Father in Heaven prepare the precious essence of life-PURE COLD WATER!

2. "But in the green glades and grassy dell, where the red deer wanders, and the child loves to play, there God Himself brews it; and down, low down in the deepest valleys, where the fountains murmur, and the rills sing; and high upon the mountain-tops, where the naked granite glitters like gold in the sun, where the storm-cloud broods, and the thunder-storms crash; and away far out on the wide, wide sea, where the hurricane howls music, and big waves roar the chorus, ' sweeping the march of God!' THERE He brews it, that beverage of life, health-giving water!

3. "And everywhere it is a thing of beauty: gleaming in the dew-drop; singing in the summer-rain; shining in the ice-gem, till the trees seem turned to living jewels; spreading a golden vail over the setting sun, or a white gauze around the midnight moon; sporting in the cataract; sleeping in the glacier; glancing in the hail-shower; folding bright snow-curtains softly above the wintery world, and weaving the many-colored rainbow that seraph's zone of the sky, whose warp is the rain of earth, whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven, all checkered over with celestial flowers by the mystic hand of refraction; still always it is beautiful, that blessed cold water!

4. "No poison bubbles on its brink; its foam brings not madness and murder; no blood stains its liquid glass; pale widows and starving orphans weep not burning tears in its clear depths; no drunkard's shrieking ghost from the grave curses it in words of despair! But everywhere, diffusing all around life, vigor, and happiness, it is the purest emblem

of the Water of Life, of which, if a man drink, he shall never thirst. Speak out, my friends; would you exchange it for the demon's drink, alcohol' ?" A shout, like the roar of a tempest, answered, "No!"

PROF

LESSON XXVIII.

PROFANENESS.

E. H. CHAPIN.

ROFANENESS is a low, groveling vice. He who indulges it is no gentleman. I care not what his stamp may be in society, — I care not what clothes he wears, or what culture he boasts, despite all his refinement, the light and habitual taking of God's name in vain betrays a coarse nature and a brutal will.

2. Profaneness is an unmanly and silly vice. It certainly is not a grace in conversation; and it adds no strength to it. There is no organic symmetry in the narrative which is ingrained with oaths; and the blasphemy which bolsters an opinion does not make it any more correct. Nay, the use of profane oaths argues a limited range of ideas, and a consciousness of being on the wrong side; and, if we can find no other phrases through which to vent our choking passion, we had better repress that passion.

3. Profaneness is a mean vice. It indicates the grossest ingratitude. According to general estimation, he who repays kindness with contumely, he who abuses his friend and benefactor, is deemed pitiful and wretched. And yet, O profane one! whose name is it you handle so lightly? It is that of your best Benefactor! You, whose blood would boil to hear the venerable names of your earthly

parents hurled about in scoffs and jests, abuse, without compunction and without thought, the name of your Heavenly Father!

Once more, I ask,

4. Profaneness is an awful vice! whose name is it you so lightly use? That holy name of God! Have you ever pondered its meaning'? Have you ever thought what it is that you mingle thus with your passion and your wit'? It is the name of Him whom the angels worship, whom the Heaven of heavens can not contain !

5. Profane young man! though habit be ever so stringent with you, when the word of mockery and of blasphemy is about to leap from your lips, think of these considerations, think of God, and, instead of that wicked oath, cry out in reverent prayer, "HALLOWED BE THY NAME!"

LESSON XXIX.

1 SA' BI AN, of or pertaining to Saba, an ancient town of Arabia, celebrated for frankincense, myrrh, and aromatic`plants.

VOICES OF GOD.

LON. BRIT. MAGAZINE.

HERE are voices of God for the careless ear,

1. THERE

A low-breathed whisper when none is near;

In the silent watch of the night's calm hours,

When the dews are at rest in the deep-sealed flowers;
When the wings of the zephyr are folded up,
When the violet bendeth its azure cup;

'Tis a breath of reprovala murmuring tone,
Like music remembered, or ecstasies gone.

2. 'Tis a voice that sweeps through the evening sky, When the clouds o'er the pale moon are hurrying by; While the fickle gusts, as they come and go,

Wake the forest boughs on the mountain's brow;
It speaks in the shadows that swiftly pass,-

In the waves that are roused from the lake's clear glass,
Where the summer shores, in their verdant pride,
Were pictured but late in the stainless tide.

3. And that voice breaks out in the tempest's flight,
When the wild winds sweep in their fearful might;
When the lightnings go forth on the hills to play,
As they pass on their pinions of fire away;
While they fiercely smile through the dusky sky,
As the thunder-peals to their glance reply;
As the bolts leap out from the somber cloud,
While midnight whirlwinds sing wild and loud!
4. 'Tis a voice which comes in the early morn,
When the matin hymns of the birds are born;
It steals from the fold of the painted cloud,-
From the forest draperies, sublime and proud!
Its tones are blent with the running stream,
As it sweeps along, like a changeful dream,
In its light and shade, through the checkered vale,
While the uplands are fanned by the viewless gale.

5. In the twilight hour, when the weary bird

On its nest is sleeping, that voice is heard;

While mist-robes are drawn o'er the green earth's breast,
And the sun hath gone down from the faded west;
In the hush of that silence when winds are still,
And the light wakes no smile in the babbling rill;
Through the wonderful depths of the purple air,
O'er the landscape trembling that voice is there!

6. There are whispers of God in the cataract's roar,
In the sea's rude wail on its sounding shore,-
In the waves that melt on her azure isles,

Where the sunny south on their verdure smiles, -
In the ocean-ward wind from the orange trees,
In the Sabian1 odors that load the breeze;

'Midst the incense that floats from Arabia's strand, That tone is there, with its whispers bland!

7. And it saith to the cold and the careless heart, How long wilt thou turn from "the better part”? I have called from the infinite depths of heaven, I have called, but no answer to me was given;

From many a hallowed and glorious spot,

I have called by my Spirit, and ye would not! Thou art far from the haven, and tempest-tossed, · Hear the cry of thy Pilot, or thou art lost!

LESSON XXX

BETTER THAN GOLD.

1.

ANON.

ETTER than grandeur, better than gold,

BET

Than rank and titles, a thousand fold,
Is a healthy body, a mind at ease,

And simple pleasures that always please;
A heart that can feel for another's woe,
And share his joys with a genial glow,
With sympathies large enough to infold
All men as brothers, is better than gold.