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be opened like a garden of good fruit for the people to feed on, they will feed; ay! ay! and grow thereby like the spreading trees in Scripture by the sweet waters of Lebanon. But the clock's going five--so now run home, for you know your mother's face grows pale if you be but a minute after the right time."

The child obeyed with a docility quite in keeping with his gentle aspect, and as he stooped half caressingly to the old sexton he whispered, "Do let me come to you again, and talk about the skulls, do: and do make the old sunbeams come out upon the stairs."

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Ay, that I will, my dear, to make a way through those cobwebs 'specially-only wishing it was in my power to pull down as easily, many other sorts o'blinding cobwebs that keep out light of more consequence than a sunbeam. Now go; my duty to your mother, and I'll bring thy little blackbird home as soon as I can finish his cage." 33

And as the child ran from the sexton's side a fervent blessing was echoed by the grey old walls.

He had some way to go through the pleasant streets of this old minster town, but he ran quickly and soon reached the little stone gateway of an old-fashioned court of some such aspect as those which are often found attached to country mansions of the fifteenth century. A young woman, dressed in a widow's faded mourning, had been standing watching tremulously from the gateway for many previous minutes, and now coming forward a step or two welcomed the child with words so gentle and so sweet, as to make their chiding only a new expression of maternal love.

"Dearest mamma," the boy answered, as his mother led him across the half-cloistered old courtway towards one of several deeply-porched doors which led from it into the surrounding building, "I only ran round the minster to see Christopher."

"To hear about the young blackbird I suppose, my darling?"

From the day Egbert could first kneel to the present one he had never missed an evening without kneeling at his grandmother's knee, whilst she prayed in her simple north-country fashion that God would at all times keep from her dear boy's heart two of the worst of sins, selfishness and lying, and the fruit of such prayers was unconsciously shown by his answer, "No mamma, not to ask Christopher about the bird, though it is thriving, and he is making a new cage for it, but to talk about some other things I had been thinking of. And first to have a run after school, for I have always got through my lessons by three, and am so weary sitting all the after time till five, though I should'nt if Thomson would teach me more, or I had more books."

"And these you shall have before very long," whispered the fond mother, as she unlatched the old house door for her child, "for though I found Mr. Midhurst, the canon, very deep in study, and so could not get my heart bold enough to ask for a little old Latin dictionary for you, yet he was so good as to say that your grandmother might spin, and Wright might weave enough of cloth for two dozen shirts, and I am to have four shillings a week for teaching the little Bensons writing, so that dear old mother and I will soon earn money enough to buy you books, my sweet

one."

As she thus finished speaking, the mother and her boy entered and crossed a fine large room brightly lighted by a blazing fire, close to which, and beside a neatly spread tea-table, an aged woman, as much so from broken health and grief as years, sat spinning at an old wheel. She raised at once her fine strongly-marked face, kissed the boy, and then with cheerful gladness laid aside her wheel, for her heart's joy was safe once more, and the brightness of the humble hearth shone not in vain.

Whilst the dear old grandmother poured out the tea, the young mother, in a way that bespoke continuous habit, divested Egbert of his little outer coat, his cap, his satchel, and leading him across the room, laved his hands and face in a bowl of fair water, long set ready, brushed out his golden ringlets, buttoned on his pinafore, and, finishing all with a kiss, came back with him to the tea-table.

As the family thus sat, little Egbert in a high-backed chair, its seat raised by a great cushion, whilst with his hand in that of his mother's he talked and the old grandmother intently listened, a stranger entering by the door and capable of such an association, could well fancy here the young Chaucer sat listening to his nurse's tales, or here the sadder Chatterton, whose dirge the world's great pity has so often sung. For it was one of the chambers of an almshouse which a pious dame, long centuries dust, had endowed for ever for poor widows of that minster town, whose individual benefit included one large chamber, such as this, a lesser, a fair strip of picturesque garden, two tons of "sea-borne coal" on the day of St. Thomas in each year, and eight shillings paid weekly, all that was asked in return, being "to be remembered sweetly in their prayers."

Dear England! dearest land upon the earth for heavenly charities like these!

So this being a very old alms'-house chamber, huge beams of oak veined the old ceiling; the walls were wainscoted with dark old wood; large closets peeped out here and there like ready friends; the stairs threw out a broad old oaken foot; the casements, which looked far away over the wide expanse of ancient garden, had little lozenge panes set in broad strips of lead; the hearth was like a room within a room, and above its old chimney was carved the pious giver's name, with the simple legend, "Pray for me," as many and many a one had done with grateful earnest heart!

Thus, as I say, an old-fashioned, simple piety adorned the place and scene: the grandmother, the spinningwheel, the mourning widow (like a drooping nun), the child with falling golden hair, and such an earnest, thoughtful face, gave to the whole a half-poetic beauty; and showed well, that in all ages and through all time, Nature's simplest means are those which fashion the grandest and most pregnant minds.

There was also poetry in the story of these two women and their little son. It was Ruth cleaving to Naomi ; Hagar to Ishmael. It was this :-

The old grandmother had been born and bred in Cumberland, where her father and his family before him for many generations had been peasant proprietors of the better class. Amidst the Cumbrian hills they had sowIL and reaped, and passed a worthy life, up to the generation we refer to, when the honest farmer's marriage was blessed with two children, a son and a daughter. The first-wayward and intractable from his cradle-seemed only born to afflict his parents, whilst Maria-several years younger than he was, by the kindly balance of adjusting nature, docile and thoughtful, and a soother of the sorrows shed down upon her parents by this illdoing son. It was then the time of war; when men fancied they served their country by strutting in scarlet and beating on a drum; and this youth, after committing various disgraceful acts in the immediate neighbourhood of his home, set off one winter's day to Cockermouth, and there enlisted. Though, by dint of an usurious mortgage on the little mountain farm, he was bought off in the course of a few weeks, the first shock of this act of his broke his mother's heart, and on the day of his return she died. But, instead of returning home to console those whom he had so bereft, and expiate in a degree his errors by a worthier life, he remained drinking in the town, and on the evening when the lonely mountain churchyard received the dead, he again enlisted, and was

drafted off almost the same hour by those interested in securing so fine a youth for foreign service. This last event filled up the cup of sorrow in that lonely home, where this prodigal son was never again seen, or again heard of, except at intervals; and then only to hold up the beggar's hand, and cry, "give, give," under the several pleas of debt, ill-health, and lastly of a needy wife and children, all of which, when he had been dead some years, were found, through the return of a comrade to that neighbourhood, to have been gross fabrications for the simple purpose of obtaining money.

As

Thus left sole mistress of her father's home, Maria strove to cheer one she loved so tenderly, and by strict economy, and by assisting even in the labours of the field, to pay off the claims their troubles had brought on them. To a degree she was successful in both, and in a year or so, when spring came round once more, her father was so much better and like his olden self, as to again welcome the passing stranger to his hearth, and enjoy a friendly chat by his evening fire. This spring, the one on which Maria reached her twentieth year, proved an extraordinary wet and backward one, and the floods swept so heavy into the valleys of that mountain land, as to delay, for hours together, such travellers as were passing from one remote village to another. One bleak night when these floods were at the highest, a decent stranger of perhaps thirty years of age, asked a night's shelter at the lonely farm, and this was not only given, but his stay hospitably insisted upon till the surrounding valleys were less dangerous to traverse. he proved to be both intelligent and companionable, he gained in a few hours, in the hearts of both father and daughter, the place of an old friend, and telling his simple story, they learnt that he was a bookseller by trade, that he had lately opened a small shop in the minster town of his native county, that his name was Darley, and that his errand now in traversing that northern part of the kingdom, was to obtain subscribers to an expensive topographical work it would be his duty, in due time, to publish for a learned gentleman in his own neighbourhood. Thus finding as he talked that he interested his simple earnest listeners, he went on to tell them of the wide eastern marshlands which lay round the minster town, of its strongly Saxon people, its old Saxon names and customs, of his own name, of his own descent, his own interest in these things, and how he should never be a rich man, for his nature and tastes led him to prefer the knowledge which lay in books, rather than their sale and purchase. At the end of the third day, when he left this peaceful home, and with the earnest promise to come again before very long, he stood to Maria and her father in the light of a friend; but that year and many years rolled by without a stranger like himself lifting the wooden latchet. In time, as was natural, his name and face became dim memories to the decaying old man, though always fresh and new to the heart of Maria, who, though their acquaintanceship had been so brief, had seen enough of the stranger to vow an earnest vow. So true to it was she, that when suitors came, many at first (for she was the most comely woman, and the best housewife and spinner in those hills) her unvarying answer was, "I do not marry, for my father is my care." Years rolled on, as many as fifteen, and the old man died in peace and calm contentment, for Maria, with a rare heroism, had striven, and successfully concealed from him, the debts which had eaten into their substance like a canker. For true to a promise to her dying mother, she had never refused the prodigal what he asked; and thus, though he had been dead five years at the time the old man died, and she had worked and saved as few women would or could, her debts were many, and the mortgage a fearful burden. Yet she determined to struggle onward and redeem her little patrimony if she could, and this would have been possible had the seasons been of an ordinary

kind, but two backward springs and wet autumns in succession entirely ruined the crops of that mountain land. Thus, when the third winter from her father's death came round, and the hopeless burden of the mortgage was again nearly due, she began to see how useless her struggle was, and how much better it would be to try some new way of life of less care and ceaseless anxiety. So when she had fixed in her own mind to go to Cockermouth that same week, and deliver over the right of the farm into the hands of the mortgagee, a stranger came one evening as she sat spinning by her lonely hearth. Though her faith and love were as fresh as at the beginning, still, after the flight of so many, many years, and in an hour of such drear and lonely sorrow, an apparition would have scarcely startled her more than this unexpected presence of Darley, scarcely changed, saving that partly grizzled locks had now replaced his once light, descending hair. Yet, with joy and tears she welcomed him.

He sat down, waiting quietly till she had in a degree recovered her self-possession; and then, pointing to a large empty high-backed chair within the chimney corner, said, "I see time has removed one friend."

Amidst sobs and tears, though growing all the while calmer as she spoke, she told him of the old man's latter days, and of his death; all of which time she sat conversing, she observed Darley watch the outer door as if he expected some one's entrance.

At length he said quietly, and in a way which bespoke his genuine belief in what he said :—

"Your husband is, I suppose, yet on the hills, and your children in bed."

"I have neither, I never had, I am as when you last saw me," and as a newer and a stronger sense of her utter desolation came across her spirits, Maria bent her head against the wheel and wept bitterly.

It ne could have seen the mighty change which came over Darley's face when she had spoken these words, she would have known instantly what a wise thing her faith had been, but her hands were soon taken and her head raised from the wheel.

"I was deceived then, Maria. Six months after I left you, seventeen years ago, a stranger whom I accidentally encountered, and who said he was a Cumberland man, told me that you had lately married a neighbouring farmer. This information was a great blow to me, for I meant to wander that same autumn again to the north, and offer you my honest name and hand; but as it is, time shall not much longer separate us." As he spoke he folded the noble, desolate woman in his arms.

The sequel to this was a simple one. As soon as their banns could be duly asked in the neighbouring mountain church, they were married; at the end of another week the lonely farm had passed into the hands of the mortgagee; and a waggon, bearing much ancient household gear, conspicuous amongst which was a spinning-wheel, wound its way from the hills towards the south.

With the stock of his shop enriched by the little sum which remained from the sale of the farm, with his household well-if simply-garnished with the old Cumbrian furniture, with a wife whose earnest industry and ceaseless frugality were in their way riches to a poor man, Darley settled down to the full happiness of his matured married life. In due time one child was born to him; a son, in whose rearing and nurture the earnest parents concentrated all their earthly care. The father, in the office of nature's best interpreter, taught behind his humble counter his boy from books; and more wisely and more largely still, in all his leisure hours, from the sweet pastoral, yet fenny country round the town; whilst the sterner, more enduring, far-seeing mother, taught the lad that acts of truth and duty make life religious, taught him to nightly bend his knee beside her own, taught him, as she sung beside her humming-wheel, that

Heaven, in all its mercies and its justices, was the same of old as now.

Born with a Saxon breadth of intellect, and inheriting from his mother all the earnest, self-reliant characteristics of the north country race, little Darley throve well; and, when breeched, went upon the foundation of the town grammar school, it being in that day ruled over by a more illuminated pedagogue than Thomson; for this charity was so managed that five families of old descent took it in rotation to name the ruling pedagogue, so that for years it had happened that as the capacity of these nominators stood, the schoolmastership ranged between the degrees of a comparative Arnold and an unmistakeable dunce and bigot like Thomson.

POETRY SOMETHING MORE THAN AMUSEMENT.

The Illustrated London News, in remarking upon the Earl of Carlisle's late lecture on Pope, writes as follows:"The highest class of poets are, as Lord Carlisle says, 'the tuneful monarchs and law-givers of mankind.' He did not, in lecturing upon Pope, attempt to elevate his hero to this high pedestal; but, in drawing a comparison between the productions of the youth and the maturity of his author, he quoted Pope's own lines upon the genius of his manhood:

That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long,

But stoop'd to Truth, and moralized his song.'

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Lord Byron remarked upon this passage, that Pope should have written rose' to Truth. Lord Carlisle acquiesced -as who, that really understands what poetry means, will not?-in the criticism of the latter poet, and added his own opinion, that the highest of all poetry was ethical poetry, as the highest of all earthly subjects was moral truth.' We are glad that Lord Carlisle dwelt so emphatically upon this point. There is a foolish and careless idea abroad among the half-educated masses, and even among many better educated people, who should know better, that rhyme and poetry are nearly, if not entirely synonymous; and that poetry bears about the same relation to other literature, as the ballet does to the drama. It is considered that mere fancy and filagree,' and not the highest moral, religious, and scientific truths, come within the province of poetry, and that the business of the poet is not to instruct, but simply to amuse-as if he were the mountebank of literature, or a jingler of sounds for the titillation of the tympanum. It may be doubted whether Pope, or the poets of his time, understood the height and depth of their vocation. Pope talked of stooping to 'truth,' as if 'fancy' were higher than truth, and did not include it. Swift said

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that, sooner or later, the old error, that poetry has nothing to do with truth, will die out of the popular understanding. The writers of the last generation had higher notions of their vocation than those who preceded them; and all true poets, from the days of Wordsworth to our own, have asserted loudly, in all times and places, the dignity and sanctity of their art. They knew that if they did not teach the world, they were good for nothing; and, so far from thinking that the age was hostile or indifferent to those writers who fully understood their duty, they proclaimed their belief that the brightest day of English literature was yet to come, and that never were true poets and other great authors so honoured in the past, as they would be in the future. In their belief, we fully participate. Misconception on the part of the public will be removed, in proportion as authors become earnest and truthful. Men of letters are learning more than ever to respect themselves; and when they shall do this still more effectually, the rest will follow. A literature that has no truth is a house without a foundation. With truth-in their lives as well as in their writings-there is no position of social usefulness and distinction to which the great authors of this country might not aspire."

A DESTRUCTIVE METHOD OF POACHING.

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Two or three poachers, disguised in respectable attire, travel about the country, in a gig or dog-cart, accompanied by a single pointer or setter. One of the party alights at the outskirts of a village or country town, and proceeding to the public room of the nearest tavern, soon falls into conversation with some of the unsuspecting inhabitants; and, passing himself off as an intelligent traveller," or keen sportsman, about to pay a visit to the neighbouring squire, soon obtains sufficient local information for his purpose. The other "gentlemen " have, in the mean time, put up their horse and gig at an inn, in a different quarter, and, while discussing their brandy-andwater at the bar, have "pumped" the landlord of all the news likely to prove useful to the fraternity. At a certain hour in the evening the trio meet by appointment at some pre-arranged spot outside the village, and commence operations. After comparing notes, the most promising ground is selected. A dark night and rough weather are all in their favour. The steady old pointer, with a lantern round his neck, is turned into a stubble-field, and a net of fine texture, but tough materials, is produced from a bag, in which it has hitherto been closely packed. The light passes quickly across the field-now here, now there, like a " Will-o'-the-wisp"-as the sagacious dog quarters the ground rapidly, yet with as much care and precision as if he were working for a legitimate sportsman in open day. Suddenly it ceases to move, then advances slowly, Let me in those shades compose stops, moves once more, and at last becomes stationary. Something in verse as true as prose.' Two of the men then take the net, and, making a circuit Waller, some years earlier, said, that poets 'succeeded until they arrive in front of the dog, shake out the meshes, better in fiction than in truth;' and a whole host of and place it in a proper position on the ground. Then poetasters accepted the opinions of these writers, as their standing opposite to each other, and holding either end guides in the poetic art. The misconception still prevails, of the string, they draw it slowly and noiselessly over and finds a daily and hourly expression in the mouths of their quadruped ally-whose exact position is indicated by the herd of critics, and of those who put their faith in the lantern-frequently capturing, at the same time, an them. This age, with its wondrous discoveries and in- unsuspecting covey, huddled together within a few inches ventions-its searching philosophy-its triumphs over of his nose. When this operation is carried on by exspace and time, by the agency of electricity and its pos-perienced hands, an entire manor may be effectually sibly still greater triumphs yet to be achieved, by agencies stripped of partridges in an incredibly short space of at present unknown, but not undreamed of-with its prac- time.-Game Birds and Wild Fowl. By A. E. Knox. tical poetry of daily life, unsurpassed and unequalled since the world began-is said to be hostile to the poetical spirit, and to be too much engrossed with material wants, to have leisure or inclination for the strains of the poet. If poetry and verse-making were convertible terms, this would no doubt be quite true; but they are not convertible. If all the verses that are not poetry were swept out of existence, a whole world of rubbish would be removed, but poetry would remain to delight and elevate the mind of universal humanity. We rejoice to believe

NATURAL FREEMASONRY.

One signal of the freemasonry of society is a nameless and undefinable something, which, under all circumstances, will cling to those of gentle blood and nurture. To describe it, would be as difficult as to describe some sweetsouled melody. It may mingle its grace with the slightest movements of the body, rest on the speaking smile, show itself by a glance from the eye, or a word from the lip. It is Protean. We watch for it, and it does not appear. We forget it, and it is displayed beyond questioning.

NEVER CAST A SHADOW.

"Speak gently to the young-for they

Will have enough to bear;

Pass through this life as best they may,
"Tis full of anxious care."

NEVER cast a shadow

O'er the soul of youth; Leave it in its trusting faith,

Its unsullied truth:

Leave it with its buoyant hopes,
Its longings wild and deep;
Let no mournful prophet-voice
O'er its thrilling pulses sweep.
Teach it not the lesson

Of falsehood and of guile;
With the traitor's hollow heart,
And mocking lip to smile:
Tell it not in accents stern,

Of the world's cold lore;

O leave it-leave it yet awhile,

On the Dream-land's lovely shore!
Ye would not steal the richest tint

From the glorious crimson rose;
Or the gem of price-that gorgeously
In the jewelled circlet glows?
Ye would not make more wearisome
The desert's burning way;
Or call the fiery tempest forth,
On the tranquil summer-day?

Too quickly-O, too quickly,

The youthful one will learn;

The step that leaves life's early track
May never more return.

Yet, as the breath of perfume,

As the notes of some sweet song;

So do its pleasant memories

O'er the careworn spirit throng.

O think upon thine own bright youth,
In the days that have pass'd o'er;
How often hast thou vainly sighed
To be a child once more!

To feel again the joyousness

Of that glad, sunny time,

Ere the heart had learned to worship
At the cold world's glittering shrine.
Then cast no mournful shadow

O'er the soul of youth;
Leave it in its holy faith-

Its unsullied truth.

Leave it in the sunshine

Of its glowing summer hours;

In the radiant land of promise,
The Dream-land's lovely bowers!
LUCINDA ELLIOTT.

THE DEITY OF INFANCY.

As the infant begins to discriminate between the objects around, it soon discovers one countenance that ever smiles upon it with peculiar benignity. When it wakes from its sleep, there is one watchful form ever bent over its cradle. If startled by some unhappy dream, a guardian angel seems ever ready to sooth its fears. If cold, that ministering spirit brings it warmth; if hungry, she feeds it; if in pain, she relieves it; if happy, she caresses it. In joy or sorrow, in weal or woe, she is the first object of its thoughts. Her presence is its heaven. The mother is the DEITY OF INFANCY!

DIAMOND DUST.

It is one of the characters of a good man to dispense liberally, and enjoy abstemiously the goods he knows he may lose, and must leave.

TRAIN the understanding. Take care that the mind has a stout and straight stem. Leave the flowers of wit and fancy to take care of themselves. Sticking them on will not make them grow. You can only engraft them, by grafting that which will produce them.

There

MEN are more intensely selfish than women. are infinitely more instances of devotion, and of entire surrender of their own interests at the shrine of affection and duty, in the annals of women than of men.

To seek redress of grievances by having recourse to the law is aptly compared to sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.

BISHOP HALL says, "I will use my friend as Moses did his rod while it was a rod, he held it familiarly in his hand; when once a serpent, he ran away from it."

:

AN infinitely small piece of gold can be spread over a wire that might girdle the earth; yet a much less portion of truth will serve to gild a much greater quantity of falsehood.

CAPITAL is the child and not the father of labour; and science is the daughter and not the mother of intelligence. WHATEVER situation in life you wish or propose for yourself, acquire a clear and lucid idea of the inconveniences attending it.

THE usual employments and everyday occurrences of life are the best things for taking away our grief; jogging effectually sends woe to sleep.

REPLYING to scurrility, is like the dandy keeping himself clean by pushing away the chimney-sweeper. MASQUERADE-a synonym for life and civilized society. MEDITATION is the soul's perspective glass.

LEISURE is a very pleasant garment to look at, but it is a very bad one to wear.

He alone deserves to have any weight or influence with posterity, who has shown himself superior to the particular and predominant error of his own times.

IF you apply to little-minded people in the season of distress, their self-importance instantly peeps forth.

NOTHING can poison the contentment of a man who cheerfully lives by his labour, but to make him rich.

A CRITIC's head should be wise enough to form a right judgment, and his heart free enough to pronounce it.

NEVER consider a person unfeeling or hard-hearted, because he refuses what he cannot reasonably grant.

TRUE freedom consists in this-that each man shall do whatever he likes, without injury to another.

TO-MORROW-the day on which idle men work and fools reform.

WHAT we love in youth is generally rather a fanciful creation of our own than a reality. We build statues of snow and weep when they melt.

WHEN prosperity was well mounted, she let go the bridle, and soon came tumbling out of the saddle.

Ir is wonderful how light a little merriment soon makes everything appear, and this is the reason why, in moments often give worlds to shut up again in one's own breast. of cheerfulness, many secrets are revealed that we would

EXPERIENCE, gained from the consequence of our faults, almost always, sooner or later, gives us a vague, unsatisfactory consciousness that such things exist within

us.

GRAVITATION has, amid all her immensity, wrought no such lovely work as when she rounded a tear. Printed by JoHN OWEN CLARKE, at 121, Fleet Street, and published at the Office of the Journal, 8, Raquet Court, Fleet Street, London.

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THE INNER LIFE.

EMERSON remarks in his beautiful essay on "Gifts," that "Flowers and fruits are always fit presents, flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature; they are like music heard out of a workhouse;" and it is in the sympathy which all natural objects have for the best sentiments of our nature which makes them always acceptable. Man is something more than a bundle of petty cares and jealousies; he has within him a world of living beauty, and an existence ever seeking for closer sympathy with moral worth and anxiously striving after higher states of perfection. But in the intercourse of men with each other the tendencies and desires and passions, which have been implanted within them for purposes of beauty-and beauty is the highest form of utility-get pushed beyond the legitimate sphere of their action, and become characterized in their development as vices. Hence, in all cities and large aggregations of men, the true nobility and intrinsic stamp of human character is sunk below the duplicities which float upon the surface of customs and usages. Thus civilization, viewed in a narrow and partial light, has all the appearance of soul-murder; but, seen through the "optic glass" of a transcendental philosophy, simply indicates a necessary phase of the human mind in its progress upward; and is a manifestation, not of the destruction and annihilation of virtue, but of the perversion and distortion of our legitimate aims and actions. To look at modern society in its existing state of complexity and petty warfare, it has all the semblance of a huge madhouse, but seen as a necessary condition of the human mind in its transition from a rugged barbarity to a high and exalted morality and beauty, it simply appears as a plain fact, only significant of the multiform changes and modifications of the same identical purpose, still striving to evolve itself through all the ages of the world.

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pestilence, and droops and fades as in the hot and
parching air of a sirocco: but with nature, the true old
love of innumerable ages comes dawning upon it, and
it grows and expands in the opening of a new future, a
future teeming with truth and beauty; and finds in this
new realm of thought and perception, an insight into its
highest tendencies. In the buzz and distracting whirl of
the world, the only hope of satisfaction seems to be in
sorrow, for there we expect to meet with "sharp peaks
and edges of truth;" but in nature, all is perpetual
jubilee and song, and every feature wears the aspect of
festive hilarity,-pure, ennobling and true.
shine of Paphian skies seems ever dawning upon the
horizon of a holier hope, the warmth and fruition of a
new summer seems ever alighting upon the petals of un-
fading flowers, and in the dark brows of Dodonian oaks
we see the type of ceaseless renewal, and unspared exu-
berance. The soul grows and grows, and feels in its
inmost recesses the awakening light and divinity of its
highest spiritual truths. It glows in a lustrous and a
holy light, a light which speaks the fulgid beauty of the
home of God!

The sun

Life is a constant flux of moods or conditions, evanescent and transmutable, yet together forming a great circle in which the true character is encentred. Be the mood what it may, it is but a reflex of the combined conditions of the true character which lies beneath, and the outward and visible influences which surround us. Every man wishes for good, wishes to attain to the practice of virtue and to gather to himself the noblest thoughts; but while we glide hither and thither under masks and pretensions, we mutually deceive ourselves and others, and the world comes at last to wear the garb and colouring of a fantastic dream. But with Nature all is pure, all is true, constant and abiding, and from every thread of her endless fabric of loveliness comes a voice of sympathy and love. The true heart is always open to her influences, for the magic of her sweet voice is the Edipus of human nature, and the steadfast bond of pure affections, and high and holy purposes.

But when we leave this enclosed world of antipodean Thus it is that in our earlier life, before the soul is and twisted interests, where we are eternally compelled enveloped in cobwebs and dust, that the love of nature is to hedge and dodge, and dance a shapeless game of eva- warmest in the heart; and that ever afterward, when that sion, and go into the pine woods or mountain solitudes, same love awakens in our hearts, we feel the replenished where Nature still wears the freshness of a primeval vigour of an ascending life, and the untold joy of primal morning, and awaits with complacent brow, and meekly beauty. We seem to be brought back again to the folded hands, the appeals of her repentant children; we flowery brink of our budding youth, and to stand once come into the sheen and lustre of a new-made life, and more upon the threshold which then separated the sweet grow young again in the beauty and simplicity of a rug-years of childhold from the mysterious, yet promising ged and heroic virtue. The soul, tattered and despoiled, and weather-beaten in the strife and storm of petty contentions and mean and degrading tendencies, awakens back again to the vigour and freshness of its true life, and seems to have been made anew. With men, the true soul seems ever in the presence of a blight or

future which then lay before us; and in which our ambition and our hopes were coined into realities, by the energies of our hands and the firmness of our hearts.

There is ever hope for that man who feels the freshness of his youth like a soft fragrance fanning his hot brow, when he wanders into the wild solitude, where nature

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