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Whisper unto our hearts :-" all is not gone?"
No, sweeter, brighter thoughts than e'en the past
May cheer our absence, should it even last;
Long as we dwell on earth, a fairer city lies

Beyond this world, beyond those dazzling skies.
There shall the assembled church, through God's own

grace,

See her Redeemer, know him face to face;

Long though our winter months be, sad and drear,
Be this our hope, the Second Advent near;
And till it dawn, let each returning spring,

Sweet thoughts of peace, and rest, and glory bring.

United States, April, 1842.

R.

WHO can traverse this beautiful Island, and see millions after millions of available acres lying wholly idle; while on that which is said to be cultivated, you may frequently pass over miles without coming to a single cottage ;—and, remember that nearly every plot of five acres is equal to the maintenance of a peasant, with his wife and children; without feeling his wrath burn within him at the profane and wicked usurpation of the men, who while they themselves wallow in luxury, talk to us of the "evil of a surplus population!"-Life and Writings of M. T. Sadler, Esq.

FEMALE BIOGRAPHY OF SCRIPTURE.

HANNAH.

No. I.

THE assertion, that happiness and misery are more equally distributed in the present life than outward circumstances at first sight appear to warrant; finds a ready echo every where. The unhappy solace themselves with it, conscious that their lot has some secret alleviations, to which they can cling for hope and comfort and the happy (so called) reiterate it, when they would fain make excuse to their own hearts, or to others, for the secret uneasiness they suffer, or the avowed dissatisfaction they feel. Mean while, it is matter of fact, notorious to the most careless observer, that man, considered merely with regard to his corporeal and intellectual state, occupies here, conditions so diversified by shades of suffering or satisfaction; by privation of mental light, or capability of intellectual culture, that from the highest grade of animal and rational enjoyment, to the lowest depth of.corporeal and mental degradation; there is a space almost as vast as that, which separate man himself from the lower orders of animate beings. Shall it be said that there is no difference between the elastic vigour, the extatic glow of health, and the langour and weariness, the anguish and

agony of disease? Shall it be said that there is no difference between his capabilities of happiness, who, with faculties acute, and an eager thirst for knowledge burning, within him, is early led into the halls of learning, and has the spoils of ages, the treasures of wisdom laid at his feet: and his, who with the same wonder-seeking mind, is ever bowed down to a dreary round of bodily toil, the brief intervals of which are scarce sufficient to satisfy the cravings of "nature's sweet restorer, sleep?" Is there no difference between the orphan, thrown helpless on the cold charity of strangers, whose ear has never drunk in one tender epithet from the lips of affection; whose eye has never beamed responsive to one endearing smile :-is there no difference between such an one, and the fondly-cherished child of parental tenderness, the centre of a circle of indulgent friends? Is there no difference between the freed man of a community, whose laws have their source in the fount of civil and religious liberty, and the enslaved member of a commonwealth, over which despotism and superstition preside? Is there no difference between the free artizan pursuing his honest craft with voluntary labour, and the chained and lacerated slave grudging his enforced toil, or the culprit miner burying his shame and sufferings alike, in a living tomb? Rather, how vast is the disproportion in the capacity for happiness, afforded by these diversified conditions of mankind! Why then, is it said, (and felt to be in some sense true) that happiness and misery are equally distributed? Is not this, in other words, a general confession, that misery is every where and happiness no where? Is it not a confession, that man has some wants which are felt even when he

wants every thing else in this world, and which press upon him with a double burden when every other void is filled?

Disunited from the Creator, cut off from the source and centre of all bliss, how shall man be happy? Vain is the poet's dream, the lost Egeria of the soul; and vain the wisdom of this world, teaching where happiness is, or ought to be. Where God is, there is "fulness of joy:" and there only. Distance from God, is to the soul, what remoteness from the sun is to matter, "blackness of darkness." To be brought within the action of the true light: to move even in the outer orbits of its influence, is the first step towards that concentration of bliss.

In a fallen state of being, happiness can never be fully attained even when its source has been discovered, and men, attracted by its energizing influence are moving towards it: nor does it seem intended that the gospel revelation should restore to man in the present life, this lost plant of Paradise. "In the world ye shall have tribulation:" this is predicted of those who are not nevertheless uninstructed in those spiritual manifestations, the fruition of which is, "fulness of joy:" and thus it is, that happiness and misery are made to balance so nearly, in every condition: for there is no lot so afflictive and outcast but that heavenly hope may illume and heavenly patience ameliorate it; and there is no condition so ripe with earthly good, but that the canker of a soul unsatisfied with worldly things, will eat out the heart of all its enjoyment,

"In the world ye shall have tribulation:" this then is the portion of the heirs of glory. But even here a difference is observable in the degree of trial. There

is a chastisement of whips, and a chastisement of scorpions: but he who chastens, not for his pleasure but for our profit, does not afflict willingly, nor add one pang more than is needful to make us "partakers of his holiness." The Apostle says, however, "of this chastisement all are partakers:" that is, all who are children. The chastisement differs in kind and in degree, for it is suited to the peculiar temperament of each. There are docile children, whose hearts one stroke of the rod will open; and there are others, whom the scorpion lash of correction must discipline to knowledge: but it is well to remember the Apostolic declaration that all are partakers of it, or else, intent on our own trial, we shall forget that "the same afflictions are accomplished in our brethren which are in the world."

suddenly reduced by the

Afflictive dispensations are of two kinds: those which carry with them the native sympathies of mankind, and those which only excite prejudice or aversion, in the natural heart. Let a man in the full vigour of life and limb, be accident of an hour, to the condition of a maimed disfigured cripple, and all the world will sympathize with him in his unhappy case: but, let the mis-shapen being appear, whose dwarfish proportions were stamped upon his frame from crawling infancy, and see if the thrill of disgust or dislike, be not the predominant feeling in the breasts of beholders. Loss of health, of friends, of fortune, of life, or limb ;these are casualties to which, as all are alike exposed to them, so all can sympathize with them; but as to afflictive dispensations which bear conventionally or morally the nature of reproach; who cares to compassionate these? Who, save One that endured

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