the admiration of the vulgar, or be gazed at by the crowd, he willingly disregards the means.

On the whole, I think that obstinacy is less entitled to be treated with charity than the opposite trait. Though both are deserving of censure, they are not equally so.

THOUGHTS ON PARTING.

Few things have a stronger tendency to soften the heart, and exercise a humanizing influence over the whole character, than parting from persons and places we love. You may call it weakness, but it is a weakness almost inseparable from beings connstituted as we are, and our affections must be rooted out, and all our sensibilities extinguished, before we can give up suddenly any thing to which we are strongly attached, without being moved, and moved deeply. It is something to give up at once the society of those who have been so long necessary to our happiness, and to whom we stand connected by innumerable ties. It is something to go where a strange language is spoken, and where the habits, feelings and institutions of a people are entirely strange. The love of novelty, however strong, is as nothing to the cherished and reasonable attachments of years, and there is always more or less of an unpleasant feeling of loneliness, among persons and places we never saw before, which is hardly compensated by any agreeable qualities they may otherwise have. There is an ease and confidence wanting, which are absolutely necessary to happiness, and it takes time for the newness to wear away, and for the mind to be reconciled and feel at home. You may find good and warm hearts, all the world over, but where will you find the ready anticipation of every want, the eagerness to oblige, the heart's overflowing confidence and love, but at home? It is not weakness to be moved at the parting; it is rather the strength of an enduring affection, clinging to all that is dearest to it on earth. If this parting is for a long time, and we are going to a distant land, and in feeble health, it is touching and trying beyond expression. The stoutest heart sinks as the precious time that is left shrinks away minute by minute, and there is a hurried and feverish anxiety to do and say more than is either necessary or possible. The very efforts we make to fortify ourselves, only serve to deprive us of all strength, and he must have more than ordinary control over his feelings, who is not subdued as a child, when he feels the last kind pressure of the hand, and hears in a broken and hurried voice the last parting benediction of those whose affection has stood the same in calm and storm, through every change which years have brought. As we turn away, and the door closes upon us, there is a hollowness and stupefaction in the feeling

that we are alone, that like an evil spirit haunts us for hours. We sit down and commune with our own hearts, and are still, but it is a stillness without repose, for the soul has been moved from its profoundest depths, and its troubled waters will not soon be calmed. The gushing fountain of memory is now unsealed, and the experience of a life is concentrated into the compass of a few hours. Recollections of persons and things which have hitherto rested as forgotten, are now revived with astonishing freshness. At first, indeed, they are faint and indistinct, but they gradually spread their soft hues over the memory, like those beautiful northern lights, whose rays steal up the sky with a slow and almost imperceptible progress, till at last they cover with their clear, pale glory, the whole quarter of the heavens, on which we are gazing. We go over minutely the successive changes of each year, and search out, with a strong and patient eagerness, for whatever has had even a remote influence upon character.

Thus abstracted from all surrounding objects, we give ourselves wholly up to the world of the past, till at last we stop, completely wearied in trying to account for what is wholly unaccountable to us, in the mysterious connexion between the several parts of its crowded history. We come back again to the present. We look at everything with a closer interest than we ever did before, for association has made them all dear to us. Every little preparation for our departure oppresses us, for it tells us how much we are losing and how soon, and the tears fall thick and fast, as we read over the kind notes of those who are too distant to give us personally their good wishes. The eye, too, is caught by a thousand little tokens of regard from those who have always taken a deep interest in our welfare, and we have collected them together as memorials of the experience of many years. Some are from the dead, and some from the living; from the young, who at school were the happiest, but were soon orphans without a home, and are now altered men strangers in places which once knew them well;some are from those who are abroad, we know not where, and some from those who were once our bosom friends, and died early. Here and there is the gift of one who broke the intimacy of years for some unkind word, or trifling misapprehension, or unjust suspicion, but for whom our affection is as strong as ever, and which we are sure no subsequent unkindness can cancel. Forget them, say some, their affection must be worth

less. It may be so, but it is impossible to forget them. Forget them! Oh, no! They may forget us, but we cannot forget the happy hours we have had together, the kindness with which they once greeted, and the confidence which they once reposed in us. We can only sorrow with a true sorrow, that the trifle of a moment should have weighed more with them than the friendship of a long tested and tried intimacy, and like the short and sickly wind of a tropical climate, should have poisoned the almost perfect growth of the finest summer. Here, too, is the last gift of some aged friend, whose kind voice we seem still to hear, and who seems still to smile upon us with the same bland look with which she always welcomed us when alive. We were always, from some accidental circumstance, a favorite, and she was never wearied in making us happy. Oh, it is a holy and delightful thing to see the gravity of old age bend before the frolic glee of childhood, and completely forget itself as it joins in its noisy and thoughtless pastimes; at a time, too, when the absolute infirmity of years makes it almost necessarily selfish, and almost its only happiness is an undisturbed quiet and patient looking forward to a better country, even an' heavenly ;' if there is any thing which we remember with a deep and lasting affection, it is the kindness of a happy, cheerful old age. We recall with a pure delight, how patiently it bore our fretfulness, and irreverent wilfulness, how it helped us through our hard lessons, and calmed our passionate griefs at disappointment, and entered with a warmer interest into all our little plans, and tended us with all a mother's fondness when we were sick. From those lips, too, came counsel where impressions have never faded, and when the Bible, and God, and heaven, were spoken of, it was never with a fearful look and tone, but a sober cheerfulness which delighted to talk of them. At this distance of years we do reverence and love with our whole heart their blessed memory; and now, when it is too late, we wonder that we did not love them better, and we reproach ourselves for the pain which we at any time thoughtlessly gave them.

These are some of the feelings which crowd upon us at parting. There are others with relation to the future, equally trying; and we cannot help asking ourselves, shall we meet no sad changes when we return? Will the same voices welcome us back that have said, Farewell? Will disease stay his hand, and leave untouched the beautiful color, mantling as richly as it now does, in the faces we love? Shall we miss no one from the

happy circle we left? Will not circumstances change the feelings of our friends toward us? But it is wrong to ask such questions. The future may be happier than the present-God's will be done, be ever our prayer. That will is always right,'Let him do what seemeth him good.'

St. Thomas, March 22, 1831.

C. A. F.

To Miss

ON HER BIRTHDAY,

Years pass away like summer clouds;
Hours, like the dew drop's beams,

While thoughtless man his memory crowds
With visions vain, and dreams.

And buoyant youth, with eager mind,
Grasps pleasures as they fly,
And pressing on, ne'er looks behind,
Nor dreams that phantoms die.

Hope weaves her amaranthine flowers
In coronals of joy-

Love crowns the happy, jocund hours,
Which pass without alloy.

But time e'er long breaks all the dreams,
Of childhood's fitful days,

And robs earth's fair and cloudless scenes
Of all their mingling rays.

And thou, sweet friend-tho' life is young,
And brief hath been thy years—
Hast had thy soul with anguish wrung,
And steeped thy heart in tears.

Time, too, upon thy mind has wrought
But has not touch'd thy brow,
And sorrow may have whilom sought
Thy trusting heart to bow.

This is thy birthday-deeply fraught
With hope, love, joy and fear;
And with it memory hath brought
The changes of the year.

Perchance sweet visions will arise,
Which once were fondly cherished;
Thy bosom, too, may swell with sighs
For hopes untimely perished.