pouring out her soul, as it were, over this which was to be the closing work of her life:

"Tell me no more, no more

Of my soul's lofty gifts! Are they not vain
To quench its haunting thirst for happiness?
Have I not loved, and striven, and failed to bind
One true heart unto me, whereon my own
Might find a resting place, a home for all
Its burden of affections? I depart,

Unknown, though fame goes with me: I must leave
The earth unknown. Yet it may be that death
Shall give my name a power to win such tears
As would have made life precious."

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. HANNAH H. MILLER, WIFE OF REV. ALPHA MILLER, ANDOVER, CONN.

BY MISS JERUSHA FOOTE.

All sadly we watched, as her life was declining,

But the Saviour sustained with the arm of his might;
And when dim, and more dim, grew life's lamp in its shining
She told that Death's valley was light.

Yet strong were the ties that had bound her to earth;
As sister, as mother, as wife, she was dear:
Her smile, as a sun-beam, had gladdened the hearth,
And dried up the sorrowing tear.

All noiseless, and tireless, she toiled in her love
For the loved ones consigned to her care:
She guided them on toward the mansions above,
By example, by precept, by prayer.

'Tis woman's high boon, in her weakness, to wield
The engines of vast moral power;

And wide as the world is the far-spreading field
Over which she may scatter the shower.

'Tis hers to direct the young dawnings of mind,

To thought its first impulse impart;

To choose where its young fragile tendrils shall twine,
And daguerreotype truth on the heart.

The departed hath well her high mission fulfilled,
Her lessons with wisdom were fraught:
And, blended with love, as the dew they distilled
On the young cherished children she taught.

If ever their feet shall be tempted to tread

Aside from the pure, perfect way,

"The voices of Memory will breathe of the dead,"
Nor suffer their foot-steps to stray.

May the children, thus called to pass under the rod,
The rich grace of the Saviour partake;

And give their young hearts in life's morning to God,
The Friend who will never forsake!

For thy heart-stricken servant, O Lord, we entreat―
Let not our entreaties be vain!

May the firm Rock of ages be under his feet,

And the Arm everlasting sustain!

Tho' his heart's chosen partner, the true, and the tried,

Is laid 'neath the valley's cold clod;

Yet Jesus in faithfulness still will abide,
His Consoler, his Saviour, his God.

We too are bereaved:-and we mingle our tears
With the sorrowing heart-stricken band:
May we gather instruction for life's future years,
As we haste to the far spirit-land!

May we learn how the earth-born is doomed to decay,
Nor worth, nor affection can save-

How earth's fairest visions will vanish away,
As the snow-wreaths that mantle her grave.

Yet praise! tho' the earthly be fleeting and vain,
The word of our God standeth sure:-

Our God, and his truth, will unchanging remain
While Eternity's ages endure.

Praise! praise and thanksgiving, dear Saviour, we owe
For the kindness vouchsafed to our friend.

May we join where the river of life hath its flow

In the anthem that never shall end!

Tho' "the places that knew her, shall know her no more,"

Yet bright is the place of her rest;

And, safe beyond Jordan, she beckons us o'er

To the beautiful land of the blest.

Andover, Conn., Feb., 1848.

EVANGELINE,

A Tale of Acadie; By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

A poem from Longfellow is sure to be welcomed, and what is better, is sure to be read; unless indeed it is a drama. Evangeline is a simple story, prettily told in a novel style of verse. The incidents and the personages-we can hardly call them charactersare few. The story opens about 1655, in Nova Scotia, or Acadie. The French inhabitants of that colony were a quiet, agricultural race. They lived in great harmony together, forming a community in which simplicity, piety and friendship ruled. They were so pure in their morals that, since the foundation of their colony, there had been no instance where a woınan had lost her honor.

When a young man married, the colony joined to build him a house.

"Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,
Dwelt in love to God and man. Alike were they free from
Fear that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day, and the hearts of the owners.
There the richest was poor, and the poor lived in abundance.”

By the peace of Utrecht the country had been ceded by the French to the English. The Acadians, however, at their own desire, were permitted to be considered as neutrals between these powers. Still their origin, their language and their religion, all bound them to the French. It is not strange, therefore, that when hostilities again arose between these two nations, the Acadians at first secretly, and at last, at the siege of Beau Sejour, openly aided their countrymen. Irritated by this, the English government determined to remove the Acadians from their homes, and to transport them to the different English colonies. For this purpose an English fleet was sent, sufficiently powerful to prevent resistance.

While this fleet is lying in the mouth of the Gaspereau, and before the intention of the government is known, Benedict Bellefontaine, the father of Evangeline, "the wealthiest farmer of Grand Pre," meets at his house with Basil, the blacksmith, to betroth Evangeline with Gabriel, the blacksmith's son. Gabriel and Evangeline,

"from earliest childhood

Grew up together as brother and sister; and Father Felician,
Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them their letters,
Out of the self-same book."

Together in childhood,

"Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle,
Down the hill-side bounding, they glided away o'er the meadow.
Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters,
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the swallow
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledglings."

The marriage contract is signed; the old men discuss the meaning of the order issued by the English commander that all the men of the village are to meet on the morrow in the church; and at last, after a friendly game at draughts, Basil and his son leave, and the farmer's household retire to rest. Morning comes and brings with it the merry feast of betrothal. At noon the unsus. pecting villagers assemble in the church, and learn to their terror the stern resolve of the English government. Escape is impossible, for the church is guarded by soldiers. After a few days the women and children are assembled on the shore, and the imprisoned men are marched down from the church, still under guard. The embarkation proceeds; but grief is too much for the old farmer; he dies and is buried on the shore. The ships with the exiles sail away,

"Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in ruins."

In the confusion attending this sad expulsion, families were separated; part were carried to one colony, and part to another. Husband was torn from wife, parent from child, brother from sister. Thus in many instances to the pain of exile was added deeper suffering, severing of the deeper ties of life. "It was the hardest case," said one of the sufferers, "which had happened since our Saviour was on earth." The colony thus torn from its native soil, and transplanted into other countries, never took root again. Broken hearted, and yet cherishing in their sorrow the hope that the chances of war would at some time restore them to their beloved Acadie, these exiles never mingled with the colonists among whom they were distributed, nor, for the most part, pursued any business. In the end, some found their way to France, and to Canada, and other French colonies; but the greater part died in poverty, in the countries to which they had been transported, "strangers in a strange land."

"Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the church yards."

To return to Evangeline. Her only support now is Father Felician and her heart's deep love. For in the embarkation, Basil and Gabriel have been separated from herself and the priest; and have been carried she knows not where. Her life's task is to seek for them. Every hope in her life has been at once blighted; and yet she cannot relinquish all hope.

"Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, unfinished,
As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine,
Suddenly paused in the sky, and fading, slowly descended

Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen."

A rumor that Gabriel and his father have found a new home in the west carries her with Father Felician, in company with some others of the Acadian exiles to the great Mississippi. They float down its turbulent waters, and at last

Slowly they entered the Tèche where it flows through the green
Opelousas,

And through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland,
Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring dwelling.
Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing of cattle."

Here they find Basil prosperous and contented: but Gabriel, restless as Evangeline herself, has on the very day of their arrival, set out for the town of Adayes, and thence is going to hunt among the Indians. His boat had met and passed hers, unseen, on the river. The next morning, with fresh hope, Evangeline proceeds, with Basil, to overtake Gabriel; but she meets with fresh disappointment. Everywhere she hears of Gabriel a little in advance, but she cannot overtake him.

"Sometimes they saw or thought they saw the smoke of his camp fire
Rise in the morning air from the distant plain; but at nightfall,
When they had reached the place they found only embers and ashes."

At last they reach the Catholic Mission among the Ozark mountains; and there they learn that Gabriel has been gone but a week, and that he will return in the autumn. Evangeline remains at the Mission, and Basil returns home. But Gabriel does not come; and Evangeline again sets forth to find him, a hopeless, ever-disappointing, task.

"Fair was she and young when in hope began the long journey; Faded was she and old when in disappointment it ended.

Each succeeding year stole something away from her beauty,

Leaving behind it broader and deeper the gloom and the shadow.

Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray o'er her forehead,
Dawn of another lire, that broke o'er her earthly horizon,

As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the morning."

For her, thus heart broken, what better refuge than to become a Sister of Mercy-to carry to others the relief which she cannot find for herself? In the city of Penn, therefore,

"Where the streets still reëcho the names of the trees of the forest."

she enters upon this humble and holy duty.

"Night after night, when the world was asleep, as the watchmen repeated
Loud through the gusty streets, that all was well in the city,
High at some lonely window he saw the light of her taper.

Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow through the suburbs,
Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruit for the market,
Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its watchings.'

At length, in a season of pestilence, amid the dying wretches who are crowded into the almshouse, in the form of an old man with thin, gray locks, she finds her long sought Gabriel. He turns his last look upon her and dies.

"All is ended now, the hope and the fear and the sorrow, All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing, All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience."