ciently distinct to convey an idea of a line without beginning and without end, yet it is only the artifice of the circle of signatures, denominated the round robin, purposely devised to conceal the beginning and the end. If none of the material or immaterial existences of the universe had been created, still we cannot help supposing that time would have continued to go on unceasingly, like a river in a desert, although no sentient beings existed on the shores to note its progress. Thus in every attempt to grasp at the idea of INFINITY, we fail of winning a glimpse of the ever-receding bourn; and if the attempt be persisted in, the intellectual powers may become wrecked amid metaphysical speculations. A MOTHER'S LOVE. WHAT Happy is he who knows a mother's love! HAT is so pure? The patriot expects fame, the friend sympathy, and the lover pleasure. Even religion, while she waters her faith with tears, looks forward to the best of her labors and her love. But maternal affection springs from the breast uninvoked by the wand of hope, unadulterated by the touch of interest. Its objects are the weak and woeful. It haunts the cradle of infantile pain, or hovers near the couch of the faint and the forsaken. Its sweetest smiles break through the clouds of misfortune, and its gentlest tones rise amid the sighs of suffering and and of sorrow. It is a limpid and lovely flow of feeling which gushes from the fountain head of purity; and courses the heart through selfish designs and sordid passions, pure and unsullied. What is so firm! Time and misfortune, penury and persecution, hatred and infamy, may roll their dark waves successively over it—and still it smiles unchanged; or the more potent allurements of fortune, opulence and pride, power and splendor, may woo her and yet she is unmoved! a mother "loves and loves forever!" 4 What is so faithful? From infancy to age; "through good report and through evil report," the dews of maternal affection are shed upon the soul. When heart stricken and abandoned; when branded by shame and followed by scorn, her arms are still open-her breast is still kind. Through every trial that love will followcheer us in misfortune, support us in disease, smooth the pillow of pain and moisten the bed of death! Happy is he who knows a mother's love! TRIBULATION. O my thinking, the term "tribulation," T% contains a beautiful comparison. It. is the Latin tribulatio, or the thrashing of grain to free it from the husk, as anciently performed by means of the tribulum or heavy roller armed with spikes, an instrument, by the way, still used in eastern countries. Early Christian writers transferred the word from this primitive signification to its present figurative meaning, affliction, calamity, which are the means in God's hand, of separating in men their chaff from their wheat, whatever in them is light and trivial and poor, from the solid and true, and so of fitting them for the heavenly garner. Trench, in his Study of Words, regards it as a concentrated poem, a grain of gold capable of being beaten out into a broad extent of gold-leaf, and quotes, in illustration, the following scrap of poetry ceived that it is all only an expansion of by an early English writer: it will be perthe image contained in the word : "Till from the straw, the flail the corn doth beat, THE IGNIS FATUUS. THE dealings of God in his providences are truly mysterious, and his ways past finding out. How many a stricken heart has been tempted to murmur and ask, Why has God afflicted me? But it is when communities are desolated, and hundreds of hearths are draped in mourn ing because of some public calamity, that we are startled into the consciousness that the Almighty is manifesting his power in our midst. How apt are men engaged in the daily round of business, to lose sight of their responsibility to God: how apt to forget that even in the minor transactions of life, they are responsible to him. To see the man of business straining every nerve in the accumulation of wealth, wasting his energies in the pursuit of that which cannot satisfy the yearnings of his immortal mind; so engrossed with the concerns of commerce and his daily toil, that the blessings of the Sabbath are either overlooked or unenjoyed, and the affairs of his soul esteemed of secondary importance, is indeed sad. And how often too do those who have professed the name of Christ, and have taken up the Cross to follow him, become weary of the self-denial they must exercise, throw off the burden which the name of Christ imposes, cast aside the yoke of the Gospel, although the yoke is easy and the burden light, and turn again to the world, pursuing eagerly the phantoms of wealth or fame, or worldly happiness which lure them to destruction. For the substance they seek the shadow; the real they resign for the unreal; they give up eternity for time; heaven for hell. Men who act thus foolishly, and their name is legion, are like the benighted traveler, who sees afar off the faint glimmering of some will-o'the-wisp, mistaking it-in his eagerness-for the kindly light of some neighboring cottage; and following it though it leads him into the mire. Many have been thus deceived, and though assured that the folly or the pleasure they have been pursuing, is but an ignis fatuus, that will deceive them in the end and leave them to uncertainty and perhaps ruin, yet how slow are men to heed the warning. Oh! young man, "look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, for at last it biteth as a serpent and stingeth as an adder." It is an ignis fatuus and will certainly deceive you. So too, thou busy one-careful only to amass wealth, to gain renown, to be glorified by man. Know that riches take to them selves wings and flee away,—that a single breath may sully the fair fame you have sought to acquire. There is nothing true but heaven-all else is but a will-of-the-wisp-a mockerya deception. Choose then that good part which shall not be taken from you. L. L. H. For the Home Journal. HOW THEY GET MARRIED. WE BY SOMEBODY. in advance. But if you wish to appreciate the risible trials of the parson, follow him to some country hotel, whither he is frequently called to marry the boys and girls who pop in from the rural regions round about. Solomon says:-"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven," and so these good folks seem to think, and they therefore reserve a certain day or days of the week for marrying days; and it would be rank heresy to get married on any other day. In some places they select Sunday, in others Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, but in the most populous parts of Pennsylvania, Thursday, and perhaps also Tuesday are the great days of the feast. If you enter one of our Pennsylvania county towns on marrying day, during the marrying season, especially spring and fall, you may fre E believe that almost all who stand up to get married feel very queer about it; and we are perfectly sure that a great many go through the performance in a very queer way. Ministers are often in the presence of exceedingly sad scenes, but it is also their lot at times to officiate when it is very difficult to keep a serious face. We are inclined to think that the last most frequently see the dashing horse and fine quently occurs at marriages. buggy of the country boys, flying along to the principal hotel. You will know what is going on by the general appearance of the turn-out, and the fluttering of the white veil that adorns the companion of the swain. Gallantly the hostler seizes the not unwilling head of the foaming horse, whilst the attentive landlord gaily lifts the bouncing bride from her seat and condnets her to his best parlor. Significant grins illumine the faces of the industrious hangers on about the tavern, whose countenances and attitudes seem to proclaim "Nothing to do." A minister, who, during a series of years, is frequently called upon to perform the marriage ceremony, splices all kinds of individuals, old and young, beautiful and homely, well-matched and badly-matched, rich and poor, bachelors and spinsters, widows and widowers, etc. Sometimes the occasion passes off as grandly and ceremoniously as a royal reception, or the carefully rehearsed performances upon the stage; and at other times, the whole party appears to be in a grand state of confusion, which finally affects the anxious officiating clergyman himself. Sometimes the company marches into his presence, opens, and assumes a position with a tact, precision and elasticity that would do credit to the crack military company of the city of Brotherly Love; and then again, they come in and stare and stumble around him as if they were playing blindman's buff, and the reverend gentleman was to catch them. Weddings in the city, or in villages, or the country, when they take place at the home of the parties, are generally well-profession, hastens to the house of the parmanaged, especially in these latter days, son, who, if he is an experienced hand, is in which grooms and brides practice weeks already sitting in a state of expectation. Mine host speedily ascertains from the rosy lips of the awkward groom, that he and the lady in the white veil stand in need of the services of the preacher, leaving the selection of the individual to the host. In the meantime wine, gingerbread, raisins, almonds and mintsticks in abundance are to be placed within reach of the sweet bride and her bold bridegroom. And now the landlord in person, slipping on a less seedy coat, or a Mercury of an hostler, odorous with the fragrance of his He arose earlier than usual, and his tonso- | and then, repeating their names, asked the rial operations, and other duties of the toilette were attended to more carefully than usual. He knows it is the magic day of marriage and nothing is able to draw him away from his home. For what would the people do if the parson would be absent from home at a time like this? The messenger enters the clerical presence. He feels that he is bringing good tidings of great joy, which shall be to the reverend gentleman before him, who, perhaps, gets a very small salary, and that not very punctually. Soon after, the parson, in his best coat, with his liturgy (for we are describing one of our own faith) and a blank marriage certificate, (perhaps one of those which the Board of Publication have published,) proceeds to the house, and is conducted by mine host into the presence. So far the picture may be a general one, and may be true of most marriages throughout the State; but now the scenes begin to vary much, and his experience from the first introduction to the "Farewell" at the end of all, is different with almost every couple. Sometimes he finds the groom with his hat on sitting close beside his lovely bride with her bonnet off. They both look scared. The groom is so scared that he forgets that he has a hat on his head, or he has become so accustomed to the weight of his hat, that he is unconscious of having it on now. The parson shakes them both by the hand, and tries to make himself agreeable; but there is still a look of suspicion about the groom, and the bride steals fearful glances at the man in black. Perhaps the minister finds a great difficulty in getting their names written correctly. At times neither the bold groom nor the rosy maiden are able to spell their names, and his reverence must try the phonetic system. We proceed. Sometimes they have been at a great loss how to place themselves, and we have been obliged to fix them like the king and queen on the chess board. We have read the ceremony very distinctly question of the gentleman whether he would have the lady? and were horrified at hearing both join in the chorus, Yes! It was only when we asked the same question of the lady that the mistake has been perceived, and on several occasions remedied by both chorusing Yes! We recollect that on several occasions we exhorted our young friends to join their right hands, but their confusion was so great that they were under the impression that we wished to shake hands with them, and both very politely held out their right hand to seize ours.Another interesting innovation, which is not set down in the liturgy, we have also seen, viz. :-That when the right hands of the couple were united they began to shake each other (id est-the hands) very cordially. Woe be unto the clergyman who is unable to control his facial muscles at such times! We recollect another occasion. We married a widower and widow, both of whom evidently appreciated the delightful state far more than they did at their first marriage; although, no doubt, both had promised, he unto his wife, and she unto her husband, that they could never bear to enter into the state of matrimony again, after having been joined to such a dear, devoted, fine, excellent, adorable, incomparable first love, etc., etc. However, this has nothing to do with our story. Our widower seemed to be in rather an ecstatic state, although for the life of us, we did not see anything so overwhelmingly attractive in the bride. But let us not forget tastes differ, and it is well it is so, for if there was a demand for one kind alone, what would become of all the lads and lassies? Well, they arose, we read the service and propounded the question to the bridegroom. He ejaculated a most heartfelt and sonorous Yes! and (we had forgotten to state that they had taken hold of each other's hands as soon as they stood up-Darby and Joan fashion) drawing her towards him, impressed a most rapturous kiss upon her lips. Your hum ble narrator was so overcome by this unexpected development, not at all called for by the liturgy, that he could scarcely restrain himself, and with a full throat and quivering facial muscles, proceeded with the second question. The gentleman seemed rather surprised that a second question was coming, and when the lady responded Yes! he looked very much like repeating his previous assault, which would have overturned the officiating clergyman's gravity completely; but, fortunately he desist ed. How to convey the fee to the minister, seems to be another difficult point. We have been asked more than once, "What's to pay?" "What does it cost?" "How much do I owe you?" and the like. We always, very politely, leave that to the unbounded generosity of the groom. Sometimes it is not the most dignified position for his reverence to stand before the now happy bridegroom, whilst he fumbles in his purse or pocket, or even makes a selection from a handful of coin. We have also been asked when the same was placed in our hand, whether that was enough! On one occasion, after the ceremony was over, and the beautiful certificate filled up and politely delivered into the hands of the bride, the groom stepped up and drew us aside into a corner, where he confidingly assured us that he was out of money, and begged us to trust him for a while. We have not had the pleasure of renewing our acquaintance with the gentleman since. We have often wondered whether his bride ever discovered that her dear husband had never paid for her. A favorite mode of handing the fee, is to shake hands with the preacher, and smuggle it into his right hand at the time. We have always thought that it was rather a difficult job to shake hands and grasp the little piece of gold at one and the same time. It has also been our experience, that the good folks did not know how to get it into our possession, and suffered us to leave the place before they have discovered the proper means. It may be still customary in some places, where ministers do not inculcate total abstinence, for them to drink the bridal party's health in some splendid Madeira or Port, manufactured in New York and Philadelphia, and to eat a few gingerbreads and to take one or two of the fattest home for the good woman and the children. How happily the married pair walk up and down the streets after the ceremony! They look at the lions, stare into the shop windows, eat and drink lots of good things, perhaps go and have their handsome faces daguerreotyped, and finally return to the hotel and order the horse and buggy. Away down the street they go. The young husband with a long-nine, puffing volumes of smoke, drives like Jehu, whilst beneath the flowing white veil, flung upon the top of the bonnet, reposes the fair countenance of the newly-made wife, still ruminating upon some of the wedding cake and groundnuts. May they long live happy! DEVOTION OF A GREAT MIND TO ITS DUTIES.-Milton the poet of Paradise Lost, who, during an active life, in the most troublesome times, was unceasing in the cultivation of his understanding, thus describes his own habits:-"Those morning haunts are where they should be, at home;, not sleeping or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring; in winter, often, ere the sound of any bell awaken men to labor or devotion; in summer, as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary, or memory have its full fraught; then with useful and generous labors, preserving the body's health and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the mind, to the cause of religion, and our country's liberty." BIBLE. The leaves of the Bible are the leaves of the tree of life, as well as the tree of knowledge; they strengthen as well as enlighten, and have not only a commanding but an assisting office. |