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1857.]

The Teachings of the Dead.

I shrink not from the shadows sorrow flings
Across my pathway; nor from cares that rise
In every foot-print; for each shadow brings

Sunshine and rainbow as it glooms and flies.

But heaven is dearer. There I have my treasure;
There angels fold in love their snowy wings;
Their sainted lips chant in celestial measure,

And spirit fingers stray o'er heav'n-wrought strings.

There loving eyes are to the portals straying;
There arms extend a wanderer to fold;
There waits a dearer, holier One, arraying

His own in spotless robes and crowns of gold..

Then let me die. My spirit longs for heaven.
In that pure bosom evermore to rest;
But if to labor longer here be given,

"Father, thy will be done!" and I am blest.

361

Were this communion with the dead more constantly and believingly maintained, would it not have much influence in learning us to live better and happier and holier lives. Selfishness, self-will, and many painful infirmities of disposition and pecularities of character interfere, to a very unhappy extent, with social enjoyment and happy fellowship even in families and kindred. In the daily intercourse of life, these occasion many a harsh jar and dissonance of feeling, and mar the harmony of the best consorted spirits. They lead us sadly to undervalue the sweet charities of love, and kindness, and self-denial and forbearance. They lead us to dwell upon the rough and ugly, or at least unlovely features in each other's character, and to think less of those which may be lovely and attractive. Alas for us, we are blind and ignorant as to what the real happiness of earth is, until it is forever taken from us. This is one chief reason why in absence our affections are so much deepened. We cease to think so exclusively or frequently of what is imperfect and unlovely. All that is good and true and beautiful, comes before us as they do to the poet's and the painter's eye, enshrine the ideal picture on which we so fondly gaze, and make us wonder that in communion with such a character, we should not enjoy perfect union of heart and sympathy. But it is only, as has been said, when those whom we love pass away, that, realizing a great loss, we learn how vital was that relation, how inestimable the privilege which is withdrawn forever. How quick, then, is our regret for every harsh word which we have spoken to the departed or for any momentary alienation which we have indulged! This, however, should not reduce us to a morbid sensitiveness, or an unavailing sorrow, seeing that it is blended with so many pleasant memories; but it should teach us our duty to the living. It should make our affections more diligent and dutiful. It should check our hasty words, and assuage our passions. It should cause us day and night, to meet in kindness and part in peace. Our social ties are golden links of uncertain tenure, and, one by one, they drop away. Let us cherish a more constant love for those who make up our family circle, for "not long may we stay." The allotments of duty, perhaps, will soon distribute us into

different spheres of action; our lines, which now fall together in a pleasant place, will be wide apart as the zones, or death will cast his shadow upon these familiar faces, and interrupt our long communion. Let us, indeed, preserve this temper with all men-those who meet us in the street, in the mart, in the most casual or selfish concerns of life. We cannot remain together a great while, at the longest. Let us meet, then, with kindness, that when we part, no pang may remain. Let not a single day bear witness to the neglect or violation of any duty which we owe to our fellows. Let nothing be done which shall lie hard in the heart when it is excited to tender and solemn recollections. Let only good-will beam from faces that so soon shall be changed. Let only pleasant and fragrant feelings spring up in those hearts over whose common grave nature will soon plant her tributary flowers

With what patience and thankfulness also, do the dead teach us to en joy the blessings which are still continued to us, and to bear with thankful resignation the trials and discomforts which are mingled with our lot. Imperfect in ourselves, we nevertheless, with monstrous inconsistency, expect perfection in others, and while unhappy and discontented within ourselves, we are easily worried and fretted by trifling inconveniences around us. We take but little account of our multiplied mercies, in our undue regard to incidental evils. It is only when some loved one is taken from our family circle, that we realize how, in comparison with the loss of that child, or wife, or husband, or parent, all the inconveniences and trials of life are as nothing, and less than nothing, and vanity. We could now cheerfully endure a thousand ills greater than any we have borne, if only borne in fellowship with the departed one. But in Him as by one devastating wave, everything has been swept away, and the earth has become a dreary waste. What was before great, has become of little value. What we most coveted, ceases to attract. And the trifles which annoyed us, have sunk into insignificance. Let us then lay this to heart. Let us learn and ponder upon the needful lesson. Let us turn our thoughts to the friends still spared Let us duly estimate their priceless value. Let us practically feel the evanescent, temporary, and incidental nature of all our possible trials. And remembering how soon God can desolate our hearts and our homes, by one single visitation of His bereaving providence, let us prize one another as our chiefest earthly treasure, and find in each other's society, hallowed by pure and undefiled religion, the only antidote to all our earthly cares, the compensation for all our trials.

to us.

INTERMARRIAGES.-Speaking of the effect of intermarriage among blood relations, the Fredericksburg (Va.) News says:

"In this county, in which we were raised, for twenty generations back certain families of wealth and respectability have intermarried until there cannot be found in three or four of them a sound man or woman! One has sore eyes, another scrofula, a third is an idiot, a fourth blind, a fifth bandy-legged, a sixth with a head about the size of a turnip, with not one out of the number exempt from physical defects of some kind or other."

1857.]

The Angel.

363

THE ANGEL.

BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

As soon as a good little child dies, one of God's angels descends to the earth, takes the dead child in his arms, spreads out his large white wings, and flies over all the places that were dear to the little one when it was alive; and on the way he gathers a handful of flowers, which he then carries to Heaven, in order that they may bloom still more beautifully there than they did here on Earth. The loving God presseth all these flowers to His bosom; but the flower that He loveth best He kisseth; and then it receives a sweet clear voice, so that it can sing and rejoice with the happy hosts around.

An Angel of God related this as he bore a dead Child to Heaven; and the Child heard as in a dream; and they flew over all the spots around the home where the little one had played in its lifetime, and they passed through gardens with the loveliest flowers. "Which flower shall we take with us and plant afresh in Heaven?" asked the Angel.

And a beautiful slender rose-tree was standing there; but a rude hand had wantonly broken the stem, so that all the branches, that a short time before were so fair and green, and which were full of large halfopen rose-buds, now hung down quite withered and sad, upon the soft, smooth carpet of turf.

"The poor tree!" said the Child; "take it, so that it may bloom again on high with the loving God "

And the Angel took it, and kissed the Child; and the little one halfopened his eyes. They gathered some of the superb flowers; but they took the despised daisy and the wild pansy, too.

"Now we have flowers," said the Child, and the Angel nodded, as if to say, "yes;" but they did not yet fly up to Heaven.

It was night: it was quite still. They staid a while in the great city, near which the child had lived, they floated to and fro in one of the narrowest streets, where great heaps of straw, of ashes and rubbish, lay about there had been a removal. The streets looked disordered and dirty. There lay broken pots and plates, plaster figures, rags, the crowns of old hats; nothing but things that were displeasing to the sight.

And amidst the devastation the Angel pointed to the fragments of a flower-pot, and to a clod of earth that had fallen out of it, and which was only held together by the roots of a great withered wild flower; but it was good for nothing now, and was therefore thrown out into the street.

"We will take that one with us," said the Angel, "and I will tell you about it while we are flying.

And now they flew on; and the Angel related:

"Down yonder, in the narrow street, in the low cellar, lived once a poor sickly boy. He had been bedridden from his very infancy, for an incurable disease had seized upon his tender frame. When he was very

well indeed, he could just go a few times up and down the little room on his crutches; that was all. Some days in summer the sunbeams fell for half an hour on the little cellar-window; and then, when the boy sat there, and let the warm sun shine upon him, and saw the red blood through his small thin fingers, then it was said, 'Yes, he has been out to-day. All he knew of the wondrously beautiful spring-time, the green and beauty of the woods, was from the first bough of a beech-tree that a neighbor's son once brought him as a May-day token; and he held it over his head, and dreamed he was under the green shelter of the beech-trees, where the sun shone and the birds were singing around him.

"One day in spring his neighbor's son brought him some wild flowers also, and among them was by chance one with a root; it was therefore planted in a flower-po and placed in the window close by his bedside. And a fortunate hand had planted the flower; it thrived, put forth new shoots, and every year it bore sweet-smelling flowers. To the eyes of the sick boy it became the most beautiful garden-his little treasure upon earth he watered and tended it, and took care that it got every sunbeam, to the very last that glided by on the lowest pane. And the flower grew up in his very dreams, with its colors and its fragrance; it was overlooked by others, and for him alone it bloomed and smelt so sweetly to it he turned in dying, when the loving God called him to Himself. He has now been a year with God-a year has the flower stood in the window withered and forgotten, and now, at the removal, it has been thrown among the rubbish into the street. And that is the flower, the same poor faded flower, which we have taken into our garland; for this flower has caused more joy than the rarest flower in the garden of a queen."

"But how do you know all this?" asked the Child whom the Angel was carrying up to Heaven.

"I know it," said the Angel; "I was myself the little sick boy that went on crutches; I must surely know my own flower again."

And the Child opened his eyes and looked in the beautiful, calm face of the Angel; and at the same moment they were in Heaven, where was only joy and blessedness.

And God pressed the dead Child to His bosom: thereon it became winged like the other Angel, and flew hand in hand with him; and God pressed all the flowers to His bosom, but the poor withered flower He kissed; and a voice was given to it, and it sang a song of triumph with all the angels that moved around God in Heaven, some sweeping on their bright wings quite near to him, others round these in larger circles, always further away in immensity, but all equally blessed.

And they all sang, great and small; the good, innocent little child, who once limped about on his toilsome crutches, and the poor fieldflower that had lain withered among the sweepings in the narrow, dingy

street.

FAITH builds, in the dungeon and the lazar-house, its sublimest shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut up the eye of Heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide to and fro.

1857.]

Farm-Life a School of True Manhood.

365

FARM-LIFE A SCHOOL OF TRUE MANHOOD.

THE men who have left their mark upon the ages in which they have lived, have done a great and noble work for the race, have been, with few exceptions, men of noble physical mould. The foundation of their greatness and of their fame was laid in the early and patient training of their physical powers. Such a man was Washington, and most of the worthies who were associated with him in the struggle for our liberties. Such were Clay and Webster, and many of their contemporaries in our national Senate. Their early days were spent upon the farm, and the thoughts of their declining years were given to the improvement and the embellishment of their respective homesteads. Ashland and Marshfield will long be scenes of pilgrimage to the husbandman as well as the patriot.

The whole tendency of farm life is to develop the body healthfully and symmetrically. The child is not pent up in the narrow backyard of a city dwelling, nor turned into the thronged and filthy street, to pursue his sports. His eyes open first upon green fields and fragrant meadows, and his first footfall out of doors is upon the matted grass beneath the shadowy trees of his rural home. He drinks in health from every breeze, and all the scenes around him call forth that playfulness which performs so important an office in our early training. * * *

And this leads us to speak of the influence of farm life upon the home virtues. No occupation can be more favorable to the cultivation of those qualities which are the charm of the domestic circle. The farmer is much more at home than is possible with many other men. How many there are in our cities who only see their families at evening, or on the Sabbath. They live for their business, and this, from its location, takes them from home early and late. How many from this same cause, forsake housekeeping, and huddle into boarding-houses and hotels, where the charm and beauty of the family, as God instituted it, are entirely lost, and children fall under a thousand unfriendly influences that would never reach them at home! With the best arrangements wealth can command in the city, it is well nigh impossible to keep children under the influence of their parents, so that they shall have a distinct family character, and bear the moral, as they do the physical image of their progenitors. Parental influence is dissipated amid the varied social influences to which they are subjected from their earliest days. Then what perplexities harrass the man of business in the city-his capital often invested in profitless enterprise, exposed to the depredations of dishonest men, betrayed, cheated, and ruined by knaves and bankrupts. From the very character of his business, he has to trust far more of his available means to the integrity of his fellows than the cultivator. His debts are often scattered over a wide extent of territory, and collections are not only expensive, but exceedingly uncertain. But his commercial credit depends upon this uncertainty, and he is often compelled to fall back upon nothing, a ruined man. Ninty-five failures in a hundred, among business men in the city, tell a sad tale of the perplexities and sorrow, the corroding cares and anguish, of mercantile life. How can a father, goaded with these anxieties from the beginning to the end of the year, do justice to his children, even if his business

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