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ing to promote the well being of others. I see now that I might have done more, but I saw it not then. God had given me a feeble frame, and I might not go forth actively among my brethren. But I sent my voice among them. I spoke aloud in behalf of the wronged and down-trodden. I spoke not of one evil, but of that which is the source of all evil. I spoke to the young, knowing that they would soon be the middle-aged, to act, and then the aged to die. I sent my voice among the ignorant, and invited them to come to the tree of knowledge. And my bliss is now in the assurance I have received, that my words will not be forgotten."

But, if you were doing good," said the Man, sternly, "Why did you go thence?"

"I was called," replied the spirit, gently. "And is there any who may take your place?" "I hope and believe there are many noble spirits, who are as earnest, as able, as faithful and more active, who are laboring for their brother man. But there is another agent. Would you witness it?” and drawing aside a drapery of cloud, he disclosed a shining volume. The night breeze gently wafted its leaves, and, in letters of brightness, were written upon them such words as these:

"God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth." "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "The laborer is worthy of his hire." "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them." With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

The Man glanced at them, and then said, "Is this book there?"

"It is there," replied the spirit, "and there it will remain until its words are embroidered upon the hems of their garments, engraved upon the bells of their horses, and bound as frontlets between their eyes. Yea, even until they are impressed upon the hearts of all men."

The spirit veiled the book again in aerial drapery, and disappeared himself in the bright cloud.

The Man turned away, with a spirit less sad; and ere morning dawned, he looked down again from his "old accustomed place," ́with his usual placid smile; and none would now know from his benign expression, that we, poor erring mortals, had ever grieved and angered the Man in the Moon.-Lowell Offering.

THE LADY'S YES.

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT.

"Yes!" I answered you last night; "No!" this morning, Sir, I say! Colors, seen by candle-light,

Will not look the same by day. When the tabors played their best, Lamps above, and laughs below

Love me sounded like a jest,

Fit for Yes or fit for No!

Call me false, or call me free-
Vow, whatever light may shine,
No man on thy face shall see
Any grief for change on mine.

Yet the sin is on us both-
Time to dance is not to woo-
Wooer light makes fickle troth-
Scorn of me recoils on you!

Learn to win a lady's faith

Nobly, as the thing is high; Bravely, as for life or deathWith a loyal gravity.

Lead her from the festive boards,

Point her to the starry skies, Guard her, by your truthful words,

Pure from courtship's flatteries.

By your truth she shall be true

Ever true, as wives of yoreAnd her Yes, once said to you, SHALL be YES for evermore."

HOW TO KEEP LENT.

BY ROBERT HERRICK.

(A paraphrase of Isaiah lviii. 8—7.) Is this a Fast, to keep The larder leane

And clean

From fat of neates and sheep?~

Is to quit the dish

Of flesh, yet still

To fill

The platter high with fish?

Is it to fast an houre,

Or ragg'd to go,

Or show

A downcast look and soure? No:-'Tis a fast to dole

Thy sheaf of wheat

And meat

Unto the hungry soule.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate;

To circumcise thy life;
To shew a heart grief rent;
To starve thy sin,

Not bin;

And that's to keep thy Lent!

CHRISTIAN, AND MERE POETIC BENEVO-
LENCE, CONTRASTED.

BY THOMAS CHALMERS.

(Extracted from a discourse before the Edingburgh Society

for the relief of the Destitute Sick.)

have moved at all; and their usefulness to the poor would have been reduced to a very humble fraction of what they have actually done for them. What is this but to say, that it is the business of a religious instructor to give you, not the elegant, but the true representation of benevolence-to represent it not so much as a luxurious indulgence to the finer sensibilities of the mind, but according to the sober declaration of Scripture, as a work and as a labor— as a business in which you must encounter vexation opposition, and fatigue; where you are not always to meet with that elegance which allures the fancy, or with that humble and retired adversity, which but as a business where reluctance must often be interests the more tender propensities of the heart; overcome by a sense of duty, and where, though oppressed at every step, by envy, disgust, and disappointment, you are bound to persevere, in obedience to the law of God, and the sober instigation of principle.

The benevolence of the gospel lies in actions. The benevolence of our fiction writers, in a kind of high-wrought delicacy of feeling and sentiment. The one dissipates all its fervor in sighs and tears, and idle aspirations-the other reserves its strength for efforts and execution. The one regards it as a luxurious enjoyment of the heart-the other, as a work and business of the hand. The one sits in indolence, and broods in visionary rapture, over its schemes of ideal philanthropy-the other steps abroad, and enlightens by its presence, the dark and pestilential hovels of disease. The one wastes away in empty ejaculation-the other gives time and trou

The man who considers the poor, instead of slumbering over the emotions of a useless sensibility among those imaginary beings whom poetry and romance have laid before him in all the elegance of fictitious history, will bestow the labour and the attention of actual business among the poor of the real and the living world. Benevolence is the burden of every romantic tale, and of every poet's song. It is dressed out in all the fairy enchantments of imagery and eloquence. All is beauty to the eye and music to the ear. Nothing seen but pictures of felicity, and nothing heard but the soft whispers of gratitude and affection. The reader is carried along by this soft and delightful representation of virtue. He accompanies his hero through all the fancied varieties of his history. He goes along with him to the cottage of poverty and disease, surrounded, as we may suppose, with all the charms of rural obscurity, and where the murmurings of an adjoining rivulet accord with the finer and more benevolent sensibilities of the mind. He enters this enchanting retirement, and meets with a picture of distress, adorned in all the elegance of fiction. Perhaps a father laid on a bed of languishing, and supported by the labors of an affectionate family, where kindness breathes in every word, and anxiety sits upon every countenance -where the industry of his children struggles in vain to supply the cordials which his poverty denies him-where nature sinks every hour, and all feel able to the work of beneficence-gives education to gloomy foreboding, which they strive to conceal, and tremble to express. The hero of the romance enters, and the glance of his benevolent eye enlightens the darkest recesses of misery. He turns to the bed of languishing, tells the sick man that there is still hope, and smiles comfort on his despairing children. Day after day he repeats his kindness and his charity. They hail his approach as the footsteps of an angel of mercy. The father lives to bless his deliverer. The family rewards his benevolence by the homage of an affectionate gratitude; and, in the piety of their evening prayer, offer up thanks to the God of Heaven, for opening the hearts of the rich to kindly and beneficient attentions. The rea-carry that purpose into execution-not merely to der weeps with delight. The visions of paradise play before his fancy. His tears flow, and his heart dissolves in all the luxury of tenderness.

the orphan-provides clothes to the naked, and lays food on the table of the hungry. The one is indolent and capricious, and often does mischief by the occasional overflowings of a whimsical and ill-directed charity-the other is vigilant and discerning, and takes care lest his distributions be injudicious, and the effort of benevolence be misapplied. The one is soothed with the luxury of feeling, and reclines with easy and indolent satisfaction-the other shakes off the deceitful languor of contemplation and solitude, and delights in a scene of activity. Remember, that virtue, in general, is not to feel, but to do—not merely to conceive a purpose, but to

be overpowered by the impression of a sentiment, but to practise what it loves, and to imitate what it admires.

To be benevolent in speculation, is often to be selfish in action and in reality. The vanity and the indolence of man delude him into a thousand incon.

Now, we do not deny that the members of the Destitute Sick Society may at times have met with some such delightful scene to soothe and encourage them. But put the question to any of their visitors,sistencies. He professes to love the name and the and he will not fail to tell you, that if they had never moved but when they had something like this to excite and gratify their hearts, they would seldom

semblance of virtue, but the labor of exertion and of self-denial terrifies him from attempting it. The emotions of kindness are delightful to his bosom

but then they are little better than a selfish indul- life and action which he demands of his followers. gence-they terminate in his own enjoyment-they It professes to adore the tremendous Majesty of are a mere refinement of luxury. His eye melts heaven, and to weep in shame and in sorrow over the over the picture of fictitious distress, while not a sinfulness of degraded humanity, while every day it tear is left for the actual starvation and misery with insults heaven by the enormity of its misdeeds, and which he is surrounded. It is easy to indulge the evinces the insincerity of its wilful perseverane in imaginations of a visionary heart in going over a the practice of iniquity. This Antinomianism is gescene of fancied affliction, because here there is no nerally condemned; and none reprobate it more sloth to overcome-no avaricious propensity to con- than the votaries of fine sentiment-your men of taste trol-no offensive or disgusting circumstance to al- and elegant literature-your epicures of feeling, who lay the unmingled impression of sympathy which a riot in all the luxury of theatrical emotion, and who, soft and elegant picture is calculated to awaken. It in their admiration of what is tender, and beautiful, is not so easy to be benevolent in action and in re- and cultivated, have always turned with disgust from ality, because here there is fatigue to undergo-there the doctrines of a sour and illiberal theology. We is time and money to give-there is the mortifying may say to such, as Nathan to David, "Thou art the spectacle of vice, and folly, and ingratitude, to en- man." Theirs is to all intents and purposes Antinocounter. We like to give you the fair picture of mianism-and an Antinomianism of a far more danlove to man, because to throw over it false and fic-gerous and deceitful kind, than the Antinomianism titious embellishments, is injurious to its cause.-of a spurious and pretended orthodoxy. In the AnThese elevate the fancy by romantic visions which can never be realized. They embitter the heart by the most severe and mortifying disappointments, and often force us to retire in disgust from what heaven has intended to be the theatre of our discipline and preparation. Take the representation of the Bible. Benevolence is a work and a labor. It often calls for the severest efforts of vigilance and industrya habit of action not to be acquired in the school of fine sentiment, but in the walks of business, in the dark and dismal receptacles of misery-in the hospitals of disease-in the putrid lanes of great cities, where poverty dwells in lank and ragged wretchedness, agonizing with pain, faint with hunger, and shivering in a frail and unsheltered tene

ment.

You are not to conceive yourself a real lover of your species, and entitled to the praise or the reward of benevolence because you weep over a fictitious representation of human misery. A man may weep in the indolence of a studious and contemplative retirement; he may breathe all the tender aspirations of humanity; but what avails all this warm and effusive benevolence, if it is never exerted-if it never rise to execution-if it never carry him to the accomplishment of a single benevolent purpose-if it shrinks at activity, and sicken at the pain of fatigue? It is easy, indeed, to come forward with the cant and hypocrisy of fine sentiment-to have a heart trained to the emotions of benevolence, while the hand refuses the labor of discharging its offices -to weep for amusement, and to have nothing to spare for human suffering but the tribute of an indolent and unmeaning sympathy. Many of you must be acquainted with that corruption of Christian doctrine which has been termed Antinomianism. It professes the highest reverence for the Supreme Being, while it refuses obedience to the lessons of his authority. It professes the highest gratitude for the sufferings of Christ, while it refuses that course of

tinomianism of religion, there is nothing to fascinate or deceive you. It wears an air of repulsive bigotry, more fitted to awaken disgust, than to gain the admiration of proselytes. There is a glaring deformity in its aspect, which alarms you at the very outset, and is an outrage to that natural morality which, dark and corrupted as it is, is still strong enough to lift its loud remonstrance against it. But in the Antinomianism of high-wrought sentiment, there is a deception far more insinuating. It steals upon you under the semblance of virtue. It is supported by the delusive colouring of imagination and poetry. It has all the graces and embellishments of literature to recommend it. Vanity is soothed, and conscience lulls itself to repose in this dream of feeling and of indolence.

Let us dismiss these lying vanities, and regulate our lives by the truth and soberness of the New Testament. Benevolence is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business with men as they are, and with human life as drawn by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which you must perform at the call of principle, though there be no voice of eloquence to give splendonr to your exertions, and no music or poetry to lead your willing footsteps through the bowers of enchantment. It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic emotion. It is an exertion of principle. You must go to the poor man's cottage, though no verdure flourish around it, and no rivulet be nigh to delight you by the gentleness of its murmurs. If you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction, you will be disappointed; but it is your duty to persevere, in spite of every discouragement. Benevolence is not merely a feeling, but a principle-not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute.

It must now be obvious to all of you, that it is not enough that you give money, and add your name to the contributors of charity-you must give it with

POEMS BY CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH.

judgment. You must give your time and your attention. You must descend to the trouble of examination. You must rise from the repose of contemplation, and make yourself acquainted with the

So

THE SOUL-FLOWER.

Far down-all alone,

deep, there was not a sound or motion,
Nor a sea-beast's ear to catch the groan

Of the upper sea in its strife.

green waves were noiseless and harmless as sleep.

objects of your benevolent exercises. Will he hus- I dreamed of a Flower that bloomed in the ocean, band your charity with care, or will he squander it away in idleness and dissipation? Will he satisfy himself with the brutal luxury of the moment, and neglect the supply of his more substantial necessities, or suffer his children to be trained in ignorance The and depravity? Will charity corrupt him by laziness? What is his peculiar necessity? Is it the want of health or the want of employment? Is it the pressure of a numerous family? Does he need medicine to administer to the diseases of his children? Does he need fuel or raiment to protect them from the inclemency of winter? Does he need money to satisfy the yearly demands of his landlord, or to purchase books and to pay for the education of his offspring?

To give money is not to do all the work and labour of benevolence. You must go to the poor man's bed. You must lend your hand to the work of assistance. You must examine his accounts. You must try to recover those debts which are due to his family. You must try to recover those wages which are detained by the injuries or the rapacity of his master. You must employ your mediation with his superiors. You must represent to them the necessities of his situation. You must solicit their assistance, and awaken their feelings to the tale of his calamity. This is benevolence in its plain, and sober, and substantial reality, though eloquence may have withheld its imagery, and poetry may have denied its graces and its embellishments. This is true and unsophisticated goodness. It may be recorded in no earthly documents; but if done under the influence of Christian principle-in a word, done unto Jesus, it is written in the book of heaven, and will give a new lustre to that crown to which his disciples look forward in time, and will wear through eternity.

RECOMPENSE.

BY W. G. SIMS.

Not profitless the game, even though we lose;
Nor wanting in reward the thankless toil:
The wild adventure that the man pursues
Requites him, though he gathers not the spoil:
Strength follows labour, and its exercise

Brings Independence-fearlessness of ill-
Courage and pride—all attributes we prize—
Though their fruits fail, not the less valued still.
Though fame withholds the trophy of desire,

And men deny, and the impatient throng
Grows heedless, and the strains, protracted, tire-
Not wholy vain the minstrel and the song,
If, striving to arouse one heavenly tone
In others' hearts, it wakens up his own.

And a dim light struggled to pierce the deep,
But all was cold and shadowless,
And all was void and motionless,
For here there was no LIFE,
Saving of this one flower.
O'twas a starlike thing,

A vision of calm, undying power;
Bell-like and deep, like an urn of pearl,

With anthers all golden and glittering, And slowly its petals of white did unfurl;

A marble flower, yet living and growing; Sweet and pure as a seraph's dream.

O dim are the diamond and ruby's gleam,

And the myriad gems that are glowing,
When I think on the light of this lonely flower,
Far down in its silent and dim sea-bower.
The storms of the upper waves raged on,

But here was no tempest or noise to dread;
Huge wrecks and bodies of men came down,
But they hung drifting far over head,
They sank not down to the sacred bower
Where bloomed the peaceful ocean-flower.
The sea-snake and whale in their giant race,
Were lost when they sought for this lonely

place,

And all the bright-colored things that gleam And dart through the deep, were like meteors that stream

Through a summer sky; while the sea-stars shone,

Some in clusters, and some alone,

Whose far off twinklings feebly sent
A light through the vast dim element.

And I know whenever this dream comes back,
That there is a flower like this, on earth;
It hath not here its place of birth,

And seldom may we track

The path that leads to the inner shrine
Where its glories spread and shine.
Yet ye need not roam from star to star;
Ye need not seek this flower afar;

It blooms deep down in the human heart;
It hath no peer in the pride of art,

It blooms in the breast of the wise and pure,
But withers a sinful heart within,
For its amaranth beauty cannot endure
The blighting atmosphere of sin.

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