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BY JAS. CLARK.
TILE FOLLY OF ATHEISM.
sy vraLIB GAYLORD CLAIM.
*How great are his signs, and how mighty are
Ms wonders 1 Bis kingdom is an everlasting king
dom, and his dominion is from generation to gen
•ration."—DASutl..
I marked the Spring as she passed along,
With her eye of light and her lip of song;
While she stole in peace o'er the green earth's
breast;
While the streams sprang out from their icy rest,
The buds bent low to the breeze's sigh,
And their breath went forth in the scented sky;
When the fields looked fresh in their sweet repose,
And the young dews slept on the new born rose.
I looked upon Summer; the golden sun,
Poured joy over all that lie looked upon,
His glance was cast like a gift abroad,
Like the boundless smile of a perfect God;
The stream shone glad in his magic ray,
The fleecy clouds o'er the green hills lay;
Our rich, dark woodlands their shadows went,
As they floated iu light through the firmament.
The scene was changed. It was Autumn's hour;
A frost had discolored the summer bower;
The blast wailed sad 'midst the cankered leaves,
The reaper stood musing by gathered sheaves;
The mellow pomp of the rainbow woods;
Was stirred by the sound of the rising floods ;
And I knew by the cloud—by the wild wind's
strain,
That Winter drew near with his storms again !
I stood by the ocean; its waters rolled,
In their changeful beauty of saphire and gold ;
And day went down with its radiant smiles,
Whore the blue waves danced round a thousand
isles;
The ships went forth on the trackless seas,
Their white wings played on the joyous breeze;
Their prows rushed on 'midst the parted foam,
While the wanderer was wrapt in a dream on home,
The mountain arose with its lofty brow,
While its shadow lay far in the vale below;
The mist, like a garland of glory, lay
Where its proud heights Soared in the air away;
The eagle was there on his tireless wing,
And his shriek went up like an offering;
And he seemed, in his sunward flight, to raise
A chaunt of thanksgiving—a hymn of praise !
I looked on the arch of the midnight skies,
With its blue and an:eareliable mysteries;
The moon, 'midst an eloquent multitude
Of unnumbered stars, her career pursued;
A charm of sleep on the city tell,
All sounds lay hushed in that breeding spell—
By babbling brooks were the buds at rest,
And the wild bird dreamed sweet on his downy
nest.
X stood where the deepening tempest passed;
The strong trees groaned in the sounding blast;
The murmuring deep with its wrecks rolled on,
The clouds overshadowed the mighty sun ;
The low reeds bent by the streamlet's side,
And hilts to the thunder peal replied—
The lightning burst forth on its fearful way,
While the heavens were lit in its red array I
And bath MAN the power with his pride and hi•:
To arouse all Nature with storms at will?
Bath he power to color the Numnier cloud—
To allay the tempest when hilla are bowed?
Cun he awaken the spring with his festal wreath?
Can the sun grow dim by his lightest breath?
Will he come again, when Death's vale is trod?
Who then shall dare murmur, "there is 110 God!"
BEN BOLT.
lIT WiLLI.I3I DUNN ENGLISH.
0, don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt 7
Sweet Alice, with hair so brown;
Who wept with delight when you gave here smile,
And trembled with fear at your frown 7
Li the old church-yard of the abbey, Ben Bolt,
In a corner obscure and alone,
They have fitted a slab of the granite so grey,
And sweet Alice lies under the stone.
0, don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt,
With the Muster so cruel and grim;
And the pleasant nook, and the running brook,
Where the school boys went to swine
Grass grows on the Master's grave, Ben Bolt,
And the running brook is dry;
Of all the boys who were schoolmates then,
There remains only you and I.
0, don't you remember the wood, Ben Bolt,
That grew on the bright sunny hill.
Where oft we have strayed 'south its wilde spread
ing 'hada,
And listened to Appleton's mill 1
That mill has gone to decay, Ben Bolt,
And the rafter's have fallen in;
And quiet has settled obeli around,
In the place of the hum and the din.
There's a change in the things I love, Ben Bolt,
A change from the old to the now;
But I feel in the depths of my heart, Ben Bolt,
,
There never was a change in you.
Eeight years anti twenty have passed, Ben Bolt,
_
Yet still with delight I hail
Thy presence a blessing, thy friendship a trutlr,
Ban Bolt, of the salt sea gale.
Loud bray'd an ass; Kate cried to jeer
Ear sponse with giddy carriage
"One of your relatives I hear !"
^ Ti., Wry," said hi, " ley marriszcs
From Eliza Cook's journal.
THE WATCHER. •
In a dark room, in a ruined and. wretched house
in one of the moot filthy districts of a great city, a
mother sat watching her sleeping babe. The in
fant was lying on a bard pallet on the floor, and
the mother was sitting beside it on a broken chair,
plying her needle with eager haste, pausing occa
sionally to look down fit her babe or to kiss it as it
lay asleep. The child was pale and sickly, and
in the close offensive air of the room, it seemed to
breathe painfully, and to inhale, with every pulse
of its tender heart, the insiduous principles of
death and dissolution. But no less pale and wan
was the mother, who sat there watching; her fea
tures wore that blanched, unearthly hue, and that
strange upward light was playing in her eyes, that
spoke but too plainly that death was breathing on
her. The room was lonely— very lonely—for
there wore no pictures to adorn the walls, scarcely
any article of common domestic use within it; it
was bare, almost unfurnished, dismal, and cold.—
The mother was engaged in making shirts, and
the price she received for them averaged two
pence-halfpenny etch; and it is said that by ex
traordinary exertions for twenty hours out of twen
ty-four, the sum of three shillings may be earned
weekly, at such labor. Well, the pale, care-worn
suffering mother continued to stitch, anxiously
from hour to hour, leaving off now and then to
take her dying baby in her arms,' and to press it
fondly to her breast, until the tide of her heart's
affection came stealing forth in tears; and recol
lecting that the next meal for herself and child
must he earned by the continued labor of her jaded
hands, site placed the infant on its bed, and again
resumed her work.
Thus many hours had passed in a silence, bro
ken only by the low meanings of the child as it
turned to and fro in the feeble expression of long
continued anguish, and the deep sighs of the moth
er as she gazed anxiously upon its fevered face,
and saw the stamp of want and misery there in an
expression akin to the imbecility of years. At
length the babe awoke, and the mother took it
tenderly into her arms; she pressed it to her
breast, and kissed the cold dew from its forehead.
And now she began to prepare her humble meal;
she placed a few sticks of wood in the stove and
lighted them ; and then arranged two cups and
saucers on a small tray, and took a portion of a
loaf from a shelf above. While waiting for the
water to boil, she gave her child sonic food; and
she had scarcely began to do this when a heavy
and unsteady step was heard on the threshold.—
Her heart leaped with fear, and she trembled like
a moonlight shadow. A creature somewhat in the
semblance of a man staggered into the room end
threw himself down upon the pallet where the
child had just been sleeping.
" Charles, Charles, do not, for God's sake, treat
me thus," said the mother of the child, and she
sobbed loudly, and was steeped in tears.
The man scowled upon her from beneath the
broken brim of a sloutehed hat. and in a low, fien
dish growl, rimed her. His clothes had been res
pectable in their time, but now were tattered and
slovenly, and his fire wore the savage wildness
and vacancy of long-continued dissipation.
" I came home to ask yon fbr money, so give
me what you've got, and let me go. fin• I haven't
done drinking yet," said ho,, while the devil-like
glare of his eyes seemed to pierce the poor mother
to the soul.
" I spent my last penny to buy my child some
food ; I know not where to get another; you have
never wanted a meal while I could work, and my
poor fingers are wasted to the bone by midnight
labor and the want of bread, and my poor child is
wasting away before my face, while yon,fbrgetting
all the ties that bind a father to his oMpring, or a
husband to his wife, take the very bread from me
,ind my babe, to waste it in drunkenness; oh
Charles, you loved me once, but you are killing
me now, and my poor dear child."
" You howling, canting hypocrite, give me some
money, and let me go," bawled the intoxicated
brute, and with a sweep of his band, as he sat upon
the child's bed, he overturned the table, and scat
tered the miserable meal upon.the floor. The
heart-broken wife rushed with her babe to the op
posite cud of the room, and cowered down with
fear. "Do you hear, or do you want me to mur
der you ?" and lie rose from where lie sat and
reeled towards her; shrinking and shivering as
she bent over her babe, she pressed its almost life
less body to her heart, and when lie stood above
her, she looked up in his face, in the agony of
despair, and implored in the mute utterance of her
tearworn eyes tbr mercy. But lie did not strike
her, although she was indeed well used to that, but
he put out his band and taking from her bosom a
locket which had been a dear sister's gift, and the
but thing left her but her babe and death, stag
gered to the door, and after looking back with a
menacing and brutal expression of his savage fea
tures lelt her. Although he was gone she moved
not, but sat wailing like a dove whose nest has been
bereft of that which made life dear, and sobbing
loudly in her grief she looked Olson her child, and
saw the tokens of pain and want upon its meagre
Bice, and could feel the throbbings of its little heart
becoming more and more feeble from hour to hour
as the shadow of its life was waning.
And night came, and she laid her child down
to rest, and again sat working and watching. She
kissed it when its low cry startled her in the mid
night silence, and hushed it again to sleep, for it
it anted food, and that she had not, The morning
came, but it was still night to her, and the dark
ness of her woo eat hovering over her frail soul
like the shadow of a great but silent misery. She
hurried on, in the delirium of extreme weakness,
that she might ample* the 'wretched work ehe
HUNTINGDON, PA., THURSDAY, MARCH 20,1851.
had, and get food for her famishing child. Intense
suffering, long watching, hunger, cold, and cruel
ty had blanched a cheek which had been more fair
than snow, and had carved wrinkles like those of
age upon a youthful brow ; death hovered over her
like a ghastly shadow, not to her—as to those in
comfort—terrible, but welcome. And thus, from
hour to hour, and from day to day, that mother
labored for her lonely child, while he whose heart
should have beat with the devotion of love for her
whom lie had sworn to cherish, and whose hand
should have been ever ready to defend her, deemed
nothing too severe, nothing too difficult, which
could bring food and comfort to a woman's con
stant heart, came only to rob her of her last morsel,
and to add fresh agonies to her almost withered
soul by imprecations and curses.
One morning after she had been toiling long in
cold and hunger, she became too weak to labor
more, and stature filtered. She stooped to kiss
her babe, and ask a blessing on its head from Him
whose benedictions come oven to the sorrowful and
needy, and as she bent down above its shadowy
forth, her sorrows overwhelmed her, and she fell
down beside her child mid fainted. With none to
aid and soothe her—with none to nourish her in
her distress of heart, and no kind hand to minister
to the poor watcher in that hour of affliction, she
lay in that sweet peace which comes to the aching
' heart when it can for a time forgot its sorrows;
antrbetter too, perhaps, for her, for 'her babe was
dying, and in the unconsciousness of temporary
death, she knew it not.
She awoke at last, for oven the forgetfulness so
dear to the wounded spirit will have an end, and
the grim bitter realities become palpable once
more, and as consciousness returned, she was star
tled from her partial dream by the icy chill which
fell upon her when she touched her child. She
shrieked wildly, and fell upon her face in the mad
dening agony of despair,—"My child, my child,
oh, my child !" she cried, and tore her hair in
frenzy. Now she became more calm, and turned
round to look at the babe, whose soul had passed
into that better sleep from which there is no wa
king. She kissed its cold wasted form, and bath
ed its little marble face with her scalding tears.
" Oh, my child !" she sobbed, "my poor child !
murdered by its father's hand, the victim of its
cruelty; oh, Father of. all, Father of the wicked
and good, take my poor lathe to thy fostering bo
som, and let me die too, for my last hope is gone,
the last link of my heart's affection is broken;
Father of mercies, listen to the supplications of a
childless mother !"
That step! and the blood goes hack to her heart
like an icy flood, and every pulse is withered as
with a bleak and desolating frost; she holds her
breath, and with her dead child in her arms,
crouches down in the corner on the floor, and in
the silence of despair and terror, asks her God to
bless and protect her, and to soften his heart in
snch an awful moment as this. Ho came to the
threshold of the room, and fell prostrate on the
floor as he attempted to approach her; be was too
much intoxicated to rise, and there he lay mut
tering in broken and inarticulate words, the most
horrible oaths and implications. The mother spoke
not, for, although even then she could have pray
ed for him in her heart, •and bless him with her
tongue ; ay, and still labor for him with her hands,
if by such she could win back the old love which
had made her youthful hours glad, and which had
spread the rosy atmosphere of hope before her;
but which was now a thing of silent memory, of
sadness, and of tests.
Thus passed away the morning, and at noon the
drunken(' arose from where he lay, and again de
manded what money she had; she gave him a
few halfpence from her pocket, and he snatched
them from her and departed.
To know that he had gone to procure the poi
con on which he fed, with this last remnant to the
midnight toil, and when his child lay dead within
its mother's arms; to know that for the veriest
morsel she must toil again, sleepless and famish
ed, and with the withered blossom of her heart's
broken hope beside her ; to know that the last of
fice of affection, the burial of the child, must be
performed by those who cared neither for her nor
it, and who would desecrate by the vile touch of
parochial charity, that which had been more dear
to her than her own life ; to konw that all her joys
were wasted now, and that still she lived to hear
him curse her in the very place where death had
so lately been; and that although she sat before
him with the sleeping infant in her arms, while
he was too brutalized by drink to know that that
sleep was one from which it would never more
awake, and that her own terror made her speech
less wheirshe would have told him ;—all this was
a torrent of sorrow, before whose overhearing force
her withered heart gave way, and she sank down
upon the floor, with her dead babe in her arms,
senseless.
Sleep came upon her like a poppy spell and
wafted her silent soul to sweeter worlds. Far
away from her cold and solitary room ; fair away
from hunger, wretchedness, and tears, far away
from the keen tortures of maternal sorrow and the
despair of withered love, her spirit wandered in
that peaceful dream. Front earth, as frgni a wil
derness of ashes, tier willing spirit went upon its
upward flight, ascending and ascending. It near
ed the blue and shining arch above and clapped
its wings fur joy, and felt within it the renovated
bliss of innocent and unchanging beauty. It felt
the calming influence of soft music swelling around
it like sufibright waves upon a summer sea; it
saw street spots and green peaceful valleys lying
in the rosy light of heaven, as clouds at evening
lie folded up in sleep. 00 and on her spirit went
in calm and holy majesty, amid the shadowy heats
ty of that pleasant land. It 'tamed to bathe in
bliss amid bright galaxies of living and rejoicing
worlds, and to embrace happiness as its long-sought
boon. Through flowery pastures and falling wa
ters, perfumed gardens, and star-lighted solitudes,
where the soul of music dwelt and tired amid the
sweet echoes of her seraph songs, that mother's
new-born soul wandered in its freedom, forgetting
all the pangs and tears it had so lately known.—
Now it passed floating islands of glittering beauty
where troops of cheruhims wore worshiping their
God; and from the midst of a soft bed of twilight
flowers arose an angel host of babes, soaring in
their wantonness of joy to higher regions of the
azure air, end singing their simple songs in har
mony. together. Front all the gleaming lights afar
came dulcet harpings of angelic wings, and all
things in that sweet dream-land of beauty told of
the joy which falls upon the virtuous soul. The
spirit of the mother, dazzled and amazed till now,
awoke from its trance of wonder, and cried aloud
—"My child, my child,.and my husband, where
are they ;" and she sank upon a gleaming bed of
purple blooms, and from the odorous sighing of
the lute-toned air, the voice of her child came
gladly in reply. And now ajoyous troop of stair
light seraphs sailed towards her, like a mowy
cloud, and in the midst she sees her darling babe,
clapping its little hands in laughing glee, and
overjoyed once more to meet her. Oh, what bliss
is like the feeling of a mother, when her trusting
heart is gladdened by the return of a child whom
she deemed was lost; and if such joy awake with
in the soul amid all harsh realities of earth, how
much more so iu the spirit's home, where nothing
but the peaceful thought can live, and all earth's
grief is banishment? It was her own babe, the
bud of hope she nursed and tended in the dark win
ter of her earthly sorrow, now wearing the same
smile which gladdened her amid the gloom, but ho
lier, fairer, and freed from all the traces of want
and suffering. The spirits of the mother and the
babe embraced each other in the wild joy of this
happy meeting, and the mother's spirit knelt be
fore the heaven-built temple alight, which arch
ed above, and offered the incense of its prayers
for him whose wickedness of heart had steeped
her earthly days in bitterness; but who was yet to
her the token of a youthful hope, and the living
memory of a trusting love.. Her earnest spirit in
the gush of its awakened affection for the child of
her bosom, called upon its God to have mercy up
on him, and to snatch his soul from the blackness
of its guilt and the impending terrors of distr.-
- thin. And the prayer went upward and the an
gels sung.
• • I • • •
The drunkard staggered to the wretched home,
and reeling into the silent room, gazed upon the
wife and child. They spoke not, moved not; he
stooped to touch, but recoiled in horror, for both
of them were dead. The mother, in her sweet
dream, had glided into the blissful evening land,
and he, the destroyer of a wife and child, now felt
all the piercing agony of sin and shame, the scor
pion stings of conscience. He fell upon his knees
and prayed for mercy. His withering soul seem
ed struggling within him, and he grasped for
breath. He had wandered into wicked paths, he
had blighted a gentle heart by cruelty and neglect,
he had wasted his own child's meal in drunken
ness and villainy, while it lay on its mother's
breast perishing for want of food. He felt all the
torrors of lemon, and hell seemed gaping be
neath him ! He arose and wept, and the first tear
lie shed was carried by invisible hands upward to
that world of peace; as a sacrifice of penitence to
the kneeling spirit of a mother. He wandered
away in silence, and where lie went were the fall
ing tears which spoke, in accents eloquent and
true, the silent utterance of a repentant heart.
Love Letters and Poems.
If Love, simple Love, is the worst of poets, the
same simple Love is beyond compadson the best
of letter-writers. In love-poems conceits are dis
tilled from the heads ; in love-letters feelings flow
from the heart, and feelings are never so freely
uttered, affection never so affectionately express
ed, truth never so truly spoken, as in such a cor
respondence. Oh, if the disposition which exists
at such times were sustained through life, mar
riage would then be perfect union, the "excellent
mystery" which oar Father requires from those
who enter into it, that it should be made and
which it might always be under his blessing, were
it not for the misconduct of one or the other par
ty, or both.—Southey.
Couldn't "Get Shut of it."
An eccentric carpenter, while working in his
shop the other day, accidentally placed his hands
upon a worthless hatchet, which had already been
the cause of much "botch work," and which he
had several times thrown away. However, ho
thought he had the idea this time ; and so he had,
certainly, in his own imagination at least; accor
dingly, ho deliberately tied a twenty-five cent piece
firmly to the wood buchering, tool, and pitched it
out into the street; thinking that some passer-by
would eagerly seize at and carry it off as a prize.
In this, however he was doomed to be sadly disap
pointed, for, as he worked away in an apparently
disinterested manner, ho still kept view of his
hatchet, out of the dexter corner of his eyes, and
presently saw, to his no little chagrin, a man come
along, pick up the hatchet, and very composedly
untie the quarter, slip it into his pocket, and throw
the hatchet back into the shop.
What other expedient he resorted to, deponent
sayeth not.
ciir The Boston Post accounts for the recent
cold weather by supposing that Sir John Franklin
in going through the northwest passage, forgot to
shut the front door after him,
How Coal was Made.
Geology has proved that at one period there ex
isted an enormously abundant land vegetation, the
ruins or rubbish of which, carried into seas, and
there sunk to the bottom, and afterward covered
over by mad or sand beds, became the snbStance
which we now recognize as coal. This was a natu
ral transaction of vast consequence to us, seeing
how much utility we find in coal, both for warm
ing our dwellings, and various manufactures, as
well as the production of steam, by which so great
a mechanical power is generated. It may natu
rally excite surtirise that the vegetable remains
should have so completely changed their apparent
character and become black. But this can be ex
plained by chemistry ; and part of the marvel be
comes clear to the simplest understanding when
we recall the familiar fact, that damp hay, thrown
closely into a heap, gives out beat and becomes of
a dark color.
On account of the change effected by minerali
zation, it is difficult to detect in coal the traces of
a vegetable structure; but these cats be matte
clear in all except the highly bituminous caking
coal, by cutting or polishing it dawn into thin,
transparent slices, when the microscope shows the
fibres and cells very plainly.
From distinct, isolated specimens found in the
sand stones amidst the coal beds, we discover the
nature of the plants of this era. They are almost
all of a simple cellular structure, and such as ex
ist with us in small forms, (horse tails, club moss
es, and ferns,) but advance to an enormous mag
nitude. These species are long since .extinct.—
The vegetation generally is such as now grows in
clusters on tropical islands, but it must have the
result of a high temperature obtained otherwise
than that of the tropical now is, for the coral stra
ta are found in temperate, and even iu the polar
regions.
The conclusion, therefore, to which most geol
ogists have arrived is, that the earth, originally an
incandescent or highly heated mass, was gradual
ly cooled until in the Carboniferous period it fos
tered a growth of terrestrial vegetation all over its
surface, to which the existing jungles of the trop
ics are mere barrenness in comparison. This high
and uniform temperature, combined with a high
er portion of carbonic acid gas in the manufact
ure, would not only sustain n gigantic and proli
fic vegetation, but would also create denser vapors,
showers and ruins, and these again gigantic rivers,
periodical inundations, and deltas. Thus all the
conditions for extensive deposits of wood in estu
aries would arise from this high temperature, and
every circumstance connected with the measure
points to such conditions.
Jenny Lind and the Blind Boy.
A poor blind boy, who is highly gilled with mu
sical talents, and who resides in the north part ~f
' the State of Mississippi, had expressed such great
anxiety to hear Jenny Lind sing that his friends
raised a subscription to send him to this city, to
'gratify his wish.
On arriving here, he accidentally took lodgings
at the name hotel with Mr. Kyle, Our celebrated
flutist. One evening Mr. Kyle, hearing some very
wild and sweet flute tones, listened for some time
in surprise, and as the sounds died away, he said
to himself, " Well, that fellow thinks he can play;
but now just show him what I can do." Tak
ing up his flute, he played the air of the "Last
Rost of Summer," with variations. The blind
hoy listened with breathless delight, and following
the sound, he came to the door of Mr. 'Kyle. and
stood there until the last notes ceased. With a
feeling of impulse he could not restrain, he knock
ed at the door. " Come in," said Kyle, and not
recognizing the lad, he said, " What do you want,
sir?" " I am blind," said the boyi "and have
been drawn hither by your sweet music. Do tell
me who you are." " I air but a poor musician,"
snit Kyle, " and am travelling with Jenny Lind,
as flutist." " You are !" exclaimed the lad ;
" Oh I sir, do take me to hear Jenny Lind ; I
have come a long way to hear her sing, but the
price of tickets is so high, that I am too poor to
buy one. Can't you take me to bear her, sir?"
he continued, with great feeling ; " I have heard
she is so good, so generous, so pretty, and sings
so sweetly, that I shall never be happy until I
hear tier."
Mr. Kyle felt deeply for the boy, and promised
that he would take him to hear the lovely Swede.
Accordingly, he took the blind boy that night, and
seated hint in a chair behind the scenes. The
sweet songs of the nightingale affected the lad
deeply, Find produced upon him varied sensations.
But when Jenny sang. "Home, Sweet Home,"
he melted into tears. On her retiring she was at.•
tracted by the sound of the boy's sobbings, and
inquired who he was. Mr. Kyle then told her the
history of the boy in a low words, which much
intereoted her; and sending for hint the next day,
the poor boy left the generous songstress one hun
dred dollars richer than he was when ho readied
the city.—N. 0. Picayune. .
Blundering on the Truth.
An ignorant fellow, who was about to ho mar
ried, resolved to make himself perfect in the res
ponses of the marriage service; but by mistake,
he committed the office of baptism for those of
riper years : so, when the clergyman asked him,
in the church—" %Vilt thou have this woman to be
thy wedded wife ?" the bridegroom, confused by
the peculiarity of his condition, and trying hard
to remember his lesson, replied, in a solemn tone,
"I renounce them all." The astonished minister
said—" I think you are a fool,"—to which he re
plied, "All this I steadfastly believe."
GrNever join with your friend when he abus
es his horse, or his wife, unless the one is shout
to he mold, and the other Intriort—Laton.
VOL. XVL-NO. 11.
Love's Beauties.
How bright and beautiful is love in its hoar of
purity and innocence—how mysteriously does it
etheralize every feeling, and concentrate every wild
and bewildering impulse of the heart. Love,holy
and mysterious love—it is a garland dpring of life
—the dream of the heart--the impassioned poetry
of nature—its song is heard in the rude and un
visited solitude of the forest, and the thronged
haunts of fussy life—it embellishes with its flames
the unpretending' cot of the peasant and the gi,r 7
geons palace of the monarch—flashes its holy
gleam of light upon the measured track of the
lonely wanderer—hovers about the imperilled bar
que of the storm-beaten mariner—enfeebles the
darkly bending wing of the muttering tempest and
imparts additional splendor, to the beacon that
burns "on the fur distant shore."
Love is the mystic and unseen spell that har
monizes and "soothes unbidden," the wild and
rugged tendencies of human nature—that lingers
. about the sanctity of the domestic hearth—the
worshipped deity of the penetralia, unites in fir
mer anion the affections of social and religions so
ciety, gathers verdant freshness around the guar
ded cradle of helpless infancy, and steals its moon
light darkness npon yielding heart of desparing
age—it hushes into reposing calmness the chaffed
and bruised and unresisting spirit of sorrow, and
hears it from the existing and anticipated evils of
life, to its own bright and sheltering bower of re
pose—transforms into a generous devotion the ex
acting desires of vulgar interest and sordid avarice
anti Incas into a tearful compassion the ice of in
sensibility.
The image which holy and undecayed love has
once portraitured on the deep shrine of the Dort,
will not vanish like lineaments which ehildl ,od's
finger in idle moments may have traced upon the
sand—that image will remain there unbroken and
unmarked—it will burn on undefitced in its lustre,
amid the quick rush of wavering "star of our fate
seems declining;' the bowed and bewildering spir
it, like the trembling dove of the patriarch, will
meet its home and its refuge in that hollowed fane
where love presides as high priestess of its sanctu
ary, and concentrates to unbending truth the offer
ed vows of her votaries.
Pay your Debts.
The Apostle has given this command, and we
claim no authority to speak on the subject, except
to reiterate his words. But we have reason to
believe there is much laxity of moral sense on
this matter among even very good people. There
are some men who would never take a dollar of
titer neighbour's property without permission, who
nevertheless withhold from him that which is his
due, when it is in the power of their hands to pay it.
They sometimes make a distinction among their
debts, and regard some as less binding than oth
ers. Creditors may take a elifterent view of the
matter, but the debtor chooses to discriminate in
favor of one class, and against another, to the
injury of his character, and to the wrong of his
neighbour.
There is a criminal negligence, too, in some
men about their debts. They put off from week
to month what they might do at once, and tints
seriously injure those to whom they are indebted.
The poor arc thus made to suffer sorely by the
negligence of the rich. The sempstress, the wash
erwoman, the day-labourer, often suffer from the
simple neglect of the rich employer to give them
what is due when it is due.:' ; "Call again, I.,have
nut the change," has seat many a family to bed
supperless.
It has always appeared strange to us that a man
can take comfort in the possession of property
which belongs to another: called it his, while ho
has never paid fur it: wearing clothes that belong
to the maker, and eating bread that the baker
would be glad to know was likely to be paid for
at some fixed point in the futute, however re
mote. Yet there are many men who seem to take
quite as ranch comfort in life, while thus preying
upon their neighbours, as if they were really
honest.
Again, there are some professors of religion wilt:,
take a religious newspaper, year after year, and
'toyer pay for it! Regularly as the week returns
they expert it—would he greatly disappointed if
it did not come—would he highly offended if it
were stopped, but they never pay for it ! The•
(mink! band a five dollar bill fo the postmaster, and
request Mtn to send it to the publisher, Ind it
would reach him safely, and his heart would be
glad at getting his due. But these subscribers
let year after year pass away, and make no effort
to discharge this debt. Yet they chute to be honest
men, and go to the communion table ! Some men
will read those lines; and be astonished to think
that any one should call in question their honesty,
while they are withholding a lawful .debt. The
smaller the debt, the less excuse a man has for
neglecting to pay it "Never put oft till to• morrow
that which shold be done to-day."—Preykyterfun.
A letter m the Texas Ranger states that the cc
groes had already provided themselves with sev
eral kegs of powder, guns, pistols, etc. They were
to rise simaltaneously, and be armed to resist
any force. 'rho letter states a similar plan had
been discovered iu Columbus on the Colorado.
Judge Towsend Dickinson was accidentally
drowned whilst fording a stream near Corpus
Christi.
The wild woman of Miriam' has at last bean
caught, and turns out to be on African nrgress,
who fled to the wilds 15 years ago, itum,diately
after Fannin's defeat.
It is said that as soon as the spring opens (7 n.
Brooke is determined to begin a campaign
li
redly into the Indian country, and will punish she
savages on their own hunting grounds.