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DARK THOUGHTS.

Ir any ask why roses please the sight?
Because their leaves upon thy cheeks do bower:
If any ask why lilies are so white?

Because their blossoms in thy hand do flower:
Or why sweet plants so grateful odors shower?

It is because thy breath so like they be:
Or why the orient sun so bright we see?

What reason can we give, but from thine eyes and thee?
Canto I. Stanza xlv.

Fletcher's Christ's Victory.

THE necessity of faith, or a deep conviction of the truths of Christianity, has been insisted on, by all theological writers, as the foundation of a holy and consistent life. But, I believe, every one has felt, in some skeptical hour, the wish that his faith might be strengthened by some ocular proof of the Christian religion. We have always seen the laws of nature glide with undeviating uniformity; the sun arises and sets; the spring and the winter return; man is born and dies, with a regularity so constant, and at periods so generally expected, that the course of nature seems like the decree of fate; and a species of naturalism is silently resting even on some sober and believing minds. St. Peter has touched one of the sources of infidelity when he says, 'Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.' The regularity of the laws of nature, though designed as light to reveal, becomes a cloud, to hide the interposition of God.

I should be a very imperfect puritan, if I did not confess myself to be a firm Christian; and yet, I must confess, I have often felt my mind exercised on the obscurity of the proofs of revelation. I have longed to see the Deity step out from his hiding-place, and give some visible tokens of his power. I have hungered and thirsted after a miracle. I have tried to imagine the emotions of surprise and adoration, which would shake my heart, could I once see the laws of nature suspended. But no; she rolls on, in the same rigid uniformity. No spiritual voice meets my spirit, to attest the presence of anything in nature but the plastic power, which executes her silent laws. I have walked on the sea-shore, and heard the roaring of its waves; I have sat amidst the tombs, at midnight; I have listened, with the intensest interest, amidst the deep solitudes of the woods; I have fled from the living, and implored the dead for some supernatural voice to break on the abstracted ear of faith and meditation,

'Tell us, ye dead!—will none of you, in pity?
O, that some courteous ghost would blab it out!'

But all has been in vain. Nature, rigid, silent, unconscious nature, is always interposing her material usages between me and my God.

I have sometimes been led to envy the privileges of the first Christians; and to wish that I had been born in those happier days. I should then have heard the gospel as it was delivered from the lips of infinite wisdom, and seen the proofs, which might silence skepticism and awaken a conquering faith in the most sluggish heart. I might have caught some notes of the heavenly hosts, as they sung over the quiet innocence' of the shepherds, at midnight, and have stood at the tomb of Lazarus, when the voice of his Redeemer called him from the dead. There is an impression resting on my heart, that I should have conquered my sins with more facility; and have lived more devoted to that celestial power, which was every where manifested around. Hail, ye happy spirits! Why have ye not transmitted to later ages your wonderful works?—and thou, bright morn of Christianity, why were thy dews so transient, and thy reign so short? I have but little faith; I own it. But no angel has ever visited me from the skies; no saint has spoken to my midnight dreams; no miracle has ever met my eye. I have but little faith; but my heart

longs to find an excuse and a cause in the little proof.

Full of these reflections, I lately retired to sleep; and, the impressions of the day following me, I was favored with a dream.

I seemed to be walking beneath a steep precipice, on the eastern shores of the lake Gennesaret. The waters seemed to be hushed in the profoundest tranquility, and their color was tinged with the purple rays of the setting sun. The day was declining; the shadows of the mountains were stretched upon the waters; and a secret sanctity seemed to pervade the scene, which witnessed the wonders once wrought in it by the Redeemer of men. I felt an increase of faith, as my eye stole over the objects around me, and I could almost fancy I could see the lake agitated by a storm; the bark of the disciples laboring amid the waves. I could almost fancy I heard his voice speaking to the tempest, and saying, Peace, be still!' But still, the laws of nature seemed to regain their invisible hold on every object around me. The waves laved the shores, as other waves do; and the rocks reflected their gigantic shadows, in the bosom of the lake, like other rocks. I still felt the chilling influence of unbelief.

While I was walking, I noticed, at a little distance from me, a pale old man, dressed in the habits of antiquity, with a remarkable, incredulous aspect. He appeared to be counting his fingers, walking with an irregular step, until at last he fixed his eyes with a look of compassion on me. I immediately knew him to be Thomas Didymus, the apostle so famous for his unbelief. I approached him, with low reverence, and thus began: O thou once frail

mortal on earth, now certainly a saint in glory, have compassion on my weakness, and hear me tell my wo. Thou hast been the prey of doubt; thy mind was once the region of darkness, as mine is now; thou didst say, when on earth' Except I shall see in his hands the print of his nails, and put my fingers in the print of the nails, (here the vision shook his head, and dropped a tear) and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.' Such is exactly my condition. I long for ocular proof. Tell me, where shall I find it?' The saint fixed his eyes upon me, and, with his long white finger, kept pointing at my breast. But, though his countenance was full of meaning, he spoke not a word, and continued pointing to my heart, while he fixed his eye constantly and fearfully upon me. I felt an irresistible disposition to look away to the lake; I expected to see it ruffled by storms and stilled by some word of miraculous power; I called for signs from Heaven; I gazed, to see if the wing of some angel would not cleave the clouds, and, from its silver feathers, dart some supernatural light into my mind. Still, the apostle continued pointing his finger at my breast; and, with a deliberate step, he approached nearer and nearer to the spot on which I stood. There was something inexpressibly awful in his long-continued silence. My heart beat with apprehension. Speak!' said I; 'speak, thou dumb vision, and tell how I may be satisfied.' He still approached me, and pulling a little pocket Bible from my pocket, began, with a melancholy air, to turn over the leaves. I noticed, however, as he was turning, that certain letters, blazed with suns, so that, though the print was fine, I could read particular passages at a great distance. The apostle began to wave his hand and step backwards. Why,' said I, has the impartial one denied to me that ocular demonstration, which he afforded to the first disciples?' He held up the Bible, and I saw, blazing in lines of fire, these words: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one arose from the dead.' 'Alas!' said I, 'is there no way for me to obtain a firmer faith?' He held up the book, and I saw, shining as before'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.' The apostle still kept receding, though the letters were as large and as intelligible as before. He was now almost beyond my sight, retiring behind a rock, which was about to intercept him from my view. Stay,' said I, 'stay, and do not leave me so unsatisfied; speak once, and let me hear. Why has not the same evidence been vouchsafed to me, as to the earlier Christians? Why has not my sight increased my faith?' The apostle then opened my book, and I read, on a blank leaf, these words, which vanished as I read them, and were never seen in the faintest trace afterwards: 'Idle doubter, why do you complain? You have your peculiar difficulties; we had ours. We

saw the miracles, but we saw not the brighter proofs of the influence of Christianity, through a series of ages, on the heart. We had the prejudices of education to encounter, and to tear the most cherished opinions from the centre of the soul. The best miracle is a renovated heart. So, doubter, purge thine eyes, and there is light enough.' I looked up, and the apostle was gone; and the evening winds, through the shades of midnight, were sighing over the sea of Gennesaret.

THE OLD MAID IN THE WINDING-SHEET.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE GRAY CHAMPION.'

THE moonbeams came through two deep and narrow windows, and showed a spacious chamber, richly furnished in an antique fashion. From one lattice, the shadow of the diamond panes was thrown upon the floor; the ghostly light, through the other, slept upon a bed, falling between the heavy silken curtains, and illuminating the face of a young man. But, how quietly the slumberer lay! how pale his features! and how like a shroud the sheet was wound about his frame! Yes; it was a corpse, in its burialclothes.

Suddenly, the fixed features seemed to move, with dark emotion. Strange fantasy! It was but the shadow of the fringed curtain, waving betwixt the dead face and the moonlight, as the door of the chamber opened, and a girl stole softly to the bedside. Was there delusion in the moonbeams, or did her gesture and her eye betray a gleam of triumph, as she bent over the pale corpse-pale as itself- and pressed her living lips to the cold ones of the dead? As she drew back from that long kiss, her features writhed, as if a proud heart were fighting with its anguish. Again it seemed that the features of the corpse had moved, responsive to her own. Still an illusion! The silken curtain had waved, a second time, betwixt the dead face and the moonlight, as another fair young girl unclosed the door, and glided, ghostlike, to the bedside. There the two maidens stood, both beautiful, with the pale beauty of the dead between them. But she, who had first entered, was proud and stately; and the other, a soft and fragile thing.

'Away!' cried the lofty one. 'Thou hadst him living! The dead is mine!"

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Thine!' returned the other, shuddering. spoken! The dead is thine!'

Well hast thou

The proud girl started, and stared into her face, with a ghastly look. But a wild and mournful expression passed across the features of the gentle one; and, weak and helpless, she sank down on the bed, her head pillowed beside that of the corpse, and her hair mingling with his dark locks. A creature of hope and joy, the first draught of sorrow had bewildered her.

'Patience!' cried her rival.

Patience groaned, as with a sudden compression of the heart; and removing her cheek from the dead youth's pillow, she stood upright, fearfully encountering the eyes of the lofty girl.

'Wilt thou betray me?' said the latter, calmly.

'Till the dead bid me speak, I will be silent,' answered Patience.Leave us alone together! Go, and live many years, and then return, and tell me of thy life. He, too, will be here! Then, if thou tellest of sufferings more than death, we will both forgive thee.'

And what shall be the token?' asked the proud girl, as if her heart acknowledged a meaning in these wild words.

'This lock of hair,' said Patience, lifting one of the dark, clustering curls, that lay heavily on the dead man's brow.

The two maidens joined their hands over the bosom of the corpse, and appointed a day and hour, far, far in time to come, for their next meeting in that chamber. The statelier girl gave one deep look at the motionless countenance, and departed yet turned again and trembled, ere she closed the door, almost believing that her dead lover frowned upon her. And Patience, too! Was not her white form fading into the moonlight? Scorning her own weakness, she went forth, and perceived that a negro slave was waiting in the passage, with a wax-light, which he held between her face and his own, and regarded her, as she thought, with an ugly expression of merriment. Lifting his torch on high, the slave lighted her down the staircase, and undid the portal of the mansion. The young clergyman of the town had just ascended the steps, and bowing to the lady, passed in without a word.

Years, many years rolled on; the world seemed new again, so much older was it grown, since the night when those pale girls had clasped their hands across the bosom of the corpse. In the interval, a lonely woman had passed from youth to extreme age, and was known by all the town, as the Old Maid in the WindingSheet.' A taint of insanity had affected her whole life, but so quiet, sad, and gentle, so utterly free from violence, that she was suffered to pursue her harmless fantasies, unmolested by the world, with whose business or pleasures she had nought to do. She dwelt alone, and never came into the daylight, except to follow

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