seen the innocent child lay its head upon its mother's knee, and lisp out its evening prayer; and the father of a family kneel in the midst of his domestic circle, and ask the blessing of God to be upon them and him: I have seen the beautiful maiden, whose lips, to the youthful imagination, seemed only tuned to the song of pleasure, whisper the responses in the public assembly of worship; and the dim-eyed matron stroke back her hoary tresses, and endeavor to mingle her quivering voice with the sublime symphony of the pealing organ:-all these have I seen, and felt the beauty of each; but this solitary worshipper affected me more deeply than I had previously experienced.

His knees were bent upon the deep-green earth, where his Bible lay on the one side of him, and his hat on the other; his hands were lifted up, his raven hair waved in the breeze, and his eyes were raised to Heaven; yet I saw, or fancied I saw, that he was frequently obliged to close them, and press out the tears that flowed to them from the fountain of sorrow.

I passed him unperceived, with respect for his devotional feelings, and sympathy with his accumulated afflictions. I knew him well: he was a laborer of the neighboring hamlet, intelligent and respectable in his sphere of life. Often on the Sabbath evenings had I met with him in the same path, walking with his wife and his children; two little boys that plucked the wild flowers as they proceeded, and an infant girl that yet nestled in its mother's bosom.

He was devotedly attached to his family, and I considered him one of the happiest men in existence; for his wife appeared altogether worthy of the respect he paid her, and his children were as beautiful and promising as a parent's heart could have wished. He and I often entered into conversation, and I was not only pleased, but frequently astonished by his remarks; for his lips were unrestrained by the reserve of polished life, and all his most eccentric conceptions, and all his deepest feelings, were in a moment laid open and naked before you, in all their singularity and beauty

He had read a good deal, but he had thought more tha he had read; and, in consequence, there was a poetical originality in his mind, and a poetical enthusiasm in his heart, which were peculiarly pleasing to a person, who has felt his generous emotions repulsed and chilled by the cold and affected votaries of fashion.

He was quite contented with his laborious occupation

for, as he said, his toils seemed light and pleasant, when he considered that they were undergone for the comfort of the wife, who, like a fruitful vine,' spread the blossoms of pleasure around his cottage; and of the children who, like olive plants,' arose to support him when bowed down by the burden of age.

6

The anticipation of an early death did not even appal him; for in that case, as he observed, there was a God in heaven who would prove a father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow, and the orphan's stay, and the stranger's shield.'

The dictates of philoso y are weak, in comparison with the power of this religious trust: it is the rock, under whose shadow the weary find repose-the rock, whose summit is brightened by sunshine, while the valley from which it rises, is covered with clouds and darkness. My friend, the poor laborer, clung to it with enthusiasm in his severe domestic trials.

A malignant fever, like the storm that blasts the blossoms of spring, entered the hamlet, and, in the space of two months, swept off more than a third of the children. There was scarcely a cottage that had not numbered one of its little inmates with the dead.

It has been said, with what degree of truth I know not, that the loss of children is the heaviest trial by which the human heart can be visited; because, as it is averred, the attachment of the parent to the child is stronger than that of the child to the parent.

I have no doubt, that if a person have a family to divide the stream of affection, the death of a father or a mother will be felt with less poignancy, than if the solitary mourner have no object, as near and as dear, on which he can fix the lacerated ties of love, that have been forced to quit their hold of the bosom that withers in a parent's grave. As each of these domestic calamities is, for a time, as severe as mortal creature can conceive; and as the man, who feels the acuteness of the green wounds of affliction, cannot properly estimate the pain of those, that have been healed by the influence of time, there appears to me no use in making, and no certainty in the result of, the comparison.

I might, however, argue against the received opinion, by saying, that the place of a parent, when once empty, can never again be filled; whereas the bosom. that has given its

nursling to the grave, may yet have the happiness to nourish another, and the parental heart may half forget its withered scion, until it finds it blooming in heaven.

All I intend to say on the subject at present is, that my poor friend lost both his little boys, whose funerals were only divided by three melancholy days; and that, on the Sabbath evening when I saw him praying in the lonely wood, his infant girl-his only remaining child-lay on the very brink of dissolution.

Having reached the end of the solitary footpath I returned homewards, and still found the afflicted man in the attitude of prayer; perhaps unconscious, amid the strife of his spirit, of the time that had passed over him while employed in this act of heartfelt devotion. As soon as I descried him, a female came running along the path, and informed him that the child was dead.

He arose with a trembling frame, and a face that bore the fearful look of despair; or rather the look of that reckless frenzy, which prompted him to dispute with his Maker the justice of the calamity that had befallen him. This was but for a moment; he soon became firm and calm, and exclaimed with a subdued spirit, 'The Lord's will be done.' It was enough it was a balm for his wounded soul, a cordial to his fainting heart.

He then followed the steps of the female who had disappeared, to the house of mourning,' to condole with the childless mother, whose heart had mingled its feelings with his from the days of early youth-whose heart to his had been doubly bound by the tendrils that sprung from their mutual love-whose heart now demanded the support of his, the support, which his would amply receive from her's in return.

Happy souls! happy even under all your calamities! For if there be pleasure if there be consolation—if there be happiness on earth-they are nowhere to be so certainly found, as in the unbounded confidence, and deeply-rooted attachment, of two congenial and conjugal bosoms. Deeply affected by what I had seen and heard, I entered my father's cottage, strong in good resolutions, and praying that I might have the power, in all the afflictions that might await me, to say, with the poor peasant-- The Lord's will be done.'

LESSON XLII.

Sabbath Morning.—PINNEY.

How calm comes on this holy day!
Morning unfolds the eastern sky,
And upward takes her lofty way
Triumphant to her throne on high.
Earth glorious wakes, as o'er her breast
The morning flings her rosy ray,
And blushing from her dreamless rest,
Unveils her to the gaze of day;
So still the scene, each wakeful sound
Seems hallowed music breathing round.

The night-winds to their mountain caves,
The morning mists to heaven's blue steep,
And to their ocean depths, the waves
Are gone, their holy rest to keep.
'Tis tranquil all-around-above—
The forests far, which bound the scene,
Are peaceful as their Maker's love,
Like hills of everlasting green;

And clouds like earthly barriers stand,
Or bulwarks of some viewless land.

Each tree that lifts its arm in air,

Or hangs its pensive head on high,
Seems bending at its morning prayer,
Or whispering with the hours gone by.
This holy morning, Lord, is thine-
Let silence sanctify thy praise,
Let heaven and earth in love combine,
And morning stars their music raise;—
For 'tis the day-joy-joy, ye dead,
When death and hell were captive led.

HEARD

LESSON XLIII.

The Knell of Time.-ANONYMOUS.

you that knell? It was the knell of Time! And is Time dead? I thought Time never died.

I knew him old, 't is true, and full of years,
And bald, except in front;-but he was strong
As Hercules: I saw him grasp the oak.

It fell the tower, it crumbled;—and the stone,
The sculptured monument, that marked the grave
Of fallen greatness, ceased its pompous strain,
As Time came by. Yes, Time was very strong,
And I had thought, too strong for Death to grapple.
But I remember now, his step was light;

And though he moved at rapid rate, and trod
On adamant, his tread was never heard!
And there was something ghastly in the thought,
That in the silence of the midnight hour,
When all was hushed as death, and not a sound
Crept o'er my chamber's sill, or woke

The echo slumbering there-In such an hour
He trod my chamber, and I heard him not;
And I have held my breath and listened close,
To catch one foot-fall as he glided by;

But not a slumbering sound awoke, or sighed,
And the thought struck me, then, that one, whose steps
Was so much like a spirit's tread, whose acts
Were all so noiseless, like the world unseen,
Would soon be fit for other worlds than this-
Fit for high converse with immortal minds,
Unfettered by the flesh--unchained to earth.

Time's movements! oh how fleet! and yet, how still' Still as the morning sunbeam, as it kissed

The blushing flower, but shook not e'en the tears
Of Night, the lingering dew drops, from its leaves,
Nor woke the wild bee slumbering in its folds.

LESSON XLIV.

On Laying the Corner-Stone of the Monument of Mrs. Washington. MRS. SIGOURNEY.

I

hast thou slept unnoted! Nature stole
ministry around thy bed,

her vernal coverings, violet-gemmed,

with dews. She bade bright Summer bring