Of the agency of Angels, in behalf of man, various beautiful instances are recorded in the oldest and most authentic book in the world. The Bible, and in particular the earlier parts of it, gives most affecting illustrations of the interest which Guardian Spirits take in the welfare of their wards. And do we not learn from the Founder of Christianity, that there is an Angel, who is concerned in the good of each individual? Even the reason as well as the heart and the hope of the believer in Revelation, confirms the truth of the existence of Celestial Agents ministering on earth; so that, pleased and sustained by this consideration, he may with Spenser exclaim :—

"And is there care in Heaven? and is there love,
In Heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is ; else much more dreadful were the case
Of men than beasts: but O the exceeding grace,
Of highest God! that loves his creatures so
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed Angels he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.

How oft do they their silver bowers leave
To come to succour us, who succour want?
How oft do they with flying pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant
Against foul fiends to guard us militant?
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us play,

And all for love, and nothing for reward;

Oh why should Heavenly God to man have such regard ?"

It is fondly thought, and said, that children have the dearest intimacy with members of the Angelic host: the idea associates well with sweet infancy, and lovely innocence. With untainted woman, too, the notion delightfully unites.

"So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried Angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision,
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heavenly 'habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,

And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,

Till all be made immortal."

But it is with sleeping or smiling infancy that the imagination most readily combines the presence, converse, and guardianship of Angelic Beings; but

never more thoroughly and strongly than when that innocent has been suddenly snatched away from this evil and troubled world. On such an occasion the poet may thus sing :

Upon the cradle of a child

An angel bent his radiant looks,
As if on his own image mild

Glass'd in the mirror of a brook!

"Sweet infant! with that face of love,"
The seraph said, "Oh, come with me!
Come, we shall be so blest above;

This earth is all unworthy thee !

Here, there is no unsullied gladness,
Sorrow to joy is ever nigh;
The voice of pleasure has its sadness,
And even enjoyment owns a sigh !

With every hope there mingles fear,

And ne'er could day, though bright the form,
With its blue skies serene and clear,

Secure the morrow from a storm.

THE fairest diamond is rough till it be polished: its lustre shines not till it is called forth by labouring skill: the purest gold must be sifted from the ore, and fashioned into useful purposes. Man is untaught by nature; and of himself, the most helpless of nature's creatures, at his entrance into life. The finest qualities of everything created will grow wild and degenerate how much more so the mind of man, if it be not formed by discipline, and cultivated with a master's early care. In many persons who have run up to man's estate, without the advantage of a liberal education, we may always observe some good qualities darkened and eclipsed; their minds are crusted over like gems in their rocks; they sometimes send out the sparks of an irregular greatness of thought; they betray in their actions an unguided native force, and an unmanaged virtue -something very great-very noble may be discerned; but it looks clumsy, and misshapen, and is alone of all things the worse for being natural.

Nature is undoubtedly the best mistress, and aptest scholar; but nature herself must be civilised, or she will look savage,. be dangerous. However fine her parts-however excellent her endowments,-they are not to be viewed without regret, if they have not been improved and moulded by cultivation.

In countries men call barbarous, where art and education are unknown, nature hath the greater mastery in this that simplicity of manners often secures the innocence of the mind; and if virtue be not civilized, so, neither, is vice refined; but in the politer parts of the world, where virtue excels by rules and discipline, vice is also more instructed; and with us good qualities will not spring up alone. Many noxious weeds upon the same soil rise, flourish, and choak them in their growth, unless plucked up by the roots before they reach maturity. Nor will the mind be brought near to perfection, without carefully cherishing every hopeful seed, and repressing every superfluous humour; in this respect, the mind is like the body, which cannot acquire elegance, unless it be trained and fashioned in early time. Untaught behaviour is like the people who use it, rustic, and uncouth: art must be applied to make it look natural in the eyes of those who only know nature in her civilised dress-by far her most beauteous garb.

THE FIEND'S MARK.

A CHAPTER FROM AN UNPUBLISHED

ROMANCE.

I would not pass another such a night,
Tho' 'twere to buy a world of happy days-
So full of dismal terror was the time!

SHAKSPEARE.

It was upon a winter's night, when the young Count Wernerstoff found himself a beggar through the accursed vice of gambling. After losing his last stake at the table, a despair first approaching to inanition had seized him, dreadful from its very muteness, until a reaction of the mind taking place, he rushed out of the house like a madman. Passing swiftly to the stable without a word to the officious grooms that came to offer their services, he vaulted on to his favourite horse (now his only possession), then dashing his spurs into his flanks, bounded off like a maniac.

Heedless of danger from the sudden velocity of his pace, he continued his speed, and soon left the town with its glimmering lights far behind in the distance, until they became entirely intercepted by the tall, dark forest that now began to throw its lengthened shade across the wild sequestered path his steed had taken. As the country burst upon his view, he felt insensible of the imposing scene before him. The rich luxuriance of the broad, expanded plains, with the sublimity of the mountain heights and dim blue hills, silvered by the midnight moon, fell unheeded on his sight, as did the wild and dashing waters of the Rhine, so like himself in its mad career. But vainly he endeavoured by the heat of his speed to banish those fearful inmates that had taken possession of his bosom, Misery and Despair.

"Curses everlasting be my portion," he continued as he threw the reins recklessly over the neck of the panting and generous animal he rode. "But twelve short months ago I was happy, independent, and respected; what am I now ?—a beggar-an outcast! My wife-my child—have I rendered destitute," and striking his burning forehead he uttered a peal of bitter, derisive laughter. "I must bear it all; live to hear the degrading pity and sarcastic remarks of a cursed world. Ha ha! There's poor Wernerstoff,' will they say, the late proud, upstart Wernerstoff. The beggar-the dependant on the cold charity of those he once affected to despise.' Good! I have fairly won them!" and the same hoarse and unnatural laughter broke from his parched throat.

Careless entirely of his path, the appearance of the country, as he proceeded, began gradually to grow more lonely and mountainous, occasionally interspersed

with clumps of dwarfish underwood; while his horse, though it had ceased of necessity its rapid pace, was in danger every minute of falling, from the inequalities of the ground. But nothing would have aroused the unhappy rider who had listlessly sunk back upon his saddle in all the apathy of dark despair, had not the sudden and reverberated sound of a horse's tramp rung upon his ear, apparently issuing from a dark and gloomy gorge that separated two mountains facing him.

"Ha! it must and shall be so, by Heaven and Hell! Desperate circumstances require desperate remedies," he uttered in a soul-harrowing voice, as a fearful thought shot across his maddening brain, while the accompanying action of drawing a sword, never before wielded but in the cause of honour, left but little doubt of his mad intention.

"Who passes there?" he shouted in husky accents, fully indicative of his desperate purpose, and that were echoed by the surrounding rocks, as the gigan. tic shadow of a horse and its rider became visible by the broken moonlight along the rocky ground on one side of the ravine. At the same moment a strange and powerful sensation seemed to pervade his steed, who became restive, and by the pricking of his ears and a tremor that ran through his frame, displayed every sign of fear and alarm, while his rider, with great difficulty, succeeded in holding him, notwithstanding the excessive fatigue. Infuriated at his first unanswered interrogatory, the Count again shouted in maniac accents, "Who passes there?"

"A friend to the bold and enterprising," replied a voice in deep, startling, hollow tones, and in an instant a stranger on horseback, distinguished, like his high mettled steed, by his sable habiliments, stood before him.

"Your gold-your gold! or your life!" furiously exclaimed the Count, wild with rage at the half-smothered laugh that followed the stranger horseman's laconic answer, as he brandished his sabre, but there was an undefinable something in the stranger's appearance, the lonely midnight scene of the mountains, lit up by the struggling gleam of moonlight, and more than all, the tones of his voice as he sat before him, rather above the ordinary height of man, on his jet black courser, his countenance hidden by the dark, flowing ringlets of his hair, and the drooping of his sable plume, depending from his strangely-fashioned beaver, that inspired feelings which the Count vainly endeavoured to stifle. There appeared a strange and sneering solemnity in his hollow and deeply mo. dulated voice, as he answered his half-frenzied interrogator in accents cold and distinct.

"Gold! gold! shalt thou have in abundance to thy heart's content; but gold, Wernerstoff, like all other commodities valuable in the eyes of mortality, bath its price. Art thou willing to pay that price?" Slightly turning his