INTERESTING EXTRACTS. SICKNESS. There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood; that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in sickness and despondency; who that has pined on a weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land; but has thought on the mother "that looked on his childhood," that smoothed his pillow and administered to his helplessness; Oh! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment, she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity-and, if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all the world besides cast him off, she will be all the world to him. STUDY OF NATURE. If we look, says Sir Humphrey Davy, with wonder upon the great remains of human works, such as the columns of Palmyra, broken in the midst of the desert; the temples of Pæstum, beautiful in the decay of twenty centuries; or the mutilated fragments of Greek sculpture in the Acropolis of Athens, or in our own museum, as proofs of the genius of artists, and the power and riches of nations now past away; with how much deeper a feeling of admiration must we consider those grand monuments of nature which mark the revolutions of the globe; continents broken into islands; one land produced, another destroyed; the bottom of the ocean becomes a fertile soil; whole races of animals extinct, and the bones and exuvia of one class covered with the remains of another: and upon the graves of past generations-the marble or rocky tombs, as it were of a former animated world-new generations arising, and order and harmony established; and a system of life and beauty produced, as it were out of chaos and death, proving the infinite power, wisdom and goodness of the great Cause of all being. ALWAYS HAPPY. An Italian Bishop struggled through great difficulties without repining, and met with much opposition in discharge of his Episcopal functions, without betraying the least impatience. One of his intimate friends, who highly admired those virtues which he thought it impossible to imitate, one day asked the Prelate if he could communicate the secret of being always easy?"Yes," replied the old man, I can teach you my secret, and with great facility: it consists of making a right use of my eyes." His friend begged of him to explain himself. "Most willingly," returned the Bishop. "In whatever state I am, I first of all look up to Heaven and remember that my principal business here is to get there; I then look down upon the earth, and call to mind how small a space I shall occupy in it when I come to he interred; I then look abroad into the world, and observe what multitudes there are who are in all respects more unhappy than myself. Thus, I learn where true happiness is placed-where all our cares must end, and what little reason I have to repine or to complain." DR. WATTS. Dr. Watts was remarkable for vivacity in conversation, and ready wit; though he never showed a disposition for displaying it. Being one day in a coffee-room with some friends, he overheard a gentleman say, "what, is that the great Dr. Watts?" when, turning suddenly round, and in good humor, he repeated a stanza from his lyric poems, which produced silent admiration: Were I so tall to reach the pole, Or mete the ocean with my span; The mind's the standard of the man. Dr. Watts was short in stature, being only about five feet high. POETRY. A MORNING HYMN. "Tis the rich hour, when gladsome waters leaping, Burdened with balm, and wandering forth in heaven, Sounds on the breeze of morn the Sabbath bell, How should man conquer Passion's stormy fever Why, when the anthems of the streams are swelling, Philadelphia, 1831. W. G. C. THE DELUGE.-BY P. M. WETMORE. All the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened.-Genesis. A doom to the fallen! The earth where they trod, |