able natures, and the future inheritance of the righteous.
This has been the joy and solace of good men in every
age, their constant light in darkness, their unfailing
comfort in adversity, their perpetual support under per-
secution. The most apparently insurmountable obsta-
cles and formidable difficulties, have dwindled into in-
significance and empty shadow, equally unsubstantial,
when brought into competition with everlasting life, and
the promised crown. The hope of a future state, and
the cheering certainty of its near approach, have in eve-
ry period of time, when this celestial beam of consola-
tion had dissipated the horrible darkness by which rea-
son is enveloped, and through which it ineffectually es-
says to pierce and penetrate beyond, made captivity free-
dom, slavery liberty, and thrown around the exile the
attractions and endearments of domestic life. This un-
troubled lustre, this distant brightness, has guided with
intrepidity the martyr to the stake, and the Christian
hero to crucifixion and death in every shape. In the
present day, this is the humble Christian's steadfast
succor, his exhaustless fount of consolation, when dis-
tressed and forlorn, when deprived of his dearest rela-
tions, and nearest ties of affection and consanguinity;
for what else can strengthen and revive him?

"When friends have vanished from their viewless home,
And he is left companionless to roam,
O! what can cheer his melancholy way,
But hopes of union in the land of day?"

When surrounded by complicated difficulties, and encompassed by dangers, while traversing this "vale of tears," the thorny wilderness of time, the pious Christian is assured in the word of God, "that all things work together for good, to them that love God, and are called according to His purpose."

HOME.

THERE is more of spell-work about the homes of our fathers than he who has never been a wanderer imagines. Ask the poor exile on a foreign shore what visions flit across his fancy and call forth the deep drawn sigh as he gazes silent and lonely on the midnight moon; and he will tell you, in the fullness of his heart, they are 15*

the visions of his infantile home, of which the beautiful moon is all that is left him. Though his path be across the ocean, though he wander among the icebergs of Iceland, or sit down in the far-off islands of the sea, he fevls that he never can out-travel the remembrance of his native village, or forget the delight of his early cottage. Though ambition lead him to foreign lands, or fortune tempt him into the world of business, he will often pause; even when success has gratified his wishes --and linger whole hours on the remembrance of days gone by, as they steal, in the language of the Bard of Morven, like music to the soul. He will delight in every bush and tree, and flowering landscape and singing bird, that resembles those he saw in youth: and if in the fartherest corner of the globe he hear the gentle breathings of a strain with which on his native hills he was familiar, what a world of sweet yet half melancholy joy kindles in his bosom!

Yes, home is still dearer to our heart; and, like the comet exiled from the sun, we would go but to return, and never grow so old nor wander so far as to be beyond its attraction.

BEAUTIES OF TREES.

WHAT can be more beautiful than the trees? Their lofty trunks, august in their simplicity, asserting, to the most inexperienced eye, their infinite superiority over the imitative pillars of man's pride, their graceful play of wide spreading branches, and all the delicate, and glorious machinery of buds, leaves, flowers, and fruit, that, with more than magical effort, burst from the naked and rigid twigs, with all the rich and heaven breathing delectable odors, pure and animating essences, pouring out spices and medicinals, under brilliant and unimaginably varied colors, and making music, from the softest and most melancholy undertones to the full organ peal of the tempest. We wonder not that trees have been the admiration of men in all periods and nations of the world What is the richest country without trees? What barren and monotonous spot can they not convert into a paradise? Xerxes, in the midst of his most ambitious enterprise, stopped his vast army to contemplate

the beauty of a tree. Cicero, from the throng, and exertion, and anxiety of the forum, was accustomed, Pliny tells us, to steal forth to a grove of plane trees to refresh and invigorate his spirits. In the Scaptan grove, the same author adds, Thuycidides was supposed to have composed his noble histories. The Greek and Roman classics, indeed, abound with expressions of admiration, of trees and woods, and with customs which have originated in that admiration : but above all as the Bible surpasses, in the splendor and majesty of its poetry, all books in the world, so is its sylvan arborescent imagery the most bold and beautiful. Beneath some spreading trees are the ancient patriarchs revealed to us, sitting in contemplation, or receiving the visit of angels;-and what a calm and dignified picture of primeval life is presented to our imagination at the mention of Deborah, the wife of Dapidoth, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, between Raman and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim, beneath the palm tree of Deborah. The oaks of Bashan, and the cedar of Lebanon, are but other and better names for glory and power. The vine, the olive, and the figtree, are imperishable emblems of peace, plenty and festivity. David in his psalms, Solomon in his songs and proverbs, the prophets in the sublime outpourings of their awful inspiration, and Christ in his parables, those most beautiful and perfect of all allegories, luxuriate in signs and similies drawn from the fair trees of the east.

SADNESS.

THERE is a mysterious feeling that frequently passes lik a cloud over the spirits. It comes on the soul in the social circle, in the calm and silent retreats of solitude. Its powers are alike supreme over the weak and ironhearted. At one time it was caused by the flitting of a single thought across the mind. Again, a sound will come booming across the ocean of memory, gloomy and solemn as the death knell, overshadowing all the bright hopes and sunny feelings of the heart. Who can describe it, and yet who has not felt its withering influence? Still it is a delicious sort of sorrow; and like a cloud dimming the sunshine of a river, although causing a momentary shade of gloom, it enhances the beauty of returning brightness.

MEMORY.

PAINFUL, and even melancholy as it oftentimes may be, how frequently does the mind love to turn back upon the scenes that are gone by. How often are the thoughts drawn, insensibly as it were, from the darkness of the future to the twilight of the past-to scenes that but faintly glimmer through the cold and sombrous lapse of days, and months, and years! A pleasing melancholy comes over the full soul, as the "green spots on the desert of life" come up before the eye of the imagination, and ties as strong as those of "first love" bind as unconsciously to scenes where once centered all our joys. Such are the reminiscences of childhood and youth; such are the forms pictured upon the sunny surface of the past -when the heart beats joyously-when every path was strewed with flowers-when all above was a cloudless sky-and when all around us was sunshine! If ever a man enjoys happiness, it is in the spring-time of life, when his hope first begins to bud and blossom. To his illusive eye the future appears bright as the visions of an elysian dream. But soon the frost of disappointment comes-old age "steals along with silent tread”—and all but the recollection of enjoyment perishes.

Still memory, like every thing else connected with our worldly enjoyment, has its pleasures and its pains its joys and its sorrows, The latter too often hold a melancholy predominance. Memory's page is the record of events which have marked our chequered course of life. It is that "simple, unvarnished tale of truth," which reminds of the joys or sorrows that are passed— "Of hopes deceived;

Of faded dreams of bliss;

Of joya we vainly had believed

Were in a world so drear as this."

It tells of the time when pleasure "led us captive at her car," and when youthful hope, "the music of the mind," tuned to all its charms. The tenor of our past life may have been almost unvarying; yet moments of sadness have sometimes interrupted its evenness, and the memory steals upon us like a dizziness upon the brain. Some object around which our hopes clustered may have vanished when almost within our grasp. We felt the keenness of disappointment, and even now the remem

brance brings sadness to the soul. We may have seen the grave close over those whom we loved, and that grave seemed the sepulchre of our hopes! It is human nature-it is venal weakness.

CHIDING for occasional errors, or foibles, is not the office of friendship among equals. In the careful parent, forming the habits and so the whole character of his child, the case may perhaps be otherwise. But he who by a long and careful study of his friend's character, discovers his habitual faults, his prominent and besetting weaknesses or sins, and with a kind fidelity reproves them, has done that for which nofhing but the same important offices can at all repay him.

POETRY AND MUSIC.

[Written for the Monthly Repository and Library of Entertaining Knowledge.] THE DYING BOY'S BEQUEST.

EY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

Half rais'd upon his couch,―his drooping head
Lean'd upon his mother's bosom, like a bud
Which broken from the parent stalk, adheres
By some alternate fibre.-His thin hand
From 'neath the fever'd pillow drew a book

And slowly prest it to his bloodless lip.

-"Mother, dear mother! see your birth-day gift,
Fresh and unsoil'd. - Yet have I kept your word,-
And ere I slept each night, and every morn
Did read its pages with an humble prayer
Until this sickness came.-

He paus'd,--for breath

Came scantily, and with a toilsome strife.
"Brother or sister have I none, or else

I'd lay this Bible on their heart, and say
Come read it at my grave, among the flowers:-
So you who gave must take it back again,

And love it for my sake.'

"My son!-my son!

Whisper'd the mourner in that tender tone

Which Woman in her sternest agony

Commands, to sooth the pang of those she loves,—

"Your soul !-your soul!-to whose charge yield you that?" To God who gave it."

So that bursting soul

With one slight shudder, one seraphic smile

Left the pale clay for its Creator's arms.

HARTFORD, Com