still abode in the body that lay before him. He felt as if sanctified by the presence of one to whom the other world had been opened as if under the love and protection of one made holy. The religious reflections which his mother had early taught him gave him strength; a spiritual composure stole over him, and he found himself prepared to perform the last offices to the dead. 11. Is it not enough to see our friends die, and part with them for the rest of our days?-to reflect that we shall hear their voices no more, and that they will never look on us again?—to see that turning to corruption which was but just now alive, and eloquent, and beautiful with sensations? Are our sorrows so sacred and peculiar as to make the world as vanity to us, and the men of it as strangers, and shall we not be left to our afflictions for a few hours? 12. Must we be brought out at such a time to the concerned or careless gaze of those we know not, or be made to bear the formal proffers of consolation from acquaintance who will go ǎway and forget it all? Shall we not be suffered, for a little while, private and healing communion with the dead? Must the kindred stillnèss and gloom of our dwelling be changed for the show of the pall, the talk of the passers-by, and the broad and piercing light of the common sun? Must the ceremonies of the world wait on us, even to our friends' open graves? 13. When the hour came, Arthur rose with a firm step and fixed eye, though his face was tremulous with the struggle within him. He went to his sister and took her arm within his. The bell struck. Its heavy, undulating sound rolled forward like a He felt a beating through his frame, which shook him so that he reeled. It was but a momentary weakness. He moved on, passing those who surrounded him as if they had been shadows. While he followed the slow hearse, there was a vacancy in his eye, as it rested on the coffin, which showed him hardly conscious of what was before him. His spirit was with his mother's. As he reached the grave, he shrunk back, and turned pale; but, dropping his head upon his breast, and covering his face, he stood motionless as a statue till the service was over. 14. He had gone through all that the debt to society required of him. For painful as it was, and ill suited to one of his reserved nature and holding such opinions upon the subject, still he could not do anything that might appear to the world like a want of reverence and respect for his mother. The scene was ended, and the inward struggle over; and now that he was left to himself, the greatness of his loss came up full and distinctly before him. 15. It was a gloomy and chilly evening when he returned home. As he entered the house from which his mother had gone forever, a sense of dreary emptinèss oppressed him, as if his abode had been deserted by every living thing. He walked into his mother's chamber. The naked bedstead, and the chair in which she used to sit, were all that were left in the room. As he threw himself back in the chair, he groaned in the bitterness of his spirit. A feeling of forlornnèss came over him, which was not to be relieved by tears. 16. She, whom he watched over in her dying hour, and whom he had talked to as she lay befōre him in death, as if she could hear and answer him, had gone from him. Nothing was left for the senses to fasten fondly on, and time had not yet taught him to think of her only as a spirit. But time and holy endeavors brought this consolation; and the little of life that a wasting disease left him was passed by him, when alone, in thoughtful tranquillity; and among his friends he appeared with that gentle cheerfulness which, before his mother's death, had been a part of his nature. I V. R. H. DANA. 54. THE RIM OF THE BOWL. 1. SAT 'mid the flickering lights, when all the guests had departed, gone; Neither asleep nor waking, nor sad nor cheery-hearted— But passive as a leaf by the wild November blown. I thought-if thinking 'twere when thoughts were dimmer than shadows And toyed the while with the music I drew from the rim of the bowl, Passing my fingers round, as if my will compelled it To answer my shapeless dreams, as soul might answer soul. Idle I was, 2. and listless; but melody and fancy Came out of that tremulous dulcimer, as my hand around it strayed; The rim was a magic circle, and mine was the necromancy' But living anew in the odors of the roses at the board; 3. Secrets that still shall slumber, for I will not bare my bosom To the gaze of the heartless, prying, unconscionable crowd, That would like to know, I doubt not, how much I have sinned and suffered, And drag me down to its level—because it would humble the proud. Beautiful spirits they were, that danced on the rim at my bidding: Spirits of joy or sadness, in their brief sweet summer day; Spirits that aye possess me, and keep me, if I wander, In the line of the straight, and the flower of the fruitful way. 4. Spirits of women and children-spirits of friends departed- 2 And the aureole of death that crowns them in the gloom. Spirits of Hope and Faith, and one supremely lovely, That sang to me years agone, when I was a little child, And sported at her footstool, or lay upon her bosom, And gazed at the love that dazzled me from her eyes so soft and mild. 5. And that song from the rim of the bowl came sounding and sounding ever As oft it had done before in the toil and moil of life, A song like a ray of moonlight that gleams athwart a tempèst. 1 Něċ' ro man cy, the art of revealing future events by means of a pretended communication from the dead; enchantment. 2 Au' re ōle, the circle of rays, or halo of light, with which painters surround the body of Christ, saints, and others held in special reverence. AMONG SECTION XIII. I. 55. INTEMPERANCE. MONG the evils of intemperance, much importance is given to the poverty of which it is the cause. But this evil, great as it is, is yet light, in comparison with the essential evil of intemperance. What matters it that a man be poor, if he carry into his poverty the spirit, energy, reason, and virtues of a man? What matters it that a man must, for a few years, live on bread and water? 2. How many of the richest are reduced, by disease, to a worse condition than this? Honèst, virtuous, noble-minded poverty is comparatively a light evil. The ancient philosopher chose it, as a condition of virtue. It has been the lot of many a Christian. 3. The poverty of the intemperate man owes its great misery to its cause. He who makes himself a beggar, by having made himself a brute, is miserable indeed. He who has no solace, who has only agonizing recollections and harrowing remorse, as he looks on his cold hearth, his scanty table, his raggèd children, has indeed to bear a crushing weight of woe. That he suffers, is a light thing. That he has brought on himself this suffering, by the voluntary extinction of his reason, that is the terrible thought, the intolerable curse. 4. Intemperance is to be pitied and abhorred for its own sake, much more than for its outward consequences. These owe their chief bitterness to their criminal source. We speak of the miseries which the drunkard carries to his family. But take away his own brutality, and how lightened would be these miseries! We talk of his wife and children in rags. Let the rags continue; but suppose them to be the effects of an innocent cause. 5. Suppose his wife and children bound to him by a strong love, which a life of labor for their support, and of unwearied kindness has awakened; suppose them to know that his toils for their welfare had broken down his frame; suppose him able to say, "We are poor in this world's goods, but rich in affection and religious trust. I am going from you; but I leave you to the Father of the fatherless, and to the widow's God." Suppose this; and how changed these rags!-how changed the cold, naked room! The heart's warmth can do much to withstand the winter's cold;—and there is hope, there is honor, in this virtuous indigence. 6. What breaks the heart of the drunkard's wife? It is not that he is poor, but that he is a drunkard. Instead of that bloated face, now distorted with passion, now robbed of every gleam of intelligence, if the wife could look on an affectionate countenance which had, for years, been the interpreter of a well-principled mind and faithful heart, what an overwhelming load would be lifted from her! 7. It is a husband whose touch is polluting, whose infirmities are the witness of his guilt, who has blighted all her hopes, who has proved false to the vow which made her his; it is such a husband who makes home a hell-not one whom toil and disease and Providence have cast on the care of wife and children. 8. We look too much at the consequences of vice-too little at the vice itself. It is vice which is the chief weight of what we call its consequences-vice, which is the bitterness in the cup of human woe. CHANNING. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, D. D., an eminent American divine, was born at Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780. At the age of twelve he was sent to New London, Conn., to prepare for college under his uncle, the Rev. Henry Channing. His father, an able and hospitable lawyer, soon afterward died, to which, in connection with a revival which then swept over New England, he attributed the commencement of his decidedly religious life. He entered the freshman class of Harvard College in 1794, where he graduated with the highest honors. He became pastor of the Federal Street Church, Boston, in 1803. The society rapidly increased under his charge, and his reputation and influence became marked and extensive. He married, in 1814; visited Europe for his health, in 1822; and died at Bennington, Vt., October 2, 1842. He published many admirable addresses and letters. His nephew, William H. Channing, collected and published six volumes of his writings in 1848. A selection of his writings, entitled "Beauties of Channing," has been published in London; and many of his essays, at various times, have been translated into German. Among the best of his general writings are his "Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton;" on "Bonaparte;" on "Fenelon ;" and on "Self-Culture. II. 56. REGRETS OF DRUNKENNESS. [CASSIO having been artfully plied with liquor by IAGO till he was drunk, engaged in a brawl, after which he was dismissed by his general, OTHELLO, with the words: “CASSIO, I love thee; but never more be officer of mine." IAGO, wishing to make OTHELLO jealous of CASSIO, here persuades him to appeal to DESDEMONA, OTHELLO's wife, to intercede for him.] AGO.' What! be you hurt, Lieutenant? IAGO Cassio. Past all surgery! |