under severe indisposition, and leaned for support on the arm of her mother, who, knocking at the door, craved shelter and warmth for the night. The door was half opened in answer to the summons, but the black who appeared on the stairs, declared that it was out of his power to comply with the request, as he had neither fire, except that which was furnished by a handful of tan, nor covering for himself and wife. The mother, however, too much inured to suffering to be easily rebuked, declared that herself and daughter were likely to perish from cold, and that even permission to rest on the floor of the cellar, where they would be protected, in some degree, from the "nipping and eager air," would be a charity for which they would ever be grateful. She alleged, as an excuse for the claim to shelter, that she had been rejected, a few minutes before, from a small room which, with her daughter, she had occupied in a neighboring alley, and for which she had stipulated to pay fifty cents per week, because she had found herself unable to meet the demand, -every resource for obtaining money having been cut off by the severity of the season. The black, more generous than many who are more ambitious of a reputation for benevolence, admitted the shivering applicants, and at once resigned, for their accommodation for the night, the only two seats in the cellar, and cast a fresh handful of tan upon the ashes in the fire-place.

It was a scene of wretchedness, want, and misery, calculated to soften the hardest heart, and to enlist the feelings and sympathies of the most selfish. The regular tenants of the cellar were the colored man and his wife, who gained a scanty and precarious subsistence, as they were able, by casual employment in the streets, or in the neighboring houses. Having in summer made no provision for the inclemency of winter, they were then utterly destitute. They had sold their articles of clothing and furniture, one by one, to provide themselves with bread, until all were dis posed of, but two broken chairs, a box that served for a table, and a small piece of carpeting, which answered the double purpose of a bed and covering. Into this department of poverty were the mother and and daughter,-lately ejected from a place equally destitute of the comforts of life,-introduced. former was a woman of about fifty years, but the deep furrows on her face, and her debilitated frame, betokened a more advanced age. Her face was wan and pale, and her haggard countenance and tattered dress indicated a full measure of wretchedness. Her daughter sat beside her, and rested her head on her mother's lap. She was about twenty-five years of age, and might once have been handsome, but a life of debauchery had thus early robbed her checks of their roses, and prostrated her

The

constitution. The pallidness of disease was on her face,anguish was in her heart.

Hours passed on. In the gloom of midnight, the girl awoke from a disturbed and unrefreshing slumber. She was suffering from acute pain, and in the almost total darkness which pervaded the apartment, raised her hand to her mother's face. "Mother," said she, in faltering accents," are you here?"

"Yes, child: are you better?"

"No, mother, I am sick,-sick unto death! There is a canker at my heart, my blood grows cold,-the torpor of mortality is stealing upon me!"

"In the morning, my dear, we shall be better provided for. Bless Heaven, there is still one place which, thanks to the benevolent, will afford us sustenance and shelter."

"Do not thank Heaven, mother: you and I are outcasts from that place of peace and rest. We have spurned Providence from our hearts, and need not now to call it to our aid. Wretches, wretches that we are!"

"Be composed, daughter,-you need rest."

66 Mother, there is a weight of wo upon my breast, that sinks me to the earth. My brief career of folly is almost at an end. I have erred,-oh God! fatally erred, and the consciousness of my wickedness now overwhelms me. I will not reproach you, mother, for laying the snare by which I fell,-for enticing me from the house of virtue,-the home of my broken-hearted father, to the house of infamy and death; but oh, I implore you, repent: be warned, and let penitence be the business of your days.'

The hardened heart of the mother melted at this touching appeal, and she answered with a half stifled sigh:

"Promise me then, ere I die, that you will abandon your ways of iniquity, and endeavor to make peace with Heaven.”

"I do, I do! But alas! my child, what hope is there for me?" "God is merciful to all who

The last word was inaudible. A few respirations, at long intervals, were heard, and the penitent girl sank into the quiet slumber of death. Still did the mother remain in her seat, with a heart harrowed with the smitings of an awakened conscience. Until the glare of daylight was visible through the crevices of the door, and the noise of the foot passengers and the rumbling of vehicles in the street had aroused the occupants of the cellar, she continued motionless, pressing to her bosom the lifeless form of her injured child. When addressed by the colored woman, she answered with an idiot stare. Sensibility had fled,-the energies of her mind had relaxed, and reason deserted its throne. The awful incidents of that night had prostrated her intellect, and she was conveyed from the gloomy place, A MANIAC!

The Coroner was summoned, and an inquest held over the body of the daughter. In the books of that humane and estimable officer, the name of the deceased is recorded,

Philadelphia.

"LETITIA L******* ”

B. M.

THE PASSIONS.

TIME was, when man in God's own image stood,
Communing with the angels, in that bower,
Where first creation dawned upon his view!
Their radiant pinions hovered o'er his rest,
While seraph voices joined his vesper hymn.

In its primeval glory, this fair world,
With all its noblest, and its brightest things,
By high OMNIPOTENCE to MAN was given.
Creation owned her Lord! while all that moved
On earth, in air, and sea, his reign confessed.
Before him bowed the forest monarch down,
With the young land, submissive to his power.
Birds of soft plumage, and melodious song,
With notes responsive, hailed the rising day;
While fragrant flowers, of bright and various hue,
Sprang in his path, o'er which luxuriant trees,
Blushing with golden fruit, their shadows spread.

Such was fair Paradise! When woman smiled,
All Eden brightened with a richer glow!
Led by the hand of DEITY, she came,
To dwell in kind companionship with man,
A sharer in his pleasures, and his toils,
Which nature's genial bosom richly paid.
Love, joy, and harmony, and peace were there;
God saw his glorious work, "and it was good."

Brief hour of human purity, and truth!
Malignant Envy, in the bland disguise

Of friendship, stole; yea, twined his serpent folds
Around the consecrated tree of life!

"Eat, woman, eat! ye shall not surely die!"

Thus spake the tempter of mankind. They ate.

A sudden darkness gathered o'er the sky,

Wild raged the storm; earth's firm foundation shook,
While ocean trembled from her deepest cells.

The livid lightning flashed with lurid glare,
Wreathing in flames the blackened arch of heaven,
While the loud thunder's deep, continuous roar,
Proclaimed in God's own voice, that man was lost!

The sinful pair shrank from the wrath of heaven,
And gazed upon the desolated scene;
The lion's roar, the savage tiger's yell,
The fierce hyena's wild unearthly cry,

Came mingled with the wolf's discordant howl.
The huge leviathan, from the vast deep,
Rebellious rose above his ocean bounds,

Dashing with fearful power the trembling shore;
While, mid the awful pauses of the storm,
Ill-omened birds, that shun the face of day,
Shrieked as they passed from Eden's rifled bower,
Leaving alone God's sacred messenger,
The holy dove, a timid nestler there.

Apart, the dark arch enemy of man

Looked on, with fiendish glee, and cursed our race.
The chain that bound him in his dark abode
Was riven, and forth he strode, triumphant
O'er the globe; veiling his hideous form

And smile demoniac, 'neath that smooth disguise
That first brought sin and ruin on mankind.
He spake wild spirits filled the air, the earth,
The sea.
First, MURDER came; his right hand red
With the pure blood of his young brother's heart,
For which his own, in every age and clime,
Hath deeply paid. "Cursed art thou!" said GOD,
And set his mark upon the murderer's brow.

Next came REMORSE, with cold and rayless eye,
His pale lip quivering, as the retrospect
Of crimes unpardoned darkened memory's page;
An exile from his God, spurned by his race,
To nature's wildest solitudes he fled;
Those sunless depths by human feet untrod,
Where coiled the hissing serpent in his path,
And nameless things of horror met his view.
Where poisonous weeds in tangled masses hung
O'er the green bosom of the stagnant pool,
Rife with disease and death. Such was his home;
Shrinking beneath the hemlock's baneful shade,
In savage gloom, he brooded o'er the past.

His step was followed by DESPAIR. The world
Had scorned him; his impassioned soul
Had deeply drank at learning's sacred fount;
But fame's deceitful smile, dark envy's sneer,
The loss of wealth, the treachery of friends,
Joined with the pangs of unrequited love,
Came o'er his heart, as sweeps the siroc blast
O'er fields of richest bloom, leaving behind
The blackened wreck of nature's brightest things.
To quell the anguish of his throbbing breast,
He sought the shrine where wild Intemperance drains
The Circean bowl of deep forgetfulness.

Through his young veins the insidious poison ran,
With phrenzied eye he wildly gazed around:
Life seemed to him a blank, a cheerless void;
No friendly hand was near to stay his course,
No kindred spirit whispered," Live for me!"
He grasped the blade of death, and sealed his doom.

Next came REVENGE. Beneath his lowering brow
Flashed forth his kindling eye with fearful glare,
As bursts the lightning from the sable cloud.
His hand hath grasped the victim of his wrath,

High o'er his head the glittering steel is raised!
The cry for mercy, the denial fierce,

Are mingled with life's last convulsive grasp :
Revenge exulting, gazes on the dead!

What form is that, which, wild as lightning's flash,
Sweeps o'er the plain? 'Tis WAR-insatiate War!
Wielding his massive spear with mighty grasp;
He goads his fiery steed o'er yon bold heights,
That meet the brow of heaven! the trumpet's blast
Hath drowned the widow's shriek, the orphan's wail;
Oh! what to him are nature's holy ties ?

Ambition points to victory and fame;

He treads o'er slaughtered millions to a throne,
And grasps a sceptre, red with human blood!
While, basely cowering at the tyrant's feet,
With smiles deceitful, and obsequious phrase,
Haughty REBELLION and dark TREASON bow,
Veiling beneath submission's humble guise
The furious fires that wildly raged within.
United only in the bands of vice,

They watch in secret when and where to speed

The bolt commissioned with their sovereign's doom.

While meaner parasites, those gaudy things

That flutter round the blaze of royalty,

Vile mercenary wretches, who for gold

Would sell themselves, their country, and their God,

Yea, swear allegiance to the powers below,

To buy a life of luxury and ease,

Submissive wait to aid the work of death.

Stealing beneath the shadowy veil of night,
With noiseless step, pale JEALOUSY is seen,
His breast, by wild conflicting passions torn,
Heaves with deep anguish, as the withering thought
Comes o'er his heart, that she, his dearer self,
The treasured idol of his soul is false!
Yea, false to him, whose life-blood is her own!
Blinded with rage, he madly rushes forth;
His haughty foe hath proudly crossed his path,
Their eyes have met! The fierce volcano's flame
Ne'er flashed more wildly than his furious glance.
No more! 'Tis done, the double deed of death!
The reeking steel, red from his rival's heart,
Is quivering now within her heaving breast.

From out the murky den of dark intemperance,
Rush forth a frantic throng, whose revels foul
The breath of heaven taint. Like the wild forms
That people Hecla's shades, they flit along,
Their eye-balls gleaming with unholy fires;
Riot, and folly, theft, and lawless love,

In fiendish revelry discordant join;

While haggard guilt, laden with nameless crimes,
With fear recoiling, shrinks to his vile den,
Trembling as if stern justice met his view.

False PLEASURE, too, in tinselled garb is there;
With limbs half veiled, and gestures wild and strange,
She lightly bounds in the lascivious dance.
Around her bold unblushing brow is wreathed