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"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." This principle of the Divine government is forcibly illustrated in the parable recorded Matthew xxviii.

4. It destroys happiness. There is nothing which || woe may be his portion! Suppose you should cease can do this more effectually or speedily. Burns de- to pray, would the case be different? Jesus has said, scribes the "tooth-ache" as the "hell of all discases." This surely (revenge) is the pit of all tormenting passions. Under its influence reflection is suspended, pleasing emotions paralyzed, the senses benumbed, the heavens curtained, the earth shaded, every avenue to enjoyment closed, and reason often dethroned. If I wished to describe the bitterest cup in the well of bottomless perdition, I would write "revenge." Were I to represent the hottest flame in the furnace of Satan's soul, my brush should paint-revenge. Did I seek completely to "devilize" and damn a soul on earth, I would ask no other element than this. What is hell but the opposite of heaven? What is Satan but the opposite of God? What the torment of the lost but the opposite of the raptures of the blest? What is the element of heaven?-of God?-of heavenly rapture? Love.

Have you ever felt the weight of your sins? You have sinned against an infinite God, violated an infinite law. Your transgressions will influence the universe, perhaps for ever. You have incurred an infinite punishment; and while under condemnation, you have been pardoned. Can you ever think of entertaining revenge for a trifling offense committed by a fellow mortal. Look at the example of God. It is the highest privilege and noblest perfection of a mortal to imitate the Almighty. Though he is holy and just, and hath a right to inflict summary punishment upon the wicked, yet he bears long with them, sending his rain and sunshine upon the just and upon the unjust. Look at the 5. It is inconsistent with Christianity. If you are a example of Jesus. When reviled, he reviled not again. professor of the religion of Jesus Christ, you must be Though God incarnate, he suffered himself to be huntgoverned by the Gospel. Remember that precept ed as a partridge upon the mountains. When requestwhich has been called the golden rule: "Do unto oth-ed by his disciples to bring fire out of heaven to coners as you would they should do unto you." If you sume his enemies, how beautiful and instructive his offend another, do you wish that you should never reproof! "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are be forgiven? Do you value the means of grace? Do of." When he might have summoned legions of anyou love the place where God's saints assemble-the gels to guard him, "he is led as a lamb to the slaughter; abode where God's honor dwelleth? Does not your and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opensoul at times cry out, "How lovely are thy tents, O ed not his mouth. In the very agonies of a cruel death, Jacob!" "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord aggravated by the reproaches of those for whom he died, of hosts!" "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for he spends his last breath in prayer for his murderers, the courts of my God!" Has not your heart often "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they said, "Sweet is the day of sacred rest!" and while do." If ye have not the spirit of Christ, ye are none holding communion with the Most High, and laying of his. O, be ye followers of him, as dear childrenyour sorrows at Immanuel's feet, how often have you "Be ye kind, tender-hearted, forbearing, and forgiving exclaimed, "In such a frame as this my willing soul one another, as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven would stay!" Then do not forget that the privileges you." of the sanctuary are not allowed to the heart that entertains revenge or hatred. "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." You have no right to mingle in the songs of Zion, to participate in her devotions, or listen to her consolations-you have no business at the mercy seat, no interest in the bleeding victim, no access at the throne, even of grace, until reconciled-you have no right so much as to offer a broken heart to your God. Back from the altar-back, back from the sanctuary-back, back, back from the presence of a pardoning God. Go find and forgive thy brother, then come and offer thy gift. Would you || cease to pray? Would you pray for eternal damnation? But one of these things you must do if you are revengeful. If any would pray he must pray after the model of our Lord's Prayer. One of its petitions is, "Forgive my trespasses as I forgive those that trespass against me;" but you do not forgive; therefore, your prayer is that you may never be forgiven. What a fearful attitude for a man to assume-pray that eternal

Recollect that you must die. Perhaps the destroyer may come suddenly, and afford you no opportunity to seek the friends with whom you are at variance, to effect a reconciliation. How would you like to die with resentment in your heart? Could you rejoice in passing over Jordan-would you be prepared to sing with the blest, or swell the carols of angels?

Remember that your friends must die. How would you feel at the funeral of a dear friend, from whom, in some unlucky hour, you had become alienated, should he die prior to a reconciliation? A. and B. were dear friends. They disagreed, and for months were at variance; at length they were reconciled, and loved each other more fervently. B. suddenly expired, and A. accidentally visited the family of B. on the day of his interment. As he stood by the coffin of the deceased, surrounded by the widow and children, O how he sighed and wept! But his tears were tears of joy. "O how glad am I,” said he, "that we were reconciled!" Woman, have you a dear friend whom you have not forgiven? Hasten to a reconciliation, lest she die suddenly, and you weep tears of unavailing sorrow at her grave.

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Allow me, before I close this paper, to give some || from the court of Augustus, said, "Remember, Cæsar, general directions for avoiding offense.

1. Do not make a friend an offender for a word. How often do we speak inadvertently! It cannot be expected that every one should, at all times, exercise the caution and prudence of a philosopher. Should we do so, how much would the pleasure of social intercourse be abridged!

2. Make allowances for peculiarities, for education, and for surrounding circumstances. Amid the cares, and duties, and anxieties of busy life, how many causes of irritation hourly arise! How often, when the wife is indulging in resentment for an unkind expression which her husband made in a moment of anxiety, would she weep with pity, could she read the cares which oppress his heart, as he labors with intense anxiety to provide for those he loves!

3. Consider how many benefits you have received from those whom you regard with animosity. Perhaps she who has offended you has watched your pillow in the hour of sickness, night after night, listening to your whispers, administering to your necessities, bearing with your peevishness, and praying for your recovery. Perhaps the very book you hold in your hand is a token of her friendship-the very dress you wear the gift of her affection. And are favors to be forgotten, while offenses are treasured up? Is gratitude to be excluded that revenge may become a guest? For years, it may be, you have lived on terms of intimacy, cultivating friendship with mutual offices of good will; and shall one offense be the grave of all your attachment? Are you related by ties of blood, and do you yet despise each other? Let not this day's sun go down upon your wrath. It was an admirable practice of the ancient Jew never to lie down upon his pillow without forgiving all his foes.

4. Consider well your own faults and infirmities. It was a quaint but admirable conceit of an ancient genius, that every man carries a wallet upon his shoulders, and that into the pocket before him he puts the faults of his neighbor-into that behind he puts his own; so that the former are objects of contemplation always-the latter never. It generally happens that they who are most prone to take offense, and least disposed to forgive it, are not very mindful of the feelings of others. Should the measure which they mete be measured to them again, they would have but few friends.

"O, wad some power the giftie gie us,

To see oursels as others see us,"

that when you are angry, you do not speak, nor do any thing, until you have distinctly repeated to yourself the letters of the alphabet." This is an admirable direction. I have heard of a Turkish prince, who, when tempted to be angry, repeated, deliberately, the Lord's Prayer. Much may be done to regulate the temper by repeated and persevering efforts at self-control. I know it is difficult to overcome the proud heart, and Solomon says that he who achieves this work is greater than the conqueror of a city. Yet we should not be discouraged from the attempt by its difficulty. A physiognomist once pronounced Socrates the "most brutal, drunken, and licentious old man he had ever seen." The pupils of the philosopher, knowing him to be the reverse of all this, insulted the physiognomist; but Socrates, interposing, said, "The man's principles may be correct, for such were my propensities, but I have overcome them by my philosophy."

St. Paul, in his convicted state, cried, "For the good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not that I do." "I find, then, a law, that when I would do good evil is present with me.” "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law in my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." What the apostle could not do we may despair of accomplishing. Let us go, then, to the cross of Christ, and crying out in the bitterness of our souls, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" we shall have reason, with rapture, to exclaim, "We thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

MARRIAGE.

E. T.

MARRIAGE is to a woman at once the happiest and saddest event of her life; it is the promise of future bliss, raised on the death of all present enjoyment. She quits her home, her parents, her occupations, her amusements, every thing on which she has hitherto depended for comfort, for affection, for kindness, for pleasure. The parents by whose advice she has been guided-the sister to whom she had dared to impart the every embryo thought and feeling—the brother who was by turns the counselor and the counseled-and the younger children, to whom she has been the mother and the playmate-all are to be forsaken at one fell stroke; every former tie is loosened; the spring of every hope and action is to be changed; and yet she flies with joy into the untrodden path before her. Buoyed up by the

we should find, perhaps, as much occasion to ask for- confidence of requited love, she bids a fond and grategiveness as to forgive.

ful adieu to the life that is past, and turns with excited 5. Never take an offense unless you are certain it is hopes and joyous anticipation to the happiness to come. intended. We should put the most favorable construc- Woe to him who has too early withdrawn the tender tion upon every action and expression, viewing all plant from the props and stays of discipline in which things in the light of that charity "which vaunteth not she has been nurtured, and yet makes no effort to supitself is not puffed up," &c. If we do this, we shall ply their place; for on him be the responsibility of her find but few offenses. We frequently convert inno-|| errors-on him who first taught her, by his example, cent, well meant remarks into offenses, by the manner to grow careless of her duty, and then exposed her to in which we notice them. Apollodorus, about to retire the wily temptations of a sinful world.

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SCRIPTURAL PORTRAITURES OF WOMAN.

Original.

ably presented, yet fail to be personally appropriated by SCRIPTURAL PORTRAITURES OF WOMAN. the hearer, when some new mode of introducing them

BY MRS. L. F. MORGAN.

-

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

may imprint them vividly upon the mind. The first portrait we offer for examination is that of

EVE.

it

from the light of Milton's imagination, with the simple and emphatic Scripture narrative only before us, what reflections must crowd in upon the soul necessa

THE study of the human heart must necessarily be a Brief as is the record of the mother of our race, subject of deep interest to woman. Destined to play has lent its coloring and its impress to every successive an equal part with man, though a less conspicuous one, page of human life. Few as are its details, each after on the great theatre of probationary existence, she na- history, chronicled by man, has been but a commentary turally turns with eagerness to whatever can aid her in upon them. Simple as the narration, and casual as the fulfillment of her arduous duties, or shed light on the the events appear, they contain the elements of all pathway before her. Hence she peruses with avidity thought-feeling-action. They excited not earth all those works which are professedly written for her in-alone through every trembling fibre, but hell and heavstruction; and is proportionably disappointed if she find en gave back pulsation. Well, then, may this portrait not in them the moral or mental aliment her spirit needs. interest us. Eve is first presented to our view encirDisposed, from her very constitution, to be guided less cled by whatever can attract the heart and charm the by the deductions of her mind than the impulses of her imagination. Fresh from the hand of her Creator, heart, she is more affected by what is striking than what with all her faculties in free and lofty exercise, and yet is logical, and example has greater influence with her unbreathed upon by sin, she is introduced to the undisthan precept. Though far from incapable of apprecia- || puted lord of a new and perfect world, as his companting the beautiful and the good in the abstract, her im-ion, friend, and wife. Without borrowing one ray agination and her hopes are ever busy in the pursuit of the embodiment of her radiant conceptions, that she may love and imitate what she pictures and admires. Her meditations are generally so interwoven with her feel-rily connected with the subject! We behold Adam ings, that sentiments rather than opinions actuate her, and she rarely brings her intellect to bear intently upon a subject that does not first excite her emotions. Thus events teach her more effectually than labored disquisitions, and illustrations impress her more powerfully than many arguments. The Scriptures of divine truth appear peculiarly fitted to engage her attention and admonish her heart; there is so much simplicity in their || narrations so much sentiment in their ethics. Scarcely a doctrine is presented to the faith, or a command to the observance, that is not touchingly and distinctively exemplified to the sight. Woman, especially in the several eras of Bible history, is depicted to the view the living representation of the virtues or the follies, and, we may add, the misfortunes of her age, and her portrait is drawn so truthfully and yet so happily that the female reader of the present day immediately recog-sive are the words of their marriage covenant: "Therenizes it as a resemblance. She discerns through the long series of successive generations as they rise before her the same common features-the individuality of character still descriptive of her sex, though modified and varied by the perpetually changing circumstances which called for peculiar developments. She feels, while she regards the pictures, that the artist did not exaggerate, and is thus prepared to sympathize with the emotions and motives of the actors in those gone-announcement of the subtilty of the serpent, and yet by scenes, and condemn or approve them intuitively by an instinctive appeal to her own bosom. To bring those Scriptural portraitures more particularly before the mind, and recommend them to the attention of the young readers of the Ladies' Repository, is the object of these sketches. Experience teaches us that our im-tive to her motives, and an attempt to conjecture them provement is not always in proportion to our knowledge, but to the incorporation of that knowledge with our thoughts and feelings. Truths may be often and

walking the flower-decked aisles of paradise, gazing on its magnificent scenery, and giving names to the living tenants of his fair domain. We learn, from the significant phrase which closes his survey, that he sought sympathy among them, and found it not. Man is sensible of a want, even in that beautiful Eden, and a feeling of solitariness seems to have arisen in his bosom, permitted by God, to enhance his gratitude for his purposed gift. But for Adam, there was not found a help-meet for him." Immediately after this discovery we see him losing the remembrance of his loneliness in a deep sleep, during which his munificent Creator prepares for him the companionship he needed. How blissful must have been the hour of his awaking, and how sweet the song of grateful acknowledgment which floated through the bowers of paradise! Very expres

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fire shall a man cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." Did the recollection of that engagement come upon Adam in the moment of his temptation, and urge him to his fall? Alas! for such return for his Maker's kindness!

The next aspect in which Eve appears before us would make us tremble for her, even if we were unacquainted with her history. The scene opens with the

represents the woman in conversation with him. We might imagine many circumstances which would account for this strange colloquy; but none which would excuse its continuance when once rebellion against her Creator had been suggested. The Bible is silent rela

would be as vain as unprofitable. She appears to have pondered the tempter's words after he left her; and her consequent examination of the tree, which she seems

SPARE MINUTES.

which was his by inheritance.

197

The intelligence of the birth of Seth, with the reason of his name, closes the annals of our far-famed ancestress. "God," said she, "hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." Whether she still indulged the belief that one of her immediate descendants was to be the Messiah, or repeated disappointment had taught her the fallacy of her expectations, we cannot determine with certainty from the passage quoted above. Either may be inferred. I have thought it not unworthy of notice that while we have no intimation of the nature of Adam's thoughts and feelings after his expulsion from Eden, we are made quite familiar with Eve's from her own expressions. Of her death we have no account. We will close this sketch with an attempt to shadow forth her emotions as she passed the portals of paradise.

never hitherto to have noticed particularly, manifest a we may believe that as Abel grew into promising mansuspicion of the truth of God. Governed less by her hood, and exhibited evidences of that faith which even reason than her senses, she determined that the quali- then was casting a faint light over the road to man's forties of the fruit rendered it desirable; and apparently feited paradise, the hopes of the mother re-bloomed and without one doubt of the justness of her conclusions, clustered round him as the world's redeemer. But ere eat of it, and induced her husband to do so likewise. long she weeps upon his bloody grave. Cain is his We have no account of the arguments she used to per-murderer, and himself becomes a vagabond over a land suade him; for convinced he certainly was not. This we learn from the comment of St. Paul on the relation. He informs us that the woman only was deceived. The man appears to have been influenced entirely by her entreaty and example. When the wisdom they had so rashly and wickedly sought revealed to them their guilt, the remorse and sorrow of the woman must have been keenly aggravated by the consciousness that she had led her husband into crime. The sacred pages, however, give no response to our inquiries on this subject. They tell us of her fall, and leave imagination to depict her penitence. We are indeed informed of her acknowledgment of her fault; and clear and unextenuated is that acknowledgment: "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." There is no attempt to follow the precedent of her husband, who, in the confession of his guilt, ungenerously reproaches his Creator as its cause, while he accuses his wife as the instigator of his trangression. She seeks not to prove him equally culpable with herself by the just retort, “Thou shouldst have counseled otherwise," but in that hour of terror and hopelessness is true to her sex. Then was the curse pronounced which has been fearfully accomplished through every succeeding period of time. Yet was it, even in the moment of its utterance, when the creatures of his hand had just provoked the wrath of God, softened and gilded by the promise of its future repeal.

Farewell, ye blissful bow'rs!
Alas, alas, that I must say farewell,

And breathe no more your atmosphere of flow'rs,
Nor 'midst your glories dwell!

On

O, I would linger here

your green threshold, if I might no more, 'Till death, my portion now, should come to bear Me to his viewless shore!

But wherefore? what would I,

A fallen spirit, 'midst so pure a scene?
What should they do whose lot it is to die,
Where only life hath been?

Farewell, ye crystal streams,

Whose murm'ring oft hath lull'd me to my rest!
O, let your music sometimes haunt my dreams,
And soothe my aching breast!

Ye

groves, within whose shade

I lov'd to walk in tranquil happiness,
My step shall ne'er again your calm invade-
Your dew-gem'd green-sward press!

I go, a world accurs'd

By mine own act, in bitterness to tread ;
But o'er that thought-the darkest, saddest, worst-
Mercy hath balsam shed!

How consoling and refreshing must those precious words, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," have been to the crushed and sorrowing heart of her who had been "first in the transgression" which was to shed its baleful blight over the destinies of yet unborn generations! She seems to have cherished the hope of their speedy fulfillment, as we learn from the exulting exclamation with which she clasped to her bosom the first-born son: "I have gotten a man from the Lord!" or, as it has been rendered, "I have the man Jehovah!" We may easily conceive her spirit lightened of its wearisome burden, as she pictured the triumph of Cain over his hereditary foe, and the deliverance of the fair world, of which he was the rightful inheritor, from its desolating curse. With what anxiety must she have watched his approach to manhood, and striven to instill into his breast love and obedience to his God. But, alas! soon must she haveperceived her delusion, and been compelled not only to SPARE minutes are the gold dust of time; and weep over the disappointment of her earnest hope, but Young was writing a true, as well as a striking line, the effects of her own guilt in the depravity of her off when he affirmed that-"Sands make the mountain, spring. This we infer from the name bestowed upon moments make the year." Of all the portions of her second son-Abel, or vanity. The bright anticipa- our life, the spare minutes are the most fruitful in good ticns of the mother had indeed been vanity; and that or evil. They are the gaps through which temptaword well implies the hopelessness that succeeded. Yettions find the easiest access to the garden.

Hush, then, my grief-torn heart,
Thy throbbings wild-thine agony subdue-
In faith and hope, if not in peace, depart―
Ye blissful bowers, adieu!

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198

Original.

"BE YE ALSO READY."

"BE YE ALSO READY."

BY MISS DE FOREST.

"ART thou ready, careless sinner,
Should the summons come to-day,
Thrilling through the vaulted heaven,
That dread mandate to obey?
Could'st thou meet the king Messiah,
With thy guilt upon thy brow?
Or, 'not ready, not yet ready,'
Would'st thou murmur then as now?"

"Gentle maiden, in thy beauty

Brilliant as the rosy day,

Could'st thou calmly hear the spoiler
Bid thy beauty pass away?
Ever smiling-care beguiling-

Life to thee a vernal bloom-
Pleasure-seeking-laughter-loving-
Say, what think'st thou of the tomb?"

"Crested warrior-haughty conqu❜rorGlorying in orphan's tearsDeath is waiting for his guerdon:

Give thou up thy long arrears." Visions bright of earthly glory

Gleam before his ravished eye; "Untold wealth for one short hour!"

Hear the dying warrior cry.

"Pale-brow'd student, idolizing

What shall perish with thine age, Soar aloft, and seal thy mem'ry

On a more enduring page." "Ah!" methinks I hear thee whisper, "Life to me is wondrous fairBeautiful, and bright, and glorious Is the heritage I share."

"Miser, with thy care-worn visage,

Pallid cheek, and wither'd brow,

Earth too long hath claim'd thy worship:
Tell me, art thou ready now?"
"Richly-laden barks appearing-
Harvests whit'ning to the eye-

I would fill another coffer

Ere I lay me down to die."

Lo! the beggar on his pallet,

Cloth'd with rags and writh'd with pain:
"Say, poor suff'rer, art thou willing
An eternal life to gain?"
List his answer: "Life eternal!

Ah, what is it but a name?
Give me food, relief, and raiment-
These the blessings I would claim."

"Art thou ready, weeping mourner,
Weari'd with the woes of life?
Leaning on the precious promise,
Wilt thou brave the unequal strife?"

"No! no! no! my heart is breaking

With its longing to be free, Yet I fear, lest in yon heaven

There should be no room for me."

"Anxious father, sadly harass'd

For the food thy children need,
There is One who oft hath promis'd
All the fatherless to feed:""
Trust them to his kind protection-

Wing thy flight from earth away." "No! O, no! I cannot leave themYet a little longer stay."

"Mother, with yon shining cherubs

Lo, thy lost ones may be found! Break, O, break the ties which bind thee To this sin-enchanted ground." "My departed ones are blessed,

But the living claim my care; Not yet ready! King of terrors,

Hear a mother's earnest prayer!"

"Hoary age, thy head is silver'd

With the frosts of many years; Surely, surely, thou art ready

To forsake this vale of tears.
Borne on angel wings to heaven,

There thy weari'd feet may rest,
And thine aged head be pillow'd
Sweetly on thy Savior's breast."
No! this heart to earth is clinging
With a never-yielding grasp;
Yet shall Death, with mighty power,
Every golden link unclasp.
Nought cares he for youth or beauty-
Warrior's meed, or love, or fame-
Trembling age, or infant weakness-
Place or power-worth or name.

But, alas! how few are ready

When the hours of trial come, Though, perchance, they're sent in mercy To convey the wand'rer home. Love and honor, fame and beauty, Sin and sorrow, all combine To decoy the thoughtless spirit From all influence divine.

Yet there is a balm in Gilead
For this fever of the soul:

O, there is a blest Physician,

Who can make the wounded whole! He can give the faith triumphant, Which for him counts all but lossHe can raise the fallen spirit, Through the power of the cross.

"Faithful Christian-heaven's witnessFor thy God what sayest thou? Could'st thou raise a song of triumph,

Should the summons meet thee now?"

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