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mighty angel's arm or voice brought him up from the grave of drunkenness, the deepest ever dag for man, he came forth Lazarus-like, bound fast and forever within the cerements of her deathless affection.

Such is her sceptre; such are the cords which she throws around the wayward and wandering, and leads him back to virtue and to heaven, saying, as she gives him in: "Here am I and ke whom thou gavest me.”

Worcester, Mass. July 3, 1841.

THE EXCHANGE HOTEL.

present or to come," could divert or vitiate the ac- she stood alone, and in lone hours of night, to cents and anodynes of her love. Whether we trace watch his breathings, with her heart braced up the lineaments of her character in the mild twilight with the omnipotence of her love. No! brute as of her morning sun, or in the living beams of her ri- he was, not a tie which her young heart had thrown sen day, we find that she has touched human society around him in his bright days, had ever given away, like an angel. It would be irreverent to her worth but had grown stronger as he approached the nadir to say, in what walks of life she has walked most of his degradation. And if he sank into that like an angel of light and love; in what vicissi- dark, hopeless grave, she enswathed him in her tudes, in what joys or sorrows, in what situations broken heart, and laid it in his coffin; or if some or circumstances, she has most signally discharged the heavenly ministrations of her mission; what ordeals have best brought out the radiance of her hidden jewels; what fruitions of earthly bliss, or furnaces of affliction, have best declared the fineness of her gold. Still there is a scene, which has escaped" the vulture's eye," and almost every other eye, where she has cast forth her costliest pearls, and shown such qualities of her native character as almost merit our adoration. This scene has been allotted to the drunkard's wife. How she has filled this most desperate outpost of humanity, will be revealed when the secrets of human life shall be disclosed" to more worlds than this." When the history of hovels, and of murky garrets shall be given in; when the career of the enslaved inebriate shall be told, from the first to the lowest We feel peculiar pleasure in announcing to our degree of his degradation,-there will be a memoreaders, that since we issued the last number of rial made of woman, worthy of being told and the Messenger, we have been, by invitation, one of heard in heaven. From the first moment she a party who assembled to dedicate the Exchange up her young and hoping heart, and all its trea-Hotel to the purposes for which its liberal projecsures into the hands of him she loved, to the luck-tors had designed it—an announcement which will less hour when the charmer, wine, fastened around be received with no ordinary delight by such of that loved one, all the serpent spells of its sorour Southern friends, who, in past times, have cery,—down through all the crushing of her young-sighed for some hospitable resting place in the born hopes,—through years of estrangement and Metropolis of the Old Dominion. strange insanity,—when harsh unkindness bit at No longer will they lament a detention in our her heartstrings with an adder's tooth, thence city, nor congratulate themselves that they have down through each successive depth of disgrace escaped from the portals of a comfortless hotel. and misery, until she bent over the drunkard's Its architectural beauty has already constituted grave;-through all these scenes, a halo of divini-it an ornament to the city, and the splendid and ty has gathered around her, and stirred her to liberal manner in which it is conducted must, ere angel-deeds of love. When the maddened victim long, render it an object of pride to its citizens. tried to cut himself adrift from the sympathy and society of God and man, she has clung to him, and held him to her heart "with hooks of steel." And when he was cast out, all defiled with his lep"It is a lofty structure, with the appearance of dark 577rous pollution,-when he was reduced to such a different elevations, commanding one of the most extens of nite; the roof white-and surmounted by two domes of thing as the beasts of the field would bellow at, and picturesque prospects of the city, river and count there was one who still kept him throned in her which ever solicited the pencil of the Panoramist. We heart of hearts; who could say over the fallen, cannot undertake to enter into all the details of this 1drivelling creature: "Although you are nothing mense and superb establishment-with its more than 15 to the world, you are all the world to me." When rooms, exclusive of the basement, in which among otart that awful insanity of the drunkard set in upon airy passages and halls-the lower floor and bar-room or offices, the Post Office is now kept-with its large and him, with all its fiendish shapes of torture; while ered with squares of marble-its dining room, capale of he lay writhing beneath the scorpion stings of the dining 400 persons-its lady's ordinary, and the lady's bea fiery phantasies and furies of delirium tremens,— tiful drawing-room, fitted out in the most elegant style-its there was woman by his side, enslaved with all the lodging rooms, arranged for comfort and ease-with its farattributes of her loveliness. There was her tear-change and Reading Room and Ball Room, on the sodd niture, which cost more than $40,000-with its fine Erful, love-beaming eye, that never dimmed but with side of the square-with the stores which are carried tears when the black spirits were at him. There of the basement on the south and west-with its baths—and

The following extract from the Enquirer wil present a bird's-eye view of its claim to the highest rank among American Hotels:

with its noble kitchen, equipped with every new invention which is calculated for culinary purposes.

"The whole establishment has been fitted up in the best

style, by a very enterprising company, who have spared neither money nor time, nor taste, to make it equal to the first Hotels in the North. It is under the management of Mr. Boyden, from New-York-whose experience enables him to conduct it in a style equal to the Astor or the Tre

mont House."

The other was a pale young girl of about seventeen; and while her long black hair fell in clustering ringlets over her neck in beautiful profusion, and her taper white fingers rested tremblingly upon the arm of her companion, and her large black eye was raised meaningly up to his face, a strange prophecy might have stirred the spirit of the gazer, to mourn that one so spiritually lovely was destined so soon to lie down and make her cold bed amid the green graves of the churchyard, whose white spire might be seen modestly rising amid a distant cluster of trees.

In addition to the above we have only to add, that the opening dinner was one of which much will be told in times to come: the richness of the viands-the choiceness of the wines-the racy wit, the general hilarity and good-feeling which pre- The youth seemed to be earnestly engaged in sided at the board, will establish it hereafter " a conversation with the fair being who leaned upon green spot in Memory's waste." It would give us his arm, and the following sentences might have pleasure to introduce the proprietor of this splen-been caught by the listener:

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did establishment to our readers, but we fear we Yes, Mary," said he in answer to some quesshould fail to do him justice, and must therefore urge tion proposed by the fair listener, "the road to them to give him a call, when they will find him the fame is now fairly open before me, and in a short best of landlords—a rare caterer and an urbane time, with the blessings of kind heaven, I shall gentleman. clasp you to my breast as the brightest jewel it could wear. Nay, nay, do not look upon me so sadly, or you will make me suppose you do not feel that interest in my advancement I thought you did."

HENRY NORMAN AND MARY NEVILLE.
BY J. C. M'CABE.

The departed the departed!
They visit us in dreams;

And they glide above our memories,
Like shadows over streams-

The melody of Summer waves,
The thrilling notes of birds,
Can never be so dear to me,

The latter part of his speech was uttered half playfully, half seriously, as he put back a stray ringlet that had wandered over her forehead, and kissed her pale brow with a delicate fervor.

"You wrong me, Henry; I do wish you success," she replied. "Ah, truly do I; but a selfish thought crossed my mind while you were speaking. I thought the day will arrive when my Henry will have won his laurel,-when the proud and the great and the noble will listen to his words of wisdom and his tones of deep eloquence; but poor Mary will not be with him to share his triumph. The cold, cold grave, Henry, will ere then be mine."

As their remembered words.-Park Benjamin. 'Twas a Summer evening-bright-balmy and beautiful. Prodigal of birds, green leaves and sweet flowers-a period when all the softer and "Oh God!" replied the youth, "do not madden more tender sympathies of our spirits harmonizing me with such a thought. Has not the hope that with the surrounding beauties of sweet nature, you would one day be mine, cheered me in my make us feel our heavenly parentage; and imagi- darkest hours of gloom and despondency? Have nation, catching its colorings from the beautiful I not toiled over the pages of almost obsolete vopresent, pictures the bright and hallowed inheri-lumes, gleaning knowledge from their mouldering tance of the spirit, when, freed from the imperfec-leaves-have I not risen with the dawn, still tions of humanity, it shall rise to the enjoyment of striving to strengthen the foundations of mind?— the Saint's everlasting rest. have I not left the heartless crowd, where folly Two young beings stood beside a murmuring held immortal spirits enthralled, in order to master stream, that wound its way through a valley, over-science, knowing that the day would come with its hung and surrounded with the rich foliage of rich reward for patient toil?—and all, all this that mingled trees and vines. One was of a tall manly I might reap a competency, with which to welform; his lofty brow wore the marks which nature come you to the bosom, whose idol even from had there enstamped to challenge admiration. In- childhood you have been?"

tellect beamed from his dark expressive eye; and "I know it all, Henry; and could my disease as his firm but musical voice was heard above the be arrested,―could those cold feelings which somerippling of the stream, it required no diviner of times, even in my happiest moods, cluster around mysteries to tell that his mind was of that order, my heart be removed, could even 'Hope, the which, however few may equal, all are bound to charmer," whisper one consolatory sentence, I admire. might express myself otherwise: but I do not wish

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to deceive you. It seems hard, I know, that one general favorite, and among none more so than with so young as I, should be summoned to prepare for the Professors. One of these gentlemen, in parthat dark journey so early; when all around seem ticular, took a wonderful fancy to young Norman, to woo and win the spirit back to earth; when the and, as often as consistent with his duties, would birds sing so sweetly-and the flowers bloom in seek the cool shade, together with his pupil; and their rich beauty-and the skies smile so blandly-dropping the sternness of the preceptor, in the and the green leaves wave and rustle so invitingly bland and familiar conversation of the friend and in the cool breezes of evening-I know it seems companion, he would enlist the attention and exhard, very hard to give them up; to close the eye cite the curiosity of his young associate for hours to their beauties, and more than all this, yea infi- together. nitely more, to be compelled to part from the first beloved one, so gifted, so noble, so brave, so gentle-it is hard, hard, hard! Yet, Heavenly Father, I bow to thy will!"

Henry Norman bent his manly head upon his bosom and wept. He had dreaded the confession to his own soul, that disease was wasting the lovely flower before him; but now that the truth came upon him, not hurriedly, nor passionately, but calmly from the victim herself, the cherished hopes of his bosom withered beneath the torture of the disclosure, and the agonizing vision of the dying Mary

"Came o'er him, and he wept, he wept!"

The sun slowly sank behind the hills, as Henry Norman and Mary Neville retraced their steps to the dwelling of Mrs. Neville, the mother of Mary; where silently kissing her almost bloodless cheek, as he handed her in the door-way, he turned to seek in the unbroken solitude of his chamber, that relief in prayer-aye! and tears too, which his tortured spirit needed.

Henry Norman was the orphan of an English gentleman, who early emigrating to "this western world," had identified himself with its rise and rapid improvements; and falling in love with the republican institutions of our country, he became soon a prominent citizen in the land of his adoption. He was united to an amiable lady, who died in giving birth to her child—a son.

By an unlucky turn in his affairs, Mr. Norman was reduced from a state of almost affluence, to one of comparative poverty; and at his death, after his administrator had closed his affairs, and made a settlement with his creditors, there was found just enough to continue and finish the education of his son-who was then a pupil of the celebrated Dr.

** of New-York, who afterwards received the appointment of Professor of Rhetoric in the University of

This gentleman was Mr. Neville, of French parentage; but his father driven into exile by the petty freaks of a haughty and imperious monarch, found means, with his son, to escape to Americawhere, bestowing upon him a superior education, which was afterwards finished in one of the first Universities of Europe, the father died, bequeathing to his son "naught but an honest name.

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He soon obtained a valuable professorship in one of the most popular Colleges then in our country, and a short time afterwards was united to a beautiful and accomplished woman, by whom he had one daughter-whom, I need not inform the reader, was the lovely, but drooping flower, Mary Neville.

Upon leaving the University, Norinan had addressed himself to the practice of the law: he had obtained the requisite admission to the bar, and had already signalized himself in his maiden speech of great power and beauty. It was at this period that the kind-hearted and amiable Neville, was suddenly called from this to a better state of existence, leaving to his afflicted wife the task of rearing the one pledge of their mutual love-the angel Mary.

From the intimacy which had existed between Mr. Neville and his pupil, and the kind regard with which he was received into the family of that gentleman as a guest, Norman became a constant visiter at Mrs. Neville's-and his admiration of the little girl, grew into intense love for the beautiful and delicate woman. And when on one lovely evening as they wandered forth upon the hills together, he breathed his love into willing ears. Mary Neville consented to become the bride of Henry Norman.

The sudden death of Mr. Neville-his mother had died also suddenly when he was a child-lef a vivid impression on the mind of his child and with alarm her mother and friends beheld the With a rapidity that astonished the Professors stealthy step of consumption, as revealed in her themselves, he mastered every science that pre- broken slumbers and her bloodless cheek. sented itself; and when he left the University, the Henry Norman was rising in his profession; degree of A. M. which was conferred upon him, and after a most signal triumph at the bar over was never more honorably won, or more cordially one of the ablest counsellors of the day-and oid lawyers had predicted in his hearing that his for It was during the earlier period of his entrance tune was sure-he hastened, proud of his success, into the College, that I became acquainted with to seek Mary Neville. He strolled with her out him; for although a resident of the same village, towards their usual haunt; and it was on this occa yet he had been at school for years-returning sion that our story opens. home only at vacations. He became at College a

bestowed.

How hard it is for us to realize the approach of

death towards those we love! We cannot believe | amen of the spirit seemed to come forth from every that the fell destroyer will visit our dwelling, though eye. The ceremony was over; and the pleasant

his pestilential wing broods with desolating power around the hearthstone of our next neighbor.

We enshrine our loved-ones as household deities, and fondly dream that though the tempest and the storm be abroad, they will stand unscathed and beautiful amid the strife!

How many a heart that now beats above the grave of buried love, calling in its agony upon the sepulchre to yield its victim, and the worm to unloose its slimy folds, might adopt the language of Wolfe:

"If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;
But I forgot while by thy side,

That thou couldst mortal be.

It never through my mind had past,
That time would e'er be o'er
When I on thee should look my last,

And thou shouldst smile no more."

sunshine of a Summer evening's setting sun, stole obliquely through the antique windows of the church, and bathed the chancel and the crowd with a baptism of effulgence. The little party turned to leave the sacred spot, but paused a moment to wait for the beautiful bride, who at the close of the service had gently fallen on her knees, as if to invoke the direction and counsel of Heaven, now that she was a wife. The bridegroom hung over his kneeling loved one with the chastened rapture of pure devotion, awaiting the moment for her to arise to receive the congratulations of her friends.

A minute, and another, elapsed-and she stirred not, yet another, and another still, and she moved not. A vague feeling of fear shot through the bosom of Henry Norman, as he whispered into her ear," Rise, dearest, we are ready to depart!" Still she answered not. He leaned over her,

Henry Norman returned to his home a sad and gently took her hand in his, and in passing his

sorrowful man. He retired to his couch, but

"Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," came not to his eyelids-the genius of slumber hovered not around his pillow. Well did the poet exclaim,

right arm around her waist to assist her in rising, his hand for an instant rested upon her heart. The blight of years seemed to gather upon his features, as with a convulsive, guttural whisper, he exclaimed-"She is dead!"

The effulgence which had rested on the chancel, and the priest, and the bridal train, slowly faded in the West-the Angel of the Covenant had fulfilled its mission, and another voice had united its song of rapture with the beatific choirs! The friends of the bride assisted in raising her up but the form which rested so heavily upon the arms that were around it, was only a statue of beautiful clay;-the spirit was with its God!

'He, like the world, his ready visits pays Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes, Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe, And lights on lids unsullied with a tear." When Norman arose the next morning unrefreshed from his bed, he determined to hurry his marriage to a consummation, that he might have the privilege, if the destroyer should indeed come, of watching beside the death-couch of his beloved The mother of Mary Neville had swooned at the Mary. first annunciation of the event, and was carried inMrs. Neville opposed no bar to his views, and sensible from the church. Henry Norman wept an early day was named for the wedding.

not-nay, he even assisted in removing the body The morning of the bridal day dawned most to a bier, which the sexton brought in to convey auspiciously upon the beautiful village of ;the corpse home to Mrs. Neville's.

and as the lengthened shadows of evening began to steal along the hills, the little cavalcade of friends might be seen wending their way to the church, to witness the union of two congenial spirits.

The bride was habited in a plain white dress, without ornament. She wore no wreath upon her brow-a simple rose, white as her own pale cheek, was placed in her hair: and in her calm black eye, you might have read the fixed devotion of woman's deep love.

The little party gathered around the altar, and the grey-haired minister commenced that touching and solemn service of our church, which in uniting "two willing hearts in one," assures us that it "is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God;"-and when with a firm voice the venerable man exclaimed, "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder," the

All night did he watch beside the body-the two succeeding days it hailed and stormed incessantly; and as the weather prevented them from burying the corpse, and, indeed, from its cool state did not make it imperative upon them to do so, it was determined that the third day, being the Sabbath, her funeral should take place at the church. At an early hour the house was crowded to overflowing; a large portion of the humbler classes occupying temporary seats along the aisles. A low sobbing, which ran through the vast assemblage, told that the funeral train was entering the church; and as the friends of the deceased placed the coffin upon the communion table, there was a general burst of sorrow throughout the multitude.

The poor were there! The name of Mary Neville had become a household thought of beauty with the cottagers, and the sick and afflicted for miles around had learned to grow less sorrowful

when her beautiful face would bend over their bed | fore had only been invaded by the hunter's rifle, or of disease, and her soft white hand administer to the woodman's axe. Time, which alters by its their wants. It was a touching sight to behold the scythe the form and fashion of nature, spares not little Sabbath School children gathered around the man-and it is not surprising that he whose heart altar, weeping the loss of their teacher! Poor little has withered beneath the blight of sorrow, should orphans-they had indeed lost a jewel when Mary bear upon his brow the snows of that icy storm, Neville died. whose chill has frozen the warm current of his hopes forever.

A stranger had entered the village one Saturday afternoon, and gone directly to the parsonage-now occupied by a young minister, who had been

The service for the dead-that lofty ritual-commenced; and the aged man who but three days before had united in the holy bonds of matrimony, Henry Norman and Mary Neville, at that very altar, now read with a tearful eye and a faltering but a few weeks installed as Pastor in the place of lip, above her clay-cold corpse-"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

the deceased friend and counsellor, the venerable man who was now sleeping so calmly near the spot of his former labors. The young minister had entered upon his duties under many disadvantages, inasmuch as his predecessor had been such a faThe minister's address was extemporaneous, and vorite, that it was difficult to please, where comhis feelings were too acute to indulge long in speak-parisons were going on in the minds of his aud:ing. He spoke, it is true, of her gentleness, her tors, between the departed and his successor. meekness and her piety; and it was indeed an However, his amiable deportment, his unassuming affecting moment, when, bending over from the manners, his affectionate earnestness, had won desk, he exclaimed, "Farewell, beautiful spirit! upon the majority of his congregation; many of Child of God, farewell! Thy dust we will commit whom were heard to declare, that though they to the embrace of its mother earth, but Heaven is would rather hear their old preacher than any now thy habitation, Mary Norman. The little other, yet as it had pleased Heaven to take him children, those whom she had so patiently taught from his labors, they knew none who could fill his in the Sabbath School-were bowing their little place so worthily as the Rev. Mr. Villars. heads around her coffin, and weeping most bitterly, as the friends of the deceased prepared to remove it from the chancel to the yard.

They lowered the coffin down into the grave; and, as the minister repeated, "earth to earth, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes," a groan so hopeless, so startling, so sorrowful, broke from the lips of Henry Norman, that an involuntary exclamation of pity ran through the assemblage-the turf was heaped up above her remains, the crowd slowly retired, and Henry Norman stood once more beside his own hearthstone, a broken-hearted man. The next day he left the village; whither none knew, nor was a clue given by which he might be found. It was understood he had transferred his law business to

another member of the bar.

I said a stranger arrived in the village; now we all know what a sensation an arrival makes in a small community. The young and the old, the dog and his master, the grandam and the urchin, are all on tiptoe to know who the traveller is, and what is his business.

Perhaps Mr. Villars was aware of this peculiarity of our race; however that may be, about two hours afterwards, a notice appeared on the courthouse door, and a similar one on the little markethouse, that "the Rev. Mr. Norman, Missionary, recently arrived from Burmah, would preach on the morrow at the church."

Curiosity to see the man who had visited that empire, and held communion with the inhabitants of a country abounding with the valuable metals and precious stones, drew together great numbers; Ten years had run their eventful rounds,-Time though for the honor of human nature it is hoped the consoler had started, and assuaged, the tears of there were many prompted that morning to go to many a regret" the young were old, the old were church from worthier motives. in the grave;" and although the moss had grown The service was read by Mr. Villars, and ala darker green, and the trees wore a thicker fo- though the stranger sat in the rear of the pulpit, liage in the little churchyard of , its Sabbath yet, owing to the manner of its construction, nothbell still rang out its hallowed strain upon the sweet ing but the top of his head-which was as white as cool winds of the Summer Sabbath morn. The snow-could be seen.

old minister had been gathered to his "rude fore- The voice of the stranger could be heard occafather's" burial place-or rather, slumbered beneath sionally in the responses, and to many its tones that chancel, above which he had so often wept seemed not unfamiliar.

over the errors of his fellow-man. The village At length the service through, the stranger rose had increased its population, and its boundaries; to address the congregation. What was my astoa and the distant rail-road car might be heard thun-ishment to behold in the clergyman, the long absent, dering amid the hills, whose solitude ten years be- nearly forgotten Henry Norman! But, oh! how

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