The Genius making me no answer, I turned about to address myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me. I then turned again to the vision which I had been so long contemplating; but, instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long, hollow valley of Bagdat, with oxen, sheep and camels grazing upon the sides of it.

LESSON XXXV.

The World we have not seen.-ANONYMOUS.

THERE is a world we have not seen,
That time shall never dare destroy,
Where mortal footstep hath not been,
Nor ear hath caught its sounds of joy.

There is a region, lovelier far

Than sages tell, or poets sing,
Brighter than summer beauties are,
And softer than the tints of spring.

There is a world,-and O how blest!-
Fairer than prophets ever told;
And never did an angel guest

One half its blessedness unfold.

It is all holy and serene,

The land of glory and repose;
And there, to dim the radiant scene,
The tear of sorrow never flows.

It is not fanned by summer gale;
'Tis not refreshed by vernal showers;
It never needs the moon-beam pale,

For there are known no evening hours.

No: for this world is ever bright
With a pure radiance all its own;

The streams of uncreated light

Flow round it from the Eternal Throne.

There forms, that mortals may not see,
Too glorious for the eye to trace,
And clad in peerless majesty,

Move with unutterable grace.

In vain the philosophic eye

May seek to view the fair abode,
Or find it in the curtained sky:-
It is THE DWELLING-PLACE of God.

LESSON XXXVI.

The Better Land.-MRS. HEM'ANS.

"I HEAR thee speak of the better land;
Thou call'st its children a happy band;
Mother! oh, where is that radiant shore ?-
Shall we not seek it, and weep no more?—
Is it where the flower of the orange blows,

And the fire-flies dance through the myrtle boughs?" "Not there, not there, my child!"

Is it where the feathery palm-trees rise,
And the date grows ripe under sunny skies ?-
Or midst the green islands of glittering seas,
Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze,
And strange bright birds, on their starry wings,
Bear the rich hues of all glorious things?"

-“Not there, not there, my child!"

"Is it far away, in some region old,
Where the rivers wander o'er sands of gold,
Where the burning rays of the ruby shine,
And the diamond lights up the secret mine,
And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand?
Is it there, sweet mother! that better land?"

"Not there, not there, my child!

"Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy!
Ear hath not heard its deep sounds of joy;
Dreams cannot picture a world so fair;
Sorrow and death may not enter there;

Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom;
Beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb;

-It is there, it is there, my child!"

LESSON XXXVII.

The Widow and her Son.-C. EDWARDS.

"My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure!"

CONSUMPTION is a sīren. She can give a charm even to deformity. In my school boy days, there lived an aged widow near the church-yard. She had an only child. 1 have often observed, that the delicate, and the weak, receive more than a common share of affection from a mother. Such a feeling was shown by this widow towards her sickly and unshapely boy.

There are faces and forms which, once seen, are impressed upon our brain; and they will come again, and again, upon the tablet of our memory in the quiet night, and even flit around us in our day walks. Many years have gone by since I first saw this boy; but his delicate form, his quiet manner, and his gentle and virtuous conduct, are often before me.

I shall never forget,-in the sauciness of youth, and fancying it would give importance to my bluff outside.--swearing in his presence. The boy was sitting in a high-backed easy chair, reading his Bible. He turned round, as if a signal for dying had sounded in his ear, and fixed upon me his clear gray eye-that look! it made my little heart almost choke me: I gave some foolish excuse for getting out of the cottage; and, as I met a playmate on the road, who jeered me for my blank countenance, I rushed past him, hid myself in an adjoining cornfield, and cried bitterly.

I tried to conciliate the widow's son, and show my sorrow for having so far forgotten the innocence of boyhood, as to have had my Maker's name sounded in an unhallowed manner from my lips: but I could not reconcile him. My spring flowers he accepted; but, when my back was turned, he flung them away. The toys and books I offered to him were put aside for his Bible. His only occupations were, the feeding of a favourite hen, which would come to his

chair and look up for the crumbs he would let fall, with a noiseless action, from his thin fingers, watching the pendulum and hands of the wooden clock, and reading.

Although I could not, at that time, fully appreciate the beauty of a mother's love, still I venerated the widow for the unobtrusive, but intense, attention she displayed to her son. I never entered her dwelling without seeing her engaged in kind offices towards him. If the sunbeam came through the leaves of the geraniums, placed in the window, with too strong a glare, she moved the high-backed chair with as much care as if she had been putting aside a crystal temple. When he slept, she festooned her silk handkerchief around his place of rest. She placed the earliest violets upon her mantel-piece for him to look at; and the roughness of her own meal, and the delicacy of the child's, sufficiently displayed her sacrifices. Easy and satisfied, the widow moved about. I never saw her but once unhappy. She was then walking thoughtfully in her garden. I beheld a tear. I did not dare to intrude upon he grief, and ask her the cause of it; but I found the reason in her cottage: her boy had been spitting blood.

I have often envied him these endearments; for I was away from a parent who humoured me even when I was stubborn and unkind. My poor mother is in her grave. I have often regretted having been her pet, her favourite for the coldness of the world makes me wretched; and, perhaps, if I had not drunk at the very spring of a mother's affection, I might have let scorn and con'tumely pass by me as the idle wind. Yet I have, afterwards, asked myself what I, a thoughtless though not heartless boy, should have come to, if I had not had such a comforter:-I have asked myself this, felt satisfied and grateful, and wished that her spirit might watch around a child, who often met her kindness with passion, and received her gifts as if he expected homage from her.

Every body experiences how quickly school years pass away; and many persons regret their flight. As for myself, I do not wish for the return of boyhood's days. I cannot forget the harshness of my master. I cannot but know, that if he had studied my character, and tempered me as the hot iron is made pliable, I should have been a different and a better being. I still remember the tyranny of older spirits. School may have its pleasures; but the sorrows of a think ing boy are like the griefs of a fallen angel.

My father's residence was not situated in the village where I was educated; so that, when I left school, I left its scenes also.

After several years had passed away, accident took me again to the well-known place. The stable, into which I led my horse, was dear to me; for I had often listened to the echo that danced within it, when the bells were ringing. The face of the landlord was strange; but I could not for get the in-kneed, red-whiskered hostler*: he had given me a hearty thrashing as a return for a hearty jest.

I had reserved a broad piece of silver for the old widow. But I first ran towards the river, and walked upon the millbank. I was surprised at the apparent narrowness of the stream; and, although the willows still fringed the margin, and appeared to stoop in homage to the water lilies, yet they were diminutive! Every thing was but a miniature of the picture within my mind. It proved to me that my faculties had grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength.

With something like disappointment, I left the river side, and strolled towards the church. My hand was in my pocket, grasping the broad piece of silver. I imagined to myself the kind look of recognition I should receive; I determined on the way in which I should press the money into the widow's hand. But I felt my nerves lightly tremble as I thought on the look her son had given, and again might give me.

Ah, there is the cottage! but the honey-suckle is older, and it has lost many of its branches!

The door was closed. A pet lamb was fastened to a loose cord under the window; and its melancholy bleating was the only sound that disturbed the silence. In former years, I used, at once, to pull the string which assisted the wooden latch; but now, I deliberately knocked. A strange female form, with a child in her arms, opened the door. 1 asked for my old acquaintance. "Alas! poor Alice is in her coffin: look, sir, where the shadow of the spire ends: that is her grave." I relaxed my grasp of "And my money. her deformed boy?" He too, sir, is there!" I drew my hand from my pocket.

It was a hard task for me to thank the woman, but I did SO. I moved to the place where the mother and the child were buried. I stood for some minutes, in silence, beside the mound of grass. I thought of the consumptive lad

* Pron. os'ler.