tory may be acquired at a very early age, and all chil- || H. More's "Strictures on Female Education," Dick on dren are fond of them. If the larger histories, and the the "Moral Illumination of Mankind," and the "Young biography of eminent persons in different ages of the Lady's Companion." The last is a work by Miss world, were put into their hands, with maps to look for Margaret Coxe, of Ohio, and is valuable, both on acthe places, they would learn geography and history || count of the excellent remarks on the studies approprisimultaneously, and be all the time delighted. Thenate for females, and the spirit of piety that pervades the natural philosophy, astronomy, and chemistry, if illus-whole work. It is written in an attractive style, distrated by experiments, with appropriate apparatus, cusses, with a good degree of talent and discrimination, would interest the most inactive mind. Natural his- the various topics connected with female education, tory, too, and botany, and physiology, and geology, furnishes important hints on the subject of woman's would present new wonders to the expanding intellect. behavior, and is an excellent guide to a safe and happy Then, if circumstances permit, and inclination favor, course of life. It is "seasoned with salt, and will minpolitical economy, mental and moral philosophy, rhet-ister grace" to the reader. It should, in our opinion, oric, and the evidences of Christianity, will give exer- be placed in the hands of every young lady in the cise to the faculties of the more matured and disciplined land. mind. The lower branches of mathematics, and the languages, ancient and modern, might, if practicable, be mingled with the whole course. Such accomplishments as drawing, painting, and music, should not be forgotten.

It is very desirable that some course of study should be devised, sufficiently fascinating to prevent the reading of novels and romances. Much time is wasted by young females in reading these very pleasing, but very useless productions. Those who become addicted to reading them acquire a disrelish for all other things. The sublime truths of astronomy, the interesting facts of chemistry, physiology, and history, are all disgusting to the palate of such literary dyspeptics. Like children fed on sugar-plums and sweet-meats, they have no relish for substantial and wholesome food. Such a result is greatly to be deplored, especially in the education of females. If any part of God's creatures should have a sound mental and moral constitution, it should be woman, destined, as she is, to watch the first dawnings of intellect, and to give the first lessons in education. She molds the young heart, and directs the first impulses of the moral feelings. How necessary, then, that her heart should be pure, and that her mind should be thoroughly furnished for her important work! How do we degrade her by supposing that a few frivolous accomplishments, and a little light reading, are all that she needs!

Finally, female education should be pre-eminently religious. The Bible should be a text-book in every part of the course. In studying the works of nature, she should be led "through nature up to nature's God." It is only thus she can be qualified for her very responsible duties to society, and in the various relations in which she may be placed. It is only thus that she can become a blessing and not a curse to the world. With mere intellectual cultivation and literary acquirements, she might, like Madame de Stael, be admired and applauded for great and splendid talents, but exercise no salutary influence on the morals of those around her. But if in addition to mental improvement, the heart be right with God, she may, like Hannah More, be a blessing to her country and to the world.

To those who may be desirous of investigating this subject more particularly, we would recommend Miss

Original.

THE LAMENT.*

Addressed to a lady who asked, "Have you written any poetry
since you came on the boat?"

АH, no! the muse disdains this place—
She never strays where I sojourn;

I mourn the hidings of her face,

And fear she will no more return.

She loves to dwell 'mid fields and flowers,
And rove among the forest trees;
Or sit in some vine-covered bower,
And listen to the sighing breeze.

Oft times she seeks the mountain's brow,
Or summit of some verdant hill,
To list unto the murmur low,

Of some remote, meandering rill.
Yet woman's voice can break the spell,
And bid me strike the harp so free,
And bid its flowing numbers swell,
In tones of sweetest minstrelsy.
And beauty's power can move my heart,
And bid me sing my sweetest lays-
All other thoughts it bids depart,

Or stay and list to beauty's praise.
My heart is sad-too sad to sing

The song of wild and harmless mirth;
For sorrow, with its serpent sting,

Embitters all the joys of earth.

Of sorrow's cup I still must drink,
Although but in life's early bloom;
I fain would pass away, and sink
Unknown into an early tomb.
WILLIAM BAXTER,

Steamboat Montezuma.

*The author of these lines is in his extreme youth, and was employed, until recently, on one of our steamboats. He has been at school since his recollection, about six months. This and some beautiful lines on Miss Landon, in our next number, will awaken a deep interest in his behalf.

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Original.

LONELINESS.

LONELINESS.

How often while passing through this "vale of tears," does a sense of loneliness come over the heart! And even in the whirl of society, surrounded by the friends we love, and faces we have long known, does the tired spirit turn away, and yearn for some brighter goal than earthly joy.

the dearest and best of earth; that the brightest wreath which genius may snatch from the temple of fame, is too often worn to hide the rankling thorn in the breast of him the world calleth great, is cause indeed to make the soul in its loneliness, desire to mingle in a more deathless scene. There are joys, and bright sunny moments in life, but even while we think them our own, the blight of a justly deserved curse comes in its withering power, and they melt away like the soldier's dream of happiness, leaving us to mourn "that the trail of the serpent is over them all." O, it is when blessings are thus torn away; when the past is nought but a painful memory of wasted hours and disappointed hopes, and all the

A well known poet has said, that communion with nature in her wildest mood is not solitude, but to mingle in the cold and heartless crowd is, at best, another name for loneliness. And well hath he said, for much knowledge of this world will cause bitterness of feeling, and a heart-sickening conviction, that "all is vanity and vex-future a dreary wilderness, that the loneliness of desolaation of spirit." How few do we meet in the course of tion bids us seek for refuge in Him, who is mighty to our brief pilgrimage below, in whom we can trust with save. an unshaken confidence. Is there not almost always a And is there loneliness in the Christian's hope? Ah vague, undefinable fear that they to whom you are pour- || no-it brightens in possession, and is ever pointing him ing out the deepest, most sacred thoughts, will, from to a home where the weary rest. Who that has stood some cause or other, betray that trust? Those who beside the corpse of one whom in life they had loved, have never known, who have never felt betrayal, will has not realized that in death there is loneliness indescarcely understand me when I say, it is the loneliness scribable? It is the same form-those are the same of wounded feeling. I have found some bright excep- features on which we have so often gazed with fondest tions in friendship's list, but experience hath taught me, affection; but ah! the hand of the spoiler hath closed "All is not gold that glitters." the sparkling eye in a dreamless slumber, and the lips no more move to greet us with their accustomed welcome. All is cold and still, and lonely will be the feelings of the survivor, when thoughts of the dreary tomb in which the "moldering dust" of that loved one is soon to be laid, come over the soul. The tomb is a desolate home; who can think of it without a strange shrinking back, and awe, such as no other thoughts will cause? And is there no light to cheer this sad abode ? Must our buried friends lie there for ever in its silence and gloom? O, is there no hope that wil! point beyond the grave, and say in the words of truth, "They shall

in reviving mercy, saying, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Look at the "narrow house," so cold, so dark, so frightful before; and in the halo of light which Jesus' death hath shed around it, learn,

But a loneliness cometh over the heart, when far from home, with all its pure and joyous associations, we wander in a stranger land, and miss those sweet tones of love which were wont to greet us every hour. We may listen to the melody of song in its gushing flow, and own that in music there is magic power, but the voice of the minstrel is strange, and we turn away with a longing wish for "that song of the olden time," &c. O, it is sweeter far to hear the simplest touch from the hand of one we love, than all the enchantment of a Handel or Mozart, by those whose voices chime not with thoughts of home. We may wander from the scenes of our child-rise again?" Mourner, listen to a voice from that tomb, hood; we may cull the fairest flowers in poesy's wreath; may become the idol of an admiring throng; yet even in the most triumphant moment the voice of memory will recall those hallowed images of home, and love and joy, and whisper that in splendor and admiration there is loneliness which they have no power to dispel. I have sometimes thought that it would be sweet to have my name enrolled among the "brighter stars" in the galaxy of genius; but with the thought hath ever been mingled a chilling conviction that such a fate, though bright and glorious, must ever be purchased with the sacrifice of most sacred feeling, for fame like this can only be won in contact with a cold and selfish world, and knowledge, thus inevitably acquired, will tinge with its own bitterness that fountain of pure, fresh feeling, so beautiful in early youth. There are but few of my readers who do not know that the season of life is filled up with more of sorrow than of joy; and they who never have cause to weep, are far more fit for an unsullied Eden, than a world where clouds are ever stealing over the sun, and if they do not entirely obscure his beams, shade them enough to make their brightness seem "like a remembered dream." The certainty that decay is written on

"That sinners may die, for the sinless hath died!" Thank God, there is no loneliness in heaven!

PHILENIA.

THE SHEKINAH. THIS word is sometimes introduced into the pulpit. It is frequently met with in the Jewish writings. The Shekinah indicated the presence of the Holy Ghost. The Rabbins held that by it a peculiar sanctity was communicated to the air, so that evil spirits were expelled. The Shekinah was the most striking token of the presence of God among the Hebrews. It rested over the golden Cherubim, in a cloud, from whence it is thought God gave forth his oracles. Hence it is said, God "sits above the cherubim." The Rabbins say that the Shekinah dwelt in the tabernacle and in the temple till the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans.

the disease. It was in vain that her friends reminded her that her child was merely an infant. Now if that mother had clearly understood that our blessed Redeemer had not made an atonement merely for this child or that child, but that he had made an atonement for fallen human nature,—and if she had taken into view the whole analogy of Christian faith, she would have seen that her child had fallen asleep under the covenanted

bosom. There is another idea that bereaved parents
should not lose sight of; and that is, that God is the
righteous governor of the universe, and will do right.
He cannot err. We frequently err. We think in all
cases that it would be best to raise our children to man-
hood. And the anxious prayer of the parent is,
Rich be the future harvests they may yield,
And wave their golden glories o'er the field.

Ir occurs to me that almost every number of the Repository, in its expansive visitations, will reach some chamber of woe, which will be darkened with the emblems of mourning. And some maternal eye, influenced by recent bereavement, will hastily glance over its col-mercies of God, and was safely lodged in Abraham's umns in search of some cordial-some sympathetic balm to heal the wound that death has made. To deal out to the mourner common-place aphorisms, as old as death itself, would be a meddlesome move, which the broken-hearted daughter of sorrow would reject with disgust. Dr. Clarke observes, in his "autobiography," that a poor man, who had lost an affectionate child, was lamenting his case, when some of his well-meaning but awkwards neighbors attempted to comfort him by re- But the omniscient Father of all beholds the afflichearsing over the long list of standing consolations; such tions, the trials, the crosses, in number, measure and as, "The child is in a better world; weeping cannot || weight, that are strewed along life's thorny path; and he bring it back; what is to be, will be," &c. The sor- commands the minister of death to thrust his sickle in, rowful father looked up piteously and said, "Ah, I perceive it is a very easy matter to bury other people's children."

"And angels shout the early harvest home."

I might illustrate this by a dream. Be not alarmed, fair reader-we do not intend to substitute fleeting We may well be thankful that the Gospel does not dreams for sound and wholesome Gospel truths; "for petrify the heart, or turn men and women into stocks what is the chaff to the wheat, or what is the dream to and stones. It does not, like an unskillful physician, the open vision?" But a dream may elucidate a subtoo abruptly close the wounds of human sorrow; but ject or Christian doctrine, as well as a parable or allegory. like a majestic ship, it glides down the sacred stream, There was a sensible and pious lady, in the south of with a weeping world in convoy; and when the favor- Virginia, who many years since lost a lovely child-a able eddy is gained, slowly heaves in stays. The sig-child who had not only drawn immensely on her mothnal is given for a tack. And on that broad streamer ofer's affections, but who gathered a sightly revenue of love mercy the mourner reads, "I am the resurrection and and admiration from all who came within her reach. She the life; whosoever believeth on me, though he were however died; and the mother was inconsolable. It dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and be- seemed as though an arrow was fixed in her soul, that lieveth in me, shall never die." The Gospel permits || neither time nor change could extract. While in this the tear of affliction to fall on the grave of departed situation she fell into a profound sleep. She thought a worth; and its immaculate Author shed the " signal heavenly messenger came to her and said, "Would you drops." see your child?" She answered with avidity, "I desire to see her above all things." "Then," said he, "follow This is the shortest, and may we not say one of the me." She followed him into an extensive passage. sweetest verses in all the Bible. While a poor, wan- Presently he stopped, and touching a spring, massy folddering and unbaptized sinner, I could frequently reading doors flew open. She looked in, and saw a multiwhole chapters in the Bible without being materially tude of volatile females, dressed in all the foolish trapaffected. But when I would come to those electric pings of fashion; and with loud laughter, and cheeks words, "Jesus wept," my whole soul seemed to be un-flushed with unholy joy, they sported and danced to the hinged-the rock was smitten, and the waters of repentance began to flow. But there are some mothers who, in consequence of erroneous views, have added hugely to their own afflictions; and it would certainly be a work of mercy to disburden their minds of that extraneous grief which is unscriptural and baseless, and consequently worketh death.

"JESUS WEPT."

I knew a lady who was naturally of a strong mind, and who was well fortified by many acquired excellences, that nevertheless was almost swallowed up in despair at the death of her child, because she had taken up an idea that it was a cast-away. She complained that she saw no tokens of resignation, no smile of complacency; but rather a restive unwillingness to yield to

sound of the violin. The angel pointing to one who seemed to be the queen, the leader and most fantastic of the throng, said, "Behold thy daughter." "Ono," cried the impassioned mother, "that cannot be ; for I was bringing her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I was training her for grace, for glory and for God. She never could have been that tawdry thing." The angel answered, "So you may think; but she was daily gaining on your affections, and in process of time you could have refused her nothing. Follow me." She again moved on. Presently he touched another spring. The everlasting gates flew wider, and all the unspeakable glories of heaven broke upon her sight. She heard the voice of harpers, harping with their harps, and singing

Original.

THE SOUTH.

THE SOUTH.

START not, fair readers, lest this article should prove to be a long dissertation on manners and customs. I do not intend to treat philosophically of the difference between the north and the south, nor even to vie with those whose maturer pens have given to the world varied and apt descriptions of southern scenery; but I shall introduce you, if it be in my power, to its every day aspects.

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beast during the hot summer days. In fact, I know of nothing more agreeable than, after riding for hours in the open prairie, where the sun's rays have full power, to come across a live oak, whose ample shade invites repose from fatigue—an invitation seldom if ever slighted by the weary traveler.

and are inclosed in a cone shaped burr. How vividly does memory bring childish pastimes before me, while I write the hours I have spent with my playmates at "the old spring," our favorite ground, overshadowed by one of the ancient "bay trees," whose large leaves were the cups from which we drank, and its seeds, when strung, our necklaces and headbands! I could dwell for hours on the remembrance of what now seems the happiest portion of my life; but must hasten.

As has often been remarked by travelers and writers, the long Spanish moss, to which I have already alluded,

The magnolia, or bay, as it is more commonly termed, is another noble forest tree peculiar to "the south." It reaches to a greater height than the live oak, but like it, is ever green. The leaves are a dark glossy green on I well recollect the time when the northern beech the upper side, the under being a light brown, varying tree with its shelving branches and its bright green foli- from six to seven inches in length, and from two to age, so different from any thing I had seen, greeted me three in width. When covered with its flowers, remarkas I made my first trip up the Ohio. It was serveral able for their size, whiteness and odor, this tree contridays before I ascertained that the absence of the Span-butes not a little to the beauty of the southern landscape. ish moss, so peculiar to southern vegetation, caused the|| The seeds, which ripen and fall in autumn, are a bright difference. I was then very young, and the mingled || scarlet color, about the size of the common white bean, emotions of surprise and admiration, excited by the first view of the hills on the banks of the Ohio, their rocky sides barely affording nourishment for the cedars that flourish on them in perpetual greenness, can never be forgotten. Stopping one day at a picturesque village on the banks of our "Belle riviere," my father took us out to walk; and it would have been highly amusing to the elves of the north to see with what eagerness we secured the semi-transparent pebbles, each in succession seeming by far prettier than all the former, till the ringing of the steamboat bell warned us to desist; but as we hastily obeyed the summons, many a pretty peb-soonest attracts the observation of strangers, who, at the ble, by a dextrous movement of the fingers, found its way to our aprons, to afford an hour's amusement, and then seek a resting place beneath the waves. But I am wandering from my subject; need I apologize to those who, like myself, are prone to treasure up the memory of childhood's hours, and with perhaps too much regret for their departure, recount the merry deeds then accomplished? But it is no part of my nature to sigh over days that are gone, with a wish for their return, and therefore I am seldom accused of low spirits. The banks of the Mississippi, in Arkansas and Mis-The chief are those of mattrass making and plastering. souri particularly, present to the eye one dull level of It is gathered and thrown into a ditch or pond, for a few tree and canebrake, except that an occasional, log hut, weeks, the water causing the outer gray bark to come sending up its smoke through a mud chimney, affords off, leaving it a glossy black. It is then dried, and afa momentary relief, and gives rise to a thousand con- fords many an hour's work to the negro children, in jectures with respect to the happiness of the inmates, what they call "pickin' it;" i. e., pulling it apart and apparently shut out from communion with their fellow taking away the small branches which may cling to it beings. Unless love supply the place of society, we in its dying hours. When used for plastering, it is taknow not how the time goes by. And I think no bet-ken from the tree, and a hole being dug in clayey soil, ter place can be chosen for testing woman's affection the moss is put in with water and trodden down by oxen, than a log cabin, raised in the midst of a canebrake, with a clearing of perhaps half an acre, in which a parcel of white headed urchins gambol indiscriminately An attempt to describe the rich variety of flowers with pigs, poultry and each other; while nothing around which grow in such luxuriance, filling the air with reminds her that they are not the only human beings sweetness, and delighting the eye with beauty of colorin existence, save a steamboat now and then shooting ing, would promise nothing but failure, and I will menaround a neighboring point, and as suddenly disappear-tion but one or two. The wild pomegranate vine so ing in the opposite direction, rendering solitude more nearly resembles the celebrated passion flower, that those solitary. Lower down the river the live oak spreads its only who are accustomed to examining the structure of broad limbs, clothed in a perpetual robe of rich dark plants, can distinguish them. While visiting a hotgreen foliage, and affording a welcome shade to man and house in "the Queen city," I saw among a number of Vol. I.-8

sight, are generally, if they possess soul enough, afflicted with a spell of what in common "parlance" are termed "the blues," especially if winter be the season. One cannot be much surprised at this effect, as its hue is gray; and where the woods are left as nature made them, immense canebrakes, covering every inch of ground unoccupied by the rulers of the forest, reach to the ends of this natural drapery, nearly excluding the light of heaven from their mother earth. The uses to which the moss is applied are too numerous to mention.

till mixed sufficiently for the purpose. It makes a firm wall, and when white-washed, looks quite respectable.