week and month upon month have swept, with sleet, and chilly rain and howling storm over the earth, and riveted their crystal bolts upon the door of nature's sepulchrewhen the sun at length begins to wheel in higher circles through the sky, and softer winds to breathe over melting snows; did he ever behold the long-hidden earth at length appear, and soon the timid grass peep forth, and anon the autumnal wheat begin to paint the field, and velvet leaflets to burst from purple buds throughout the reviving forest; and then the mellow soil to open its fruitful bosom to every grain and seed dropped from the planter's hand, buried but to spring up again, clothed with a new mysterious being; and then, as more fervid suns inflame the air, and softer showers distil from the clouds, and gentler dews string their pearls on twig and tendril, did he ever watch the ripening grain and fruit, pendent from stalk and vine and tree; the meadow, the field, the pasture, the grove, each after his kind, arrayed in myriad-tinted garments, instinct with circulating life; seven millions of counted leaves on a single tree, each of which is a system whose exquisite complication puts to shame the shrewdest cunning of the human hand; every planted seed and grain, which had been loaned to the earth, compounding its pious usury thirty, sixty, a hundred-fold-all harmoniously adapted to the sustenance of living nature- the bread of a hungry world; here a tilled corn-field, whose yellow blades are nodding with the food of man; there an unplanted wilderness-the great Father's farm-where he "who hears the raven's cry" has cultivated, with his own hand, his merciful crop of berries and nuts and acorns and seeds for the humbler families of animated nature the solemn elephant, the browsing deer, the wild pigeon, whose fluttering caravan darkens the sky-the merry squirrel, who bounds from branch to branch, in the joy of his little life; has he seen all this does he see it every year and month and day - does he live and move and breathe and think in this atmosphere of wonder — himself the greatest wonder of

* Johnston's Chemistry of Common Life, I. p. 13.

all, whose smallest fibre and faintest pulsation is as much a mystery as the blazing glories of Orion's belt,- and does he still maintain that a miracle is contrary to experience? If he has, and if he does, then let him go, in the name of Heaven, and say that it is contrary to experience that the August Power which turns the clods of the earth into the daily bread of a thousand millions of souls could feed five thousand in the wilderness!

One more suggestion, my friends, and I relieve your patience. As a work of art, I know few things more pleasing to the eye, or more capable of affording scope and gratification to a taste for the beautiful, than a well situated, well-cultivated farm. The man of refinement will hang with neverwearied gaze on a landscape by Claude or Salvator; the price of a section of the most fertile land in the West would not purchase a few square feet of the canvas on which these great artists have depicted a rural scene. But nature has forms and proportions beyond the painter's skill; her divine pencil touches the landscape with living lights and shadows, never mingled on his pallet. What is there on earth which can more entirely charm the eye or gratify the taste than a noble farm? It stands upon a southern slope, gradually rising with variegated ascent from the plain, sheltered from the north-western winds by woody heights, broken here and there with moss-covered boulders, which impart variety and strength to the outline. The native forest has been cleared from the greater part of the farm, but a suitable portion, carefully tended, remains in wood for economical purposes, and to give a picturesque effect to the landscape. The eye ranges round three fourths of the horizon over a fertile expanse, bright with the cheerful waters of a rippling stream, a generous river, or a gleaming lake,-dotted with hamlets, each with its modest spire; and, if the farm lies in the vicinity of the coast, a distant glimpse from the high grounds, of the mysterious, everlasting sea, completes the prospect. It is situated off the high road, but near enough to the village to be easily accessible to the church, the schoolhouse, the post-office, the railroad, a sociable neighbor, or a

travelling friend. It consists in due proportion of pasture and tillage, meadow and woodland, field and garden. A substantial dwelling, with every thing for convenience and nothing for ambition, with the fitting appendages of stable and barn and corn-barn and other farm buildings, not forgetting a spring-house with a living fountain of water, -occupies, upon a gravelly knoll, a position well chosen to command the whole estate. A few acres on the front and on the sides of the dwelling, set apart to gratify the eye with the choicer forms of rural beauty, are adorned with a stately avenue, with noble, solitary trees, with graceful clumps, shady walks, a velvet lawn, a brook murmuring over a pebbly bed, here and there a grand rock, whose cool shadow at sunset streams across the field; all displaying, in the real loveliness of nature, the original of those landscapes, of which art in its perfection strives to give us the counterfeit presentment. Animals of select breed, such as Paul Potter and Morland and Landseer and Rosa Bonheur never painted, roam the pastures, or fill the hurdles and the stalls; the plough walks in rustic majesty across the plain, and opens the genial bosom of the earth to the sun and air; nature's holy sacrament of seed-time is solemnized beneath the vaulted cathedral sky; silent dews, and gentle showers, and kindly sunshine, shed their sweet influence on the teeming soil; spring→ ing verdure clothes the plain; golden wavelets, driven by the west wind, run over the joyous wheat-field; the tall maize flaunts in her crispy leaves and nodding tassels: while we labor and while we rest, while we wake and while we sleep, God's chemistry, which we cannot see, goes on beneath the clods; myriads and myriads of vital cells ferment with elemental life; germ and stalk, and leaf and flower, and silk and tassel, and grain and fruit, grow up from the common earth; the mowing-machine and the reaper -mute rivals of human industry-perform their gladsome task; the well-piled waggon brings home the ripened treasures of the year; the bow of promise fulfilled spans the foreground of the picture, and the gracious covenant is redeemed, that while the earth remaineth, summer and winter, and heat and cold, and day and night, and seed-time and harvest, shall not fail.

CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS AND CHARITY.*

PREFATORY NOTE.

A SEVERE financial crisis took place in the United States, and extended to the other commercial nations of the world, in the summer and autumn of 1857. Multitudes were thrown out of employment by the general stagnation of business, and a winter of unusual severity for the poor was anticipated. During the prevalence of this fear, Mr. Everett proposed to the President of the Boston Provident Association (Hon. Robert C. Winthrop) to deliver an address on the subject of charity, for the benefit of that excellent institution. This offer was readily accepted, and the following discourse, aiming only at a popular discussion of the subject, was prepared. In the course of the following season it was repeated at Providence, R. I.; Charlestown, Cambridgeport, and Salem, Mass.; in the cities of New York; Newark, N. J.; Brooklyn, N. Y.; Richmond, Va.; Baltimore; Philadelphia; Washington and Georgetown, D. C.; and Charleston, S. C. The aggregate net amount accruing to the various charitable institutions for whose benefit the discourse has been delivered, is about $12,500.

BOSTON, 1st of June, 1858.

THE interesting statement of the President of the Provident Association, to which we have just listened, makes it unnecessary for me to dwell at length on the nature and objects of that institution. It is generally supposed, that, owing to the present financial state of the country, (though its severity happily is in some degree mitigated,) an unusual degree of that suffering, of which there is always so much in the winter,

* An Address delivered before the Boston Provident Society on the 22d of December, 1857, and repeated, in substance, in several other places in the course of the ensuing season.

will exist during the approaching season. In the midst of an almost unexampled prosperity, a great, though as we trust a temporary, visitation has passed over the land. A more than usually abundant harvest had filled the granaries of the mighty West almost to repletion, but at that season of the year, when the produce ought to be moving to the market, the steamers on the great lakes and rivers, as if smitten by an invisible hand, were laid up, and the railroad trains moved backward and forward with less than half the ordinary amount of travel and transportation. In the older and more thickly settled parts of the country, and in the large towns, the cheerful din of the factory and the workshop was hushed, and those employed in them sorrowfully dismissed from their accustomed labors. Enterprise, alike in its boldest flights and humblest walks, was paralyzed. Our ships brought home valuable cargoes only to go into the public stores, or to be reshipped at great sacrifice to foreign markets. Our banks were in the possession of coin which they dared not circulate, and transacted their business with promises to pay on demand, which they knew at the time they could not fulfil. Happily I am able to speak of this feature of the crisis in the past tense. Great trading companies and substantial private fortunes went alike to the ground, and embarrassment and distress, in too many cases ruin, have brooded like evil spirits. over the opulent counting-house, the busy shop, and the petty stall.

This state of things, though commencing in our own country, has not been confined to it. It has pervaded the commercial world; it is felt in the remotest channels of trade; and springs no doubt from causes deep-seated and far-reaching.

It is no part of my purpose, on this occasion, to explore these causes, or to speculate on the possible remedies for the wide spread evils which have come upon us. Conceiving that the severe discussion of abstract principles would be out of place at this time, I shall attempt only to show the importance, the necessity even, in communities like ours,—of