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What blessings thy free bounty gives, Let me not cast away;

For God is paid when man receives;
To enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to Earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound;
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.

Let not this weak unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O! teach my heart
To find that better way!

Save me alike from foolish pride,

And impious discontent
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,

Since quickened by thy breath: 1) lead me, whereso'er I go,

Through this day's life or death!

This day be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun
Thou know'st if best bestowed or not,
And let thy will be done.

To thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar earth, sea, skies,
One chorus let all beings raise!
All nature's incense rise!

A THOUGHT ON ETERNITY.

[John Gay; born in 1688; died in 1782.]

ERE the foundations of the world were laid,
Ere kindling light the Almighty word obeyed,
Thou wert; and when the subterraneous flame,
Shall burst its prison, and devour this frame,

From angry heaven when the keen lightning flies, When fervent heat dissolves the melting skies, Thou still shalt be; still as thou wert before, And know no change, when time shall be no

more.

THE DIVINE GOODNESS APPARENT IN THE ADAPTATION OF THE EARTH TO MAN.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

THE universe may be considered as the palace in which the Deity resides, and the earth as one of its apartments. In this all the meaner races of animated nature mechanically obey him, and stand ready to execute his commands without hesitation. Man alone is found refractory; he is the only being endued with the power of contradicting these mandates. The Deity was pleased to exert superior power in creating him a superior being-a being endued with a choice of good and evil, and capable, in some measure, of cooperating with his own intentions. Man, therefore, may be consid ered as a limited creature, endued with powers imitative of those residing in the Deity. He is thrown into a world that stands in need of his help; and he has been granted a power of producing harmony from partial confusion.

If, therefore, we consider the earth as alloted for our habitation, we shall find that much has been given us to enjoy, and much to amend; that we have ample reasons for gratitude, and many for our industry. In those great outlines of nature, to which art can not reach, and where our greatest efforts must have been ineffectual, God himself has finished every thing with amazing grandeur and beauty. Our beneficent Father has considered these parts of nature as peculiarly his own; as parts which no creature could have skill or strength to amend; and he has, therefore, made them incapable of alteration, or of more perfect regularity. The heavens and the firmament show the wisdom and glory of the workman. Astronomers, who are best skilled in the symmetry of systems, can find nothing

there that they can alter for the better. | the prospect, and give a current to the God made these perfect, because no subordinate being could correct their defects.

stream. Seas extend from one continent to the other, replenished with animals that may he turned to human support; and also serving to enrich the earth with a sufficiency of vapor. Breezes fly along the surface of the fields, to promote health and vegetation. The coolness of the evening invites to rest; and the freshness of the morning renews for labor.

Such are the delights of the habitation that has been assigned to man; without any one of these, he must have been wretched; and none of these could his own industry have supplied. But, while many of his wants are thus kindly fur nished, on the one hand, there are numberless inconveniences to excite his industry, on the other. This habitation, though provided with all the conveniences of air, pasturage, and water, is but a desert place without human cultivation. The lowest animal finds more conveniences in the wilds of nature than he who boasts himself their lord. The whirlwind, the inundation, and all the asperities of the air, are peculiarly terrible to man, who knows their consequences, and, at a distance, dreads their

When, therefore, we survey nature on this side, nothing can be more splendid, more correct, or amazing. We there behold a Deity residing in the midst of an universe, infinitely extended every way, animating all, and cheering the vacuity with his presence! We behold an immense and shapeless mass of matter, formed into worlds by his power, and dispersed at intervals, to which even the imagination can not travel! In this great theater of his glory, a thousand suns, like our own, animate their respective systems, appearing and vanishing at divine command. We behold our own bright luminary, fixed in the center of its system, wheeling its planets in times proportioned to their distances, and at once dispensing light, heat, and action. The earth also is seen with its two-fold Jotion; producing, by the one, the change of seasons; and, by the other, the grateful vicissitudes of day and night. With what silent magnificence is all this performed! with what seeming ease! The works of art are exerted with in-approach. The earth itself, where huterrupted force; and their noisy progress discovers the obstructions they receive; but the earth, with a silent, steady rotation, successively presents every part of its bosom to the sun, at once imbibing nourishment and light from that parent of vegetation and fertility.

But not only provisions of heat and light are thus supplied, the whole surface of the earth is covered with a transparent atmosphere, that turns with its motion, and guards it from external injury. The rays of the sun are thus broken into a genial warmth; and, while the surface is assisted, a gentle heat is produced in the bowels of the earth, which contributes to cover it with verdure. Waters also are supplied in healthful abundance, to support life, and assist vegetation. Mountains rise, to diversify

man art has not pervaded, puts on a frightful, gloomy appearance. The forests are dark and tangled; the meadows are overgrown with rank weeds, and the brooks stray without a determined channel. Nature, that has been kind to every lower order of beings, seems to have been neglectful with regard to him; to the savage uncontriving man, the earth is an abode of desolation, where his shelter is insufficient, and his food precarious.

A world, thus furnished with advantages on one side, and inconveniences on the other, is the proper abode of reason, and the fittest to exercise the industry of a free and a thinking creature. These evils, which art can remedy, and prescience guard against, are a proper call for the exertion of his faculties; and they tend still more to assimilate him to his

stream

Lacing the meadows with its silvery band,
With the morn's exhalations. There she
And wreathing its mist-mantle on the sky

Creator. God beholds, with pleasure, | And her fair daughters 'mid the golden spires. that being which he has made, convert- Tending their terrace flowers; and Kedron's ing the wretchedness of his natural situation into a theater of triumph; bringing all the headlong tribes of nature into subjection to his will, and producing that order and uniformity upon earth, of which his own heavenly fabric is so bright an example.

BEAUTIES FROM WILLIS.

[A little boy of nine years of age, one day in early autunin, stood under the leafy shadows of the proudly-arching elms on the green at New Haven, watching a joyous group of students of Yale playing ball. One of them, whom he then saw for the first time, from his graceful, aerial like

beauty of person, so struck the child with a sense of admirapleasant vision in the memory of the man. The student was N. P. Willis, then a tall, slender, blue-eyed youth, with sunny flowing curls, mild and gentle expression, and a complexion soft and delicate as a girl's. The exquisite aroma of his sacred poems can but touch and comfort Christian hearts.]

tion, that now, after the lapse of forty years, it remains a

CHRIST'S ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM
IIE sat upon the "ass's foal and rode
On to Jerusalem. Beside him walked,
Closely and silently, the faithful twelve:
And on before him went a multitude,
Shouting hosannas, and with eager hands,
Strewing their garments thickly on his way.
Th' unbroken foal beneath him gently stepped,
Tame as its patient dam; and as the song
Of" welcome to the Son of David" burst
Forth from a thousand children, and the leaves
Of the waved branches touched its silken ears,
It turned its wild eye for a moment back,
And then, subdued by an invisible hand,
Meekly trode onward with its slender feet.

The dew's last sparkle from the grass had
gone,

As he rode up Mount Olivet. The woods
Threw their cool shadows freshly to the west;
And the light foal, with quick and toiling step,
And head bent low, kept its unslackened way,
Till its soft mane was lifted by the wind
Sent o'er the Mount from Jordan. As he
reached

The summit's breezy pitch, the Savior raised
His calm blue eye-there stood Jerusalem!
Eagerly he bent forward, and beneath
His mantle's passive folds, a bolder line
Than the wont slightness of his perfect limbs.
Betrayed the swelling fullness of his heart.

stood

Jerusalem-the city of his love,
Chosen from all the earth; Jerusalem-
That knew him not, and had rejected him;
Jerusalem-for whom he came to die!
The shouts redoubled from a thousand lips
At the fair sight; the children leaped and sang
Louder hosannas; the clear air was filled
With odor from the trampled olive-leaves-
But "Jesus wept." The loved disciple saw
His master's tears, and closer to his side
The Savior leant with heavenly tenderness,
He came with yearning looks, and on his neck
And mourned-How oft, Jerusalem! would I
Have gathered you, as gathereth a hen
Her brood beneath her wings-but ye
not!

would

He thought not of the death that he should

die

He thought not of the thorns he knew must pierce

His forehead-of the buffet on his cheek-
The scourge, the mocking homage, the foul
scorn!

Gethsemane stood out beneath his eye
Clear in the morning sun, and there, he knew,
While they who "could not watch with him
one hour"

Were sleeping, he should sweat great drops of
blood,

Praying the "cup might pass." And Golgotha
Stood bare and desert by the city wall,
And in its midst, to his prophetic eye,
Rose the rough cross, and its keen agonies
Were numbered all: the nails were in his

feet

Th' insulting sponge was pressing on his lips-
The blood and water gushing from his side-
The dizzy faintness swimming in his brain-
And, while his own disciples fled in fear,
A world's death-agonies all mixed in his!
Ay! he forgot all this. He only saw
Jerusalem-the chosen, the loved, the lost!
He only felt that for her sake his life
Was vainly given, and, in his pitying love,
The sufferings that would clothe the heaven'
in black,

Were quite forgotten. Was there ever love, There stood Jerusalem! How fair she looked-In earth or heaven, equal unto this?

The silver sun on all her palaces,

HUMAN LOVE.

On, if there is one law above the rest
Written in reason-if there is a word
That I would trace as with a pen of fire,
Upon the unsunned temper of a child-
If there is any thing that keeps the mind
Open to angel visits, and repels

The ministry of ill-'tis human love!
God has made nothing worthy of contempt.
The smallest pebble in the wall of truth
Has its peculiar meaning, and will stand
When man's best monuments have passed
away.

The law of heaven is love; and though its

name

Has been usurped by passion, and profaned
To its unholy uses through all time;
Still, the eternal principle is pure;
And in these deep affections that we feel.
Omnipotent within us, we but see

The lavish measure in which love is given
And in the yearning tenderness of a child,
For every bird that sings above his head,
And every creature feeding on the hills,
And every tree, and flower, and running brook,
We see how every thing was made to love.
And how they err, who, in a world like this,
Find any thing to hate but human pride!

THE PLEASANT PATH IN LIFE.

THERE is a softer winding path through life,
And man may walk it with unruffled soul,
And drink its wayside waters till his heart
Is stilled with its o'erflowing happiness.
The chart by which to traverse it is writ
In the broad book of nature. 'Tis to have
Attentive and believing faculties;
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy
Of beautiful and well-created things;
To love the voice of waters and the sheen
Of silver fountains leaping to the sea;
To thrill with the rich melody of birds,
Living their life of music; to be glad
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm;
To see a beauty in the stirring leaf,

And find calm thoughts beneath the whispering

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And from the spell of music to awake,
And feel that it has purified the heart!
It is to love all virtue, like the light,
Dear to the soul as sunshine to the eye,
And when the senses and the mind are filled,
Like wells from these involuntary springs,
It is to calm the trembling depths with prayer,
That it may be but a reflected heaven.

CONTEMPLATION.

"THEY are all up-the innumerable starsAnd hold their place in heaven. My eyes have been Searching the pearly depths through which they spring

Like beautiful creations, till I feel

As if it were a new and perfect world,
Waiting in silence for the word of God
To breathe into motion. There they stand
Shining in order, like a living hymn.
Written in light, awaking at the breath
Of the celestial dawn, and praising him
Who made them with the harmony of spheres
I would I had an angel's ear to list
That melody. I would I might float
Up in that boundless element, and feel
Its ravishing vibrations. like the pulse
Beating in heaven! My spirit is athirst
For music-rarer music! I would bathe
My soul in a serener atmosphere
Than this; I long to mingle with the flock
Led by the 'living waters, and to stray
In the 'green pastures of the better land!
When wilt thou break, dull fetter? When
shall I

Gather my wings, and like a rushing thought
Stretch onward, star by star up into heaven ?"

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The sparkling gladness of a heart that lives,
Like a glad fountain, in the eye of light,
With an unbreathing pencil? Nature's gift
Has nothing that is like it. Sun and stream,
And the new leaves of June, and the young
lark

That flees away into the depths of heaven,
Lost in his own wild music, and the breath
Of spring time, and the summer eve, and noon
In the cool autumn, are like fingers swept
Over sweet-toned affections-but the joy
That enters to the spirit of a child

Is deep as his young heart; his very breath,
The simple sense of being, is enough

To ravish him, and like a thrilling touch He feels each moment of his life go by.

Beautiful, beautiful childhood! with a joy
That like a robe is palpable, and flung
Out by your every motion! delicate bud
Of the immortal flower that will unfold
And come to its maturity in heaven!
I weep your earthly glory. 'Tis a light
Sent to the new born spirit, that goes out
With the first idle wind. It is the leaf

Freshly flung upon the river, that will dance
Upon the wave that stealeth out its light,
Then sink of its own heaviness. The face
Of the delightful earth will to your eye
Grow dim; the fragrance of the many flowers
Be noticed not, and the beguiling voice
Of nature in her gentleness will be
To manhood's senseless ear inaudible.

INTERESTING INFORMATION IN REGARD TO THE BIBLE

MOSES was the earliest of the sacred writers. Genesis and Job appear to have been compiled by him when an exile from Egypt, during his forty years' residence at Midian. They were probably sketched in hyerogliphical characters, and written out for the use of the people, while he was employed to lead and instruct the Israelites during forty years, in the deserts of Arabia. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were written by Moses some time time before the close of his extraordinary ministry, A. M. 2453, B. C. 1551, for the instruction of the Israclites in their obedience to God, and for the regulation of their civil, judicial, and religious affairs. Some few additions were made to the five books of Moses after his death, especially the last chapter of Deuteronomy, probably by Joshua or by Samuel. Moses, though "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts vii. 22), did not acquire from that people the art of alphabetical writing; neither was it an invention of his own ingenuity: Various expedients have been devised to solve the difficulties with which the subject is involved-by some letters are supposed to have been a merely human invention, ingeniously contrived to

facilitate the invaluable purposes of commerce; many of the heathen considered letters to have been the gift of their imaginary gods; but Christian and Jewish authors of the greatest judgment believe that letters were given to Moses by the immediate inspiration of JEHOVAH, the true GOD.

Joshua wrote the former part of the book bearing his name, which Samuel completed; that venerable prophet compiled the books of Judges and Ruth, and commenced the first book of Samuel, the latter part of which and the second book were written by his successors in the prophetical office, probably by Nathan and Gad. The books of Kings and Chronicles are compilations from the national records, by various prophets and scribes, and from the public genealogical tables, made or completed by Ezra, on the return of the Jews from Babylon. Ezra and Nehemiah are historical collection; from similar records, some of which wer originally written by themselves. Es ther was written by some distinguisher Jew, perhaps Mordecai, though some conjecture that it was composed by Ezra The Psalms were written mostly by David, some by Asaph, Moses, and other pious persons, all, or most of the book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and the book of Ecclesiastes, by King Solomon; the latter book was composed when that prosperous king, toward the latter end of his life, had been led to reflect upon the vanity of all human gratifications, and to repent of his foolish and criminal idolatry; his penitence and his writings were influenced by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, with the book of Lamentations, Ezekiel, and the other books of the prophets, were written by the several holy men whose names they bear, on occasions arising from their connection with the succeeding ages, as fore appointed by the infinite wisdom of God. Ezra labored in revising the sacred books, aided by the Great Synagogue, consist

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