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over the ship's side, oh that some good angel had called to the brave commander in the words of Paul on a like occasion, "except these abide in the ship ye can not be saved." They de parted, and with them the hope of the ship, for now the waters, gaining upon the hold and rising up upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow.

7. Oh, had now that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom the sailors were wont to mind-had he stood to execute efficiently the commander's will-we may believe that we should not have to blush for the cowardice and recreäncy' of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead. But, apparently, each subordinate officer lost all presence of mind, then courage, and so honor. In a wild scramble, that ignoble mob of firemen, engineers, waiters, and crew rushed for the boats, and abandoned the helpless women, children, and men to the mercy of the deep! Four hours there were from the catastrophe2 of the collision to the catastrophe of SINKING!

8. Oh, what a burial was here! Not as when one is bōrne from his home, among weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green fields, and laid peacefully beneath the turf and the flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a burial-service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the burial-place. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hollowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as if it had not been,

H. W. BEECHER.

1.

160. LIFE.

all our hopes and all our fears

I were prison'd in life's narrow bound;

If, travelers through this vale of tears,
We saw no better world beyond;
Oh, what could check the rising sigh?

What earthly thing could pleasure give?

1 Rec' re an cy, a cowardly yielding. Ca tås' tro phe, calamity; dis aster a final end.

Oh, who would venture then to die?
Oh, who could then endure to live?

2. Were life a dark and desert moor,

Where mists and clouds eternal spread
Their gloomy vail behind, before,

And tempests thunder overhead;
Where not a sunbeam breaks the gloom,
And not a floweret smiles beneath;
Who could exist in such a tomb?

Who dwell in darkness and in death?

3. And such were life, without the ray
From our divine religion given;
"Tis this that makes our darkness day;

"Tis this that makes our earth a heaven.
Bright is the golden sun above,

And beautiful the flowers that bloom,

And all is joy, and all is love,

Reflected from a world to come.

BOWRING.

THE

161. SORROW FOR THE DEAD.

HE sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.' Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament.

2. Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved-when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portals-would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? No, the love

1 Di vorced', separated.

which survives the tomb is one of the noblest a.tributes of the soul.

3. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it, even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry?1

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4. No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh! the grave! the grave! It burys every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down even upon the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies moldering before him!

5. But the grave of those we loved, what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene;-the bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendance, its mute, watchful assiduities.3

6. The last testimonies of expiring love! the feeble, fluttering, thrilling, oh! how thrilling! pressure of the hand! The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection! The last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence! Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate. There settle the ac

1 Rev' el ry, a carousing with noisy merriment.-3 Compunctious (kompångk' shus), repentant; sorrowful.--3 As si dù' i ty, constant or close application; untiring attention.

count with thy conscience for every past benefit anrequited,' every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being, who can never, never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition.'

7. If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whōle happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet;-then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knock dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant in the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing.

8. Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of Nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile3 tributes of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite1 affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living. WASHINGTON IRVING

1.

1I

162. PASSING AWAY.

ASK'D the stars in the pomp of night,
Gilding its blackness with crowns of light,
Bright with beauty and girt with power,
Whether eternity were not their dower;
And dirge-like music stole from their spheres,
Bearing this message to mortal ears :—

'Un re quit' ed, not repaid; not done or given in return. - Contrition (kon trish' un), repentance; deep sorrow for sin.-Fù tile, trifling; worthless. Côn' trite, worn; sorrowful; bowed down with grief.-⚫ E têr' ni ty, duration or continuance without end.—"Dow'er, the part of a man's property which his widow enjcys during her life, after his death; here means gift or possession.

2. "We have no light that hath not been given;
We have no strength but shall soon be riven;
We have no power wherein man may trust;
Like him are we things of time and dust;
And the legend' we blazon' with beam and ray,
And the song of our silence, is- PASSING AWAY.'

3. "We shall fade in our beauty, the fair and bright, .

Like lamps that have served for a festal night;
We shall fall from our spheres, the old and strong,
Like rose-leaves swept by the breeze along;
Though worship'd as gods in the olden day,

We shall be like a vain dream-PASSING AWAY."

4. From the stars of heaven and the flowers of earth,
From the pageant of power and the voice of mirth,
From the mist of the morn on the mountain's brow,
From childhood's song and affection's vow,
From all save that o'er which soul bears sway,
There breathes but one record-"PASSING AWAY."

5. "Passing away," sing the breeze and rill,

As they sweep on their course by vale and hill:
Through the varying scenes of each earthly clime,
'Tis the lesson of nature, the voice of time;
And man at last, like his fathers gray,

Writes in his own dust, "PASSING AWAY.”

MISS M. J. JEWSBURY.

IN

163. PROMISES OF RELIGION TO THE YOUNG.

N every part of Scripture, it is remarkable with what singular tenderness the season of youth is always mentioned, and what hopes are afforded to the devotion of the young. It was at that age that God appeared unto Moses, when he fed his flock in the desert, and called him to the command of his own people. It was at that age he visited the infant Samuel, while he ministered in the temple of the Lord, "in days when the

'Lè'gend, an inscription; a fable.-2 Blazon (blå' zn), to display.

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