My brethren, we stand on the borders of an awful gulf, which is swallowing up all things human. And is there, amidst this universal wreck, nothing stable, nothing abiding, nothing immortal, on which poor, frail, dying man can fasten? Ask the hero, ask the statesman, whose wisdom you have been accustomed to revere, and he will tell you. He will tell you, did I say? `told you, from his death-bed; and his illumined spirit, He has already still whispers from the heavens, with well-known eloquence, the solemn admonition :-"Mortals hastening to the tomb, and once the companions of my pilgrimage, take warning and avoid my errors; cultivate the virtues I have recommended; choose the Saviour I have chosen; live disinterestedly; live for immortality; and would you rescue any thing from final dissolution, lay it up in God."

Dr. Nett.

A SWELLS SOLILOQUY ON THE WAR.

20

I DON'T appwove this hawid waw;

Those dweadful bannahs hawt my eyes;
And guns and dwums are such a baw,-
Why don't the pawties compwamise?

Of cawce, the twoilet has its chawms;
But why must all the vulgah crowd
Pawsist in spawting unifawmns

In cullaws so extwemely loud?

And then the ladies-pwecious deals !—
I mawk the change on ev'wy bwow;
Bai Jove! I weally have my feahs
They wathah like the hawid wow!

To heaw the chawming eweatures talk,
Like patwons of the bloody wing,
Of waw and all its dawty wawk,-
It doesn't seem a pwappah thing!

I called at Mrs. Gween's last night,
To see her neice, Miss Mary Hertz,
And found her making-cwushing sight!—
The weddest kind of flannel shirts!

s!
Of cwace I wose and sought the daw,
With fewy flashing from my eyes
I can't appwove this hawid waw ;—
Why don't the pawties compwamise?

Vanity Fair.

MINISTERING ANGELS.

MOTHER, has the dove that nestled,
Lovingly upon thy breast,
Folded up his little pinion,

And in darkness gone to rest?
Nay, the grave is dark and dreary,
But the lost one is not there;
Hear'st thou not its gentle whisper,
Floating on the ambient air?
It is near thee, gentle mother,
Near thee at the evening hour;
Its soft kiss is in the zephyr,

It looks up from every flower.

And when Night's dark shadows fleeing,
Low thou bendest thee in prayer,
And thy heart feels nearest heaven,
Then thy angel babe is there!

Maiden, has thy noble brother,
On whose manly form thine eye
Loved full oft in pride to linger,

On whose heart thou could'st rely,
Though all other hearts deceived thice,
All proved hollow, earth grew drear,
Whose protection, ever o'er thee,

Hid thee from the cold world's sneor,-
Has he left thee here to struggle,
All unaided on thy way?

Nay, he still can guide and guard thee,
Still thy faltering steps can stay;
Still, when danger hovers o'er thee,
He than danger is more near;
When in grief thou'st none to pity,
He, the sainted, marks each tear.

Lover, is the light extinguished
Of the gem, that, in thy heart
Hidden deeply, to thy being

All its sunshine could impart?

Look above! 'tis burning brighter
Than the very stars in heaven;
And to light thy dangerous pathway,
All its new found glory's given.
With the sons of earth commingling,
Thou the loved one may'st forget;
Bright eyes flashing, tresses waving,
May have power to win thee yet;
But e'en then that guardian spirit
Oft will whisper in thine ear,
And in silence, and at midnight,

Thou wilt know she hovers near.

Orphan, thou most sorely stricken
Of the mourners thronging earth,
Clouds half veil thy brightest sunshine ;
Sadness mingles with thy mirth.
Yet although that gentle bosom,
Which has pillowed oft thy head,
Now is cold, thy mother's spirit
Cannot rest among the dead;
Still her watchful eye is o'er thee
Through the day, and still at night
Her's the eye that guards thy slumber,
Making thy young dreams so bright.
Oh! the friends, the friends we've cherished,
How oft we weep to see them die!
All unthinking they're the angels
That will guide us to the sky!

Emily Judson.

THE MISER FITLY PUNISHED.

In the year 1762, a miser, of the name of Foscue, in France, having amassed enormous wealth by habits of extortion and the most sordid parsimony, was requested by the government to advance a sum of money as a loan. The miser demurred, pretending that he was poor. In order to hide his gold effectually, he dug a deep cave in his cellar, the descent to which was by a ladder, and which was entered by means of a trap-door, to which was attached a springlock.

He entered this cave, one day, to gloat over his gold, when the trap-door fell upon him, and the spring-lock, the key to which he had left on the outside, snapped, and held him a prisoner in the cave, where he perished miserably. Some months afterwards a search was made, and his body was found in the midst of money-bags, with a candlestick lying beside it on the floor. In the following lines the miser is supposed to have just entered his cave, and to be soliloquiz og.

So, so! all safe! Come forth, my pretty sparklers,-
Come forth, and feast my eyes! Be not afraid!

No keen-eyed agent of the government

Can see you here. They wanted me, forsooth,

To lend you, at the lawful rate of usance,

For the state's needs. Ha, ha! my shining pets,
My yellow darlings, my sweet golden circlets!
Too well I loved you to do that,-and so

I pleaded poverty, and none could prove
My story was not true.

Ha! could they see

These bags of ducats, and that precious pile
Of ingots, and those bars of solid gold,
Their eyes, methinks, would water.

Is it to see my moneys in a heap

All safely lodged under my very roof!

What a comfort

Here's a fat bag-let me untie the mouth of it.

What eloquence! What beauty! What expression!
Could Cicero so plead? Could Helen look

One half so charming?

Ah! what sound was that?

(The trap-door falls.)

The trap-door fallen;-and the spring-lock caught!
Well, have I not the key?--Of course I have.

'Tis in this pocket,-No. In this?-No. Then

I left it at the bottom of the ladder.

Ha! 'tis not there.

Where then?-Ah! mercy, Heaven!

'Tis in the lock outside!

What's to be done?

Help, help! Will no one hear? Oh! would that I
Had not discharged old Simon!-but he begged
Each week for wages-would not give me credit.
I'll try my strength upon the door.-Despair!
I might as soon uproot the eternal rocks

As force it open.

Am I here a prisoner,

And no one in the house? no one at hand,
Or likely soon to be, to hear my cries?

Am I entombed alive?-Horrible fate!

I sink-I faint beneath the bare conception!

(Awakes.) Darkness? Where am I?-I remember now,
This is a bag of ducats-'tis no dream-

No dream! The trap-door fell, and here am I
Immured with my dear gold-my candle out-
All gloom-all silence--all despair! What, ho!
Friends!-Friends ?-I have no friends. What right havel
To use the name? These money-bags have been
The only friends I've cared for-and for these

I've toiled, and pinched, and screwed, shutting my heart
To charity, humanity and love!

Detested traitors! since I gave you all,

Ay, gave my very soul,-can ye do naught

For me in this extremity?-Ho! Without there!

A thousand ducats for a loaf of bread!

Ten thousand ducats for a glass of water!

A pile of ingots for a helping hand!

Was that a laugh?-Ay, 'twas a fiend that laughed
To see a miser in the grip of death.

Offended Heaven! have mercy!-I will give
In alms all this vile rubbish, aid me thou

In this most dreadful strait! I'll build a church, -
A hospital!--Vain! vain! Too late, too late!
Heaven knows the miser's heart too well to trust him!
Heaven will not hear!-Why should it? What have I
Done to enlist Heaven's favor,-to help on

Heaven's cause on earth, in human hearts and homes?
Nothing! God's kingdom will not come the sooner
For any work or any prayer of mine.

But must I die here-in my own trap caught?
Die-die?-and then! Oh! mercy! Grant me time-
Thou who cans't save-grant me a little time,
And I'll redeem the past-undo the evil

That I have done-make thousands happy with
This hoarded treasure-do thy will on earth

As it is done in heaven-grant me but time!

Nor man nor God will heed my shricks! All's lost!

Osborne.

CÆSAR PASSING THE RUBICON.

A GENTLEMAN, speaking of Cæsar's benevolent dispo sition, and of the reluctance with which he entered into the civil war, observes, "How long did he pause upon the brink of the Rubicon?" How came he to the brink of that river? How dared he cross it? Shall a private man respect the boundaries of private property, and shall a man pay no respect to the boundaries of his country's rights? How dared he cross that river?-Oh! but he paused upon the brink. He should have perished on the brink, ere he had crossed it! Why did he pause?—Why does a man's heart palpitate when he is on the point of committing an unlawful deed? Why does the very murderer, his victim sleeping before him, and his glaring eye taking the measure of the blow, strike wide of the mortal part? Because of conscience! 'Twas that made Cæsar pause upon the brink of the Rubicon!-Compassion! What compassion? The compassion of an assassin, that feels a momentary shudder, as his weapon begins to cut! -Cæsar paused upon the brink of the Rubicon! What was the Rubicon? The boundary of Cæsar's province.