Sunday. My Birth-day! I have thought much and sadly, how little I have done; how small the worth of these years to me or others. How poor has seemed the sum of all, compared with my high desires. I look not with regret upon my vanishing youth. I mourn not the fading of bright hopes, nor even the sore knowledge experience brings. I sigh not that the glories of dawn are paling from my life's sky that I am nearing its clear noon. But my thoughts wander through the past, and call up wasted hours-opportunities for improvement slighted selfish ease indulged-vain dreams cherished wild fancies nourished-realities shunned. And if the mournful consciousness did not ever haunt me, of the instability of all human resolutions, I would make this day the era of better resolves -the beginning of a new life. All that we strive and struggle for here, must, to us all, seem insufficient and imperfect; meager when attained, and worthless when enjoyed. But it still glitters and allures, and we still strive and cling to the existence that is only the twilight to a brighter day, a higher hope.

ST. JOHN IN THE DESERT.

'Mid the Jordan desert, still and lone,
O, saint-like young recluse, thy spirit learned
Its lofty mission, and serenely burned

With the great purposes then only known
To God and thine own soul. The solemn moan
Of swaying forests was to thee a voice

Of the Great Alpha! e'en the gladsome noise
Of babbling waters, to thine ear, a tone

Of warning took; —“Repent!" "Repent!" from all

Of nature rose that stern and ceaseless call!
Then from the wilderness, thy voice went forth
In trumpet tones. Irreverence and mirth

Paused in their way and turned with startled haste
At the strange, solemn cry sent forth from Judah's

waste.

Thy voice hath died, 'mid Judah's lonely hills,
O, prophet youth! No more thy warning cry,
Borne from the desert-waste, sweeps sternly by
Her peopled haunts. Not now thy spirit fills
Her solitudes, or, from the babbling rills

And swaying forests, learns the mighty lore
By God imparted. Yet as e'er of yore
He dwells in nature, and his presence thrills