every quarter of the city, and sixty or seventy churches attest that the children are content to walk in the good old ways of their fathers.

Connected with the city by bridges, avenues, or ferries, you behold a range of towns, most of them municipally distinct, but all of them in reality forming, with Boston, one vast metropolis, animated by one commercial life. Shading off from these, you see that most lovely background, a succession of happy settlements, spotted with villas, farm-houses, and cottages; united to Boston by a constant intercourse; sustaining the capital from their fields and gardens, and prosperous in the reflux of the city's wealth. Of the social life included within this circuit, and of all that in times past has adorned and ennobled it, commercial industry has been an active element, and has exalted itself by its intimate association with every thing else we hold dear. Within this circuit what memorials strike the eye!— what recollections — what institutions - what patriotic treasures and names that cannot die! There lie the canonized precincts of Lexington and Concord; there rise the sacred heights of Dorchester and Charlestown; there is Harvard, the ancient and venerable, foster-child of public and private liberality in every part of the state; to whose existence Charlestown gave the first impulse, to whose growth and usefulness the opulence of Boston has at all times ministered with open hand.

Still farther on than the eye can reach, lines of communication by railroad and steam have, within our own day, united with the capital, by bands of iron, a still broader circuit of towns and villages. Hark to the voice of life and business which sounds along the lines! While we speak, one of them is shooting onward to the illimitable west, and all are uniting with the other kindred enterprises, to form one harmonious and prosperous whole, in which town and country, agriculture and manufactures, labor and capital, art and nature, wrought

and compacted into one grand system,

are constantly gath

ering and diffusing, concentrating and radiating the economical, the social, the moral blessings of a liberal and diffusive

commerce.

LESSON LXXXVII.

Green Mount Cemetery, at Baltimore. J. P. KENNEDY,

I KNOW not where the eye may find more pleasing landscapes than those which surround us. Here, within our enclosures, how aptly do these sylvan embellishments harmonize with the design of the place!- this venerable grove of ancient forest; this lawn, shaded with choicest trees; that green meadow, where the brook creeps through the tangled thicket begemmed with wild flowers; these embowered alleys and pathways, hidden in shrubbery; and that grassy knoll, studded with evergreens, and sloping to the cool dell where the fountain ripples over its pebbly bed ; all hemmed in by yon natural screen of foliage, which seems to separate this beautiful spot from the world, and devote it to the tranquil uses to which it is now to be applied.

Beyond the gate that guards these precincts, we gaze upon a landscape rife with all the charms that hill and dale, forest-clad heights, and cultivated fields may contribute to enchant the eye. That stream, which northward cleaves the woody hills, comes murmuring to our feet, rich with the reflections of the bright heaven and the green earth; thence, leaping along between its granite banks, hastens toward the city whose varied outline of tower, steeple, and dome, gilded by the evening sun and softened by the haze, seems to sleep in perspective against the southern sky; and there, fitly stationed within our view, that noble column, destined to immortality from the name it bears, lifts high above the ancient oaks that crown the hill the venerable form of the Father of his Country, a majestic image of the deathlessness of virtue.

Though scarce a half hour's walk from yon living_mart,* where one hundred thousand human beings toil in their noisy crafts, here the deep quiet of the country reigns, broken by no ruder voice than such as marks the tranquillity of rural life, -the voice of "birds on branches warbling," — the lowing of distant cattle, and the whetting of the mower's scythe. Yet tidings of the city not unpleasantly reach the ear in the faint murmur which at intervals is borne hither upon the freshening breeze, and more gratefully still in the deep tones of that cathedral bell,

"Swinging slow, with sullen roar,"

as morning and noon, and richer at eventide, it flings its pealing melody across these shades, with an invocation that might charm the lingering visitor to prayer.

LESSON LXXXVIII.

Consistency of Character.

MRS. TUTHILL.

I KNOW a lady— would that her modesty would permit me to name her. who furnishes an admirable example of consistency of character, which is the very keystone of the arch, giving completeness and strength to all the virtues.

As a Christian, she has fervent piety, without the least tincture of austerity. She is liberal and catholic in her views and feelings towards other denominations, and at the same time maintains a strong and wholesome attachment to the church to which she belongs. With genuine meekness and humility, she possesses self-respect, and does not disclaim the respect of others. Her cheerfulness springs from good health and a good conscience; she is never light-minded and frivo

*The city of Baltimore.

lous. In her most sober moments, she is not gloomy. She has quickness of perception to discern whatever is sinful in others, and moral courage to warn and reprove, without severity or bitterness towards the offender. Her charity is open, but not ostentatious. Possessing uncommon disinterestedness, her motives are often misunderstood by the selfish, and oftener misrepresented; yet she submits to reproach without a murmur; though naturally extremely susceptible to public opinion, she has fortified her mind to meet injustice. She yields to the world when it would be unwise to differ, but makes no compromise that involves a sacrifice of principle. Although uncommonly active in doing good to all within her sphere of usefulness, she neglects not the culture of that personal, spiritual religion, which results from devotion and close habitual introspection.

This lady's intellectual character has been mostly formed by self-education. She is learned, without the slightest approach to pedantry. Her memory is so tenacious, that she is minute and circumstantial, but not tedious. The expressions she uses in conversation are so clear and correct, that you become possessed of her ideas, scarcely perceiving the medium through which they have been communicated. Her imagination is vivid and lively, but sobered and chastened by a strong discriminating judgment. Hers is not a masculine. mind; it is peculiarly, sweetly feminine, so that her learning and her superiority are pardoned by the other sex; they set so gracefully and becomingly, that they never obtrude themselves into notice.

My amiable friend's manners are "the outward and visible sign of her noble character. Perhaps, in these free-andeasy days, they may be thought too formal; when dignity wast considered essential, they would have been admired as a model. She is self-possessed, without that impudent assur-. ance which provokes censure from its total indifference to public opinion, and wounds the beholder's self-esteem. In

her dignity there was no haughtiness; the most timid and bashful girl would seek shelter under her superiority, sure of that kind considerateness which the highly gifted and naturally modest ever show to shrinking diffidence. The grace of this lady's manners is not altogether the borrowed grace of art, that is termed elegance; her heart, full of love and good will, diffuses kindness and unction over her whole demeanor.

In her intercourse with the world, and in her family, she has all the prudence necessary for the safe conduct of affairs. Her economy is systematic, without a touch of meanness. She knows the value of wealth for the comfort it secures, and as a means of bestowing benefits; her mind is too noble for avarice to find there a dwelling-place.

Her decision of character prevents her actions from being the sport of circumstances. Her generosity is far removed from prodigality; she has the courage to say no to the most earnest solicitation to a popular charity, if her judgment does not fully approve, or her funds have been consecrated to some other use. Industrious herself, she is careful that her family imitate the example; yet their hours of recreation she strives to make agreeable, by joining cordially in promoting innocent hilarity.

This sketch might be thought incomplete, if nothing were said of the momentous business of the toilet. Our friend is not neglectful of her apparel; her dress is always scrupulously neat; but if it does not fit with the trim precision of a milliner's doll, she would be satisfied. She would not will. ingly offend the eye of good taste in the choice of colors; she would prefer being in the fashion to being out of it; yet it is evident that no time has been taken from other duties to attend to this, and that dress is not the first, second, and third thing in her mind.

Being thus beautifully consistent herself, is not this lady a severe censor upon those who are less so? In example she