of Melrose Abbey-one with walls covered with American cedar inlaid with oak from sundry old castles-one adorned with memorials from eminent friends,such as an Italian vase from Byron, a gold snuff box from Talma, a set of ebony chairs from George IV.-but the most interesting is the dining room, which contains the family portraits; and where the great genius, on his return from an unsuccessful pursuit of health in Italy, surrendered his spirit to that Being who gave it, on the 21st day of Sept. 1832. After the door of the mansion closed behind me, I spent an evening hour in walking over the grounds, listening to the murmurs of the Tweed, watching the mist as it hung its twilight curtains around the Eildon Hills, and tracing with my mind's eye the long cavalcade of romance, poetry and chivalry, which had proceeded from this spot on its march over the world. I walked and mused under the shadows of the thick foliage, till night blended mansions and trees in undistinguishable darkness. Not a breath stirred the leaves, nor a sound, save my own foot-fall, broke the silence. For the first time in my life, a gloom, not unlike superstitious dread, settled on my spirits, and I hastily retraced my steps towards Melrose. ABBOTSFORD! The genius that once animated its halls has departed forever. Hush'd is the harp-the minstrel gone! It is now a lonely place, tenanted only by two or three of his aged domestics, who cherish his memory with more than filial affection. If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moon-light, For the gay beams of lightsome day, Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray. We saw it by star-light, and then by sun-light. It is worth looking at as a ruin, aside from the romance which the minstrel has thrown round its sculptured walls. The guide shows you the grave where was buried -the wonderoms Michael Scott; Just above the tomb is the window, through which "the light broke forth so gloriously" when the monk removed the grave-stone for William of Deloraine. No earthly flame blazed e'er so bright; It shone like heaven's own blessed light; And, issuing from the tomb, Show'd the monk's cowl and visage pale, Danced on the dark-brow'd warrior's mail, And kiss'd his waving plume. The superstitious old woman who ciceroned us, told the tale, and sing-songed the poetry, with as much solemnity as if she had witnessed the transaction the preceding night-and all for a shilling! There are real objects of interest at Melrose. Beneath where its altar stood, sleeps the lion heart of Robert Bruce.The dying monarch requested that it might be carried to Jerusalem, and his faithful friend, Sir James Douglas, undertook the task. Being beaten back by the Saracens, he deposited his trust in Melrose Abbey. We were led into a gloomy cell to record our names Animmense volume, containing the signatures of persons from every clime and of every grade, lies before us. What a tribute to the power of poesy! The view from the top of the ruins is lovely. The Eildon Hills, "cleft in three" by the words of Michael Scott, the un-" bridled Tweed," the pretty village of Melrose, and the eminences which guard Abbotsford, are seen at a glance. The ruins of Dryburgh Abbey-distant three miles-are hid from the eye by a projecting hill. There, on the banks of the Tweed,amidst the crumbling antiquity of the Abbey, and embosshadows over the scene, rest the remains sed by aged trees which cast their solemn of Sir Walter Scott. Yours, &c., RAMBLER. Tales of Real Life. From the Listener She for her humble sphere by nature fit, Toilsome and indigent,she renders muchJust knows, and knows no more, her Bible true. COWPER. All who enter on the world are in pursuit of happiness; each one questions of another where it is, or fancies he perceives it from afar; but very few confess cacy is not used to look upon. It was not the gay contentedness of peasant life, that poets tell of, and prosperity stoops to envy. It was not the laborer resting from his toil, the ruddy child exulting in its hard, scant meal, the housewife singing blithely at her wheel, the repose of health and tearlessness; pictures that so often persuade us happiness has her dwelling in the cabins of the poor. The room was dark and dirty; there was nothing on the walls but the bare beams,too ill-joined to exclude the weather, with crevices in vain attempted to be stopped by torn and moulded paper. A few broken utensils hung about the room; a table and some broken chairs were all the furniture, except what seemed intended for a bed, yet promised little repose. The close and smoky atmosphere of the apartment, gave to it the last coloring of discomfort and disease. Within there sat a figure such as the pencil well might choose for the portrait of wretchedness. Quite gray, and very old, and scarcely clothed, a woman was seen sitting by the fire place, seemingly unconscious of all that passed around her. Her features were remarkably large, and in expression harsh; her white hair turned back from her forehead, hung uncombed from her shoulders; her withered arm, stretched without motion on her knee, in form and coloring seemed nothing that had lived— her eye was fixed on the wall before her -an expression of suffering, and a faint movement of the lip, alone giving token of existence. that they have found it. The young, starting into life with sanguine hopes and spirits gay, expect it everywhere; the more experienced, having sought it long and found it not, decide that it is nowhere. The moralist tells us there is no such thing; and the historian almost proves it by the miseries he details. Poverty says, It is not with me; and Wealth says, Not with me. Splendor dashes by the cottage door, heaves the rich jewel on her bosom with a sigh, and says the dwellers there are happier than she is. Penury looks out upon her as she passes, loathes her own portion, and silently envies what she must not share. Ignorance with dazzled and misjudging eye, admires the learned, and esteems them happy.Learning decides that 'ignorance is bliss,' and bewails the enlargement of capacity it cannot find enough to fill. Wherever we ask, the answer is still, 'Seek further.' Is it so, then, that there is no happiness on earth? Or if it does exist, is it a thing of circumstance,confined to certain states, dependent on rank and station; here to day and gone to-morrow, in miserable dependence on the casualties of life ?— We are often asked the question by those by whom the world is yet untried, who even in the spring time of their mirth, are used to hear the complaints of all around them, and well may wonder what they mean. We affect not to answer questions which never were answered yet; but we can tell a story of something that our ear has heard, and our eye has seen, and that many besides can testify to be the truth. And well may we, who so Placed with her back towards the door often listen to what we like not, be allow-she perceived not the intrusion, and while ed for once to tell a pleasant tale. I paused to listen and to gaze, I might have determined that here at least was a spot where happiness could not dwell; one being, at least to whom enjoyment upon earth must be forbidden by external circumstances-with whom to live was of necessity to be wretched. Well might the Listener, in such a scene as this, be startled by expressions of delight,strangely contrasted with the murmurs we are used to hear amid the world's abundance. But it was even so. From the pale, shrivelled lips of this poor woman, we heard a whispering expression of enjoyment, scarcely articulate, yet not so low but that we could distinguish the words 'Delightful,'' Happy.' Distant something more than a mile from the village of Desford, in Leicestershire, at the lower extremity of a steep and rugged lane, was seen an obscure and melancholy hovel. The door stood not wide to invite observation; the cheerful fire gleamed not through the casement to excite attention from the passenger.The low roof and outer wall were but just perceived among the branches of the hedge row, uncultured and untrimmed, that ran between it and the road. As if there were nothing there that any one might seek; no way of access presented itself, and the step of curiosity that would persist in finding entrance, must pass mud and briers to obtain it. Having reached the door with difficulty, a sight presented itself such as the eye of deli As we advanced with the hesitation of disgust into the unsightly hovel, the old woman looked at us with kindness, but without emotion, bade us be seated, and edness with her earthly portion. It protill questioned, showed very little inclina-ved on inquiry to be worse than it appeartion to speak. Being asked how she did, ed. The outline of her history, as gathshe at first replied, 'Very ill,' then hasti-ered at different times from her own lips ly added, My body is ill-but I am well, was this:very well.' And then she laid her head upon a cold, black stone, projecting from the wall beside the fire-place, as if unable to support it longer. We remarked that it was bad weather. Yes,' she answered-then hastily correcting herself—No, not bad-it is God Almighty's weather, and cannot be bad.' Are you in pain? we asked-a question scarcely necessary, so plainly did her movements betray it. Yes, always in pain-but not such pain as my Saviour suffered for me; his pain was far worse than mine-mine is nothing to it.' Some remark being made on the wretchedness of her dwelling, her stern features almost relaxed into a smile, and she said she did not think it so; and wished us all as happy as herself. As she showed little disposition to talk, and never made any remark till asked for it, and then in words as few and simple as might express her meaning, it was slowly and by repeated questions that we could draw from her a simple tale. Being asked if that was all the bed she had on which to sleep, she said she seldom slept, and it was now a long time since she had been able to undress herself; but it was on that straw she passed the night. We asked her if the night seemed not very long. No, not long,' she answered Her husband's name was Peg; her own Mary; she had been long remembered in the village, as living in extreme poverty, and going about to beg bacon at Christmas-time. Her youth had been past in services of various kinds; and though she did not know her age, it appeared, from public events which she remembered to have passed when she was a girl, that she could not be less than eighty. Later in life, she had kept sheep upon the forest hills, and, in the simplicity of her heart, would speak of her days of prosperity when she had two sheep of her own. She could not read, but from attending divine service had become familiar with the language of Scripture. We know nothing of her previous character; that of her husband and family was very bad; but we are not informed that her's was so. The first earnest religious feeling she related of herself, was felt when walking alone in the fields; she bethought herself of her hard fatea youth of toil, and old age of want and misery-and if she must go to hell at last, how dreadful was her portion! Struck with the appaling thought, she knelt down beneath the hedge to pray-the first time perhaps, that heart felt and earnest prayer had gone up to heaven from her lips. never long-I think of God all night, Not very long after this, as we underand when the cock crows, am surprised stood, the old woman was taken ill, and the morning has come so soon.' And unable to move from the straw, at that the days-you sit here all day, in pain || time her only bed, in a loft over the apartand unable to move-are the days not ment we have described; where, little long? How can they be long? Is not sheltered by the broken roof, and less by he with me? Is it not all up--up?' an the rags that scarcely covered her, she expression she frequently made use of to lay exposed to the inclemencies of the describe the joyful elevation of her mind. weather, without money to support or On saying she passed much time in pray- friend to comfort her. It was in this siter, she was asked for what she prayed? uation that her mind, dwelling probably To this she always answered, 'Oh! to go, on the things that in health passed by her you know-to go-when He pleases.' To unregarded, received the strong and lastexpress the facility which she found in ing impression of a vision she thought prayer, she once said, it seemed as if her she beheld, probably in a dream, though prayers were all laid cut ready for her in she herself believed that she was waking. bed. But time would fail us to repeat In idea, she saw the broad road and the the words, brief as they were, in which narrow, as described in Scripture. In the this aged saint expressed her gratitude to broad road, to use her own expressions, the Saviour who died for her; her enjoy- there were many walking; it was smooth ment of the God who abode with her; and pleasant, and they got on fast; but her expectations of the heaven to which the end of it was dark. On the narrow she was hastening, and perfect content-road she herself was treading, and some ence to the tale she at first had told, and the persuasion that what she had seen was a blessed reality, sufficient to make her happy in every extreme of earthly wretchedness. And he saw her die as she had lived, in holy, calm, and confident reliance on her Saviour's promise. ex few others; but the way was rugged; short and her days so happy. And what some turned back, and others sat down does it signify,' she added, that they unable to proceed. She herself advanc- swear at me, and tell me I am a foolish ed till she reached a place more beautiful, old woman-don't I know how happy I she said, than any thing to which she am? During the many years that she could compare it. When asked what it survived, the minister of the parish saw was like, she could not say, but that it her constantly, and found little variation was very bright, and that there were main her feelings, none in her firm adherny sitting there. Being questioned who these were, she said they were like men and women, but larger and far more beautiful, and all dressed in glitterings; such was her expression-and one was more beautiful than the rest, whom she knew to be the Saviour, because of his readiness and kindness in receiving her. But To what I have written, I could find the most pleasing impression seemed to much to add, having notes of all that pasbe left by the hallelujahs this company sed during the protracted years of this were singing. She was told by Him she devoted woman's life. But iny purpose is knew to be the Saviour, that she must go not to make a story. I have witnessed back for a little time, and then she should only to what I saw, and repeated only come again and dwell with them forever. what my ear has listened to. And I have Thus ended her vision, but not so the repeated it but to prove that the happiimpression it made. The recollection of ness which all men seek, and most comthe scene she had witnessed, and of the plain they find not, has sometimes an bliss that had been promised her, seemed abode where we should least expect to to lead her to the source of all her hap- || find it. This is an extreme case: piness. Turning her eye from earth to treme in mental enjoyment, as in exterheaven, and fixing all her thoughts to nal misery. But it is true. And if it be that eternity to which she was hastening, so, that a being debarred the most comit left her, not what she before had been, mon comforts of life, almost of the light wretched on earth, and unmindful of any and air of heaven, suffering, and incapathing beyond; but with a heart deeply ble even to clothe herself, or cleanse her impressed with the love and mercy of unsightly dwelling, could yet pass years God; fully and undoubtedly relying on of so much happiness, that her warmest her Saviour's promise, and proving the expressions of gratitude to her benefacreality of those feelings by earnest devo- tors was to wish them a portion as happy tion, and most cheerful acquiescence in as her own; what are we to say to those her Maker's will. It was not the fervor who, amid the overflow of earthly good, of a first impression-the enthusiasm of make the wide world resound with their an excited imagination. She survived || complainings? How are we to undersix or seven years, but time made no stand it, that, while blessings are showchange in her feelings. She passed those ered around us as the summer rain, there years in the extreme of poverty, depend- is so little real happiness on earth? Beent on the alms of some few persons who cause we seek it not aright-we seek it knew and visited her; she passed them in where it is not, in outward circumstance pain and helplessness; mocked and ill- and external good, and neglect to seek it treated by her husband and her sons, and where alone it dwells, in the close chaminsulted often by her unfeeling neighbors ||bers of the bosom. We would have a who came to laugh at her devotion and happiness in time independent of eterniridicule her hopes. ty; we would have it independent of the Being whose it is to give: and so we go forth, each one as best we may, to seek out the rich possession for ourselves.Those who think they are succeeding, will not listen to our tale. But if there be any who,having made a trial of the world, are disposed to disbelieve the existence of what they seek-if there be any among the young, who start at the report, and For these, as well as for some who visited her for kinder purposes, she had but one answer-she wished them all like her; prayed that they might only be as happy as herself. When told what she had seen was a mere dream and a delusion, she said it did not signify to tell her that she had seen it, and it was the recollection of it that made her nights so shrink from the aspect of their already The Reflector. is ordered in all things, and sure; it is forgetting that his world is a school, and that a school will have its tasks and discipline and that God brings us under those lessons for some wise end, and calls on us for credit and assurance.-Cecil. Christian Firmness.-In Galen's time, it was a proverbial expression, when any one would speak of the impossibility of a thing. You may as soon turn a Christian from Christ, as do it." A true heart choice of Christ is without reserve; and what is without reserve is without repentance. There is a stiffness and stoutness of spirit, which is out and in; but this is our glory. In the matters of God, said Luther, I assume this title, 'CEDO NULLI-1 yield to none.—Flavel. In Bushnan's Philosophy of Instinct and Reason, we find the following:-A wasp had caught a fly almost as big as herself, with which she attempted in vain to rise in the air. Concluding that the weight of her prey was the impediment, she alighted, and sawed off the head and tail, before she again took to flight. The weight was now no obstacle to her progress, but she had not calculated upon Pardon.-To come unto God by Christ the wind catching the wings of her vic- for forgiveness, and therein to behold the tim, and thus retarding her; which, howlaw is suing all its threats and curses in ever, she no sooner observed to be the his blood, and losing its sting, putting an case, than she again alighted, and, hav- end to its obligation unto punishment in ing deliberately removed first one wing the hands of God's justice, and made to the cross; to see all sins gathered up in and then the other, carried it off, triumph-meet on the Mediator; and eternal love antly to her nest!' pres Redemption. When sin, past and ent, appears in its true shape, with all its horrid malignity and desert of damnation, then is the time for a full sight of Christ. O how gloriously does the Sun of Righteousness arise to the benighted sin burdened soul with healing in his wings!How sweet is mercy! How precious the name of Jesus! How dear his blood to the awakened, guilty conscience! Let it ever be remembered how great is our obligation.-Adam. Death in trespasses and sins.-The heart of an obdurate sinner may be called his sepulchre, which by means of long habits of sin, is shut up against grace, as by a hard and heavy stone, and in which there is nothing but darkness and corruption. It is a very great inercy when the Deliverer comes to that prison, when the light shines in the darkness, and holiness itself visits that corruption.- Quesnel. Affliction.-Affliction springs not from the ground; it is delivered out in weight and measure. But if a man yield to despondency and melancholy, it is the effect of unbelief; it is calling in question the truth of God; it is forgetting the promise of Christ, and that covenant of God which springing forth triumphantly from his blood, flourishing into pardon, grace, mercy and forgiveness-this the heart of a sinner can be enlarged unto only by the spirit of God.-Dr. Owen. Warning. Your day will end. The night of death will call you from this life. The doom at death standeth as long as God liveth,-forever! How comfortable will the feast of a good conscience be to you, when your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, and the breath turn cold, and your soul shall long to have the door open, that the prisoner may be set at liberty. Make sure work of salvation, that it be not to seek, when the sandglass is run out, and time and eternity shall be conjoined. There is no errand so weighty! O take it to heart.-Rutherford. Good Advice.-The Transcript speaking of our girls, says: "This bringing up daughters to think of nothing but dress, and finery, and balls, and parties, and beaux, is not discharging the duties of a mother who wishes the welfare of her children. Send them into the kitchen. Teach them to wash, and to cook, and to scour. It will not hurt them; it will do them good, both mentally and physically.' |