202 A VISION OF IMMORTALITY. The voice of triumph and the hymn of life. In its glad beauty from the gloom of death. Where the crushed mould beneath the sunken foot Turn thou a keener glance, and thou shalt find The gathered myriads of a mimic world. Bears on its wing a cloud of witnesses, That earth from her unnumbered caves of death The broad green prairies and the wilderness, Kings that lay down in state, and earth's poor slaves, The white-haired patriarch and the tender babe, Archon and priest, and the poor common crowd,— Aye, learn the lesson. Though the worm shall be A VISION OF IMMORTALITY. The grave shall gather thee: yet thou shalt come, Then mourn not when thou markest the decay That other voice, with its rejoicing tones, Thy narrow heritage, lift up thy head A king and priest to God,-when thou shalt pass 203 BRYANT. Che Nepenthes or Pitcher Plant. BY CAROLINE SOUTHEY. KNOW ye the little plant that springs, Up from a heathen sod, The providence of God? Where man to man doth idol-worship teach, The sweet Nepenthes springs, a purer faith to preach! Where fall not showers, and fall not dews, And stream and fount are dry, It lifts its little pitcher lid, And woos the traveller's eye: A limped water sparkles in its urn, Though skies above are dry, and sands about it burn. Earth sometimes like a desert seems Life's comfort streams are dry; Throbs wearily the heavy heart, Grows dim the waiting eye: Whither? oh whither shall the weary turn? Where shall the spirit find some kind Nepenthes' urn? Poor pilgrim of Ceylon! not thou, That mystic urn can show, That living water hast not thou Thou knowest not whence its flow: The Bible, page inspired! to that I turn, When earth's last stream is dry, that's my Nepenthes' urn! Intellectual pride. "THERE is nothing which so perverts the heart, as intellectual pride. The calamities which have most afflicted and debased our race, have sprung from the abuse of the free and gifted intellect. In the perversity of a corrupt will, and in the excesses of a presumptuous understanding, man has frightfully abused the powers entrusted to him for high and holy purposes. Too often, the extent of human knowledge is the measure of human crime. As if to impress indelibly upon the soul of man, the terrible consequences of a presumptuous intellect, a jealous Deity has enforced the lesson with special revelations. He has not only bestowed upon us the godlike capacity of reason, to collect and compare the fruits of experience, in the ages which have been gathered to the past, but He has suspended the arm of the Cherubim, that we might enter the forbidden paths of paradise, to read, beneath the tree of knowledge, the price of disobedience. And He has unbarred the gates of Heaven itself, that in the fall of the angelic hosts, we might tremble at the instant and irremediable ruin which followed the single sin of thought. One truth, we therefore know that, unaccompanied with an upright heart and a chastened will, with the morality that springs from religion, the measure of man's intellect is the measure of his ruin. The pride of wealth inspires contempt, and the pride of place awakens resentment. They are human follies, and are punished by human measures: but the pride of intellect, wherein the gifted wars with the Giver, is a crime which the dread Creator has reserved for special retribution. LIEU. LYNCH'S DEAD SEA. Virtue is made for difficulties, and grows stronger and brighter for such trials. Inward Jufluence of Outward Beauty. BELIEVE me, there is many a road to our hearts besides our ears and brains: many a sight, and sound, and scent, even of which we have never thought at all, sinks into our memory, and helps to shape our characters: and thus children brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds, will most likely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness, and affection, and nobleness of mind even by the expression of the countenance. Those who live in towns should carefully remember this, for their own sakes, for their wives' sakes, for their childrens' sakes. Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God's hand-writing—a way-side sacrament: welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower: and thank for it, Him, the fountain of all loveliness, and drink it in, simply and earnestly with all your eyes: it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing. POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE. MAN of the People! not on swords and spears, CHARLES MACKAY. LET the mind's sweetness have its operation, |