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in no small measure to the inspiration of | his " Task," that our countrymen are indebted, if not for the existence, yet certainly for the character of the new school of poetry, established first at Bristol, and afterwards transferred to the Lakes, as scenery more congenial and undisturbed for the exercise of contemplative genius."

We have thus accomplished our purpose, so far as our limits would allow, in reference to this subject. We fear that the poems of Cowper are but little known by those who are now rising into life, though they were familiar to general readers in the preceding age. We wish therefore to awaken or to stimulate the minds of the readers of the Visitor, and especially the younger among them,_to their perusal. The Religious Tract Society have already issued the "Task and other Poems," at an unprecedently cheap rate, and it is intended to publish others of his Poems and Letters, on the same terms. S.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN VILLAGES.

In the old country, (I love to hear that almost affectionate recognition of it,) on some calm summer evening, as you descend a hill side, green and fragrant with heath and broom blossoms, whilst a stream goes on dancing to its own music at your feet, you behold a cluster of houses, whence thin, blue curling smoke ascends, in the valley below, from which one hoary edifice arises in sombre prominence. Around it rise shadowy ancestral elms, beneath whose broad shadows lie in their dreamless slumbers the rude forefathers of the hamlet;' the patriarchs of the parish, and the little children who died yesterday. Pass on, and you enter the village-street. Everything has the stamp of age upon it. The cottage roofs are green with the mosses of centuries. There is the old manor-house, with its quaint roof, its pointed gables, its monstrous doors with ponderous hinges, its fantastic carvings of grotesque heads, which stand out in bold relief against the quiet sky. And near it is the vicarage, a neat, modest edifice, where rose-trees and woodbines cluster round the casement, and lift up their flowers, so that they may look within. Before the house is a closely-mown lawn, across which the church flings its shadow. The old parish church-look in at one of the low windows, and observe its large

pews-its empty pulpit-its mouldering monuments-its quaintly-carved men and women lying in niches, with solemn looks and folded hands, and heraldric devices -its silent organ-and its lonely altarthen walk through its picturesque churchyard, and read

'The short and simple annals of the poor;'

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then out again into the village, and mark the substantial farm-house; sit awhile by the 'ingle nook,' where huge logs are piled up, Pelion on Ossa,' and blazing away to all hearts' content; then away by the almshouse, where aged people sit listlessly at their doors, or tend flowers as carefully as they did their children, who died years and years ago; and on by many picturesque dwellings, until all signs of man's habitations cease, on the verge of the bleak common, and some idea may be formed of an Old England scene.

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Very different in their quiet beauty are such villages as Lexington, and indeed all which I have seen in New England. How white and glittering those pretty cottages, with their cheerful-looking green blinds, look. There is so much taste displayed in their construction, that every one of them, with its pillars and veranda, and sometimes its observatory, seems intended as a model for exhibition -indeed the little lightning-rods pointing from the chimneys, seem to be the cut-off ends of the cords by which they might have been gently let down from cloudland-and then, surrounded as they are by beautiful trees, and adorned by tastefully disposed gardens, and the clearest of atmospheres around and above them, they appear to an English eye more like things seen in dreams than real dwellingplaces, so very airy, unsubstantial-looking and smokeless, do they appear. And instead of the ancient temple and its graveyard, arises an exquisitely neat church, white and pure looking as the feathers of an eagle's wing; how it glitters in the sunshine! And hark! from the classical, pretty turret, the bell sounds as if an angel spoke.' As yet, the venerable graveyard is not, for the builders of the temple are its contemporaries-it has no Past! Gaze within, how chaste are its adornments! There is no light from high-arched windows thrown, turning the pavement to gems, but green blinds soften the glare, and produce a pleasantly 'dim-religious light.'"-Local Loiterings.

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ST. ANTHONY'S DAY.

A YEARLY festival is held at Rome, which is superstitiously devoted to the purifying and blessing of horses and other animals. It is in the month of January, and great interest is taken in the ceremony by the people of Roman Catholic countries. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood send their animals, decked with ribands, to the convent of St. Anthony, near the church of St. Mary-theGreat; and as they pass the door, the priest appearing, sprinkles each creature, whether it be a horse, mule, ass, cow, sheep, goat, or dog, dipping a brush into a large bucket of, so-called, holy water, that stands near. Taking off his cap, too, he mutters in Latin the freedom from evil of these animals, through the intercession of the blessed St. Anthony, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

The owner of the beast always gives a piece of money to the priest, who DECEMBER, 1846.

returns an engraved representation of St. Anthony, and a small cross of metal. Nor is this homage confined to the lower and more ignorant part of the community, for splendid equipages, attended by outriders in handsome liveries, do not fail to appear, to receive, as supposed, the blessing of the patron saint.

On one occasion, a countryman's beast having received the holy water at the church door, started off at full gallop; but before he had proceeded a hundred yards he fell, and his rider was rolled in the dust. The priest looked on, but not disconcerted, while some of the byestanders said, that but for the blessing which had been pronounced, the horse and his rider might have broken their necks.

Such is one of the varied uses to which holy water is applied. The rev. Dr. O'Croly, once a Romanist, says, "What a multitude of odd ceremonies is connected with the use of holy water! It

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is astonishing what virtue is ascribed to this consecrated element! Nothing can be blessed or hallowed without it: neither candles nor new fruits, nor new-laid eggs, nor ships, nor dwelling-houses, nor churches, nor bells, nor sacerdotal vestments. It is used in all the sacraments, before mass and after mass, and at the churching of women. Nothing, in short, can be done without holy water. Even the butter-churn is sprinkled with it before the churning commences, that the cream may work the better. It purifies the air, distempers, cleanses the soul, expels Satan and his imps from haunted houses, and introduces the Holy Ghost as an inmate in their stead. It is generally believed that the holy water, blessed at Easter and Christmas, possesses superior virtue; on which account several tubs, or barrels full, must be blessed on these occasions, in order to supply the increased demand." In what a fearful condition, then, are those immersed in the superstitions of popery, while a knowledge of them should lend a high estimate, and duty, and improvement of our own advantages, and to constant effort

and

prayer

for their deliverance.

OLD HUMPHREY ON GOD'S MESSENGERS.

It is not unlikely that the term God's messengers may have set you thinking of the white-winged Michaels, Gabriels, and Abdiels of the Almighty. You see them go forth with lightning-like speed on their errands of mercy or judgment, and marvel at the wondrous celerity with which they perform his holy will, who "sitteth upon the throne," now occupied in the weal and woe of mortal men, and now riding on the whirlwind and directing the storm. But no! In using the term God's messengers, I have no intention to speak of angels or archangels as represented by painters or sculptors.

You are now, perhaps, supposing that I have taken for my subject those who minister in holy things,

"The messengers of grace to guilty men,"

and have, in the eye of your fancy, bishops in lawn sleeves, rectors, and curates of parish churches, or ministers of other congregations, as the case may be, discharging the all-important duties of their several positions-still you are wrong in your conception. Highly as I estimate the ministerial office, ranking his calling

above all others—who, truly moved by a heavenly influence, devotes his noblest energies to glorify the Redeemer, and to help his fellow-sinners on their way to heaven-yet have I no design, in my observations on God's messengers, to allude to those who publicly proclaim the gospel of peace.

The messengers of God are many, and they are also good and evil; for all things are his messengers that go forth and accomplish his designs. Sometimes they are mighty as embattled monarchs, and terrible as an army of banners, while at other times they are mean and low. They come not forth as conquerors, Their hands no weapon bear; No falchions glitter on the thigh,

And their brows no laurel wear.

"How

At one time, they are fearful to gaze on, for they are messengers of destruction; at another, they are lovely in our eyes, as the messengers of peace. beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things," Rom. x. 15. Now they go forth to a kingdom. "Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled," Isa. xviii. 2; and now their errand is only to one man. "I have a message from God unto thee,' Judg. iii. 20. When we regard the varied messengers of the Almighty, and the means whereby he accomplishes his designs, we see, indeed, that "his ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts."

We cannot always see the messengers of God, for the acts of the Holy One are sometimes performed by viewless agents. "Let there be light: and there was light," Gen. i. 3. Sometimes they are but imperfectly discerned. "A spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?" Job iv. 15, 17. The agents of the Most High are not the less his accredited messengers, because they are but imperfectly discerned. The more we are accustomed

to regard the affairs of the world as under heavenly control; and the more clearly we discern, in the things which affect them, the messengers of God, the more ready shall we be

To take the gold of life with life's alloy-
Patient to suffer; grateful to enjoy.
Surely, while we believe that He

who made the mammoth and the ele-
phant made also the moth and the ant
-while we acknowledge that

"The hand that rolled the stars along
Wrote all the promises,"

it ill becomes us not to discern the
messengers of the Holy One. They as-
cend and descend in their heavenly
errands: they go abroad, to and fro in
the earth; they are about our path and
our pillow; nor is there a spot unvisited
or uninfluenced by their presence. God
is everywhere; the mighty mountain and
the minute sand on the sea-shore are
equally his agents:

The passing clouds of heaven his will obey, And winds and waves-his messengers are they! Weak and diminutive as is the coral insect, as a messenger of God, it goes forth to do the bidding of its great Creator, and extended islands are formed in the sea. The warring elements, decay, and time, are messengers, also, of the Eternal, whether swiftly or slowly they execute his almighty mandates. "The monument becomes a ruin. The battle of the elements, the withering sweep of the lightning's fiery wing, with its accompanying death peal; the slow, snaillike march of unerring decay, leaving behind the traces of its progress; the yawn of the earthquake; these do their work. Upon the tangible works of man, his temples, palaces, pyramids, monuments, columns, the foot of time is placed, and will eventually crush them; stone blocks, thick-ribbed arches, roof and roof-tree, king-post, queen-post, beams, rafters, and all.”

He who rules in the armies of heaven, and among the children of men, has mighty messengers, when he chooses to despatch them on errands of destruction. Plague, pestilence, and famine, battle and murder, and sudden death. These roam abroad in the world, and waste it, for the sins of its inhabitants; yet take courage, thou lowly follower of thy Lord, for "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation," Psa. xci. 4-6, 9.

God sometimes scourges the world

| with his messengers the mildew and the caterpillar, and effectually do they execute their errand; making the garden a waste ground, and the fruitful field a scene of desolation. When Pharaoh, the hardhearted Egyptian king, and his armed host oppressed the people of God, what Did he send the lightning to smite them, were the messengers of the Holy One? the whirlwind to destroy them, or the earthquake to swallow them up? No! For he can clothe the weakest of his creatures with power sufficient to execute his commands. He had angels and archangels at his disposal. He had armies ready to obey him, for he is the Lord of hosts, and can control the wills and affections of sinful men. He could have sent the wild beasts of the earth on the mission of destruction; but instead of this, diminutive and impotent creatures, such as the frog, the locust, and the fly, became the messengers of the Almighty to plague the stubborn heart of Pharaoh. Nor was it till these had done their work, that he sent thick darkness upon the Egyptians, and slew their firstborn, forcing even Pharaoh to rise up in haste by night, and to cry unto Moses and Aaron, "Get you forth from among my people.'

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Sometimes accidents, sometimes sickness, and sometimes human laws, become the messengers of our great Creator, in removing human beings from the world. We must not, however, nay we cannot, if we duly reflect, suppose that the greatest offenders have been those who have endured the heaviest punishments. Malefactors are not of necessity the worst of their species, they are only delinquents that have happened to be discovered. There is a more fearful catalogue of crimes than that contained in the Newgate Calendar; and there have been more fearful offenders than the culprits who have perished on the scaffold and the gallows. Among those who have been honoured among men, and had marble monuments erected to their memory-among those who have lived in credit, and died in apparent peace, doubtless have been some of the blackest monsters that ever bore the image of humanity. Successful villany and practised hypocrisy may escape the quicksighted vigilance of man, but they cannot escape the lightning glance of the allseeing eye of God.

In reading the word of God we can hardly fail to be struck by the many messengers sent from the Eternal through

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out the whole of the Biblical history. will mention a few of these as they occur to my memory. The ravens were messengers to Elijah, as the bears from the wood were to those who mocked Elisha. The ram caught in the thicket was a messenger for good to Abraham and Isaac, as the blast of the ram's horns was a messenger of evil to the city of Jericho. Pleasant messengers were the cruse of oil and the barrel of meal to the widow of Zarephath. Poor Job was almost overwhelmed with messengers; for what with the Sabeans, and the fire from God, and the Chaldeans, and the great wind, and the plague of boils, and his trying wife and injudicious friends, he had quite as much as he could patiently endure. The handwriting on the palace wall was a most alarming messenger to Belshazzar; and the smooth stone of the brook from the sling of David was a very unwelcome one to the giant Goliath. Gehazi would not approve of the leprosy sent to him, but it was not, on that account, the less a messenger from God. The same remark may be made of the light from heaven that blinded Saul; and the crowing of the cock, that smote the conscious heart of repentant Peter. Those that I have enumerated should be regarded as the messengers of the Almighty, as much as the flood that drowned the world; and the Holy Scriptures of eternal truth, setting forth the way of salvation.

God has warning messengers, reminding messengers, consoling messengers, and encouraging messengers. The rainbow is his messenger of hope, and the sparkling stars are his messengers of faith, bidding us look upwards, when the world is wrapped in darkness. Many, too, are his messengers of joy. Look at spring, with its fresh buds; summer, with its beauteous flowers; and autumn, with its abundant fruits! The descending dew and the fertilizing shower are kindly messengers, and so are the refreshing breezes that, morning and evening, breathe health around the land. What think you of sunshine, and the warbling of birds, and the hum of bees, and the waving of butterflies' wings? These are messengers expressly commissioned to make the heart happy; surely, then, the heart ought to be grateful.

Remember that I am reasoning with myself, as well as with you; for it by no means follows that, because I talk about the messengers of God, I am more apt in

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discerning them than you are. man has the credit of being as quicksighted as a lynx, all the time he may be blind as a beetle.

Our hopes and fears are often heralds of mercy to us, and oh! what a messenger is the "still small voice," that aims its way to the deafest ear and the hardest heart! Not more influential than this is the pealing thunder, that seems to rend both earth and heaven. This is a messenger that is irresistible. Dominion and power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, oppose it in vain. Compared with this, the torrent of the river and the tide of the roaring ocean, are weak and uninfluential. Has this messenger been sent to you? Has it broken in upon your privacy, when the doors and windows of your chambers have been closed, and when darkness has spread over you its shadowy wings? Has it told you that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die" and warned you to "flee from the wrath to come" by washing in the "fountain open for all uncleanness?" In a word, has it told you, that without faith in Him who died on the cross, you have nothing to hope, and that with it you have nothing to fear?

You will see, by what I have said, that the pen of a ready writer might soon fill a book with a catalogue of only part of the messengers of God. Try if you cannot make out a much more lengthy list than that with which I have presented you. They say that the jackal is useful to the king of beasts, in providing him with food; for though he does not actually take the prey for the lion, he starts the game. In like manner I may be useful to you; for if I do no more, I at least start some profitable subjects for your consideration, and do my best to persuade you to pursue them.

RAMBLES IN IRELAND.
No. VI.

THE town of Galway is remarkable for the foreign appearance it wears, and the un-Irish look of many of its inhabitants, who have dark eyes and hair, and who are said to be descended from Spanish colonists. The principal street, that runs in a westerly direction from the great square, has a number of curious arched gateways of stone, some of them hav

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