With dreary interchange of palling pleasures, filled the dull round of existence :

Memory was to him as a foe, so he flew for false solace to the wine-cup,

And stunned his enemy at even; but she rent him as a giant in the morning.

turned aside to weep; I lost him a little while : I looked, and years had past; he was hoar with the winter of his age.

And what was now his hope? where was the balm for his sadness?

The memory of the past was guilt: the feeling of the present, remorse.

Then he set his affections on gold, he worshipped the shrine of Mammon,

And to lay richer gifts before his idol, he starved his own bowels;

So, the youth spent in profligacy ended in the gripings of want:

The miser grudged himself husks to take deeper vengeance of the prodigal.

And I said, this is sorrow; but pity cannot reach it. This is to be wretched indeed, to be guilty without repentance.

of 30q.

My soul was sickened within me, so I sought the dwelling place of Joy:

And I met it not in laughter; I found it not in wealth or power;

But I saw it in the pleasant home, where religion smiled upon content,

And the satisfied ambition of the heart rejoiced in the favor of its God.

Behold the happy man, his face is rayed with pleasure, His thoughts are of calm delight, and none can know his blessedness:

I have watched him from his infancy, and seen him in the grasp of death,

Yet, never have I noted on his brow the cloud of desponding sorrow.

He hath knelt beside his cradle; his mother's hymn lulled him to sleep :

In childhood he hath loved holiness, and drank from that fountain-head of peace.

Wisdom took him for her scholar, guiding his steps in purity:

He lived unpolluted by the world; and his young heart hated sin.

But he owned not the spurious religion engendered of faction and moroseness,

Neither were the sproutings of his soul seared by the brand of superstition.

His love is pure and single, sincere, and knoweth not change;

For his manhood hath been blest with the pleasant choice of his youth:

Behold his one beloved, she leaneth on his arm,

And he looketh on the years that are past, to review the dawn of her affection.

Memory is sweet unto him, as a perfect landscape to the sight;

Each object is lovely in itself, but the whole is the har mony of nature.

Behold his little ones around him, they bask in the warmth of his smile;

And infant innocence and joy lighten their happy faces;

He is holy, and they honor him: he is loving, and they love him:

He is consistent, and they esteem him; he is firm, and they fear him.

His friends are the excellent among men ; and the bands of their friendship are strong;

His house is the palace of peace: for the Prince of Peace is there.

As the wearied man to his couch, as the thoughtful man to his musings,

Even so, from the bustle of life, he goeth to his wellordered home.

And though he often sin, he returneth with weeping eyes:

For he feeleth the mercies of forgiveness, and gloweth with warmer gratitude.

Thus did he walk in happiness, and sorrow was a stranger to his soul;

The light of affection sunned his heart, the tear of the grateful bedewed his feet,

He put his hand with constancy to good, and angels knew him as a brother,

And the busy satellites of evil trembled as at God's ally: He used his wealth as a wise steward, making him friends for futurity:

He bent his learning to religion, and religion was with him at the last :

For I saw him after many days, when the time of his release was come,

And I longed for a congregated world, to behold that dying saint.

As the aloe is green and well-liking, till the last best summer of his age,

And then hangeth out its golden bells, to mingle glory with corruption;

As a meteor travelleth in splendor, but bursteth in dazzling light;

Such was the end of the righteous: his death was the sun at his setting.

Look on this picture of joy, and remember that portrait of sorrow:

Behold the beauty of holiness, behold the deformity of sin!

How long, ye sons of men, will ye scorn the words of wisdom?

How long will ye hunt for happiness in the caverns that breed despair?

Will ye comfort yourselves in misery, by denying the existence of delight,

And from experience in woe, will ye reason that none are happy?

Joy is not in your path, for it loveth not that bleak broad road,

But its flowers are hung upon the hedges that line a narrower way;

And there the faint travellers of earth may wander and gather for themselves,

To sooth their wounded hearts with balm from the amaranths of heaven.

Proverbial Philosophy.

SECOND SERIES.

Jutroductory.

Come again, and greet me as a friend, fellow pilgrims upon life's highway,

Leave awhile the hot and dusty road, to loiter in the greenwood of Reflection.

Come, unto my cool dim grotto, that is watered by the rivulet of truth,

And over whose time-stained rock climb the fairy flowers of content;

Here, upon this mossy bank of leasure fling thy load of

cares,

Taste my simple store, and rest one soothing hour.

Behold, I would count thee for a brother, and commune with thy charitable soul;

Though wrapt within the mantle of a prophet, I stand mine own weak scholar.

Heed no disciple for a teacher, if knowledge be not found upon his tongue;