my own account! Laws me! I don't value it at all; many's the night I've lain in the woods, with no cover but the blessed heavens." The shadows of evening gathered slowly round them; and the trees of the forest began to assume in the twilight those fearful and unearthly forms which excite startling fancies even in the stout-hearted. Agnes thought of the helplessness and ignorance, of the timidity and cowardice of children, and the situation of her desolate little one came over her, clad in ten-fold horrors. In the anguish of her soul she supplicated. "Oh God! thou hearer of prayer-thou Father of the fatherless! in mercy lead a mother to her child! For his sake who while on earth never turned a beggar from his feet, oh, listen, listen to my cry!" “Hark! do you not hear something?" she said, quickly, turning to her companion.They stood still. "There it is again!—on, hearken!"-Every faculty was now strained to its utmost point to ascertain the nature of the sound. "It is!-it is!-Oh God! thou hast heard my prayer! it is his angel voice!-Be still, my heart!-oh, which way does it come? my heart beats so violently I cannot listen!" "Quiet yourself, lady!" said the man, who now distinctly heard the soft, sweet accents of a child. 66 Oh, look! look!" said Agnes, whose eyes seemed as if they would penetrate the thickening darkness of the forest in their intensity. "There he is! kneeling on that rock; that hard, bare rock. My child! my precious boy! Oh God, I thank thee!"- -She sunk upon her knees but a few paces from her prostrate child. The little William was soon locked fast in the arms of his doting and now happy mother; and was relating to her the simple story of his wanderings; his alarm; his trust in God; his ascent upon the rock, to see if he could discover any signs of habitation; his consequent disappointment; and the feelings with which he was submitting to his lot;— while his sympatising protector shed tears of pleasure and admiration. The happy party were soon seated, but they were not long obliged to wait. The beacon which had been kindled streamed upward to the heavens; and showed them, to their astonishment, that they were not far from their own dwellings. The light of a brilliant moon shone upon their footsteps; and Agnes and the kind-hearted associate of her search, returned, laden with the treasure they had so effectually sought; they returned, to awaken happiness in the hearts which they had left sorrowing, and to render devout thanksgivings to the widow's God and orphan's Father. Written for the Ladies' Garland. How beautiful are nature's works! What harmony prevails throughout Successive night and day. Earth blossoms, buds, and yields her fruit, What thanks to God for such a world There is a beauty in the tint, When warbling melodies sound soft There's beauty in the moonbeam's play, Of night, adorned with countless stars, The storm, the wind, and wave, are all The cataract or ripling brook, There's beauty at the festive board, Where foolish fashion wears the crown, Around the quiet hearth of home, But more than all, most beautiful, I saw the solemn attitude, And heard the tender voice-" My God This, this is beauty, I exclaimed, Written for the Ladies' Garland. TO A ZERO. YOUNG LADY, WHO WOULD NOT BE FLATTERED. When youth and beauty are combined It is called, "the glory of Lebanon," Isa. 40: 13. On that mountain it must in former times have flourished in great abundance. The mountainous range of Lebanon was celebrated for the extent of its forests, and particularly for the size and excellency of its cedars, of which our engraving represents the The ancient cedars-those which superstiprincipal clusters. The ascent from the vil- tion has consecrated as holy, and which are lage of Eden, or Aden, near Tripoli, to the the chief objects of the traveller's curiosityspot where the cedars grow, is inconsiderable. have been gradually diminishing in number for This distance is computed by Captains Irby the last three centuries. So that, as Isaiah and Mangles to be about five miles, allowing says, "a child may number them:" Isa. x. for the windings of the road, which is very 19. In 1550, Belloni found them to be twenrugged, and passes over hill and dale. These ty-eight in number; Rauwolf, in 1575, counted far-tamed trees are situated on a small emi- twenty-four; Dandini, in 1600, and Thevenot, nence in a valley at the foot of the highest part about fifty years after, enumerated twentyof the mountain. By the natives they are call- three; which Maundrell, in 1697, states ed Arsilebân. There are, in fact, two genera- were reduced to sixteen. Dr. Pococke, in tions of trees: the oldest are large and massy, 1738, found fifteen standing, and one which four, five, or even seven trunks springing had been recently blown down. Burckhardt, from one base; they rear their heads to an in 1810, counted eleven or twelve; twenty-" enormous height, varying from seventy to five other were very large ones, above fifty eighty feet, spreading their branches afar; of middling size, and more than three hunand they are not found in any other part of dred smaller and young ones. Lastly, in Lebanon, though young trees are occasionally 1818, Dr. Richardson found that the old cemet with. The wood is very valuable; is of dars, "the glory of Lebanon," were no more a reddish color, of an aromatic smell, and re- than seven in number. In the course of anputed incorruptible. This is owing to its other century, it is probable that not a vestige bitter taste, which the worms cannot endure, of them will remain, and the predictions of and to its resin, which preserves it from the the prophets will then be most literally fulinjuries of the weather. The ark of the cove-filled :- ." Lebanon is ashamed and hewn nant, and inuch of the temple of Solomon, and down. The high ones of stature shall be that of Diana at Ephesus, were built of cedar. hewn down: Lebanon shall fall mightily." The tree is much celebrated in Scripture. (Isa. xxxiii. 9.; x. 33, 34.) "Upon the moun tains and in all the vallies his branches are first and second temple at Jerusalem, as well fallen; to the end that none of all the trees as of the palace of Solomon; and in the last by the water exalt themselves for their mentioned edifice, so much cedar-wood apheight, neither shoot up their top among the pears to have been used, that it was called thick boughs." (Ezek. xxxi. 12. 14.) "Open" the house of the forest of Lebanon." (1 thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may Kings vii. 2; x. 19.) The Tyrians used it in destroy thy cedars. The cedar is fallen; the ship-building, (Ezek. xxvii. 5, 6.) forest of the vintage is come down." (Zech. xi. 1, 2.) The trunks of the old trees are covered with the names of travellers, and other persons who have visited them, some of which go as far back as 1640. These trunks are described by Burckhardt as seeming to be quite dead; their wood is of a grey tint. Maundrell, in 1697, measured one, which he found to be twelve yards and six inches in girth, and thirty-seven yards in the spread of its bows at above five or six yards from the ground it was divided into five limbs, each of which was equal to a great tree. Forty-one years afterwards, (viz. in 1738,) Dr. Pococke measured one which had the roundest body, though not the largest, and found it twentyfour feet in circumference; another, with a sort of triple body and of a triangular figure, measured twelve feet on each side. In 1818, Dr. Richardson measured one, which he afterwards discovered was not the largest in the clump, and found it to be thirty-two feet in circumference. Finally, in 1824, Mr. Madox rested under the branches of a cedar, which measured twenty-seven feet in circumference, a little way from the ground: after which he measured the largest of the trees now standing, which he found to be thirty-nine or forty feet in circumference: it has three very large stems, and seven large branches, with various smaller ones. Gabriel Sionita, a very learned Syrian Maronite, who assisted in editing the Paris Polyglot, a man worthy of all credit, thus describes the cedars of Mount Lebanon, which he had examined on the spot: "The cedar grows on the most elevated part of the mountain, is taller than the pine, and so thick, that five men together could scarcely encompass one. It shoots out its branches at ten or twelve feet from the ground: they are large and distant from each other, and are perpetually green. The wood is of a brown color, very solid and incorruptible, if preserved from wet. The tree bears a small cone like that of the pine."- Watson. The cedars of Lebanon are frequently mentioned in the sacred writings. Besides their uncommon size and beauty of shape and foliage, (which must be borne in mind in order to enter fully into the meaning of the sacred writers,) they send forth a fragrant odour, which seems to be intended by the smell of Lebanon." (Hos. xiv. 6; Sol. Song, iv. 11.) Its timber was used in the erection of the No. 2.-VOL. 6. 66 || See you that lovely beauteous maid, And reason sits no longer there. And of its brightest glory spoiled. Or, as some bark on towering wave, By storms and winds and tempests tossed; In some dark, lone, sequestered spot; Whose restless billows lash the shore; And ocean's waves eternal roar. For music has no power to cheer. And babblings of the distant rill, Whose mind in awful ruin lies, sun, nor moon, nor star serene, Now gleam upon her mental night; No light of reason there is seen To shed its radiance on her sight. Poor hapless maid! had I the power, I'd place thy mind upon its throne; Dispel thy gloom, bring back the hour When reason's lamp with splendor shone. Sag Harbour, L. I., May, 1842. Have woven their branches a roof for my head: The early sweet notes of the loved nightingale How sweet were the zephyrs perfumed by the pine, And leave for a region that's distant and new: His love and his power he will daily impart And high in the mansions of glory and joy, |