Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man,
Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;
And as his stiff, unwieldy bulk he rolls,

His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray.
4. But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
On other days, the man of toil is doomed
To eat his joyless bread lonely,-the ground
Both seat and board, screened from the winter's cold
And summer's heat by neighboring hedge or tree;
But on this day, embosomed in his home,

He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves, he shares the heart-felt joy
Of giving thanks to God,-not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace', but reverently,

With covered face, and upward, earnèst eye.
5. Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day:
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air, pure from the city's smoke;
While, wandering slowly up the river's side,
He meditates on Him, whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around its roots; and while he thus surveys,
With elevated joy, each rural charm,

He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope,-
That heaven may be one Sabbath without end.
6. But now his steps a welcome sound recalls:
Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile,
Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe :

Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground;
The aged man, the bowed down, the blind

Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes
With pain, and eyes the new-made grave, well-pleased;
These, mingled with the young, the gay, approach
The house of God-these, spite of all their ills,
A glow of glădnèss feel: with silent praise
They enter in; a placid stillness reigns,

Until the man of God, worthy the name,
Opens the book, and reverentially

The stated portion reads. A pause ensues.

7. The organ breathes its distant thunder notes,
Then swells into a diapason' full:

The people rising sing, "with harp, with harp,
And voice of psalms;" harmoniously attuned,
The various voices blend; the long-drawn aisles,
At every close, the lingering strain prolong.
And now the tubes a softened stop controls:
In softer harmony the people join,
While liquid whispers from yon orphan band
Recall the soul from adoration's trance,
And fill the eye with pity's gentle tears.
8. Again the organ-peal, loud, rolling, meets
The halleluiahs' of the choir. Sublime
A thousand notes symphoniously ascend,
As if the whole were one, suspended high
In air, soaring heavenward: afar they float,
Wafting glad tidings to the sick man's couch:
Raised on his arm, he lists the cadence close,
Yet thinks he hears it still his heart is cheered;
He smiles on death; but ah! a wish will rise-
"Would I were now beneath that echoing roof!
No lukewarm accents from my lips should flow;
My heart would sing; and many a sabbath-day
My steps should thither turn; or, wandering far
In solitary paths, where wild flowers blow,
There would I bless His name who led me forth
From death's dark vale, to walk amid those sweets-
Who gives the bloom of health once more to glow
Upon this cheek, and lights this languid eye."

JAMES GRAHAME.

REV JAMES GRAHAME was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1765. He studied law and practiced at the Scottish bar several years, but afterward took orders in the Church of England, and was successively curate of Shipton, in Gloucestershire, and of Sedgefield, in the county of Durham. Ill health compelled him to

'Diapason, (dl'a påʼzon), in music, an octave apart; harmony. the octave or interval which includes all the tones; concord, as of notes

"Halleluiah, (hål`le lu' yå), praise ye Jehovah; give praises to God.

abandon his curacy when his virtues and talents had attracted notice and rendered him a popular and useful preacher; and on revisiting Scotland, he died September 14th, 1811. His works consist of "Mary, Queen of Scotland," a dramatic poem, published in 1801; "The Sabbath," from which the above selection is taken; "Sabbath Walks," ," "Biblical Pictures," "The Birds of Scotland,” and "British Georgics," all in blank verse. "The Sabbath" is the best of his productions. The poet was modest and devout, though sometimes gloomy in his seriousness. His prevailing tone, however, is that of implicit trust in the goodness of God, and enjoyment in his creation.

W

II..

9. MATERNAL AFFECTION.

OMAN'S' charms are certainly many and powerful. The expanding rose just bursting into beauty has an irresistible bewitchingness; the blooming bride led triumphantly to the hy'mene'al altar awakens admiration and interèst, and the blush of her cheek fills with delight; but the charm of maternity is more sublime than all these.

2. Heaven has imprinted in the mother's face something beyond this world, something which claims kindred with the skies, -the angelic smile, the tender look, the waking, watchful eye, which keeps its fond vigil over her slumbering babe.

3. These are objects which neither the pencil nor the chisel can touch, which poëtry fails to exalt, which the most eloquent tongue in vain would eulogize, and on which all description becomes ineffective. In the heart of man lies this lovely picture ; it lives in his sympathies; it reigns in his affections; his eye looks round in vain for such another object on earth.

2

4. Maternity, ecstatic sound! so twined round our hearts, that they must cease to throb ere we forget it! 'tis our first love; 'tis part of our religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost worship it in old age.

5. He who can enter an apartment, and behold the tender babe feeding on its mother's beauty-nourished by the tide of life which flows through her generous veins, without a panting bosom and a grateful eye, is no man, but a monster. He who can approach the cradle of sleeping innocence without thinking that "of such is the kingdom of heaven!" or see the fond parent side one's self; delightful beyond

1 Woman, (wům′an).

"Ec stǎt' ic, rendering one be

measure.

hang over its beauties, and half retain her breath lest she should break its slumbers, without a veneration beyond all common feeling, is to be avoided in ěvèry intercourse of life, and is fit only for the shadow of darkness and the solitude of the desert.

III.

10. THE GOOD WIFE.

HE heart of a man, with whom affection is not a name, and

a home, as toward the goal of his earthly joy and hope. And as you fasten there your thought, an indulgent, yet dreamy fancy paints the loved image that is to adorn it, and to make it sacred.

2. She is there to bid you-God speed! and an ădieū, that hangs like music on your ear, as you go out to the every-day labor of life. At evening, she is there to greet you, as you come back wearied with a day's toil; and her look so full of gladness, cheats you of your fatigue; and she steals her arm around you,

with a soul of welcome, that beams like sunshine on her brow and that fills your eye with tears of a twin gratitude-to her, and Heaven.

3. She is not unmindful of those old-fashioned virtues of cleanliness and of order, which give an air of quiet, and which secure content. Your wants are all anticipated; the fire is burning brightly; the clean hearth flashes under the joyous blaze; the old elbow-chair is in its place. Your very unworthiness of all this haunts you like an accusing spirit, and yet penetrates your heart with a new devotion toward the loved one who is thus watchful of your comfort.

4. She is gentle ;-keeping your love, as she has won it, by a thousand namelèss and modèst virtues, which radiäte from her whole life and action. She steals upon your affections like a summer wind breathing softly over sleeping valleys. She gains a mastery over your sterner nature, by věry contrast; and wins you unwittingly to her lightest wish. And yet her wishes are guided by that delicate tact, which avoids conflict with your manly pride; she subdues, by seeming to yield. By a single soft word of appeal, she robs your vexation of its anger; and with a slight touch of that fair hand, and one pleading look of that earnest eye, she disarms your sternest pride.

5. She is kind;-shedding her kindness, as Heaven sheds dew. Who indeed could doubt it?-least of all, you who are living on her kindness, day by day, as flowers live on light? There is none of that officious parade, which blunts the point of benevolence; but it tempers every action with a blessing.

6. If trouble has come upon you, she knows that her voice, beguiling you into cheerfulnèss, will lay your fears; and as she draws her chair beside you, she knows that the tender and confiding way with which she takes your hand and looks up into your earnest face, will drive away from your annoyance all its weight. As she lingers, leading off your thought with pleasant words, she knows well that she is redeeming you from care, and soothing you to that sweet calm, which such home and such wife can ǎlōne bestōw.

7. And in sickness,-sickness that you almost covet for the sympathy it brings, that hand of hers resting on your fevered forehead, or those fingers playing with the scattered locks, are more full of kindness than the loudest vaunt of friends; and when your failing strength will permit no more, you grasp that cherished hand, with a fullness of joy, of thankfulness, and of love, which your tears only can tell.

8. She is good;-her hopes live where the angels live. Her kindness and gentleness are sweetly tempered with that meekness and forbearance which are born of Faith. Trust comes into her heart as rivers come to the sea. And in the dark hours of doubt and foreboding, you rest fondly upon her buoyant faith, as the treasure of your common life; and in your holier musings, you look to that frail hand, and that gentle spirit, to lead you away from the vanities of worldly ambition, to the fullness of that joy which the good inherit.

D. G. MITCHELL.

DONALD G. MITCHELL was born in Norwich, Connecticut, April, 1822. His father was the pastor of the Congregational church of that place, and his grandfather a member of the first Congress at Philadelphia, and for many years Chief-justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut. Mr. Mitchell graduated in due course, at Yale, in 1841. His health being feeble, he passed the three following years in the country, where he became much interested in agriculture, and wrote a number of letters to the "Cultivator," at Albany. He gained a silver cup from the New York Agricultural Society, as a prize for a plan of farm buildings. He next crossed the ocean, and after remaining about two years in Europe, returned home, and soon after published "Fresh Gleanings." In 1850, after his return from a second visit to Europe, he published "The Battle Summer," containing personal observations in Paris during the year 1848. He has since published the "Reveries of a Bachelor," "Dream Life," "Fudge Doings,"