POETRY.

WHAT IS TIME?

BY JOSHUA MARSDEN.

I ASKED an aged man, with hoary hairs,
Wrinkled, and curved, with worldly cares;
"Time is the warp of life," he said; "oh tell
The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well!"
I asked the ancient, venerable dead,
Sages who wrote, and warriors who bled;
From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed,
"Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode!"
I asked a dying sinner, ere the tide

Of life had left his veins; "Time!" he replied;
"I've lost it! ah, the treasure!"-and he died.
I asked the golden sun and silver spheres,
Those bright chronometers of days and years;
They answered, "Time is but a meteor glare,"
And bade me for eternity prepare.

I asked the Seasons, in their annual round,
Which beautify or desolate the ground;
And they replied, (no oracle more wise,)

""Tis Folly's blank, and Wisdom's highest prize!"
I asked a spirit lost,-but oh, the shriek
That pierced my soul! I shudder while I speak!
It cried, "A particle! a speck! a mite
Of endless years, duration infinite!"
Of things inanimate, my dial I
Consulted, and it made me this reply,-
"Time is the season fair of living well,
The path of glory, or the path of hell."
I asked my Bible, and methinks it said,
"Time is the present hour, the past is fled;
Live! live to-day! to-morrow never yet
On any human being rose or set."

I asked old Father Time himself at last;
But in a moment he flew swiftly past:-
His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind
His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind.
I asked the mighty angel who shall stand
One foot on sea, and one on solid land;
"Mortal," he cried, "the mystery now is o'er;
Time was, Time is, but Time shall be no more!"

VARIETIES.

SLEEP.-Cabanis, in his curious investigations on the mind, has endeavoured to fix the order in which the different parts of our organization go to sleep. First the legs and arms, then the muscles that support the head and back: the first sense that slumbers, according to his notions, is that of sight; then follow in regular succession the senses of taste, smell, hearing, and feeling. The viscera fall asleep one after the other, but with different degrees of soundness. If this doctrine be correct, we may easily conceive the wild and strange inconsistencies of our dreams, during which the waking and the sleeping organs are acting and reacting upon each other.-Dr. Millingen's Curiosities of Medical Experience.

ABUSE OF SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS.-Among the causes of consumption, a free indulgence in ardent spirits holds an important place. While this pernicious habit is one of the most powerful means of debasing the morals of the people and extinguishing the best feelings of human nature, it is no less effective in destroying the physical constitution. There is good reason to believe that the abuse of spirituous liquors among the lower classes in this country is productive of consumptive and other tuberculous diseases to an extent far beyond what is usually imagined. The blanched cadaverous aspect of the spirit-drinker bespeaks the condition of his internal organs. The tale of his moral and physical degrada tion is indelibly written on his countenance. The evil unfortunately does not rest with him: by destroying his own health, he entails on his unhappy offspring the disposition to tuberculous disease.-Sir James Clark on Consumption.

SPANISH SLAVERY.-In a letter which I received from Captain Wauchope, of date 13th August, 1838, he says, that on the 18th September, 1836, the Thalia captured the Portuguese brig Felix, with five hundred and ninety slaves on board. "After capture," he says, "I went on board, and such a scene of horror it is not easy to describe; the long-boat on the booms, and the deck aft, were crowded with little children, sickly, poor, little unhappy things, some of them rather pretty, and some much marked and tattooed-much pains must have been taken by their miserable parents to ornament and beautify them. The women lay between decks aft, much crowded, and perfectly naked: they were not barred down, the hatchway, a small one, being off; but the place for the men was too horrible; the wretches chained two and two, gasping and striving to get at the bars of the hatchway, and such a steam and stench as to make it intolerable even to look down. It requires much caution at first, in allowing them to go on deck, as it is a common practice for them to jump overboard to get quit of their misery. The slave-deck was not more than three feet six in height, and the human beings stowed, or rather crushed as close as possible; many appeared very sickly. There was no way of getting into the slave-room but by the hatchway. I was told, when they were all on deck to be counted, that it was impossible for any of our people to go into the slave-room for a single minute, so intolerable was the stench. The colour of these poor creatures was of a dark squalid yellow, so different from the fine glossy black of our liberated Africans and Kroomen. I was shown a man much bit and bruised; it was done in a struggle at the gratings of their hatchways for a mouthful of fresh air." -Buxton on the Slave Trade.

THE HOLY LAND.-No carriages of any description or horses being in this country, we travelled on mules, which were of so much service here in the early ages (2 Sam. xiii. 29; 1 Kings i. 33; Judges x. 4; 2 Sam. xvi. 2); they had no saddles or stirrups, but cloths, or the Arab jackets thrown on their backs (Ex. xxii. 27; Matt. xxi. 7). We had in large sacks our bedclothes, provisions (Joshua ix. 11), culinary articles, with water in vessels like bladders, which have the property of distending, and resembling a bottle (Gen. xxi. 14; Judges iv. 19); these are made of skin, chiefly of a red colour (Ex. xxv. 5; Joshua ix. 4), but often black with smoke from being hung up in houses (Ps. cxix. 83); and the children of Israel used them in their journey through the wilderness (Lev. xi. 32); when rent they are patched and sewed up (Joshua ix. 4, 5): indeed, of such materials we find the raiment of our first parents was formed (Gen. iii. 21); and those saints who wandered about were clothed in like manner

(Heb. xi. 37). On many occasions these vessels burst, when wine poured into them is in a state of fermentation, confirm ing the truth of Scripture-Travels of Rae Wilson, Esq.

INFLUENCE OF MENTAL EMOTION ON HEALTH.-It is

well known that the depressing emotions of fear, despair, &c. produce a liability to disease in circumstances otherwise harmless. For example, persons who entertain great apprehension of the cholera are very likely to be seized by it; and it is the same with other diseases. Sir George Balingall, in his valuable work on Military Surgery, states about five per cent as the usual portion of sick in garrison healthily and favourably situated; while during a campaign it is ten per cent. But such are the beneficial effects of success and cheerfulness, that in the French army, after the battle of Austerlitz, there were only 100 invalids in a division of 8000, or only one in 80.

Curtis on Health.

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ILLUSTRATIONS OF HUMANITY.

No. XLI.-FAMILY DEVOTION.

THE infidel is an enemy of society and of his species individually. Apart from the truth or falsehood of Christianity, it is admitted by its greatest foes to be not only conducive in the highest degree to the best interests of society, but to individual happiness. Bolingbroke, Hume, and every other deist or atheist of note, have volunteered their testimony to the beneficial influences, even in this life, of the religion of Jesus. Taking the unbeliever, therefore, on his own showing availing ourselves of his ample and candid admissions, that Christianity is most intimately interwoven with the well-being of society, and the happiness of individuals,—does he not, we may be permitted to ask, prove himself the enemy of both, when he embarks in the unholy enterprise of doing all he can to destroy the belief of his fellow-men, in the Divine origin of the Christian system? Genuine benevolence would dictate a directly opposite course. Even did the religion of Jesus only possess the negative merit of being harmless to society, and not detrimental to the individual himself, the infidel would be able to offer no justification of his conduct in seeking to unhinge the Christian's faith. He would subject himself to the imputation of gratuitously disturbing the mental peace of those who had been led to repose their faith in the authenticity of the Scriptures, and to regard those Scriptures as containing a special revelation of the mind and will of Heaven. How then shall we sufficiently denounce the wretched taste, and the unredeemed heartlessness of the man, who comes deliberately forward to attempt to rob the Christian of that faith in the divinity of the Christian religion, which sheds abroad in his own bosom an ineffable bliss, amid all the disquieting and distressing circumstances of life, and which contributes in so material a measure to the happiness of society at large.

If there could be a doubt or a diversity of opinion, as to whether or not the piety of the New Testament is conducive to human happiness, the point could be instantly and conclusively set at rest by an appeal to facts. All that would be needed in the supposed case, would simply be to ask the man who had been converted to Christianity in advanced life, whether he felt most happy before or after his conversion. There is not a converted man in Christendom, that would not answer emphatically and without a moment's hesitation, After my conversion."

Or if it were possible that the force of prejudice and of hostility to the religion of Jesus, could gain so firm a hold on the depraved mind of man, as to create a suspicion in any breast against the honesty of the testimony given by proselytes to Christianity, to its beneficial effects on him who has submitted to its authority and felt its power,-we would refer them to the deliberate averments on the point made on a dying bed, by those who had once been under the influence of Chris

compara

tian principle, but had abandoned themselves to the ways of the world. Every such person who has, in his dying moments, left any record as to the tive happiness of a religious and irreligious life, has spoken in the most impressive and unequivocal manner of which language is susceptible, in favour of the former. And surely no one will pretend to question the truth of testimony given under circumstances of such awful solemnity, as those which surround the expiring moments of a fellow-creature.

Wisdom's ways are, indeed, ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Gospel piety is, indeed, profitable unto all things; not merely to those things which immediately relate to the world to come, but to those also which relate to that which now is. We have often thought, that could the men of the world be made sensible of the temporal advantages of evangelical religion, they would live a pious life—if the supposition did not involve a necessary impossibility— from considerations of a cold calculating policy.

But perhaps of all the periods of pure, we had almost said perfect bliss, which the religious man is privileged to enjoy on this side of the immortality which awaits him, there is none, with the single exception of that in which, when in his own closet, he shuts out the world and is alone with the Being whom he worships,— which can be compared with the period in which, in his capacity of the head of a family, he assembles around him all those over whom he possesses control, and conducts their collective devotions. Independently of its religious interest, there is something singularly impressive and poetical in the scene of a venerable man summoning to his presence his family and domestics, and after solemnly reading a portion of the Divine word, all simultaneously falling down on their knees, and in that attitude of becoming humility and reverence, offering up their united devotions to Him in whom they not only live, and move, and have their being, but who has given utterance to the intensity of his affection for them, by the mission of his own Son into the world-to obey, and suffer, and die on their account.

Perhaps there is not in the wide range of either poetry or prose, a more truthful or graphic picture of a pious man conducting the devotions of his family, than is given in Burns's "Cottar's Saturday Night." Alas, that a man who could so write, but above all, so feel as he who penned the following lines, should have lived-we pronounce no opinion as to the state in which he died a stranger to the power of Divine grace!

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lagart haffets wearing thin and bare;

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care,
And 'Let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise,

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;

Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name,
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays :

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they wi' our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head;
How his first followers and servants sped,
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land;
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by
Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down to heaven's eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays;
'Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,'

That thus they all shall meet in future days;
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,

Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society yet still more dear,

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compared with this, how poor religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The
pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul,
And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.

Such scenes as are here so beautifully and touchingly portrayed, are quite common in the land of Burns. In many districts, indeed, there is hardly a cottage to be found, in which the voice of family praise and prayer does not, morning and evening, ascend to the Most High. To Scotland's religion, more than to any thing else, is to be ascribed her happiness, her glory, and her greatness.

We feel it due to Messrs. Mason and Strong, two young and talented engravers, just commencing business, to say that they have executed the pictorial illustration of our article in a style of excellence worthy of the subject.

EMILY GRANTON.

A TALE, BY ALEXANDER ANDREWS.

Ir was a cold, bleak, November night, towards the close of the last century, and the family of the Grantons had congregated round the hearth, on which a few logs of wood were emitting a comfortable warmth, and illumining

the humble cabin of the fishermen, when the door was opened, and a tall young man, in the dress peculiar to the inhabitants of the north-eastern coast of England, entered the apartment.

"Well, Robert," inquired the elder Granton, "is there anything stirring on the beach ?"

"Nothing more than usual, father," replied the youth, "but I thought I could see something like a sail, far out in the bay. I may have been mistaken, for I should think no man would be so fool-hardy as to attempt a landing here, on such a night as this."

"Just reach me down my glass, boy," said the father, " and I will soon tell you what it is. If it be a ship, we may, perhaps, be able to warn her off in time."

The telescope was handed to him; and after putting on his pea-jacket, he left the cottage. With the aid of his glass, he could plainly discern a small vessel at some distance in the bay, apparently bearing full down upon the rocks, against which the waves were dashing with the deafening roar of a cataract.

"If she keeps that course a few minutes longer, she will be on the rocks!" exclaimed the fisherman anxiously. "Ah, there she goes," he continued with a smile of satisfaction," she's tacking; the captain knows the coast, and if I mistake not, he will bring to, a few miles out. Again I'm right; but, they surely will not be so mad as to trust their boat on such a sea as this! Yes, they are lowering it, as sure as my name's Granton.-Why, what's this?" he exclaimed, as a light figure glided towards him. "It's only me, father," replied his daughter.

You, Emily! and on such a night as this too! Go back, child, go back; for the beach is not the place for such as you at this time of the year."

"But, father," replied the girl, "can I be of no service to those poor fellows, if they should be cast ashore ?"

"They are safe, Emily; at least, if they do not "risk their lives in yonder little cockle-shell of a boat, which they have just lowered."

"Father," exclaimed Emily, laying her hand impressively on his shoulder," Father, is the vessel large or small?” "She is small,-a coaster I should say, Emily, but why do you want to know ?"

Because, father," she replied, in a voice lowered to a whisper, "it surely cannot be George's vessel."

"No, Emily, George is a better seaman than to expect a boat like that to live in such a sea."

"But," urged Emily, "there is no knowing what he would risk to~~," and her voice faltered.

ing what he would risk to have a look at you. There, "True," replied her father, smiling, "there is no knowthey have shoved off, and are now making way fast towards the beach."

Not another word was passed between the father and daughter as the daring adventurers pulled lustily towards the shore. Emily anxiously watched the little skiff as it abyss, and then rising upon the crest of a wave, merely to was pitched about; now concealed from her in a deep be dashed down again with increased fury.

"He will get a wet skin for his rashness, if it be he,” exclaimed the fisherman, who was the first to break silence, "but sailors are not apt to care for such trifles as that, so as they gain their end."

As he spoke, a large Newfoundland dog, which had swam to shore unobserved, sprang upon the beach and bounded towards Emily.

"Father," cried the girl, "it must be he,-this dog is poor old Hector. Oh, George! George!" and she burst into tears.

"What's the use of crying, silly child ?" said her father, kindly, "they may land safely yet."

"Yes, father," replied Emily, "they may land safely, but see what chances are against them!"

She was patting the head of the dog, in order to conceal her anguish from her father, when her hand fell upon a piece of paper suspended from the animal's neck. It was saturated with salt water, and the letters were illegible, but the quick eye of the girl recognised, in the almost obliterated characters before her, the handwriting of her lover. She tore it from the neck of the dog, and, placing it in her bosom, once more fixed her stedfast gaze on the little boat, which was now labouring heavily on its course. "How much longer, father," she asked after a long pause, "how much longer do you think they will be before they reach us ?"

"That depends, Emily," replied her parent, "on the will of God, and their own exertions; but if they land at all, they ought to be here in less than ten minutes."

The wind blew in fitful gusts, the moon became obscured by small white clouds, and the general appearance of the firmament indicated a squally night. The boatmen struggled hard against the sea, and contrived, by almost supernatural exertions, to keep their skiff upon her course. Ten minutes of intense anxiety to Emily and her father, had flown by, and yet the boat was beating about at least five hundred yards from shore. The strength of the men was now evidently giving way, and notwithstanding the loud cries of their captain to "pull for their lives," they relaxed their exertions, and allowed the boat to drift. "They are lost! they are lost!" screamed Emily, rushing to her father's side, "O Heaven, save them! spare their lives!"

Her parent shook his head mournfully, and was closing his telescope in despair, when a loud and hearty cheer arose from the beach, and on looking once more in the direction of the bay, he perceived that a large boat had been launched by a party of fishermen, and was being rowed vigorously to the assistance of the skiff.

"God be praised!" cried Emily, fervently, as her father pointed it out to her, "they are then safe!"

The men in the skiff finding relief so near at hand, had again taken to their oars, and were rapidly nearing the beach, when a heavy sea struck the boat athwart her bows, and before she could recover from its effects, it was succeeded by another wave, and she was capsized.

Emily screamed frantically, and then fell to the ground

insensible.

The fishermen strained every nerve to bring their boat up to the assistance of the drowning mariners, but succeeded only in picking up one, alive; two others were taken up, merely to be conveyed on shore and buried.

After the lapse of some minutes, Emily was restored to sensibility, and her first inquiries were for her lover. Before her father could reply, the faithful Hector swam once more ashore, bearing the inanimate corpse of his master. She spoke not as the poor animal laid it at her feet, and looking in her face, whined piteously:-not a groan escaped her, not a tear fell from her eyes, but, from that moment, Emily Granton was deprived of the light of reason, and lived and died a maniac!

THE VERBETERING HUISEN;

OR HOUSES OF DOMESTIC REFORMATION IN HOLLAND.

THERE are in most of the large cities of Holland one or more institutions thus called, the object of which is to confine and restrain any person, male or female, whose conduct is marked by ruinous extravagance; and many a family has been preserved from a total ruin by their salutary operation. They are placed under, the immediate |

superintendence of the magistracy, and such obstacles are opposed to their abuse, that it is not possible to place an individual in one of these houses without showing ample cause for the coercion.

Mynheer van der, who lived in 1796, lived in high style on the river Grat in Amsterdam, had a very modest wife, who dressed most extravagantly, played high, gave expensive routs, and showed every disposition to help off with money quite as fast as her husband ever gained it. She was young and handsome, vain and giddy; and completely the slave of fashion. Her husband had not the politeness to allow himself to be ruined by her unfeeling folly and dissipation; he complained of her conduct to her parents and nearest relations, whose advice was of no more avail than his own. Next, he had recourse to a respectable minister of the Lutheran church, who might as well have preached to the dead. It was in vain to deny her money, for no tradesman would refuse to credit the elegant-the fascinating wife of the rich Van der —. Involved as the young lady was in the vortex of fashionable dissipation, she had not yet ruined either her health or her reputation; and her husband, by the advice of a friend, determined to send her for six months to a Verbetering Huis. With the utmost secrecy he laid before the municipal authorities the most complete proof of her wasteful extravagance and incorrigible levity; added to which she had latterly attached herself to gaming with French officers of rank, who lay under an imputation of being remarkably expert in levying contributions. She was already in debt upwards of thirty thousand florins to tradesmen, although her husband allowed her to take from his cashier a stipulated sum every month, which was more than competent to meet the current expenses of his household; while, to meet a loss which occurred at play, her finest jewels were deposited in the hands of a benevolent money lender, who accommodated the necessitous, upon unexceptionable security being previously left in his custody.

Her husband was full twenty years older than his volatile wife, of whom he was rationally fond, and at whose reformation he aimed before she was carried too far away by the stream of fashionable dissipation. Against his will she had agreed to make one of a party of ladies, who were invited to a grand ball and supper at the house of a woman of rank and faded character. Her husband, at breakfast, told her she must change her course of life, or her extravagance would make him a bankrupt, and her children beggars. She began her usual way of answer, and said, "she had certainly been a little too thoughtless, and would soon commence a thorough reformation." "You must begin to-day, my dear," said her husband, "and as proof of your sincerity, I entreat you to drop the company of

and to spend your evening at home this day, with me and your children." "Quite impossible, my dear man," said his modest wife in reply, "I have given my word, and cannot break it." "Then," said her husband, "if you go out this day dressed to meet that party, remem ber, for the next six months these doors will be barred against your return. Are you still resolved to go?" "Yes," said the indignant lady, "if they were for ever barred against me!" Without either anger or malice, Mynheer van der told her not to deceive herself, for as certain as that was her determination, so sure would she find his foretelling verified. She told him if nothing else had power to induce her to go, it would be his menace. With this they parted, the husband to prepare the penitentiary chamber for his giddy young wife, and the latter to eclipse every rival at the ball that evening.

To afford a last chance of avoiding an ignominy which it pained him to inflict, he went once more to try to wean