The politician looks at the world in one aspect; the literary man sees it at a different angle, and in another light.

There may yet be a rarer, but no less important view from that sublime stand-point on which the Christian looks down and appreciates at their just value all sublunary things. It is by each sketching from his own point of view that a complete and Catholic estimate can be made. He is a narrow-minded bigot who denounces every estimate of men and things, which is not taken by his side and in his light. What he thinks prejudice, may be true philosophy; what he sets down as sectarianism, may be a side-light of truth.

Driftwood makes a cheery fire of a winter evening; Seaweed, Seaweed, fragments of which have already floated in the world's troubled waters, yields a restorative and strengthening medicine, and Fallen Leaves put on, as they fall, their loveliest tints, and in their decay predict

"Far-off summers we may never see."

NOTHER year is added to the past. It has rushed with impartial current over bridals and burials, griefs and gladness, broken hearts and bounding ones. It has borne its messages into palace and hut-into royal and plebeian presence. Its waters lie still and calm over a thousand buried joys and hopes and interests. Footfalls heard at its beginning are silent for ever. Congratulations expressed and exchanged in it will be reciprocated no more. Plans inaugurated in 1862 are left unfinished. Enterprises full of hope have stiffened in their birth. Buds full of promise are sere and dead. Faces lately glowing with manhood are now furrowed with age, and

VOL. I.

B

the dark tresses of youth are silvered with grey, and on the heels of the departing old a young procession of hopeful hearts presses ready to fight life's battles as their fathers have done before them.

The New Year has risen out of the silent depths of of the future, and its first waves beat against the shores of time. What new schemes will appear in it-what tragedies it will witness-what wars it will inaugurate-what bereavements and desolations -what Rachels weeping for their children because they are not, and Elis for their sons who have fallen in the high places of the field-it is not for us to guess, much less to prophesy. He who launched it out of eternity into time knows best.

The measurements of time have varied in all ages. The universal registers of time are the heavenly bodies. The Moslem watches the earliest streak of the young moon as the dawn of a new cycle. Rising and setting suns mete out the hours of the day; and the procession of the year through the opening spring, and the glowing summer, and the prolific autumn, is determined by the earth's march in its orbit. It is a sublime thought that the orbs of the sky should be the measurements of mortal life, and the firmament our dial-plate. So Time speaks to us in the whispers of its hours, in the echoing march of its days, and in the stately tread of the years. But we have other modes of measuring time,— that for instance of comparison. Our age or average stay on earth becomes to us a standard. We call time long or short, in relation to our own individual existence. Yet Methuselah's age is brief when compared with eternity. Our life is a tale soon told.

We very often determine the length of time by our feelings. Impatience feels a month longer than a year.

Our desires and passions complain that the time for enjoyment is so short. But whether the fever beats in the heart or the languid current flows sluggishly along our veins, the flight of time is the same. It is deaf to our regrets and desires, our sorrows and our joys.

The noblest measurement of time is the good we do. The footprints of goodness remain imperishable on the sands of time. It should be our mission and our effort to spread light where darkness hangs-to kindle love where apathy and indifference prevail; and thus, whether time be short or long in our experience, it will be charged with good and glorified by acts that leave lasting and beneficent impressions. We are not responsible for the length of life assigned us, but for the way we husband or waste it. We ought never to forget that we are in some shape acting on the world, creating a perspective of evil along the years, or projecting sunshine into dreary homes and yet more dreary hearts. We may be blots or we may be blessings, but we cannot be blanks in the world.

We

A year ago death entered the Palace of England and bore away, in the prime of life, the second personage in the realm. The blow is still keenly felt and deplored under the humblest roofs and in the most ancient ancestral halls. Its suddenness, the comparative youth of the victim, and the sorrow it created in the heart of that illustrious lady who sways the sceptre of these realms, created a shadow alike deep, dark, and heavy over the length and breadth of the land. It projected its gloom into Christmas, and dimmed if not diminished its festive joy. It sent its influence into 1862, and disenchanted the Exhibition of some of its best attractions. It has left our Queen without her

wisest and most confidential adviser, in a crisis unprecedented in its gravity and its interests. Prince Albert was universally respected and esteemed. Leading a life surrounded by a thousand temptations, there is every reason to believe he remained uncorrupted and undefiled. In so far, he set an example that rebukes the conduct and contrasts too vividly with the indulgences of many in the higher walks of life. His superiority to mere sensual gratifications was evinced from the very beginning of his relation to our Sovereign and to us. He became the patron of the arts, the promoter of science, and the friend of literature; taking a deep and anxious interest in all those pursuits and studies which adorn and benefit a people. His speeches were distinguished by a chaste eloquence, a scientific knowledge, and a Christian tone, that alike gratified and instructed.

How much he may have contributed in silence and in secret to that wise, well-poised, and constitutional reign which has now stretched through twenty years, we may infer but cannot ascertain. Studiously occupying a second but most influential place, and open to the misconstructions of envy and ill-nature, he acquitted himself with a discretion, a propriety, and dignity that gave universal satisfaction. His last speech, delivered at Edinburgh, indicated the earnest desire he cherished for peace amid the nations of the earth. "Most

warmly does my heart respond to the concluding prayer, that these and similar undertakings may conduce to the diffusion among all nations of the blessings of peace and mutual goodwill."

He has

His Royal Highness has gone up higher. not ceased to be, but only to be seen. He has exchanged life for life-the crypt which even a palace is