them. As I mused, I looked abroad, and suddenly I felt what a great thing it was to live and look out with intelligence on this world of grandeur and beauty. I did not ask for the mythology of heathenism to give meaning, poetry and music to the forest scene, but found myself murmuring the rapt numbers of her who sang: The beautiful idolatry is dead, Which made the poetry of classic times. That make the pillow of her fabled couch. My God! Thou who art dwelling in the humblest flower, All shrines are filled, all gifts received by Thee! Let me quote the whole of this "Forest Devotions," for it came to my lips and was made audible, as the waters leap from the fountain and will not be stayed singing in the air. O how I do love it! Earth may praise With all her magic tongues, and human lips One visible fraction of thy goodness! Bowed like young Magdalens; and on their lips Known as humility. Aid me to be Humble and lowly hearted as the flowers; When I read the Memoirs of Mrs. Mayo, and the Selections from her Writings, (did I ever thank you for the book? I meant to-it is a heart-book, a pillow-book, a book for the twilight that will make Heaven nearer when the stars come out,) I was sorry not to find "Forest Devotions" in the Selections; but every one cannot have their favorites in a selection made by one mind, and so I went and borrowed the sixth volume of the Repository from one of your stand-by subscribers, committed that poem to memory, and now it's among the "Selections' as I read them. What a Spirit that was whose songs go now singing through our souls like pure-hearted children in their homes! I don't know that I ever felt what she was till the morning my memory kept recalling one after another of her poems; and I found she had written a great deal for me. What a sweetness it is far away from the murmurs of the town, deep in the "grey old woods," to find a spirit with us who can give our thoughts expression, and celebrate for us the loveliness of Nature, the greatness of the soul, the grandeur and majesty of God! She really is giving us It is not the decree of destiny that the wings of the immortal soul should trail forever in the dust, and be forever pressed down and crippled by the work-day things of life. Beyond the world's din and strife, far from the hurrying, restless crowd, there is a land fair as the Christian's dream of heaven. Into this land, escaping from the dull prison-house of the Present, where chained to the ever turning wheel, she toils day after day for others, or for her own bread, raiment and fame, comes the soul at times seeking repose and joy. Here, shut in no more from the great and blessed light that falls so gloomily upon the dusty windows of her "breathing house," she sits with folded wings and a clear eye, while the past-all that hath been, both of joy and sorrow-the noble deeds, the lofty thoughts and sweet faces, of other days-rising, as at the sound of a silver trump from the graves of her forgetfulness, not shadowy and indistinct as midnight spectres, but fair and life-like, pass before her in solemn, sad review. In this land death has no sting, and the grave no victory. Time and decay also are powerless. Every thing is immortal, as if from beneath the deep roots of each ever-blossoming tree, and from the cold lips of each crystal rock, gushed forth unfailing streams of water like unto that of the fabled fountain so long sought after by De Leon and his comrades amid the everglades of the New World, and which had the power of bestowing immortal youth and felicity on all who bathed in its magic tide. Here affection never dies, and love never grows cold, but live forever fresh and fair as at their birth. It is a realm of endless Summer, perennial graves and unclouded suns; a realm where, though there is no night, the stars thrill with their mild radiance, and the moon with her pensive smile; while ever across life's stormy sea, filling our hearts and homes, comes a gale laden with the fragrance of the unfading flowers that fringe its far-off shores, as across the track of the heart-desponding mariner, long tost amid dark and dangerous shoals, glides a bird of passage, bearing pearly dews upon her wing and a green leaf in her beak, telling of Indian seas and isles of Palm. It is to us the land of transfiguration. As we enter in through its golden portals, old age with his trembling palsy, grey hairs and deep furrows, glides from us as if beneath the touch of the enchanter's wand; and we are again young; and again we feel the bounding pulse, the flushed cheek, and the struggling of the winged desires of earlier and happier years. We are in the green meadows, where we were wont to gather the daisies and butter-cups, those choicest flowers of childhood; and our feet print, as of old, the yielding moss in silent dells sacred unto the forget-me-not and pale primrose. There is our diamond maker the glittering cascade there the gray rocks on which we have so often sat, and the broad, sunny openings in the forest -the beautiful wild rose, the sweet honeysuckle, and the red berries, almost as brilliant as stars, clustering amid the dark boughs of the mountain-ash. There, too, are the pine-clad hills around our early home, the far-off, dim mountains and the blue lake. All seems distinct and real. There they live whom we call dead. From that green and silent shore they gaze upon us with their star-like eyes, and tenderly they speak to us in the sweet, familiar tones of other days; and day after day, even amid the din and tumult of a great city, and above the noise and bustle of the ever-moving crowd, do we hear, in fancy, the glad song of the summer birds, or the music of the mountain torrent, or the wind moaning among the trees, which we have so often listened to in the quiet of our childhood days. There are times and seasons, when the soul loves best to roam in this land-times when she goes forth, day after day, from the dusty streets and dark dwellings of the Present to its green groves and meadows; yet half unconsciously, and as if following the sound of unseen feet. Spring, that fair type of our immortality, is, perhaps, more than any other season, calculated to lead the soul back into the land of memory; while Fall and Winter lead her forward as it were, to the cloudy verge and into the very shadow of a clime whose beauties she can but dimly see. Fall crushes the gentle flowers beneath her sandals, and they perish. Before the blast of her breath the landscape grows pale and the turf cold. Following fast in her path, Winter comes, gaunt and grim as death himself-as the Angel of all Desolation-shouting with a hoarse voice on the barren plain and in the leafless forest, while with one hand he swings his keen and glittering scythe, and with the other, gloved in ice, points sternly towards the grove. But not such is the mission of Spring. With all her beautiful hopes and urgent warnings-her serene countenance and heavenly beauty-like a mermaid from the briny deep, or an angel from the shadowy sepulchre, she rises up from the dark bosom of the Past. Her flower-embroidered garments trail musically on the earth's floor, and with her white arms, wreathed in sunshine, lovingly doth she clasp the grey old mountains to her bosom. And it is Spring that she loves best to follow into the fair land of memory; for she is herself a child of that land. Thrice blessed are the long bright days of Spring! They are with us now-and we are no longer what we were. Old age and care and hopeless grief, have fallen from us like a garment. We are again young; and again we live over the checkered past. The land of which I have been speaking, is all around us. We live no more in the Present; but for a season our daily companions are saints and angels. That indescribable longing to behold once more the faces of our departed friends-for some heavenly messenger to come and roll away the stone from the sepulchre's mouth-which possessed us in the winter days, has become less strong and ardent. Few now are our thoughts of death and decay; while the glory of the resurrection is round about us as a living presence. We think and feel that immortality is ours. Age, and tribulation and death, what are ye to our bounding hearts, to our souls, all abroad beneath the sunny heavens and the starry skies! The light rests on the mountains like a crown of gold; so it rested when we were young. The sunbeams bridge the meadow brooks with silver; so were they bridged when we were young! Yet, since the last advent of Spring, even, many are the changes that have taken place in our midst; broader has grown the land of memory, and more thickly is it populated. Death with his invisible scythe, has been busy in the fields of life. In the resting place of the dead, there are new graves over which the first green grass is growing and the first buds expanding into blossoms; by the hearth-stone there are more vacant seats; and the shepherds of a thousand flocks are counting anew their dead lambs. Before me as I write-and it shall be sacred forevermore-lies an unfolded letter, written one year ago this May. It is full of affection and hope-full of the longings and aspirations of an ardent and expectant heart-but the hand that penned it is now but dust. How little did I think when I broke the tiny seal bearing the image of an angel pointing towards heaven, with the motto, "HOPE ON AND FOREVER," that the author, ere another year had passed, would be numbered no longer among the living-that even then disease was stealing into that generous heart, and death darkening the light of that flashing eye. But so it was. Some time during the bright evenings of last Spring-time seems but a dream since thenthere was one1 who was wont to meet with us in this chapel on occasions like the present. Even now I fancy that I can see that fair form and pleasant face, in our midst, as in those holy and never-to-be-forgotten hours. But he will be with us no more. In the spirit he will be with us often, but no more as a living, tangible presence. In a sad and unexpected hour, far from home and kindred, with only the surging billows of the great sea beneath, and God's blue sky above, his immortal soul without warning, and almost in the twinkling of an eye, was called by the star-eyed angels into the presence of its Maker; and evermore, in the language of the cold and heartless world, it shall be said that he is dead. But to those who loved him best, who were nearest and dearest unto his heart, he still lives. They cannot think of him as dead. In the holy silence of the land of memory, he rises to their view from amid the undying flowers, dearer and more beautiful than ever. Day after day will they meet him there-and day after day will they listen to his gentle voice, unheard by other ears. By the golden light of fancy, they shall witness the gradual unfolding of his soul without one taint of this world's dubious love. A son of Professor Folsom of the Meadville School. He fell from the main-mast to the deck, of the ship in which he was sailing, and died within a few hours. To them he will never grow old; but forever will be as fair, as young and as light-hearted, and filled with as ardent longings and as noble aspirations as when he breathed his last farewell by the threshold of home with the world and a life of usefulness and honor before him! Thus far, fair is the representation of the land of memory, for I have spoken of it as it ap pears unto the good and pure of heart-unto those whose lives have been fair and honorable. I now turn to speak of it briefly as a land of remorse and terror-as it rises to the troubled vision of those who have trodden the paths of crime and error. To them, though a golden streak may still, and forever, bind the far-off horizon of youth, such fountain is as a mirror revealing the soul's deformity, and its every stain, distinct and indelible as that on the hand of a Macbeth. From each thicket and grove, as if they had taken life and form, rise, and glide to and fro before the soul's guilty vision, the evil deeds and crimes of a dark and fearful life. There the victim of intemperance is again a fair-haired boy-and again he sees the cruel tempter nestling in his path, and a fond mother, full of sad misgivings, sitting at midnight by the desolate hearth, waiting his return from scenes of mirth and debauchery; and again he lives over the dark days of the breaking of her heart. There the hardened thief sees temptation gliding like a subtle serpent over the crystal walls of his departed honor; and feels once more, burning into his very soul, the first glance of suspicion. There the extortioner wrings again with his bony hand the life blood from the hearts of the poor; and again he rears his stately palace on the skulls of men. There in each gloomy, silent dell, before the shrinking murderer, springs up his murdered victim, with his bleeding wounds and his dying curse. There a Belshazzar sees again and again, the fiery hand-writing on his palace wall; and hears the exultant shouts of the foe, as through the drained riverbed, legion after legion, bearing swords and flaming torches, they come pouring into his fair city. There the warrior, with a nation's laurels fresh upon his brow, beholds once more the trampled plain, the smoke of sacked and burning villages; and hears the awful din of carnage, the shouts and oaths of his ruthless soldiery, the groans of the dying, and the wail of the mourner. Again before him rises the widowed mother, the orphaned child, the outraged maiden, and the childless father. There in every flower and on every leaf are recorded, never to be effaced, the thoughts and words and deeds of every man, as in the Book of God's Remembrance; and there, day after day, and in the watches of the solemn night, must the guilty, trembling soul go, led on by an invisible power, to meet its stern accusers; and wander with scorched and bleeding feet, over burning deserts, and through gloomy forests, haunted by all that is terrible. Forever, shall the land of memory be as we form it-forever shall its beauty, or its gloom depend upon the lives we live; therefore, should every man walk with cautious feet and build with a careful hand-remembering that each thought and word and deed will live forever. If so he lives, then, from the far-off turrets of the heaven towards which he is journeying, as he lays aside his worn staff and unbinds his dusty sandals for the peace and repose of his eternal home, and turns to look back upon the road over which he has passed, fair unto his eye shall appear the land of memory, with its groves bathed in sunshine, and its fields robed in living green, as to the enraptured vision of the weary patriarch, from the serene heights of Pisgah, appeared the promised Canaan. Erie, Pa. G. W. MAXHAM. TELL ME STORIES, ABBY. SEE, sister, how softly the green branches wave While sunlight is turning each leaflet to gold, And see how the blue arches gloriously o'er, Like a banner of love far above us unroll'd. Dost hear how the birds are now singing away, As if they would pour their whole soul into song? Dost see how the water that flows at our feet, Now dimples and smiles as it wanders along? We'll toss off our hats, and we'll sit on the ground, And each for the other weave coronets, dear, From out the bright blossoms and clustering vines All scattered about us so lavishly here. And then, for thou see'st I'll have my own way, I wonder not now as I did long ago, Who truly, as story books always have said, I know that one story would buy thee thy life. A WEEK IN PROVIDENCE. A LETTER TO A FRIEND. M. S. L. This Providence, May 8, 1851. MY DEAR MARY:-A desire has seized me this dull rainy morning which I am unable to resist, to sit down and write you of the many pleasant things I have seen and enjoyed, since parting with you a week ago in Boston. is my first visit to Providence, and every feature of the city, its scenery, its inhabitants, its handsome buildings, and its pleasant gardens of flowers, shrubbery and fruit trees already in blossom, are all new and interesting to me,-adding to these the society of my much esteemed friends Mr. and Mrs. B—, you may imagine how swiftly and happily the hours slip away. I am greatly pleased with the locality of the town, and with the fine taste of the people, as displayed in adorning it with trees and garden plats, bringing into the very heart of the city the beauties of the surrounding country. The buildings do not crowd upon each other's heels, and push their bold red faces into their neighbors' windows, as in New York and Boston. Yet the occupants are unusually social in their feelings and habits. A pleasant country familiarity prevails, which we rarely find in a town of like dimensions. A common bond of sympathy brings together persons of different tastes, sects, and positions in life. The ladies here are pret tier, and dress with a better, because simpler style, than in many of our New England cities. The Spring is much earlier here than on the sea-shore. They escape the blasting influence of the cold east winds, that freeze up the warm blood that longs to leap out at the approach of sunny days, and nips with cruel frosty hands, |