TIME TO ME. TIME to me this truth hath taught; 'Tis a truth that's worth revealing: : More offend from want of thought, Than from any want of feeling. If advice we would convey, There's a time we should convey it; If we've but a word to say, There's a time in which to say it! Oft, unknowingly, the tongue Many a fault of human blindness, Many a beauteous flower decays, Which no human aid can touch. Lies some canker-grief concealed, That, if touched, is more oppressed! Left unto itself, — is healed! Time to me this truth hath taught; BENEVOLENCE. O, LET us never lightly fling A barb of woe to wound another; O, never let us haste to bring The cup of sorrow to a brother. Each has the power to wound but he Who wounds that he may witness pain Has learnt no law of Charity, 'Tis godlike to awaken joy, Or sorrow's influence to subdue; But not to wound, nor to annoy, Is part of virtue's lesson too: Peace, winged in fairer worlds above, Shall send her down and brighten this, When all man's labor be to love, And all his thoughts—a brother's bliss. AMIABILITY. "I would not rail at beauty's charming power, From intellect receives its highest grace." Or all the graces which adorn and dignify the female character, amiability is perhaps the most preeminent; the peculiar excellence of this virtue. consists in the power of exciting universal love and esteem. It is exercised without effort, and enjoyed without alloy; discretion and good nature are the material ingredients of this valuable quality. It was this inestimable grace which induced the wise man to confer on the woman under its influence a value whose price is above rubies; and he invested her with this endearing attribute - that she opened her mouth with wisdom, and her tongue is the law of kindness. It is this grace that shows an irresistible charm over the natural beauties, and exhibits every moral and intellectual attainment in their most interesting point of view. While many other graces have a specific and limited operation, this is universal; when once it is implanted as a principle in the heart, it never ceases to grow, but is continually yielding the most delectable fruit; every incident, however minute, and every event, however disastrous and mournful, constitutes alike an element in which this grace flourishes in all the luxuriance of eternal health. In the sick chamber, the social circle, and the drawing room, it furnishes from its own ample resources all that is most soothing, attractive, and captivating; ever prompt without officiousness, and deliberate without indifference. It invests its most trifling offices with an unspeakable value to those on whom they are conferred, and bestows the most costly presents with a liberality so pure and genuine, as to silence the most captious, and captivate the most scrupulous. Of the conduct of others, an amiable female is always charitable. The omission of attentions disturbs her not: she is ever ready to suggest a thousand reasons for a supposed injury; and should it be realized, she is satisfied with one-she knows she does not deserve it! In the absence of evil she invariably argues good. Of her own conduct she is scrupulously guarded and rigidly exact. She remembers the language of a modern writer, "that virtue in general is not to feel, but to do-not merely to conceive a purpose, but to carry that purpose into execution not merely to be overpowered by the impression of a sentiment, but to practise what she loves, and to imitate what it admires ;" and thus loving and beloved, she progresses through the various stages of life, ornamenting all its interesting relations, and bestrewing the path of duty with flowers of sweetest fragrance she closes her brilliant and beauteous course, by gathering her duties together as a neverfading bouquet of flowers, binds them with her amiability, and bequeathes them to posterity; then fullorbed, she sinks beneath the serene and expansive horizon. "Death steals but to renew with bloom |