That drop descends, contagion dies, The precious tears of repentance fall? One heavenly drop hath dispelled them all!" And now-behold him kneeling there And hymns of joy proclaim through heaven 'Twas when the golden orb had set, While on their knees they lingered yet, "Joy, joy forever! my task is done, To thee, sweet Eden! how dark and sad In my fairy wreath, so bright and brief; 1 Cities in fairy land. A tree in Mohammed's garden in Paradise. To the lote-tree, springing by Alla's throne, The Gates are passed, and heaven is won!" THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE. THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My choir shall be the moonlight waves, I'll seek by day some glade unknown, Thy heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look, I'll read thy anger in the rack That clouds a while the day-beam's track; Of sunny brightness breaking through. There's nothing bright above, below, From flowers that bloom to stars that glow, But in its light my soul can see Some feature of the Deity. There's nothing dark below, above, O, BREATHE NOT HIS NAME. O, BREATHE not his name; let it sleep in the shade But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps, ON MUSIC. WHEN through life unblest we rove, In faded eyes that long have wept. Like the gale that sighs along That once was heard in happier hours; Music - O, how faint, how weak, When thou canst breathe her soul so well? Love's are even more false than they. O, 'tis only Music's strain Can sweetly soothe and not betray. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. Thomas Chalmers was born in the County of Fife, in Scotland, March 17, 1780. He was educated at the College of St. Andrew's, and was ordained a minister in a parish of his native county in 1802. He removed in 1815 to Glasgow, where he preached until 1823, when he became professor of moral philosophy at St. Andrew's. In 1828 he was called to the chair of divinity in the University of Edinburgh, which he filled until his secession from the established church in 1843. He died in May, 1847. His collected works comprised twenty-five volumes, chiefly sermons, essays, and lectures; and after his death nine additional volumes were gathered. Probably no preacher in his day produced a more profound impression. His mind was active, fiery, vehement. Jeffrey said, "He buried his adversaries under the fragments of burning mountains." When he preached in London, the church was thronged by the most eminent men. Mr. Canning said, “The tartan beats us; we have no preaching like that in England." In the multitude of his labors Dr. Chalmers had little time to cultivate a critical elegance of style; but his deep feeling, ardent piety, native eloquence, and vigor place him among the most eminent of clerical authors. CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. THE sufferings of the lower animals may, when out of sight, be out of mind. But more than this, these sufferings may be in sight, and yet out of mind. This is strikingly exemplified in the sports of the field, in the midst of whose varied and animating bustle, that cruelty which all along is present to the senses may not for one moment have been present to the thoughts. There sits a somewhat ancestral dignity and glory on this favorite pastime of joyous old England; when the gallant knighthood, and the hearty yeomen, and the amateurs or virtuosos of the chase, and the full assembled jockeyship of half a province, muster together in all the pride and pageantry of their great emprise — and the panorama of some noble landscape, lighted up with autumnal clearness from an unclouded heaven, pours fresh exhilaration into every blithe and choice spirit of the scene-and every adventurous heart is braced, and impatient for the hazards of the coming enterprise; and even the high-breathed coursers catch the general sympathy, and seem to fret in all the restiveness of their yet checked and irritated fire, till the echoing horn shall set them at liberty - even that horn which is the knell of death to some trembling victim now brought forth of its lurkingplace to the delighted gaze, and borne down upon with the full and open cry of its ruthless pursuers. Be assured that, amid the whole glee and fervency of this tumultuous enjoyment, there might not, in one single bosom, be aught so fiendish as a principle of naked and abstract cruelty. The fear which gives its lightning-speed to the unhappy animal; the thickening horrors, which, in the progress of exhaustion, must gather upon its flight; its gradually sinking energies, and, at length, the terrible certainty of that destruction which is awaiting it; that piteous cry which the ear can sometimes distinguish amid the deafening clamor of the blood-hounds as they spring exultingly upon their prey; the dread massacre and dying agonies of a creature so miserably torn,—all this weight of suffering, we admit, is not once sympathized with; but it is just because the suffering itself is not once thought of. It touches not the sensibilities of the heart; but just because it is never present to the notice of the mind. We allow that the hardy followers in the wild romance of this occupation, we allow them to be reckless of pain; but this is not rejoicing in pain. Theirs is not the delight of the savage, but the apathy of unreflecting creatures. They are wholly occupied with the chase itself and its spirit-stirring accompaniments, nor bestow one moment's thought on the dread violence of that infliction upon sentient nature which marks its termination. It is the spirit of the competition, and it alone, which goads onward this hurrying career; and even he who in at the death is foremost in the triumph, although to him the death itself is in sight, the agony of its wretched sufferer is wholly out of mind. Man is the direct agent of a wide and continual distress to the lower animals; and the question is, Can any method be devised for its alleviation? On this subject that scriptural image is strikingly realized: "the whole inferior creation groaning and travailing together in pain" because of him. It signifies not to the substantive amount of the suffering, whether this be prompted by the hardness of his heart, or only permitted through the heedlessness of his mind. In either way it holds true, not only that the arch-devourer man stands pre-eminent over the fiercest children of the wilderness as an animal of prey, but that, for his lordly and luxurious appetite, as well as for his service or merest curiosity and amusement, Nature must be ransacked throughout all her elements. Rather than forego the veriest gratifications of vanity, he will wring them from the anguish of wretched and ill-fated creatures; and whether for the indulgence of his barbaric sensuality or barbaric splendor, can stalk paramount over the sufferings of that prostrate creation which has been placed beneath his feet. That beauteous domain, whereof he has been constituted the terrestrial sovereign, gives out so many blissful and benignant aspects; and whether we look to its peaceful lakes, or to its flowery landscapes, or its evening skies, or to all that soft attire which overspreads the hills and the valleys, lighted |