Here usually endeth the mission of the attendants of funerals, but we will follow the sufferer farther.

He enters his home-home, alas! no longer, for she who made it dear is not there to greet his footsteps. He wanders sadly through the dismal apartments, and every thing he sees but adds to the poignancy of his grief, for every thing speaks of her. Night comes, and sleep refuseth its gentle ministrations: the dear head wont to be pillowed on his bosom now resteth where? he groans as he remembers where. He heareth every stroke of the clock: every nerve is painfully acute: every sound reverberates with thrilling distinctness on his sensitive ear. If, for a few brief moments, he loseth his animal consciousness, it is only that his mind may wander in a world where all is dim and unsatisfying and the tortures of returning sensation are enhanced by the quietude of temporary forgetfulness. The passage of time may and doth relieve him of this incessant burden, but, live as long as he may, it will often return with all its original vividness and power.

Tell me, ye who have endured this fearful ordeal, have I not written truly?

But, in this particular case, there was-oh that I have to relate it!—an additional ingredient in the cup of bitterness drank that night by the lonely sufferer-a cup that must ever be at his lips so long as life endureth. Turn the matter as he would—as he will-his tortured spirit writhed, and ever must writhe, under the horrible consciousness that he himself was the murderer of the wife of his bosom! Reformed though he was, and is, it is but too certain that the long years of suffering she endured-all owing to his slavish worship of THE CUP-brought her prematurely to the grave. The wretched man knows this: he cannot escape his doom. Forgiveness from Heaven he may receive -yea, we trust he has received it--but he never can forgive himself. This dreadful consciousness will haunt him at all

times and under all circumstances. The shade of her who slept in his bosom, and there perished, will intercept every ray of light that might beam on his pathway through life. Can any lot be more wretched?

My friend this peculiar fate, once entered upon, can never be escaped: but, it may be avoided. See that thou doest it.

PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 1846.

INTEMPERANCE.-A SIMILE.

BY MARIE ROSEAU.

A mother held a bright and smiling babe
Pressed closely to her breast, and tenderly
She gazed upon its face, delighting there
To mark the signs of dawning intellect, or trace
Its father's image blended with her own.
She fondly hoped that in his unformed mind
There were the elements of future good.
He was her joy, her pride: her every hope
Was woven with his being. How her heart
Poured out itself in earnest prayer to Him
The giver of this greatest earthly gift.
The father bent his manly form to lead
The footsteps of his boy, and joyed to mark
With pride parental the expanding mind,
There striving to impress fixed principles
Of right to guide him on through future life.

The boy became a man. Upon his arm
A fair girl leaned, and, with a trustful love,
Broke every tie that bound her to the spot

Where dwelt her childhood's tried and faithful friends.

She only wished to rear a happy home

For him on whom her heart poured out its hoard

Of living wealth-pure love and reverence—

As to some being of superior mould.

His children gloried in their father's name,
And clung to him for aid in untried paths.
The syren voice of pleasure lured him on
To wander mid forbidden scenes, where song
And wit and wine their witching influence lend.
He struggled with his tempters for a time
And then sank lowest in the depths of vice,
To rise no more. Ah who can tell the deep,
The bitter anguish which that fall must bring?

So have I seen the sun, upon a day

In spring, rise midway in the firmament:
A thousand birds that sought their summer home
Sang sweetly as they built their humble nests,
And insects just awakened into life,

Danced joyously beneath his kindly beams;

And children played among the fresh, young flowers:
And as I gazed, a cloud rose o'er the west
But yet so small and thin they heeded not.
Deeper and wider o'er the heavens it spread,
'Till the whole firmanent was clothed with gloom:
Then all the birds their pleasant labour ceased
And hid among the branches of the trees,-
The insects crept to their secluded haunts,
And tearfully the children sought their homes
For refuge, feeling that their sports were done.

Such, oh Intemperance! is thy baleful curse,
Crushing with heavy hand the dearest hopes
And clouding with deep gloom life's brightest days.

"OUR ELSIE."

BY ALICE G. LEE.

"The poor make no new friends, But oh, they love the better still The few our Father sends!"

DREAMS are strange things, and it is my opinion that one travels much faster when asleep than on any railway yet laid. Although it was the middle of vacation I imagined myself at school, and was in a terrible puzzle as to my examination composition, which of two themes Miss Stevens would rather I should write on. I had at length decided to ask her, as the quickest method of knowing; and then I thought the monitress summoned me for not having my room in order at the second bell. I knew that I was not guilty of the offence, yet I felt unwilling to go, and shrunk from her as she would have urged me forward. I awoke in my own little room, rudely pushing away Elsie's hand, which was laid upon my arm to awaken me without disturbing Fan, whose red lips almost touched my own. I had commissioned Elsie to call me thus early, for I wished to practise very industriously that morning in some music that uncle had brought me the day before. So I kissed Fan, gently, lest she should wake, for be it known I am dull at the piano, though I love music very dearly, and Fan, who excels, would once in a while laugh at my clumsy movements.