Yet a silent Christmas keeping. Still happy are they, And their looks are gay, And they frisk it from bough to bough, A right goodly feast, I trow. There under the boughs in their wintry dress, Blithe hearts have met, and the soft caress Though winter hath come To his woodland home, There is mirth with old Christmas cheer, Is the fruit-fraught bough. Yes! under the boughs, scarce seen, nestle Those children of song together, As blissful by night, as joyous by day, The wonders of all-ruling The jung When the flowers bloom again in the mead; Of those blossoms gay, Which have brought them to-day Such help in their time of need! Providence HARRISON WEIR. that from celestial Merry Plus; Efential beauty; perfect excellence, Ennoble and refine the native glow and thence his best resource Goch feels - and thence To paint his feelings with sublimest The April 23. 1817 The plain Englisch of this . އ 2 force. the Bible is the best book THE BIBLE. 'HE Bible is the treasure of the poor, the solace of the rich, and the support of the dying; and while other books may amuse and instruct us in a leisure hour, it is the peculiar triumph of the Bible to create light in the midst of darkness, to alleviate the sorrow which admits of no other alleviation, to direct a beam of hope to the heart which no other topic of consolation can reach; while guilt, despair, and death vanish at the touch of its holy inspiration. ROBERT HALL. GOD'S-ACRE LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial ground God's-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust. God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, Their bread of life, alas! no more their own. Into its furrows shall we all be cast, In the sure faith that we shall rise again At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain. Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom, In the fair gardens of that second birth; And each bright blossom mingle its perfume With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth. With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod, And spread the furrow for the seed we sow; This is the field and Acre of our God, This is the place where human harvests grow! HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. REDEMPTION. (From The Hind and the Panther."') O when of old the almighty Father sate In council, to redeem our ruined state, Millions of millions, at a distance round, Silent, the sacred consistory crowned, To hear what mercy, mixed with justice, could propound, All prompt, with eager pity, to fulfil But when the stern conditions were declared, A mournful whisper through the host was heard, And the whole hierarchy, with heads bent down, Submissively declined the ponderous proffered crown. Then, not till then, the eternal Son from high Let me hide myself in thee! Not the labor of my hands Nothing in my hand I bring; While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eye-strings break in death, HE admiration of former times is a feeling at first, perhaps, engrafted on our minds by the regret of those who vainly seek in the evening of life for the sunny tints which adorned their morning landscape; and who are led to fancy a deterioration in surrounding objects, when the change is in themselves, and the twilight in their own powers of perception. It is probable that as the age of the individual or of the species is subject to its peculiar dangers, so each has its compensating advantages; and that the difficulties which, at different periods of time, have impeded the believer's progress, to heaven, though in appearance equally various, are, in amount, very nearly equal. * * * Had we lived in the times of the infant Church, even amid the blaze of miracle on one hand, and the chastening fire of persecution on the other, we should have heard, perhaps, no fewer complaints of the cowardice and apostasy, the dissimulation and murmuring inseparable from a continuance of public distress and danger, than we now hear regrets for those days of wholesome affliction, when the mutual love of believers was strengthened by the common danger; when their want of worldly advantages disposed them to regard a release from the world with far more hope than apprehension, and compelled the Church to cling to her Master's cross alone for comfort and succor. REGINALD HEBER. Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier At length his lonely cot appears in view, there I ween. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The shortening winter day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee things, toddlin, stacher through, To meet their dad, wi' flichterin noise and glee. |