GIVE AS GOD HATH GIVEN THEE.

GIVE as God hath given thee,
With a bounty full and free;
If he hath, with liberal hand,
Given wealth to thy command,
For the fulness of thy store,
Give thy needy brother more.

If the lot His love doth give
Is by earnest toil to live,
If with nerve and sinew strong
Thou dost labor hard and long,
Then, e'en from thy slender store,
Give, and God shall give thee more.

Hearts there are with grief oppressed;
Forms in tattered raiment dressed;
Homes where want and woe abide;
Dens where vice and misery hide;

With a bounty large and free,
Give, as God hath given thee.

Wealth is thine to aid and bless,
Strength to succor and redress:
Bear thy weaker brother's part,
Strong of hand, and strong of heart;
Be thy portion large or small,
Give, for God doth give thee all.

"WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?”

THY neighbor?—it is he whom thou
Hast power to aid and bless ;
Whose aching heart, or burning brow,
Thy soothing hand may press.

Thy neighbor?-'tis the fainting poor,
Whose eye with want is dim,
Whom hunger sends from door to door –
Go, thou, and succor him.

Thy neighbor?-'tis that weary man,
Whose years are at their brim,
Bent low with sickness, cares, and pain -
Go, thou, and comfort him.

Thy neighbor? 'tis the heart bereft
Of every earthly gem;-
Widow and orphan, helpless left -
Go, thou, and shelter them.

Where'er thou meet'st a human form
Less favored than thy own,
Remember, 'tis thy neighbor worm,
Thy brother or thy son.

O, pass not, pass not heedless by;
Perhaps thou canst redeem

THE ABUSE OF FICTION.

One's indignation is excited at the immoral tendency of such lessons to young readers.-JOHN FOSTER.

To abuse the imagination is to abuse the most delicate and susceptible of the mental faculties; for it is the common parent of the beautiful and true, as also of the vicious and corrupt. Every action, whatever may be its moral quality, is first preceded by the conception and meditation of it. And out of the heart "are the issues of life."

Works of fiction are addressed to the imagination. To excite and please this faculty are the objects which they propose to accomplish. They must awaken and gratify it, or they are failures. And a book which neither interests nor pleases is a very harmless affair.

Fiction has its uses and its abuses. Its uses are of a high and commanding order. Great truths, important lessons, and pleasing entertainment, are often rendered the most attractive and beneficial, when arrayed in its garb. Poetry, sentiment, and philosophy, have been immeasurably indebted to its magic power. But it is not of its uses that we now propose to speak.

Of the abuses to which fiction has been prostituted, the present age affords a startling number and variety of illustrations. These abuses have been made to assume the form of biography, history, of the drama, of the novel and romance. No department of literature has entirely escaped. But the novel and romance are the vehicles most frequently employed. Under these forms, the prolific press has, within a few years, poured forth a stream of corrupt literature, which, it is no exaggeration to say, seriously threatens the foundations of morality and religion.

The attention of the public has been directed to the dangerous character and tendency of these works, by men of sound sense and acknowledged authority. The public, upon subjects of this nature, is not so much censurable for slowness in perception, as for slowness in action. No one, were he to consult his reason and belief, would object to the establishment of a censorship so severe that it would amount to an annihilation of immoral books; but to admit that there was a necessity for such a censorship, or an occasion for serious apprehension, might require longer reflection and a more careful observation. Between the cause and the effect there is a space, which, at first glance, seems to be occupied by conjectures and doubts; which conjectures and doubts experience and investigation may perhaps alone dissipate and remove. Nevertheless it would appear to be no difficult task to show

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that the connection between them is of the most intimate and indissoluble nature; that, the existence of the cause being admitted, the certain sequence of the effect cannot be denied.

Let us, then, for a moment, consider the effect of fiction upon the intellect.

To form and fashion images, ideas, and fancies from the conceptions of the mind, is the peculiar and legitimate office of the imagination. It is with conceptions, therefore, that the imagination has to deal. And what are conceptions? As defined by philosophers, they are the sensations and perceptions suggested to or awakened in the mind, by the presence of external objects and scenes, and by the recalling of past objects and events. According to the character of these objects and events will be the character of the conceptions. If the objects be real, so will be the conceptions; and vice versa. In the one case, the imagination is employed with what is actual, probable, or possible; in the other, with what is fanciful, impossible, and visionary.

Now, of itself, and by its own nature, the imagination is the most active of the mental faculties. Less than any other one does it require a stimulant to its exercise; more than any other does it require restraint. In childhood, it peoples the darkness with phantoms, fairies, and ghosts; in youth, it fills the future with bright visions of promise and enjoyment, and gilds the rugged pathway of life with its magic and dazzling light. Even mature age is