POETRY. [SELECTED.]

Careless Words.

By Mrs. L. F. Morgan.
Beware, beware of careless words,
They have a fearful power,
And jar upon the spirit's chords,
Through many a weary hour.

Though not designed to give us pain,
Though but at random spoken,
Remembrance brings them back again-
The past's most bitter token.

They haunt us through the toilsome day,
And through the lonely night,
And rise to cloud the spirit's ray,
When all besides is bright.

Though from the mind, and with the breath

Which gave them, they have flown ; Yet wormwood, gall, and even death, May dwell in every tone.

And burning tears can well attest,
A sentence lightly framed
May linger, cankering in the breast
At which it first was aimed.

O, could my prayer indeed be heard,
Might I the past live o'er,
I'd guard against a careless word,
E'en though I spoke no more.

Woman.

Woman, dear woman, in whose name
Wife, sister, mother meet;
Thine is the heart, by earliest claim,
And thine its latest beat.

In thee the angel virtues shine,

An angel form to thee is given; Then be an angel's office thine,

And lead the soul to Heaven.

From thee we draw our infant strength,
Thou art our childhood's friend;
And when the man unfolds at length,
On thee his hopes depend.

For round the heart thy power hast spun
A thousand dear, mysterious ties;
Then take the heart thy charms have won,
And nurse it for the skies.

Methought with sympathetic smile
It seemed to pity and reprove,
And thus my bitter care beguile
With words of love:

"Sad mortal, cease these anxious sighs;
Why sit you thus in sorrow here?
Does not each leaf that meets thine eyes
Reprove thy fear?

"Although a mean, unheeded flower,
My daily wants are all supplied ;
And He who brought me to this hour
Will still provide.

"The light and dew, the sun and rain,
Are hourly sent to foster me,
And fearest thou God will not deign
To think on thee?"

Ashamed, I rose, rebuked my care,

And blessed the teacher of the sod,
Resolved to chase away despair,
And trust in God.

NO PIRACY.-All borrowed matter in the American Penny Magazine is acknowledged as such; and the rest is original. This announcement we give because inquiries have so often been made of us, whether this or that article is copied or not. We wish it to be distinctly understood, that we have never practised borrowing from the writings of other men without acknowledgment, and never should think of doing so, until we lose our present ideas of the distinction between me and tuum-until we adopt the doctrine of repudiation in pecuniary matters as well as in intellectual. Everything thus far, inserted without some acknowledgment of a different source, may be regarded as having proceeded from the pen of the editor; and so it will be in future. If any omission should occur, we shall feel bound to make it known.

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A GENTLEMAN of wealth and influence once remarked in our hearing, that, although he had been accustomed to hear of Jerusalem from his earliest years, and had read the Bible through and through, he had but very indefinite ideas of it; but, happening to hear Dr. King, the American missionary, say: "these feet have stood on Mount Zion!" he was struck with a new impression of the reality of the place, and the general truth of the Scriptures. The result was an important change in his feelings and character for life.

Probably some other persons may now possess similar views. The habit of inattention is apt to increase in strength, unless broken through; and one of the greatest obstacles to intellectual improvement is the practice of allowing words to pass our ears

or our eyes without impressing their sig nification upon the mind. Familiarity with fictitious writings tends to foster a general want of confidence in books, and also in reasoning; while at the same time they occupy the time which ought to be devoted to the truth. We may probably thus find an explanation of much of that lamentable ignorance which we see too extensively prevailing of fhe topography of the Scrip

which is now in many of our libraries and Sabbath schools; and his beautiful panorama, that places the spectator on a commanding elevation over the square of Omar, which is the site of the courts of Solomon's temple, with the great mosque opposite, which stands on the spot of the temple itself, and all the city and environs in full view around. Our devoted and intelligent missionaries have written much instructive matter relating to that ancient city, which may be found in the publications of the societies, and of travellers, since the Land of Canaan has become open and safe to foreigners, have furnished almost a library of books on the exhaustless subject. Of all those books, however, the most comprehensive and accurate is the "Biblical Researches" of Professor Robinson, which we had occasion to quote in the first and second numbers of the Penny Magazine, in describing the Lake of Tiberias. In that work will be found a very particular description and history of Jerusalem, to which we would refer our readers, while we hasten to copy here a lively description of the scene presented in our print, from Mr. Jones's "Excursions, page 225, 179, &c.

"When viewed from the Mt. of Olives, the whole city appears like a map at our feet. The houses, which are of stone, are seldom more than two stories in height, and on the exterior are rude and without any pretensions to beauty; but when seen from an elevated spot, the city has a singular appearance, in consequence of the domes, with which every dwelling is covered. Sometimes every chamber in the house has its dome; and as these are whitewashed on the exterior, when we look down upon it from the Mount of Olives, the whole city appears dotted over with these excrescences. A couple of open green spots just within the walls, a few trees rising here and there, the tower of the church of the Holy Sepulchre and its large domes, several minarets, and close to us the extensive open court of the mosque, of Omar, with its trees, and in the centre the handsome mosque, itself, complete the view as seen from the Mount of Olives.

"The walls of Jerusalem are twenty-five or thirty feet in height, and are flanked

with numerous towers, both circular and square; and at the Jaffa gate are still further strengthened by a mass of buildings forming a castle. There are four principal gates; and on the north and south two smaller ones or posterns, which, however, I believe are seldom used."

There are a few places in and about Jerusalem, in respect to which there can be no possible mistake. These are, the Mount of Olives; the Valley of Kedron, sometimes called the Valley of Jehoshaphat; the brook Kedron; the Valley of Hinnom; Mount Moriah; Mount Zion; and the hill called Bezetha. The Mount of Olives speaks at once for itself, and has never been doubted by any one: it descends by a rapid slope down to the brook Kedron, in summer a dry water-course about nine feet wide, and in the wet season an irregular torrent: with regard to this brook, also, no one has ever had any doubt. This valley of Kedron formed the eastern boundary of the ancient, as it does now also of the modern city. Immediately after crossing the brook Kedron towards the west, the ground at present commences ascending so rapidly, as to require a zigzag path: at the height of about eighty feet we come to the wall, and to the general level of the present city. This slope is made up of debris, or loose stuff, composed of earth mixed with pottery, fragments of bricks, &c.; and it seems probable that the ancient wall of Beżetha, standing on the line of the present rampart, had without it a much more precipitous descent.

"Mount Moriah is at present a piece of level ground, of the same elevation as those portions of the city immediately adjoining it on the north and west, and is not in any way distinguished from them. It is occupied by an open court, about 1500 feet long and 1000 feet in width, surrounded by a wall, and planted with trees. In the centre is a large oblong platform, paved, I believe, with marble, and reached by two or three steps running all around; on this platform stands the mosque of Omar, which is said by the Turks to occupy the exact site of the Temple of Solomon, and is considered by them to be next in sanctity to the venerated Caaba, or holy house at Mecca. So sacred is this place in their eyes, that no Christian is allowed to place his foot within even the large enclosure. There is thus no mountain at present here, and if any one should question whether this was the situation of Mount Moriah, I answer that it is the only place where we can look for it. Mount Moriah was on the eastern side of the city, and adjoining the

up with and fastened to a large whale. We were soon on the battle ground, and saw him struggling to free himself from the barbed harpoon which had gone deep into his huge carcass. We pulled upon the monster, and our boat steerer darted another harpoon into him. Stern all! shouted the mate. Stern all for your lives! We steered out of the reach of danger, and peaked our oars. The whale now ran, and took the line out of the boat with such swiftness, that we were obliged to throw water on it to prevent its taking fire by friction around the loggerhead.

The whale now stopped, and dashed and rolled about in great agony, so that it was dangerous approaching him. By this time the Captain came up and boldly darted a harpoon into his writhing body. The enraged whale raised his head above the water, snapped his horrid jaws together, and lashed the sea into foam with his flukes.

He

The mate now approached near enough to bury a lance deep in his vitals, and shouted again, Stern all! A thick stream of blood, instead of water, was now issuing from his spout holes. Another lance was buried. was thrown into dying convulsions, and ran around in a circle. His flurry was soon over. He turned upon his left side, and floated dead. We gave three cheers, and took him in tow, for the ship was about twenty miles off.

But a still more exciting and perilous scene was to follow. For the third day after this, while we were still busy trying out the oil, the Captain being on the forecastle, cried out, There she blows! there she blows! And sure enough there were several large sperm whales blowing, off our weather bow. There was a tremendous sea running, and it looked squally; however we lowered away the larboard and waste boats, and went in chase. We chased them about two miles, when there came up a tremendous squall, and the rain fell in torrents. We peaked our oars, and presently a signal from the ship directed us to pull away to the leeward. Away we flew, and soon the boat-steerer darted a harpoon into a very large one. It instantly turned and ran to the windward, and I thought it would have stove the boat in pieces as we bounded from billow to billow. However, our line parted, and at the same moment our first mate's boat got fast to the same whale. hauled in the line, bent another harpoon, and went in pursuit again. We chased about half an hour, when the whale turned to the windward, and made directly for us. The mate should have avoided it, but he was so much excited in the chase as to be blind to all danger. On we went, and our boat struck the whale's head with such force as to throw us off our thwarts; at the same moment cur boat-steerer sent two harpoons into his body. It rolled over on its back, and we being to the windward, before we could get clear of danger a heavy sea struck our boat, and directly into the whale's mouth! Jump! spring for your lives! shouted the mate, as he sprang

We

into the sea; and we had barely time to throw ourselves clear of the boat before it was crushed into atoms by its ponderous jaws. Not in the least hurt, but dreadfully frightened, we were picked up. We owe it to the goodness of Divine providence that we were not devoured by the swarms of sharks which surrounded us.-Naval Jour.

REIGN OF TERROR.

Macaulay in his review of the "Memoirs of Barrere," gives the following brief, but striking picture of the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France. Let Americans ponder on one of the dangers of nations.

"Then came those days when the most barbarous of all codes was administered by the most barbarous of all tribunals; when no man could greet his neighbors, or say his prayers or dress his hair without danger of committing a capital crime, when spies lurked in every corner, when the guillotine was long and hard at work every morning; when the jails were filled as close as the hold of a slave ship; when the gutters ran foaming with blood into the Seine; when it was death to be great neice to a captain of the royal guards, or a half brother to a doctor of Sorbonne; to express a doubt whether assignats would not fall; to hint that the English had been victorious in the action of the first of June; to have a copy of Burke's pamphlets locked up in a desk; to laugh at a Jacobin for taking the name of Cassius or Timoleon, or to call the fifth sans-culotide, by its old superstitious name of St. Matthew's day.

While the daily wagon loads were carried to their doom through the streets of Paris, the proconsuls, whom the sovereign committee had sent forth to the departments, revelled in an extravagance of cruelty unknown even in the capital. The knife of the deadly machine rose and fell too slow for their work of slaugh ter. Long rows of captives were mowed down with grape shot. Holes were made in the bottom of crowded barges.

Lyons was turned into a desert. At Arras, even the cruel mercy of speedy death was denied to the prisoners. All down the Loire, from Samur to the sea, great flocks of crows and kites feasted on naked corpses, twined together in hideous embraces. No mercy was shown to sex or age. The number of young lads and girls of seventeen who were murdered by that execrable. government, is to be reckoned by hundreds. Babies torn from the breast were tossed from pike to pike along the Jacobin ranks. One champion of liberty had his pockets well stuffed with ears. Another swaggered about with the finger of a little child in his hat. A few months had served to degrade France below the level of New Zealand.

He who loves jesting and railery, brings himself into many troubles.