them; the way is plain; the boundaries are definite; the business is obvious; and this to them is life. They look upon this world as a vast domicile, or an extensive pleasureground: the objects are familiar; the implements are worn; the very skies are old; the earth is a pathway for those that come and go, on earthly errands; the world is a workingfield, a warehouse, a market-place; — and this is life.

But life indeed, the intellectual life, struggling with its earthly load, coming it knows not whence, going it knows not whither, with an eternity unimaginable behind it, with an eternity to be experienced before it, with all its strange and mystic remembrances, now exploring its past years, as if they were periods before the flood, and then gathering them within a space as brief and unsubstantial as if they were the dream of a day, with all its dark and its bright visions of mortal fear and hope; -life, such a life, is full of mysteries. In the simplest actions, indeed, as well as in the loftiest contemplations, in the most ordinary feelings, as well as in the most abstruse speculations, mysteries meet us everywhere, mingle with all our employments, terminate all our views.

The bare connection of mind with matter, is itself a mystery. The extremes of the creation are here brought together, its most opposite and incongruous elements are blended, not only in perfect harmony, but in the most intimate sympathy. Celestial life and light mingle, nay, and sympathize, with dark, dull, and senseless matter. The boundless thought hath bodily organs. That which in a moment glances through the immeasurable hosts of heaven, hath its abode within the narrow bounds of nerves, and limbs, and senses. beneath our feet is built up into the palace of the soul. The sordid dust we tread upon, forms, in the mystic frame of our humanity, the dwelling-place of high-reasoning thoughts, fashions the chambers of imagery, and moulds the heart, that beats with every lofty and generous affection. Yes, the feelings that soar to heaven, the virtue that is to win the heavenly crown, flows in the life-blood, that, in itself, is as senseless as the soil from which it derives its nourishment.

The clay

Who shall explain to us this mysterious union, tell us where sensation ends, and thought begins, or where organization passes into life? There have been philosophers who have reasoned about this, materialists and immaterialists; and under their direction, the powers of matter and spirit have been marshalled in the contest, for ascendency in this human microcosm. But the war has been fruitless; the

argument futile: philosophers have settled nothing, proved nothing; for they knew nothing.

Turn to what pursuit of science, or point of observation we will; and it is still the same. In every department of thought and study, we, sooner or later, come to a region into which our inquiries cannot penetrate. Everywhere our thoughts run out into the vast, the indefinite, the incomprehensible: time stretches to eternity, place to immensity, calculation to "numbers without number," being to Infinite Greatness. Every path of our reflections brings us, at length, to the shrine of the unknown and the unfathomable, where we must sit down, and receive with devout and childlike meekness, if we receive at all, the voice of the oracle within.

EXERCISE CXXIV.

SCENE FROM MIRIAM. Mrs. E. Hall.

Piso, Euphas, and Miriam.

[Paulus, the son of Piso, a Roman magistrate, has been seized and detained as a hostage for the safety of Euphas's father, who, together with other Christians, has been imprisoned, and condemned to death.]

How fell my noble Paulus in the gripe

Of yonder ravening wolves?

Euphas. How came he there?

Alas! that question hath a dagger's point.

Man! I would rather die than answer it!

Pi. But thou shalt speak, or I will have thy bones Wrenched from their sockets. - Silent still?

Bethink thee, thou art young and delicate:

Thy tender limbs have a keen sense of pain!

- Stripling!

Eu. In dark thoughts am I lost, - but not of that! Answer me! Rouse thee from thy trance; thou'lt find A stern reality around thee soon.

Pi.

Eu. It is a thought to search the very so young, she may repent. ·

And yet,

soul!

- Piso !

It is a short but melancholy tale;
And if my heart break not the while, in brief

the long grass hissing as it sweeps through, and its own solemn monotony over all; and the dimple of that same brook, and the waterfall's unaltered bass shall still reach you, in the intervals of its power, as much in harmony as before, and as much a part of its perfect and perpetual hymn.

There is no accident of nature's causing which can bring in discord. The loosened rock may fall into the abyss, and the overblown tree rush down through the branches of the wood, and the thunder peal awfully in the sky; and sudden and violent as these changes seem, their tumult goes up with the sound of wind and waters, and the exquisite ear of the musician can detect no jar.

I have read somewhere of a custom in the Highlands, which, in connection with the principle it involves, is exceedingly beautiful. It is believed that, to the ear of the dying, (which, just before death, becomes always exquisitely acute,) the perfect harmony of the voices of nature, is so ravishing, as to make him forget his suffering, and die gently, like one in a pleasant trance. And so, when the last moment approaches, they take him from the close shieling, and bear him out into the open sky, that he may hear the familiar rushing of the streams. I can believe that it is not superstition. I do not think we know how exquisitely nature's many voices are attuned to harmony, and to each other.

The old philosopher we read of, might not have been dreaming when he discovered that the order of the sky was like a scroll of written music, and that two stars, (which are said to have appeared centuries after his death, in the very places he mentioned,) were wanting to complete the harmony. We know how wonderful are the phenomena of colour; how strangely like consummate art the strongest dyes are blended in the plumage of birds, and in the cups of flowers; so that, to the practised eye of the painter, the harmony is inimitably perfect. It is natural to suppose every part of the universe equally perfect; and it is a glorious and elevating thought, that the stars of heaven are moving on continually to music; and that the sounds we daily listen to are but part of a melody that reaches to the very centre of God's illimitable spheres

EXERCISE CXII.

THERE IS A TONGUE IN EVERY LEAF.

Caroline Bowles

leaf

THERE is a tongue in every

A voice in every rill;

A voice that speaketh everywhere

In flood and fire, through earth and air, -
A tongue that's never still.

'Tis the great Spirit wide diffused
Through every thing we see,
That with our spirits communeth,
Of things mysterious,
Time and Eternity.

Life and Death,

I see Him in the blazing sun,
And in the thunder-cloud;
I hear Him in the mighty roar
That rusheth through the forests hoar,
When winds are piping loud.

I see Him, hear Him, everywhere,-
In all things,-darkness, light,
Silence and sound, - but most of all,
When slumber's dusky curtains fall,
At the dead hour of night.

I feel Him in the silent dews,

By grateful earth betrayed;

I feel Him in the gentle showers,

The soft south wind, the breath of flowers,

The sunshine and the shade.

And yet, (ungrateful that I am!)

I've turned, in sullen mood,

From all these things, whereof He said, -
When the great whole was finishėd, -
That they were 66 very good."

My sadness on the loveliest things
Fell like ungrateful dew;

A thing of mortal mould?-Oh! better meet
The wailing ghosts of those whose blood doth clog
My midnight dreams, than that half-pitying eye!
Mir. Thou art a wretched man! and I do feel
Pity even for the suffering guilt hath brought.
But from the quiet grave I have not come,
Nor from the shadowy confines of the world
Where spirits dwell, to haunt thy midnight hour.
The disimbodied should be passionless,

And wear not eyes that swim in earth-born tears,

As mine do now! - Look up, thou conscience-struck!

Pi. Off! off! - she touched me with her damp, cold hand!

But 'twas a hand of flesh and blood! - Away!

Come thou not near me till I study thee.

Mir. Why are thine eyes so fixed and wild? thy lips Convulsed and ghastly white? Thine own dark sins, Vexing thy soul, have clad me in a form

Thou dar'st not look upon

-I know not why.

'Mid thy remorse,

But I must speak to thee.
And the unwonted terrors of thy soul,

I must be heard,

for God hath sent me here.

And it was He who smote thee, even now,

With a strange, nameless fear.

Pi. Girl! Name it not.

I deemed I looked on one, whose bright young face
First glanced upon me 'mid the shining leaves
Of a green bower in sunny Palestine,
In my youth's prime! I knew the dust,
The grave's corroding dust, had soiled
That spotless brow long since.

- A shadow fell

Upon the soul that never yet knew fear.

But it is past. Earth holds not what I dread;
And what the gods did make me, am I now.
What seekest thou?

Eu. Miriam! go thou hence.

Why shouldst thou die?

Mir. Brother!

Now by the gods! - Bar, - bar the gates, ye slaves!
If they escape me now, Why this is good!

I had not dreamed of hap so glorious.

His sister!—she that beguiled my son!

Mir.

Peace!

Name not with tongue unhallowed love like ours.