That seem,

Luxuriant, with their tufts of hanging seed.
Silent_alone--one melancholy tree,
With rifted rind, and long, lean, hanging boughs,
Like skeleton arms, upon the wither'd heath
Stands desolate ; and with its quivering leaf,
That, as in mockery, saws the twilight sky,
Whispers, how spareless Time hath triumph'd there!

How silent !--Even the beating of my heart
Feels an intrusion here :-the sward is dim
With moss and danky weeds, and lichen'd stones

as if from immemorial time,
Upon the same spot to have lain untouch'd.
The very graves have moulder’d to decay,
Tenantless—boneless-clods of common earth:
The storms, the piercing winds, and plashing rains,
So long have beat upon them, and the snows,
Melting in spring, so often soak'd them through
And through, that every undulating swell
Is levell’d.

Oh ! how dim, how desolate ! -
The aspect of mortality is press'd
Like lead upon my soul :-that human things
Such as I am, and others are, and such
As those were, who of old were buried here,
Should lie and rot amid the damp, wet, mould,
Moveless, and voiceless, senseless, silent, still,
To nourish for a while the earth-worm's brood,-
Then pass to nothing, like a morning mist, -
Nor leave one token, nor one trace behind !

Musing, I stand a breathing creature here
In loneliness, beneath the twilight sky,
Silent, and circled with forgotten graves !
A hundred years have come, and passed away,
Since last a fellow mortal in this field
Did make his bed of rest; a hundred years,
Eluded, have the drilling insects bored
Their passage through the sterile soil, nor found
Aught new to be a banquet for their brood ;-
No kind descendant, kindling with the fire
Of ancestry, in filial reverence comes
Hither to gaze, where his forefathers lay;
Their generation, their descendants, all
That knew them living, or might weep them dead-
Their thoughts, their deeds, their names, their memories,
Have floated down the stream of time, to join
The ocean of oblivion, on whose breast
Of their existence not one wreck appears.--

Silently as the clouds of summer heaven,
Across the skies of life they fleeted by,
And were not ; like the flaky snow, that falls
Melting within the ocean stream;--the mist
That floats upon the gentle morning air,
And dies to nothingness at glowing noon;
Like valley flowers, which at the sunrise ope
Their golden cups, and shut at eventide !

A remnant from the flock of human kind
They lie cut off—a solitary tribe :
Now o'er the spot, where erst their ashes lay,
The dews may fall, the rains may beat unknown,
The winds may journey, and the weeds may spring,-
None heed them, and none hear them all is still.

XI.

Summer Twilight.
The clouds pass away, and are leaving the sky,

A region of azure, unclouded and bright;
And the star of the twilight, with tremulous eye,

Comes forth, like an angel that heralds the night. Not a zephyr is curling the breast of the stream,

Not a zephyr is stirring the leaves on the tree,
And low hollow sounds, like the hum of a dream,

Steal over the vale from the voluble sea,
All is tranquil and still, save the spirit of man,

Allis peaceful and pure, save the dreams of his breast. And the fanciful hopes, that illumine his span,

Draw him on, like a spell, from the mansions of rest. When around there is joy, then, within there is strife,

On his cheek is a smile, on his bosom is care ; And daily, and hourly, the waves of his life

Dash, breaking in foam, on the rocks of despair !

A.

XII.

The Bard's Wish.

a

Oh were I laid

In the greenwood shade,
Beneath the covert of waving trees,

Removed from woe,

And the ills below,
That render life but a long disease!

No more to weep,

But in soothing sleep,
To slumber on long ages through ;

My grave turf bright

With the rosy light
Of eve, or the morning's silver dew.

I ask no dirge

The foamy surge
Of the torrent will sing a lament for me;

And the evening breeze,

That stir the trees,
Will murmur a mournful lullaby.

Plant not-plant not

Above the spot,
Memorial stones for the stranger's gaze ;

The earth and sky

Are enough, for I
Have lived with nature all my days.

Oh were I laid

In the greenwood shade,
Beneath the covert of waving trees,

Removed from woe,

And the ills below,
That render life but a long disease !

A.

CHALMERS' COMMERCIAL SERMONS.*

a

We know no fact, which, viewed in preacher. And yet, it is not the power all its relations, speaks more highly of the man, but the purpose of the in favour of the spirit of the present man, that stamps his mind with its day, than the great popularity of truest character of greatness. Dr Chalmers. Much® has already His greatest excellence, as a preachbeen written about him in this jour- er of christianity, is, in one word, his nal, and that by many different total want of flattery--his perfect scorn hands--but we feel, on looking over of all those arts by which most popuall that has been said, as if it were lar preachers seek and obtain their poquite feeble and ineffectual, when pularity. He is, at once, the most compared with the real sense of his evangelical and the most practical of merits, that is spread widely, and we sermon-writers and this alone, if the would hope, fixed deeply, over the matter be looked narrowly into, is sufwhole healthy and right-thinking mass ficient to justify all that has been-all of the people. He has been eulogized that can be said in his praise. No abundantly for the fervour of his im- sensible man will ever dare, after readpassioned eloquence, and the dignified ing his works, to use the word evansweep of his illustration, and the en- gelical in a contemptuous sense ;-he lightened wisdom of his remarks on has, for ever, done away the reproach the character and condition of the of being a Calvinist. He is a bold orie times in which he lives; but we feel ginal thinker-a profound metaphyas if no adequate tribute of admiration sician and a most accomplished mashas ever yet been paid in these, or in ter of declamation—and, being such, any other pages, to that rare spirit he might easily have raised himself to of christian self-denial, which has a high pitch of estimation in the been, and is every day exemplified in church, without giving up, as he has the uses to which, animated at once done, all the vulgar appliances of ecby a noble humility and an honest clesiastical success—without despispride, this good and GREAT MAN has ing the prejudices of both the great thought fit to devote his powers of divisions of Christian hearers alikethought and language. There can be and so, without encountering any one no doubt, that taking oratory in the of the difficulties of that adventuhighest of its acceptations, he is the rous, and, in some eyes at least we greatest of all living orators. At the fear, invidious career, to which he has bar-in the senate (perhaps even in devoted himself. But such were not the church)-it may be possible to the views likely to sway the mind of find men possessed of much more such a man as Dr Chalmers. In spite brilliancy, both of fancy and exprese of the sneers with which his first sion; and, we have no doubt, hun- splendid appearances were received by dreds may be found far superior to the leaders of both the ecclesiastical him, in all the elegancies of composi- parties in Scotland, he went on retion, style, and delivery; but there is joicing in his course; and the result a certain directness of understanding~ has been, that while neither of these a certain clear thorough-going honesty parties dare to claim him for its ownof thought-a plain weight of power either of them would be too proud to and a simple consciousness of power, enlist him almost at any price in its about Dr Chalmers, that are a thou- ranks. He stands, as it is, entirely by sand times more than enough to set himself—a noble example of what the him triumphantly over the heads of true minister of Christianity ought to all the living speakers in the land. be totally unfettered by any tramPerhaps, since Charles Fox died, Great mels of party-feeling, civil or eccleBritain cannot be said to have exhibito siastical the unwearied deviser of ed one genuine natural orator, in any good, slowly but surely witnessing the one department, except this mighty triumph of all that he devises-with

The application of Christianity to the commercial and ordinary affairs of life, in a series of discourses. By Thomas Chalmers, D. D. Minister of St John's Church, Glasgow, Svo, Chalmers & Collins, Glasgow.

bfound E

ccomplis and, bei raised

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out suspicion of servility, or semblance gious writings consists; and from which, of self-seeking, the upright unshaken we have no doubt, their principal use

indefatigable advocate of every thing fulness is derived. is not ed that tends to dignify the high, and to We have already had frequent oc2 pupcer ennoble the low-labouring from hour casion to take notice of his quarterly s mind e to hour, and from day to day, to make publications" on the Christian and cieatness men perceive wherein the true secret vic economy of great towns,” and of nee, a 19 of all the calamities of the times con- the beautiful speculations therein laid in one w sists-and to repair and replenish from before the publie, concerning the best, - bis pera at once the simplest and the loftiest or rather only, means of repairing the hich mak of sources, all the decayed channels of present alarming deficiency of every I obtain a sober, wise, and rational loyalty, among sort of education among the crowded onc, & the unhappily estranged and alienated population of such cities as that in most pre feelings of a once virtuous devont and which he resides. The present volume this din patriotic population.

of sermons may be considered, in one O Fly inta

The close adaptation of all that he point of view, as a part of the same hat has le says and writes, to the actual condition work; for it is easy to see that it has his prohi

of the people he is addressing, and the originated in the same course of study r dare

, et circumstances of the times in which he and reflection-study close and searche the wa lives, forms one most remarkable pee ing of every species of that commer

culiarity of the works of Dr Chalmers cial character by which he is surroundway de--and accounts, of itself, in a great ed—and reflection deep and sincere, He isto measure, for the elevation to which he concerning the means of improving

has attained in the public opinion. It that character, alike in its higher and is not, that he is singular in the wish its lower walks of exhibition. We to adapt himself, in this manner, to observe that this author has already the necessities of his auditors and been attacked by the various oracles of readers. Hundreds, we might say the mob, * on account of the zeal with

thousands, of excellent, and of able which he preaches to the humble in apline men, are scattered throughout the condition the necessity of civil govern

land, and animated with the same ho- ment, and the duty of loyal obedience nourable desire ; and who shall doubt, to the constitution and administration that success has been, and is, from of the country-doctrines on which, day to day, granted to their labours ? most surely, no preacher ever comBut none of those that have published mented in a manner more free from sermons of late appear to us to have all guise and semblance of courtly aduentered upon this part of the task with lation, or mean servility of purpose, any thing like the same felicity, wheth- than Dr Chalmers. We know not er of view or of execution, as Dr what misrepresentations may be given Chalmers. We look in vain among of this volume also by the same dealthe religious publications of the day ers in calumny-men whose hatred of for any thing like that certain mastery such a man as this, is of course in exof glance, by which he appears to scru- act proportion to their sense of his

tinize all the moving surfaces of ex- power and fear of his zeal. It will be he me ternal things around him--that bold- evident to all who bring honest minds

ness with which he brings the great to the investigation, that the plain e reithas doctrines of the Bible into close con- simple purpose of the book is chiefly him des tact with every manifestation of the to do good to the lower orders of soI be tim spirit of the age from the fine built ciety, by reminding the higher of their any poi theories of the would-be philosopher, much-neglected duties towards them Sic i, at down to the wild coarse ravings of the to enforce the great obligation of good

mechanic reformer--that noble confi- example-and to shew how easily and

dence which makes him seek and find, how naturally the trifling faults (as ed by K on every occasion, one sure remedy for they are courteously denominated) of

sign”

”—and having found, the rich may be converted by the poor med to proclaim it-in one word, finally, into covering, and precedent, and aposmink that clear and distinct "application of logy, for their own coarser and more edersen Christianity to the ordinary affairs obviously and immediately pernicious

of life,” in which the principalmerit of offences. But as the whole strain of Dr Chalmers' sermons and other reli- his arguments has the same tendency

ng up,

- Witboc i of both i In heart i un teraz

eres ut

ut sud e

halmers

which

the

istianita

every evil «

its of the

* Statesman, Examiner, Black Dwarf, Scotsman, &c. Vol. VIII.

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ness.

at least to promote that good against such as he, who have congealed it. He which the foul passions of these “ false has raised a jaundiced medium between prophets” are enlisted, there need be the rich and the poor, in virtue of which, little wonder if they should discover the former eye the latter with suspicion; some pretence on which to display the and there is not a man who wears the garb,

and prefers the applications of poverty, that usual allowance of bitterness and ran

has not suffered from the worthless imposcour, and all dishonest uncharitable

tor who has gone before him. They are,

in fact, the deceit and the indolence, and The truth, indeed, is, that by far the low sordidness of a few, who have made the most powerful part of the volume outcasts of the many, and locked against is that which appears to have been them the feelings of the wealthy in a kind most immediately dictated by the au- of iron imprisonment. The rich man who thor's own observation of the effect is ungenerous in his doings, keeps back one which the loose and idle declamations labourer from the field of charity. But a of the disloyal press have produced poor man who is ungenerous in his desires

,

can expul a thousand labourers in disgust upon the spirit of the lower orders in

away from it. He sheds a cruel and exhis neighbourhood ; the absurd ideas tended blight over the fair region of phiwhich these idle declamations have lanthropy; and many have abandoned it, engendered respecting the relative si- who, but for him, would fondly have tuations and obligations of the differ- lingered thereupon ; very many, who, but ent classes of society; and the wild for the way in which their simplicity has and visionary notions they have spread still have tasted the luxury of doing good

been tried and trampled upon, would concerning the possibility of abating

unto the poor, and made it their delight, as the necessary evils of life by any other well as their duty, to expend and expatiate means than those of individual indus- among their habitations. try, honesty, patience, and honourable “ We say not this to exculpate the rich ; pride. The discourse on the great for it is their part not to be weary in wellChristian law of reciprocity between doing, but to prosecute the work and the man and man —“whatsoever ye would labour of love under every discouragement

. that men should do unto you, even so

Neither do we say this to the disparagement do ye unto them”- ?-seems to us to be of the poor; for the picture we have given

is of the few out of the many; and the the most masterly specimen of reasoning and illustration in the whole book. becomes, will it be the more seen of what a

closer the acquaintance with humble life He compares the operation of this law, high pitch of generosity even the very as rightly interpreted, to that of a go- poorest are capable. They in truth, though vernor or fly in mechanism that hap- perhaps they are not aware of it, can conpy contrivance, by which all that is tribute more to the cause of charity, by the defective or excessive in the motion is moderation of their desires, than the rich confined within the limits of equabi- without, it may be, one penny to bestow,

can by the generosity of their doings. They, lity, and every tendency in any parti- might obtain a place in the record of heaven, cular quarter to mischievous accelera

as the most liberal benefactors of their spetion is coerced and restrained. Nor cies. There is nothing in the humble concan any illustration be more just or dition of life they occupy, which precludes happy. The ultimate evil effects of them from all that is great or graceful in the ungenerous conduct of rich men on human charity. There is a way in which the interests of society at large, and they may equal, and even outpeer, the therefore on their own interests, are

wealthiest of the land, in that very virtue displayed in a manner equally original of which wcalth alone has been conceived and beautiful ; and he then proceeds is a pervading character in humanity

to have the exclusive inheritance. There to treat the other side of the question which the varieties of rank do not obliter. in a way that shews no less knowledge ate; and as, in virtue of the common corof human nature as it actually exists, ruption, the poor man may be as effectually than sense of that in which its true the rapacious despoiler of his brethren, as dignity ought ever to lie. Speaking the man of opulence above him-so, there of “ the ungenerous poor,

whose is a conimon excellence attainable by both; meanness and rapacity of spirit ren

and through which, the poor man may, to ders him the worst enemy of the poor rich, and yield a far more important con