where all, that had once been to me so great and mighty, then was; in what gulf the sounds of merriment, that once reverberated from the walls, the master, the domestic, the aged, and the young, had disappeared. Our early recollections are pleasing to us, because they look not on the morrow. Alas! what did that morrow leave when it had become nerged in the past'

I have lately traversed the village in which I was born, without discovering a face that I knew. Houses have been demolished, fronts altered, tenements built, trees rooted up, and alterations effected, that made me feel a stranger amid the home of my fathers. The old-fashioned and roomy house, where my infant years had been watched by parental affection, had been long uninhabited: it was in decay: the storm beat through its fractured windows, and it was partly roofless. The garden, and its old elms, the scene associated with the cherished feelings of many a happy hour, lay a weedy waste :

Amid thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries;
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,

And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall!

But the picture it presented in my youth exhibits it as true and vivid as ever. It is hung up in memory in all its freshness, and time cannot dilapidate its image. It is now become an essence, that defies the mutability of material things. It is fixed in ethereal colours on the tablets of the mind, and lives within the domain of spirit, within the circumference of which the universal spoiler possesses no sovereignty.

LESSON LXVII.

On visiting a Scene of Childhood.-BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE

"I came to the place of my birth, and said, "The friends of my youth, where are they?' and Echo answered, Where are they?"""

LONG years had elapsed since I gazed on the scene,
Which my fancy still robed in its freshness of green,—
The spot where, a school-boy, all thoughtless, I strayed
By the side of the stream, in the gloom of the shade.

I thought of the friends, who had roamed with me there,
When the sky was so blue, and the flowers were so fair,-
All scattered!—all sundered by mountain and wave,
And some in the silent embrace of the grave!

I thought of the green banks, that circled around,
With wild-flowers, and sweet-brier, and eglantine crowned
I thought of the river, all quiet and bright

As the face of the sky on a blue summer night:

And I thought of the trees, under which we had strayed,
Of the broad leafy boughs, with their coolness of shade;
And I hoped, though disfigured, some token to find
Of the names, and the carvings, impressed on the rind.

All eager, I hastened the scene to behold,
Rendered sacred and dear by the feelings of old;
And I deemed that, unaltered, my eye should explore
This refuge, this haunt, this Elysium of yore.

'Twas a dream!—not a token or trace could I view
Of the names that I loved, of the trees that I knew:
Like the shadows of night at the dawning of day,
"Like a tale that is told"-they had vanished away.

And methought the lone river, that murmured along,
Was more dull in its motion, more sad in its song,
Since the birds, that had nestled and warbled above,
Had all fled from its banks, at the fall of the grove.

I paused-and the moral came home to my heart :-
Behold, how of earth all the glories depart!
Our visions are baseless,-our hopes but a gleam,-
Our staff but a reed,—and our life but a dream.

Then, O, let us look-let our prospects allure-
To scenes that can fade not, to realms that endure,
To glories, to blessings, that triumph sublime

O'er the blightings of Change, and the ruins of Time.

LESSON LXIX.

The Little Graves.-ANONYMOUS.

"Twas autumn, and the leaves were dry,
And rustled on the ground,
And chilly winds went whistling by,
With low and pensive sound.

As through the grave-yard's lone retreat,
By meditation led,

I walked, with slow and cautious feet,
Above the sleeping dead,-

Three little graves, ranged side by side, My close attention drew;

O'er two, the tall grass, bending, sighed, And one seemed fresh and new.

As, lingering there, I mused awhile
On death's long, dreamless sleep,
And opening life's deceitful smile,
A mourner came to weep.

Her form was bowed, but not with
Her words were faint and few,
And on those little graves her tears
Distilled like evening dew.

years,

A prattling boy, some four years old,
Her trembling hand embraced,
And from my heart the tale he told
Will never be effaced.

"Mămma',* now you must love me more,

For little sister's dead;
And t'other sister died before,
And brother too, you said.

"Mamma, what made sweet sister die? She loved me when we played. You told me, if I would not cry, Vou'd show me where she's laid." a sounded as in father.

""Tis here, my child, that sister lies,
Deep buried in the ground:
No light comes to her little eyes,
And she can hear no sound."

"Mamma, why can't we take her up,
And put her in my bed?
I'll feed her from my little cup,

And then she won't be dead.

For sister'll be afraid to lie
In this dark grave to-night,
And she" be very cold, and cry,
Becau; there is no light."

'No, sister is not cold, my child;
For God, who saw her die,

he looked down from heaven and smiled, Recalled her to the sky.

"And then her spirit quickly fled

To God, by whom 'twas given;

Her body in the ground is dead,
But sister lives in heaven."

"Mamma, won't she be hungry there,
And want some bread to eat?
And who will give her clothes to wear,
And keep them clean and neat?

"Papa' must go and carry some;
I'll send her all I've got;
And he must bring sweet sister home,
Mamma, now must he not?"

"No, my dear child, that cannot be;
But, if you're good and true,
You'll one day go to her; but she
Can never come to you.

““Let little children come to me,'
Once our good Saviour said,
And in his arms she'll always be,
And God will give her bread."

LESSON LXX.

Life and Death.-NEW MONTHLY Magazine

O FEAR not thou to die!

But rather fear to live; for life
Has thousand snares thy feet to try,
By peril, pain, and strife.
Brief is the work of death;

But life!-the spirit shrinks to see How full, ere heaven recalls the breath, The cup of wo may be.

O fear not thou to die!

No more to suffer or to sin;

No snares without, thy faith to try,

No traitor heart within:

But fear, O! rather fear,

The gay, the light, the changeful scene The flattering smiles that greet thee here, From heaven thy heart to wean.

Fear, lest, in evil hour,

Thy pure and holy hope o'ercome,
By clouds that in the horizon lower,—
Thy spirit feel that gloom,
Which, over earth and heaven,

The covering throws of fell despair;
And deems itself the unforgiven,
Predestined child of care.

O fear not thou to die!

To die, and be that blessed one, Who, in the bright and beauteous sky, May feel his conflict done

May feel that, never more,

The tear of grief or shame shall come, For thousand wanderings from the Power Who loved, and called him home!

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