receive their first rudiments of exist- | enter into the heart of man to conceive ence here, and afterward to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity? There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant consideration in religion than this of the perpetual progress which the soul makes toward the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue and knowledge to knowledge, carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a prospect pleasing to God himself to see his creation forever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him by greater degrees of resemblance. Methinks this single consideration of the progress of a finite spirit to perfection will be sufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in superior. That cherubim, which now appears as a god to a human soul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity when the human soul shall be as perfect as he himself now is; nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfection as much as she now falls short of it. It is true the higher nature still advances, and by that means preserves his distance and superiority in the scale of being; but he knows that how high soever the station is of which he stands possessed at present, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and shine forth in the same degree of glory. With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhausted sources of perfection! We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever the glory that will be always in reserve for him. The soul, considered in rela tion to its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity without a possibility of touching it; and can there be a thought so transporting as to consider ourselves in these perpetual ap proaches to Him who is not only the standard of perfection but of happiness? THE COMMON LOT. [JAMES MONTGOMERY, born in Scotland in 1771; died 1854.j Once, in the flight of ages past, There lived a man; and who was he? Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast, That man resembled thee. Unknown the region of his birth, The land in which he died unknown: His name has perished from the earth, This truth survives alone: That joy, and grief, and hope, and fear, Alternate triumphed in his breast; The bounding pulse, the languid limb, He suffered-but his pangs are o'er; Enjoyed-but his delights are fled; He loved but whom he loved the grave He saw whatever thou hast seen; The rolling seasons, day and night, To him exist in vain. The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye That once their shades and glory threw, Have left in yonder silent sky No vestige where they flew. The annals of the human race, Their ruins, since the world began, Or him afford no other trace Than this-there lived a man! ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. GRAY. THOMAS GRAY was born in London, 1716. At thirty-four years of age, he wrote to his friend Walpole, that "a thing whose beginning he had seen long efore had at last got an end to it, a merit that most of my writings have wanted." This thing was the far-famed Elegy. It appears that the piece was never intended for the public, but that Grav wrote it to gratify a few of his friends. Walpole showed it about, copies were taken, and it was soon put to ps. It was received with delight, and quickly ran through eleven editions. It is said that on the memorable night pre ceding the taking of Quebec, Gen. Wolfe repented the elegy. Upon concluding the recitation, he said to his companions in arms, "Now, gentlemen. I would prefer being the author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to-morrow." The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turfin many a moldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team a-field! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ccstasy the living lyre. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. The applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes. Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes com fined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse, The place of fame and elegy supply. And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die. THE ANCIENT MAN. JEAN PAUL RICHTER. "Looking Toward Sunset "i: a charming book to thos who have arrived beyond their noon, and have their eyes fixed upon the western hills that bound the great journey. It is the rich gleanings of a life harvest from all literatures, by Mrs. L. Maria Child, gathered from sources, old and new, original and selected, consisting of such articles in prose and poetry that tend most to comfort and gladden one's later years while moving along in the quiet lengthening shadows of the declining rays. The subject annexed is translated from the German of Jean Paul Richter's memoir of Fibel, author of the Bienenroda Spelling Book." It describes the last days of a very aged man, golden in the mellow sunset glow of a pure and tranquil life.] "He is insensibly subdued To settled quiet. He is one by whom THE stream of Fibel's history having vanished under ground, like a second river Rhone, I was obliged to explore and for this purpose I questioned every where story or stream again burst forth, one. I was told that no one could better inform me than an exceedingly aged man, more than a hundred and twentyfive years old, who lived a few miles from the village of Bienenroda, and who, having been young at the same time with Fibel, must know all about him. Tho prospect of shaking hands with the very oldest man living on the face of the earth enraptured me. I said to myself that a most novel and peculiar sensation must be excited by having a whole past century before you, bodily present, compact and alive, in the century now passing; by holding, hand to hand, a man of the age of the antedilu vians, over whose head so many entire generations of young mornings and old evenings have fled, and before whom one stands, in fact, as neither young nor old; to listen to a human spirit, outlandish, behind the time, almost mysteriously awful; sole survivor of a thonsand gray, cold sleepers, coevals of his own remoto, hoary ago; standing as sen overalls, which were, in fact, enormous stockings, and a neckerchief which hung down to his bosom, made his dress look modern enough. His time-worn frame was far more peculiar. The inner part of the eye, which is black in childhood, was quite white; his tallness, more than his years, seemed to bow him over into an arch; the outturned point of his chin gave to his speech the appearance of mumbling; yet the expression of his countenance was lively, his eyes bright, his jaws full of white teeth, and his head covered with light hair. tinel before the ancient dead, looking coldly and strangely on life's silly novelties; finding in the present no cooling for his inborn spirit-thirst, no more enchanting yesterdays or to-morrows, but only the day-before-yesterday of youth and the day-after-to-morrow of death. It may, consequently, be imagined that so very old a man would speak only of the farthest past, of his early day-dawn, which, of course, in the long evening of his protracted day, must now be blending with his midnight. On the other hand, that one like myself would not feel particularly younger before such a I began by saying: "I came here millionaire of hours as Bienenroda Pa- solely on your account, to see a man for triarch must be, and that his presence whom there can, assuredly, be little new must make one feel more conscious of under the sun, though he himself is death than of immortality. A very aged something very new under it. You are man is a more powerful memento than a now strictly in your five-and-twenties, grave, for the older a grave is the further since, after a century, a new reckoning we look back to the succession of young commences. For myself, I confess, after persons who have moldered in it; some- once clambering over the century termi times a maiden is concealed in an an-nus, or church-wall, of a hundred years, I cient grave, but an ancient dwindled body hides only an imprisoned spirit. An opportunity for visiting the Patriarch was presented by a return coachand-six, belonging to a count, on which I was admitted to a seat with the coachman. Just before arriving at Bienenroda, he pointed with his whip toward an orchard, tuneful with song, and said: "There sits the old man, with his little animals around him." I sprang from the noble equipage, and went toward him. I ventured to expect that the count's six horses would give me, before the old man, the appearance of a person of rank, apart from the simplicity of my dress, whereby princes and heroes are wont to distinguish themselves from their tinseled lackeys. I was, therefore, a little surprised that the old man kept on playing with his pet hare, not even checking the barking of his poodle, as if counts were his daily bread, until, at last, he lifted his oil-cloth hat from his head. A buttoned overcoat, which gave room to see his vest, a long pair of knit should neither know how old I was, nor whether I was myself. I should begin fresh and free, just as the world's history has often done, counting again from the year one, in the middle of a thousand years. Yet, why can not a man live to be as old as is many a giant tree of India, still standing? It is well to question very old people concerning the methods by which they have prolonged their lives. How do you account for it, dear old sir?" I was beginning to be vexed at the good man's silence, when he softly replied: "Some suppose it is because I have always been cheerful, because I have adopted the maxim, 'Never sad, ever glad,' but I ascribe it wholly to our dear Lord God, since the animals which here surround us, though never sad, but happy for the most part, by no means so frequently exceed the usual boundary of their life, as does man. He exhibits an image of the eternal God, even in the length of his duration." Such words concerning God, uttered tismal bell from the distant sanctuary sounded up here very faintly. The old dred years ago, ascend from the ancient depths of time, and gaze on me in wonder, while I and they know not whether we ought to weep or laugh." Then, addressing his silky poodle, he called out, "Ho! ho! come here old fellow!" by a tongue one hundred and twentyfive years old, had great weight and consolation, and I at once felt their beauti-years of my childhood, more than a hunful attraction. On mentioning animals, the old man turned again to his own, and, as though indifferent to him who had come in a coach-and-six, he began again to play with his menageric-the hare, the spaniel, the silky poodle, the starling, and a couple of turtle-doves on his bosom. A pleasant bee colony in the orchard also gave heed to him; with one whistle he sent the bees away, and with another he summoned them into the ring of creatures which surrounded him like a court-circle. The allusion to his childhood brought me to the purpose of my visit. "Excellent sir," said I, I am preparing the biography of the deceased Master Gotthelf Fibel, author of the famous Spelling Book, and all I now need to complete it is the account of his death." The old continued: "No one is more likely to Tell At last, he said: "No one need be sur-man smiled, and made a low bow. I prised that a very old man, who has forgotten every thing, and whom no one but the dear God knows or cares for, should give himself wholly to the dear animals. To whom can such an old man be of much use? I wander about in the villages, as in cities, wholly strange. If I see children, they come before me like my own remote childhood. If I meet old men, they seem like my past hoary years. I do not quite know where I now belong. I hang between heaven. and earth. Yet God ever looks upon me bright and lovingly, with his two eyes, the sun and the moon. Moreover, animals lead into no sin, but rather to devotion. When my turtle-doves brood over their young and feed them, it seems to me just as if I saw God himself doing a great deal, for they derive their love and instinct toward their young as a gift from him." The old man became silent, and looked pensively before him, as was his wont. A ringing of christening bells sounded from Bienenroda among the trees in the garden. He wept a little. I know not how I could have been so simple, after the beautiful words he had uttered, as to have mistaken his tears for a sign of weakness in his eyes. "I do not hear well, on account of my great age," he said, "and it seems to me as if the bap He murmured: "Excellent genius, scholar, man of letters, author most famous-these and other fine titles I learned by heart and applied to myself while I was that vain, blinded Fibel, who wrote and published the ordinary spelling book in question." So, then, this old man was the blessed Fibel himself! A hundred and twentyfive notes of admiration, ay, eighteen hundred and eleven notes in a row, would but feebly express my astonishment. [Here follows a long conversation concerning Fibel, after which the narrative continues, as follows:] The old man went into his little garden-house, and I followed him. whistled, and instantly a black squirrel came down from a tree, whither it had gone more for pleasure than for food. Nightingales, thrushes, starlings, and |