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urged us from the walks of worldly care, and brought || with jewelry; so let their graves be decent. Gather us hither. To prepare our bodies for the grave has all around, the rose and cedar and alanthus. These cost us years of solicitude and toil. To prepare a are fitting decorations. Mute as they are, they can grave for our bodies may well employ one fleeting hour. discourse to us of departed, pious friends, being lively In this work of preparation we should consult human emblems of their beauty while on earth, of the evernature, the proprieties of life, and the judgment of Je- greenness of their immortal graces, and of their paradise of jubilating joy.

hovah.

As to human nature, in a most important sense, it is always the same. So far as it depends on innate, or on circumstantial influence, it cannot greatly change. True, it may be molded in its outward features. It is like the thorn whose branches you may bend-whose foliage you may trim to many pleasing forms, but which, under every shape and inclination, remains an unfruitful and an offending tree. When we propose, then, that human nature be consulted, we do not mean that all its dictates should be heeded. Pharaoh and Absalom obeyed its voice when they erected the pillar and the pyramid. It may suggest to us what it prescribed to them-costly monuments to feed our hungry pride; for the unsanctified heart has the ambition of that usurper, who seized his father's throne, and then reared up a pillar to perpetuate his name.

To learn our duty in every stage of life, we must listen to Jehovah. To-day, as always, we need his word to guide us. Assembled to set apart a place for the burial of our dead, with what forms must we proceed? The oracle answers not. It prescribes to us no consecrating ritual. Left to our discretion, we would at least be grave. If we err, let it be on the side of sweet simplicity.

This scene is not a pantomime. We have no forms of consecration. Superstition hath her ceremonies, unprescribed by Scripture; but just devotion conse crates. To impure or careless hearts, what are forms but rash irreverence? The precept of the Bible bows our knees in prayer; but does it sprinkle holy water on the place of graves?

We are not assembled, then, for the display of mute and inexpressive forms. These heaven does not challenge at our hands. Neither does revelation urge, nor unblind reason sanction them. Such we leave to children, and in them they are rather to be pardoned than approved.

But human nature sanctified demeans itself more meekly. And yet it hath desires. Joseph uttered them when he besought his brethren to carry up his bones from Egypt to Canaan. So did Jacob when he requested his son to swear that he would bury him in the sepulchre of his fathers. So did Abraham when Under the Christian dispensation, consecrating acts he refused to deposit the remains of Sarah in the tombs are become a deep and inward work. A pure or conof the Hittites, but insisted that Ephron should receive trite heart alone can execute them. Whoever wears a price, and make Machpelah sure to him. These these priestly robes is qualified to minister. For spirexamples we may innocently copy. Nay, more-it is itual sacrifices he is clothed with apostolic power. commendable to secure a spot where, after death, we|| What then! Though we waive all outward forms, yet and our families may repose undisturbed. Abraham contrite hearts and tears will serve us better. Happy was rich; but we have no notice that he purchased any those who can afford them; for they are choicer than land, except that field. He could feed his flocks upon all unctions-more precious than the burial ointment the commons, or shelter them in the depths of the wil- of our Lord. derness, where, for the time, the occupant was owner. But when he would bury his dead, he must purchase a grave, and fortify his title by every possible device. To this forecast he owed it, under God, that so many of his sons and grand-sons, with their wives and little ones, scattered in their life-time by treachery and dissension, found burial in the family domain.

In preparing our graves, we should regard the proprieties of life. A stone to tell where we lie, set up by those whose happiness we cherished through successive years of weakness and exposure, is a savory of fering of filial gratitude. But simplicity becomes the grave. Soaring pride should not light upon the tomb. It invites a mecker guest. May not humility possess one resting place on earth? O, let her wander hither, and erect her chastened monuments of holy, sweet affection! Let her rear the pyramid on yonder waiting || soil, and water the springing willow with her tears. These will impress the millenial generations which shall follow, with respect for their progenitors, and with sentiments adapted to their walks among the tombs. We do not deck the dead with flounces, nor burden them

But do we fear, lest by craft of man or devil, our bodies come to lodge in unconsecrated ground? It cannot be, unless we desecrate the soil. The grave of every saint is blest. Jesus wrought the work when he lay within the tomb. He is therefore said to have perfumed the grave; because as fragrance delights our senses, so through his death and burial the tomb hath pleasant odors. Its prisoners rest in hope. Christ has almost wed the grave to the everlasting throne. He passed from crucifixion to burial, and from burial to heaven. Thus, greatly to our comfort, he has blended in close union, death, the grave, and the glory that shall follow. Go, then, and excavate your tombs. Fill yonder grounds with the victims of disease. Cluster them all along the banks of yonder stream. Make the careless passer along your shaded avenues start and shudder at the thickening monuments which shall soon, with peering ghastliness, look out upon his walks. But when days on earth are ended, and the lamps of night shall no longer shed their beams upon these graves, may we and our children, then sleeping in this dust, as. cend like Jesus from the sepulchre to the throne!

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Original.

ECONOMY OF CONTENTMENT. PERHAPS there is no principle in early training so little attended to as the inculcation of contentment, and the correcting and repressing of that vagrant disposition of childhood, which is seeking constantly after novelty and change. And this tendency is so universal, and, as would appear, so difficult to satisfy, that we must suppose the proper remedy has not been often applied, and that necessity alone, in cases, has controlled the error, which, perhaps, it were equally within the power of tuition and discipline to effect.

But however undecided the parent may be as to the means of discipline, the method admits of no uncertainty. Positive methods are both surest and most easy. The greatest axiom which we gather from the economy of nature is the salutary action of necessity; and since we would not choose what to our sense is bale, that which is distasteful to us, the benevolence of Providence hath put beyond our choice. The reaction of our sins, so necessary to our use, is also inevitable; and so we are relieved from the conflict of uncertainty with hope, and acquiesce in the necessity which we cannot countervail. Our aberrations are our ownthe righting of them is of God; and happy are those who accept the grace and appropriate the admonition.

Obedience should be a desideratum in parental government. It sometimes happens that the elder members of a family, who are just advancing to the threshold of society, claim the too exclusive attention of their parents over their juniors of the nursery and the

That the subject has not claimed a closer consideration is matter of surprise, whether we view it in regard to the well-being of the child himself, or in relation to its effects upon others-its immunity upon parents, and inmates, and all concerned. Not only is it matter of present importance, but one that extends to a vastly wider field of contingencies in the future, swaying or controlling almost every domestic morality, in the acci-school-room. This is a great mistake; for the little dents of health, hope, cheerfulness, amiability, scholastic acquirement, prosperity and worldly success, &c., and these again re-producing, by the sense of fair estimation, that amenity which fits and attunes the mind for still higher attainments. Of so vital importance is temper-contentment being one of its grand components. It runs its course with life, but in its issues terminates not with it, but happily constrains that piety which extends beyond.

people, having yet hardly formed other acquaintances, are almost wholly dependent upon household notices for their enjoyment; and if these are denied or withheld from them, we think they have some cause of discontent. The social spirit, the loving heart of childhood must find companionship. Nature hath provided them with those the most proper to guide their years of innocence and ignorance. These are their parents, their household guardians, their constituted compan

consigned them to their charge. And the young parents who prefer too often the claims of social life over their home duties, are unfaithful and untrue to this law of nature as to their own offspring, and will probably reap its consequences in an unruly and discontented household, its influences extending, as we have hinted, beyond the present instance or the present hour.

But, confining our attention to the branch of our sub-ions and helpers, by the same law of Providence which ject first assumed, namely, of "infant training to contentment," let us proceed to examine the feasibility of the experiment. And in doing this, we must take into account all the varieties of character with which we have to do. Some few, no doubt, we find so softly set and so gentle, that we would bide the adage, and "let well alone," lest any alterative were rather mischievous than of reform. To such children, where the practice is so good, we may await maturity before it shall be necessary to discuss with them the principles and the "science of contentment."

Childhood should abide in simplicity; for as children are incompetent to a variety of tastes, so much the more, if indulged in novelty, shall their humors sway and control them. Lead them into a variety of amusements and they are not suited-they have a perception of this; and as they know not what would please them, they are only excited to discontent and craving for continual novelty and change.

In almost every household we find two or three or more children associated by age and condition, and awaiting the discipline of parental dictation. And whether they be too much or too little indulged, this unamiable and annoying propensity to discontent is Many adults are in the same predicament; but as likely to ensue. Where the happy medium is not their pleasures are of their own choosing, they take to found, it is much more probable to occur from the for-themselves the aristocratic salvo of a "too refined tact," mer than from the latter cause. The parent, no doubt, subjecting in all things to find but "ennui." This is is often puzzled and distressed, that he do not, either by concession abet laxity of performance, or by too rigorous demanding overtask the child's ability, and so discourage rather than advance him. In the variety of cases which may require to be managed, no particular rule will apply. The parent, like the wise physician, will not always follow prescriptive rule, but, in particular cases, will attend, as it were, the bedside, and by close attention, watching the symptoms as they arise, await the clinical practice with his patient.

too true; but it originates not in a delicate but in a vitiated taste. Whilst the simple pleasures of life cloy not, nor fatigue, the very hurry upon the animal spirits is in itself unfitting in the opposite course of dissipation.

But to return to our babies of the nursery. How simple should their pleasures be kept! A walk in the garden-a play with their mates on the green-sometimes a ride-a little visit with their nurse-the talk with their parents-affection and kindness being their greatest excitements-an occasional commendation

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sloth. Full happy we are in our conviction, that this enemy is without, and not within himself. Discontent, we believe, is rather a habit superinduced by indulgence than a vice of constitution. You reply that if discontent is not inherent, or the essential sin of nature, yet that the sin of nature adopts it. Yes, as readily as "the sparks fly upward;" but 'tis the necessity of perversion, and against this we would guard; for we "fight not as beating the air."

the book, not yet conned, but valued by prescription- || largement. Keep the child upon some sufficient perthe baby-house of simple expense, with its little formances, and we guard him for the present, innocent menâge, its inventions, its mimic proprieties, and as he is, from his besetting tormentor-the demon of its industry-the Sabbath day privilege of church going with the grown family, the white frock and the best hat or cap, and the demure and staid step, the subdued laugh, the forbidden jest, with admission to the parlor on their return, &c., shall mark to them for ever the distinction of the Sabbath over other days, and serve for ever to hallow and guard its decencies from profanation. And not to one day alone do we speak; for all these little nothings, these earliest and well remembered pleasures, embodied in practice, and Too great variety, as we have hinted, should not be continued by habit, shall shape the baby's character, presented to the child's choice. Latitude in any sort and widening with his growth, and spreading them- is mischievous to children. Nor need we fear contractselves forth into the future, shall form the leadings anding or narrowing the character, for the whole tendency the tastes of life. But let us wait on him still; for our baby is already grown much stronger, and slipping away from his dependence on his nurse, he pauses and puts on a little sulk. He cannot tell his ail, but we know that he is discontented. He experiences a want, a craving and a real want; but the relief supplied is artificial, factitious, and unsuited. The child, like the man, wants an object and a purpose, but he is put off with an amusement or a toy. The toy should be his recreation, not his employment!

Industry is more intimated to us—it is recommended equally by its process and its results. It is the grand lever, and goes to the furtherance of the world. Also is it indicated by the physical structure of man, and is commended to him with best beneficence. And if it find not its agent in humanity, it will avenge itself, and querulousness and discontent shall ensue upon the delinquent. Our baby being a unit in this great plan, has as much right to be discontented as another. Industry, then, must be obeyed; and there are proofs that you can hardly begin with this discipline too soon. Witness how much more happy is the child gathering berries, or picking chips, than he is surrounded by piles of toys, or see him even amidst his little companions, || though full of sport and glee, yet changing his play every three minutes for another. Or mark with what self-importance his brother, the youngest on foot, conveys a message to a servant, or runs into the next room for mamma's handkerchief.

It may be remarked that the children of the poor are seldom beset with this restless, unsatisfied hankering after change, which we have noticed. Their few simple pleasures, recurring again and again, are never tasteless; for these children are pretty soon put upon some performances of duty; and in these the little actors receive much more benefit than they render-the character is assured and strengthened by it. Observe with what mixture of fondness and self-complacency the eldest girl nurses her younger sister, and how alert is the step of the little boy, helping his mother with her parcels from the grocer!

is to excess. Restriction is salutary in more than one view, at the same time that it forbids excursiveness, which is unfriendly to contentment. It also constrains a more fixed attention upon the subjects submitted to its choice, and tends to correct the dissipation of mind ever attendant upon too great indulgence of novelty.

We think children should be considered and allowed for-should be gratified and often indulged, but not to their hurt. Humoring a child absurdly has exactly an opposite effect to that intended, if gratification is the motive; for nature hath forbidden any gratification to the unquiet shiftings of caprice.

Another cause of discontent should be guarded against. A child should be early instructed to indulge no hopes opposed to probability. If he can be assured that he cannot obtain an object, he will cease to regard it. When necessity, the most positive of all laws, constrains a subject, it is put at rest, and a corresponding certainty is established in the mind-the conflict of desiring and of doubt is over, and the resignation is complete. But would you "so sadden our child's temper, so indurate his spirit?-the sternness of philosophy suits not with infant years," say you. But the buoyancy of nature is not so easily subdued; and if it were, the gentle mood is better than the discontented. There are many objects in life. Our child is of more than one affection. We intend him to have too much character to succumb to the first adversity. When we demand a sacrifice of him, we deny that he is either saddened or indurated; for arousing the sensibility has the effect both to elevate and to soften character; and the attempt at magnanimity is the best relief which the case admits of. It is true, we must not put the child upon a code of ethics-the ponderous tome suits not his baby hand. But we can and will put him upon the practice; and if we keep him steady and regular in his easy course, when he is grown he shall never need open the book, for why should he?

We have forbidden him his false hopes; but this is no cruelty. Deprivation, in common cases, at least at the instant, is more easily submitted to than the disapAction, then, with a purpose, is the answer to our pointment which accompanies it. And now is your close questioning of discontent in the infant bosom opportunity. The child is denied a boon which he vethe former supplying physical, the latter mental en-hemently desires-he is earnest and sufficiently made

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up from childish levity to understand you-his mood || stances of life. It were a startling assertion to say that is strong enough for you to ingraft upon it any senti- a parent "abuses his child," and an offense to call him ment of kindred tone with effect. And he can be bet-short-sighted; but can he not perceive that for one ter consoled with somewhat of equal greatness, than, present improper indulgence, the character and the fuby a simple denial, he can bear the subsiding into in- ture well-being is drawn upon with the usurious, the difference or the flatness of disappointment. Observe, griping avidity of the miser? Does not violated and whilst you talk to him, (unless he is a spoiled child,) jealous virtue assert and right herself in her whole that you have arrested his grief, and he attends earnest course? Go with her and you are safe-the line is one. ly to you; and now especially offer him some sympa- Diverge, and the distance lost is, in proportion to itself, thy, but without coaxing, and make your proposal. || two-the return is as long and much more difficult than Give him a motive and ground it in his own character, || was the aberration. and self-love shall assist you to commend and point its

use.

For deprivation supply hope; but leave it not vague and at large. Identify it with character, with definite attainments and performances, and turn the mind, running to waste in the vagrant course of external things, in upon itself; and whilst it contemplates the duty, hope supplies action to the energy, which, without a purpose, had driveled into humorsomeness and discontent. The child of greatest character will be least satisfied with idleness, although the same, if not attended to, will be found foremost in the pursuit of novelty and amusement.

We believe that early character may be redeemed and fashioned and trained to almost whatsoever we would; but it is the untiring patience and assiduity of the mother that can do it. The child that is taught by methods of application and industry, by obedience and piety, to hope in himself, will become a strong charac

ter.

And we believe that a juvenile good sense may be instilled and established to the incalculable advantage of coming years.

We have led our boy on from infancy to childhood, and approaching even to another stage. Youth, with its "thick-coming fancies," and its host of passions, shall be better coped with than if no restraint and no discipline had preceded it. As we pass on in life, we often perceive that the wayward fickleness of our own nature disturbs and hinders us more than would a constrained acquiescence in what is distasteful to us.

We could fancy a scale, a tree of life, where, abiding in the right, every succeeding year should have its appropriate duty, its additional acquirement; but once quit the course, and there is either a backset or an entire lapse of the space lost in regaining it. To take our idea out of the demonstration, we know, morally, that any departure from propriety produces a coarseness of sentiment that renders the return both difficult and distasteful. And what shall compensate our wounded self-love? Without self-respect none are happy; and with it few are miserable.

Some parents would seem to take as much delight in the pride as in the affection with which they view their children. We do not discuss whether this is ever a proper sentiment; but often, when we see the sturdy boy of six or eight years, who has been too tenderly guarded in his inability and cowardliness, we would think him any thing but an object of pride. Instead of having been, at every little emergency, put upon the heroic, and in the exercise of self-defense, he was allowed to cling, with "endearing dependence," to mamma's apron-string. If the events of life shall call for heroism, how defenseless and unprepared will he be! Meanwhile, our child of precarious and unprovided resources, shall grow stronger and stronger, bearing cheerfully his portion of life; for we would think our philosophy but half-advised, if he did not bear well the inconveniences which he may be said rather to sustain than to suffer. We would have him modest, too, whilst he exhibits that promptitude, cleverness, and efficiency, compared with which the rich man's son, poor boy, if cheated out of his birth-right, petted, humored, and enfeebled, shall appear but as a driveler or a dolt.

We are aware that where so much self-dependence is insisted on, there is danger of arrogance and conceit; but we have provided that the religious education of our protégé be commensurate with the moral training, indeed, that they are inseparable, the one being grounded in the other. Neither could the parent, by all of her dictation, expect "to build up" her child, her little immortal, without a resource beyond herself; and both would know that their strength was derived—not a property, but only a means-and that its ultimate is God.

Could we unravel the causes and consequences, we should see that a youth of hardship is not the most to be deplored. In reading the biography of the eminent and the effective, it will strike those conversant with that branch of illustration-how large is the proportion of such who have arisen from obscure parentage! Whilst the difference (in the ratio) is acknowledged, of poor men's sons who have attained to station over those of rich parents and delicate breeding, the superior attainment of the former is often imputed to a scanty outset in business, demanding a better economy of money than does the other; but it is in reality a much wider principle, of broader basis, grounded in the shapings of character that has effected the difference. The hard and scanty condition of their childhood, with deprivation and endurance, was the proper training and nurture of greatness-the simple joys, the undisturbed It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy, mind, the imposed duty, the disciplined spirit, braced without acting all for God. God himself cannot make to a hardihood commensurate to almost any circum-"him happy in any other way.—Brainard.

MENTORIA.

SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN BRAZIL.

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Original.

There is a considerable variety in their general plan;

SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN BRAZIL. but almost all are so constructed as to surround an

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BY D. P. KIDDER.

Location of S. Paulo-Taipa houses-Parlor arrangements— Public buildings-Botanical garden-Festival of St. Paul's conversion-Preaching-Procession-Excursion to Jaragua.

area, or open space within, which is especially useful in furnishing air to the sleeping apartments, and is rendered the more indispensable by the custom of barring and bolting, with heavy inside shutters, all the windows that connect with the street. In cities, the lower stories are seldom occupied by the family, but sometimes with a shop, and sometimes with the carriagehouse or stable. The more common apartments above are the parlor and dining-room, between which, almost invariably, are alcoves designed for bed-rooms. The furniture of the parlor varies in costliness according to the degree of style maintained; but what you may always expect to find, is a cane-bottomed sofa at one ex

I Now pass to notice the appearance and condition of S. Paulo. The city is situated between two small streams, upon an elevation of ground, the surface of which is very uneven. Its streets are narrow, and not laid out with regard to system or general regularity. They have narrow side-walks, and are paved with a ferruginous conglomerate closely resembling old red sand-stone, but differing from that formation, by con-tremity, and three or four chairs arranged in precise taining larger fragments of quartz, thus approaching

breccia.

parallel rows, extending from each end of it towards the middle of the room. In company, the ladies are expected to occupy the sofa, and gentlemen the chairs. The suburbs and vicinity of S. Paulo are remarka

gardens. The town is a rendezvous for the entire province. Many of the more wealthy planters have houses in the city, spending only a portion of time on their estates, and here being on hand to direct respecting the sale and disposal of their produce, as it passes down the serra to market.

Some of the buildings are constructed of this stone; but the material more generally used in the construction of houses, is the common soil, which being slight-bly pleasant, abounding in beautiful residences and ly moistened can be laid up in a very solid wall. The method is to dig down several feet, as would be done for the foundation of a stone house; then to commence filling in with the moistened earth, which is beaten as hard as possible. As the wall rises above ground a frame of boards or planks is made to keep it in the proper dimensions, which curbing is moved upward as fast as may be necessary, until the whole is completed. These walls are generally very thick, especially in large buildings. They are capable of receiving a handsome finish within and without, and are generally covered by projecting roofs, which preserve them from the effect of rains. Although this is a reasonable precaution, yet such walls have been known to stand more than a hundred years without the least protection.borhood are several fine residences; and from the eleUnder the influence of the sun they become indurated, and, like one massive brick, impervious to water, while the absence of frost promotes their stability.

The houses within the city are generally two stories high, and constructed with balconies, sometimes with and sometimes without lattices. These balconies are the favorite resorts of both gentlemen and ladies in the coolness of the morning and evening, and also when processions and other objects of interest are passing through the streets.

The houses in Brazil, whether constructed of earth or stone, are generally coated outside with plastering, and white-washed. Their whiteness contrasts admirably with the red tiling of their roof; and one of its principal recommendations is the ease with which it can be re-applied in case of having become dull or soiled. In S. Paulo the prevailing color is varied in a few instances with that of a straw yellow, and a light pink. On the whole, there appeared a great degree of neatness and cheerfulness in the external aspect of the houses in S. Paulo.

While upon this topic I may introduce a remark respecting the internal arrangement of dwellings, which is equally applicable to other portions of the empire.

In one of the pleasantest locations near the city, about a mile distant, is the botanical garden, established about ten years ago. It is laid out in very good taste, with curvilinear and shaded walks, and a tank of pure water. Its dimensions are ample, and with proper attention it might be made a most charming resort. At present, however, it is rather neglected from a scarcity of funds in the Provincial Treasury. In its neigh

vation on which it is located one may enjoy an excel-. lent view of the town.

The day subsequent to my arrival at S. Paulo being Sabbath, I visited several of the churches, of which there are twelve in the place, including the convent chapels. The See of the Bishopric, or Cathedral, was very large, and in it some twenty ecclesiastics were chanting high mass. A considerable number of persons were present, chiefly women. I observed two men intently engaged in conversation, alternately standing and kneeling. In another church, much smaller, about as many persons were in attendance, and I remarked as much apparent solemnity as in any similar service I witnessed in Brazil.

On the 25th of January was celebrated the religious festival of the conversion of St. Paul, the tutelar guardian of the town and province. I had several days previous read an Edital from the Bishop, prescribing an order of exercises in commemoration of that "glorious and wonderful event." The principal items were mass, preaching, a public procession, and the kissing of relics. Accordingly, at mid-day I repaired to the Cathedral, to listen to the sermon, which was delivered by one of the canons. It was simply a historic eulogy