Say, foolish one-can that unbodied fame,
For which thou barterest health and happiness,
Say, can it soothe the slumbers of the grave?
Give a new zest to bliss, or chase the pangs
Of everlasting punishment condign?
Alas! how vain are mortal man's desires!
How fruitless his pursuits !-Eternal God!
Guide thou my footsteps in the way of truth;
And oh! assist me so to live on earth,
That I may die in peace, and claim a place
In thy high dwelling.-All but this is folly,-
The vain illusions of deceitful life.

THE CROWDED STREET.-W. C. Bryant.

[This piece is intended to exemplify the 'Expression' and 'Variation' which characterize reflective sentiment.]

Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with its ever-shifting train,

Amid the sound of steps that beat

The murmuring walk, like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come!

The mild, the fierce, the stony face;

Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

They pass-to toil, to strife, to rest,
To halls in which the feast is spread,
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair,

Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,

With mute caresses shall declare

The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more.

Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
Goest thou to build an early name,―
Or early in the task to die?

Keen son of trade, with eager brow!
Who is now fluttering in thy snare ?
Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,

Or melt the glittering spires in air?

Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
The dance till daylight gleam again?
Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?
Who writhe in throes of pain?

Some, famine-struck, shall think how long
The cold dark hours, how slow the light!
And some, who flaunt amid the throng,
Shall hide in dens of shame to night.

Each, where his task or pleasures call,

They pass and heed each other not.—
There is who heeds, who holds them all,
In His large love and boundless thought.
These struggling tides of life that seem
In wayward, aimless course, to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty Stream

That rolls to its predestined End.

ROBERT HALL.-Anon.

[Passages such as the following exemplify the varied 'Expression' resulting from the successive effects of narration, description, and didactic sentiment.]

The services preliminary to the sermon, had been nearly gone through, and the last verse of a hymn was being sung, when Mr. Hall ascended slowly, and, I thought, wearily, the pulpit stairs. No one, looking at his somewhat unwieldy and rather ungraceful figure, would have been prepossessed in his favour; and, as he sat down in the pulpit, and looked languidly round on the congregation, I experienced, I know not why, a feeling of disappointment.

He rose, and read his text: 'The Father of Lights.' At first, his voice was scarcely audible, and there appeared some slight hesitation; but this soon wore off; and as he warmed with his subject, he poured forth such a continuous stream of eloquence, that it seemed as if it flowed from some inexhaust

ible source. His tones were, although low, beautifully modulated; but, owing to some affection in his throat, his speech was, at short intervals, interrupted by a short spasmodic cough.

During the delivery of his brilliant paragraphs, the most breathless silence reigned throughout the vast assemblage; but his momentary cessation was the signal for general relaxation from an attention so intense that it became almost painful. It was curious to observe how every neck was stretched out, so that not a word which fell from those eloquent lips should be lost; and the suspended breathings of those around me, evinced how intently all were hanging on his charmed words.

Mr. Hall's fluency was wonderful, and his command of language unsurpassed. I will not mar the beauty of his discourse, by attempting to describe it; but, as I followed him, whilst, by his vivid imagination, he conveyed his hearers through the starry skies, and reasoned, from those lights of the universe, what the Father of Lights must be, I became lost in wonder and admiration.

But the crowning glory of his sermon was his allusion to the heavenly world, whose beatific glories he expatiated on, with almost the eloquence of an angel. He seemed like one inspired; and, as he guided us by living streams, and led us over the celestial fields, he seemed carried away by his subject, and his face beamed as if it reflected Heaven's own light. And this was the man who, but an hour before, had lain down on the ground, in the excess of his agony; and who, from his earliest years, had constantly endured the most excruciating torture which man can be called upon to bear! I have myself heard him say that he had never known one waking hour free from extreme pain.

Mr. Hall used very little action in the pulpit. His favourite-or, rather his usual-attitude, was, to stand, and lean his chest against the cushion; his left arm lying on the Bible, and his right hand slightly raised, with the palm towards the audience. His tones were almost uniformly low; and he rarely raised them. Ideas seemed so to accumulate, whilst

he was preaching, that they flowed forth without effort on his part. Never did he hesitate ;—and, so pure were his oral compositions, that the most elaborate efforts of the pen would rather have injured than improved their structure.

THE MILLENNIUM ERA.-Coleridge.

Return pure Faith! return meek Piety!

The kingdoms of the world are yours: each heart

Self-governed, the vast family of Love,

Raised from the common earth by common toil,
Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights
As float to earth, permitted visitants !
When in some hour of solemn jubilee
The massy gates of Paradise are thrown
Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild
Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies,

And odours snatched from beds of amaranth,
And they, that from the crystal river of life
Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales!
The favoured good man in his lonely walk
Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks
Strange bliss which he shall recognize in heaven.
And such delights, such strange beatitudes
Seize on my young anticipating heart
When that blest future rushes on my view!
For in his own and in his Father's might

The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand Years
Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts !
Old Ocean claps his hands!

years ! the blest preeminence of saints!
Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly bright,
The wings that veil the adoring seraph's eye,
What time they bend before the Jasper Throne,
Reflect no lovelier hues !

Believe thou, O my soul,

Life is a vision shadowy of Truth;

And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave,

Shapes of a dream! The veiling clouds retire;
And lo! the throne of the redeeming God,
Forth flashing unimaginable day,

Wraps in one blaze, earth, heaven, and deepest hell.
Contemplant spirits! ye that hover o'er,

With untired gaze, the immeasurable fount
Ebullient with creative Deity!

And ye of plastic power, that, interfused,
Roll through the grosser and material mass
In organizing surge! Holies of God!
I, haply, journeying my immortal course,
Shall sometime join your mystic choir. Till then
I discipline my young and novice thought
In ministeries of heart-stirring song;
And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing
Soaring aloft, I breathe the empyreal air
Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love,
Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul,
As the great sun, when he his influence

Sheds on the frost-bound waters :-The glad stream
Flows to the ray, and warbles as it flows.

END.