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the Omnipresent. His, at such a time, is the language of the poet of "the Seasons :”.

"Hail, Source of being! universal soul

Of heaven and earth! essential Presence! hail!
To thee I bend the knee; to thee my thoughts
Continual climb; who, with a master-hand,
Hast the great whole into perfection touched.
By thee the various vegetative tribes,
Wrapt in a filmy net, and clad with leaves,
Draw the live ether, and imbibe the dew;
By thee disposed into congenial soils
Stands each attractive plant, and sucks and
swells

The juicy tribe,-a twining mass of tubes.
At thy command the vernal sun awakes
The torpid sap,-detruded to the root
By wintry winds-that now, in fluent dance
And lively fermentation mounting, spreads
All this innumerous-colored scene of things."

To one who has obtained a release from the cheerless domain of sin and death, and has just opened the eyes of his new-born soul upon the fair creation, how vocal is the new-clothed earth with the praises of his great Redeemer! How beats his panting heart as with joy unspeakable, with emotions too big for utterance, he perceives in every plant and flower,

"The unambiguous footsteps of his God!"

Herein he finds one of the evidences of a renewed nature. He now perceives as never before, the hand of God in all his works. Says President Edwards, in reference to the exercises of his mind shortly after his conversion,-" The appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm beautiful appearance of divine glory in almost everything. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers and trees; in the water and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind." Such, can many a Christian say, has been my own experience, an experience more or less renewed with every opening spring.

It is not only the being of a God that is then revealed to the admiring eye, but his overflowing goodness also. When the waters of the deluge had retired, and Noah had renewed the bloody sacrifices with which, from the days of Abel, the believer had testified his faith in the atonement, it pleased God to say,-" While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." Winter may and will come with all its dreariness; but

"Spring shall all its wastes repair."

In all his works the goodness of the Lord appears. The earth is full of his goodness." But at no time does it so deeply affect the senses as when,-to use the expressive language of "the song of songs,"- the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come;" when the dullness of winter gives place to the liveliness of spring, and the bleak desolation of the ice-bound earth, to the most abundant vegetation. For then "he sendeth the springs into the valleys, he watereth the hills from his chambers, he causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth,oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.”

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E'en in the depths of solitary woods By human foot untrod,-proclaim thy power, And to the choir celestial Thee resound, Th' eternal cause, support, and end of all." The opening season also teaches A Lesson of Hope. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." As the gloom, and frosts, and desolations of winter are sure to disappear at the coming of spring, so is it, so shall it ever be, with him whose the Lord is. However dark and desolate, trembling believer! thy soul has been,however cheerless and cold,-look up. The glorious Sun of righteousness,

"Whose single beam has, from the first of time,

Filled, overflowing, all those lamps of heaven, That beam for ever through the boundless sky,"

with one ray of love can dissipate the mist, dis

DREAMS OF YOUTH.

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perse the clouds, and fill thy soul with radiance and bliss. Yes-and he will do it, if, with an humble and believing heart, thou seekest his face with the prayer on thy lips-“ Lord! lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me." Then will he put gladness in thy heart, more than in "the time that their corn and wine increased." Then will he "blow upon his garden that the spices thereof may flow out." Then will he come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruit." Even now in every voice of exulting nature thy heart may hear him say— Arise, my love! my fair one! and come away."

Thus the season speaks encouragingly in its lessons of hope to the sorrowing, to the dreary and the desolate. But in a peculiar manner it teaches a lesson of hope to the heart-stricken mourner, from whom lover and friend have been taken away by death.

By what strange power is it that the leafless tree and the withered shrub retain amid the frosts and ice their unseen life? How is it that the bulb, the tuber, and the tender fibrous root, through all the desolations of winter, covered with snow and ice, amid frosts and thaws alternate, live on and wait their time to sprout and germinate anew? By what strange and myste

rious energy is it that where death abounds through all the vegetable world, there life and luxuriant vegetation do so much more abound? Behold an emblem here of the Resurrection of the body! The seed that in autumn was sown by the bounteous hand of providence, though it has lain for months to all appearance dead, now lives and flourishes. So shall it be with this mortal body. "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.”

Give place, ye mourners! to the cheering hope that is thus so strikingly confirmed. Take to your hearts the joy of the gospel. Inspired by the season, and much more by the Spirit of grace, hope on;-hope for yourselves,-hope for your kindred in Christ. That dear flesh that sleeps in the dust shall Jesus bring with him. Look forward and upward. Here winter reigns ; there, the winter is past"-past for ever. Why afraid to die-to lay thy body in the grave! Why not rather hail the coming of the messenger, and bless God for his approach? Let us each with a cheerful and panting heart exclaim,

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"Lord! I long to be at home,

Where these changes never come;
Where the saints no winter fear,
Where 't is spring throughout the year."

DREAMS OF YOUTH.

BY HENRY M. PARSONS.

In the fall of his foot, in the flash of his eye, In the curl of his lip I discovered

The strength of his purpose to write his name high,

Where the pinion of genius has hovered.
By the light of the taper that burned in his room,
When the humble in dreams were reposing,
I knew he was tossed by a tempest of foam
The sea of ambition inclosing.

Again in the heat of mid-summer we met,
Where the gay and the invalid throng,
And the being he led, in my thought, lingers yet
Like a strain of some favorite song.

To crimson her cheek with the feelings that burned

In the depth of his own restless breast, The hues of the garland of fame were inurned, E'er his fingers its blossoms had pressed.

While his step was still buoyant-his brow still untraced

With the etchings of manhood's deep care, The passion of love in his heart was displaced, And the empire of mammon raised there. The name and the beauty that charmed for awhile, Were as shadows that steal o'er the plainIn musings alone he would frequently smile At himself, for once owning their chain.

His hair was yet black and his form yet unbowed,
When anew I encountered his gaze

In the midst of a solemn and worshipping crowd,
Who had joined in an anthem of praise.
And I felt as he spoke of the hopes he had
cherished,

Of the joy now illuming his way,
That shadows of happiness only had perished,
The substance itself to display.

THE MORAL ASPECTS OF THE WORLD.

In our last, after hastily glancing at the old world, we paused in setting our foot on this Western Continent. Here now we stand in the midst of rivers, whose length in miles is counted by hundreds, and sometimes by thousands, whose mountains swell up amidst fruitful valleys, and whose lakes are oceans, bearing on their waters a rich and increasing commerce. From the frozen seas around the northern pole, to the stormy antarctic circle, this is a new world. Whatever may have been in that period of time whose history is shrouded in darkness the period before the deluge-some four thousand years afterwards trod on their course without a whisper reaching the coasts of Asia, of Europe, or of Africa, from this western continent. How or when peopled, no trace is found in history, and the curious have toiled in vain to find a parentage for the red men of the new among the nations of the old world. But we may not pause here on the past, amid a field of wild conjecture. Our business is with the present, with only a glance at what has been, to gather from it a premonition of what shall be.

In looking at that large portion of this continent which was claimed and settled by Spain and Portugal, we find but one cause and one motive prompting every enterprise-the love of gold. It is true, that in an age when superstition had usurped the place of religion, the priest, with his crucifix, accompanied the soldier with his arms of death, but it was to baptize into subjection to a foreign domination, and not into spiritual life. Ship after ship, and fleet after fleet, sailed the newly-found path across the deep; but in them all, and deep-rooted in every breast, all-controlling and all-pervading, was the passion for gold. With a spirit omnipotent for evil, blotting out liberty, and happiness, and life, in their progress, the Spaniards established their power over Mexico, and a large part of South America. Within a few years past, an impatience of control, rather than the love of rational liberty, has stimulated their descendants to assert their independence. Provinces have become sovereign nations. But, instead of regulated liberty, anarchy has held her court in all these regions, and in place of settled governments, faction has succeeded faction, in the exercise of supreme power. Gross ignorance, and grosser superstitions, must give place to educa tion and to the religion of the Bible, before ra

tional liberty and a happy prosperity can shed their blessings on these wide regions of America. We leave these moral wastes, to look over the land most dear to us. We will not stop to tell the thrilling tale of hardships endured, of difficulties overcome, by our ancestors, in the settlement of Northern America. Others have painted in language glowing with living truth, the spirit that burned in the breasts of our ancestors, and which prompted them to live, and toil, and die, for their posterity. To that spirit, under God, are we indebted for what this country is, and what it shall be. Sixty-eight years we have written ours an independent nation, and the scarcely three millions in 1776 have become nineteen millions in 1844. Would that every man among these millions could stand erect and claim himself a freeman !

The love of political and religious liberty burned with a living and enduring flame in the breasts of the first settlers of these States. Its influence has been felt with increasing power down to the present day. It is true, that it is not at all times, and everywhere, in our land, of that large, expansive, and unselfish character, which ought to distinguish it from a mere impatience of submission and control-that it is not always, and in all breasts, a generous emotion which, spurning shackles from our own limbs, with equal indignation rejects the idea of imposing them upon others. It is not always that high and ennobling spirit which looks to liberty as a positive and attainable good in which all have an equal interest, and feels that a cherished and valuable principle is invaded by every act of oppression, however distant in its operation from our own persons.

Although emigrants from various nations have mingled in the settlement of the country, yet the English and their descendants have exceeded in numbers and power to so large an extent as to give their language to the people, and to make the English mind predominant. Our literature and character are essentially English. The English common law-that mighty monument of practical wisdom-is the law of the land, except in the single State of Louisiana. The spirit of liberty breathes in that law with such force, that under its pure influence uncontrolled by statutory provisions, a slave brought under its protective power at once becomes a freeman. So held the illustrious Mansfield, and no jurist questions this long-established doctrine. It is

THE MORAL ASPECTS OF THE WORLD.

only by legislative invasions of this law that existence can be given to slavery. To the common law the right of property in man is unknown. This law, with such modifications as our form of government and circumstances have introduced, we claim as our birthright; and as a system, it can no more be abolished than our language.

But though American mind is English in its great characteristics, yet it has necessarily received modifications from circumstances. The shackles which an hereditary monarchy and aristocracy fastened on this mind in England, have fallen from it in America. We recognize no virtue in mere descent. From the highest in intellect to the lowest in ignorance-from the millionaire to the beggar-we stand on the same level platform of equal personal and political rights. There is no station which mere birth gives us, or from which it debars us. And instead of being pent in by seas, on a narrow island, we are here in the midst of a country as boundless as the most restless love of change can desire. And mind, while still essentially English in its strong practical common sense, and in its naturally sturdy independence, has received a new impulse from the largeness of the region which invites to active enterprise. At the North, the descendants of the pilgrims, whether in their own New England home, or giving shape, and form, and character, to society, through the Middle and Western States, are emphatically a thinking people; and in inventive genius, they have already placed themselves in advance of the world. At the South, mind, less patient of continued labor, and less fitted to contend against difficulties, which yield only to stubborn perseverance, but impulsive in its character, often reaches its object at a bound, and the individual just seen at the base, now stands on the pinnacle at a giddy hight.

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The religion of this people is Protestant, and whatever fears may at times prevail, of the aggressive efforts of Romanism, it must continue to be so, unless a radical change can be made in the essential character of their minds. it, thought, feeling, are all eminently Protestant, partaking of its large and free spirit. Our institutions and laws, from base to apex, are inwrought with the principles of this religion, and must be demolished to their deepest foundations, before the puerilities of Romanism can make themselves a home, or its slavishness be substituted for independence of thought. Politicians may at times become the panders to papal religionists, and to secure the votes of naturalized

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foreigners, be ready to barter away cherished principles; but, as in recent examples, they will find a rebuke from the people too stern to be again lightly risked. Romanism has nothing in its past history or its present character, to commend it to a nation, where superstition has little power, and where all have been accustomed to examine and think and decide for themselves. With us it is foreign in all its features, and can no more be Americanized than the religion of the Koran. It possesses no irradiating, vivifying, liberalizing principle. On the contrary, it calls on mind to gather itself from its expansion into the narrowness of a nutshell. Imported by foreigners, it must ever be isolated from American principles and feeling. There is a vigor of intellect and a moral power in this land, competent in its strength to vanquish every danger which can be brought to our doors from the Vatican of Rome. We must cease to be American in principle before we can become Roman in religion.

In the free expression given to our opinions, or rather in the unrestrained indulgence of speakers and writers in our heated political contests in the dismal pictures of coming ruin drawn by one party and retorted by anotherforeigners, looking at us from a distance, have more than once fancied that they saw the volcano of revolution just bursting forth to engulph our boasted institutions. But yet, an election over, however one party may chafe and grumble at the result, we sit down in submission to the will of the majority, with not the first thought of resistance, yet with a stubborn resolution to essay every art to change that will at a succeeding election. John-Bull-like, we may abuse the government with all the vigor of our souls, but yet stand ready to fight the whole world in its defence.

We may be thought, thus far, to be glancing at the character of the people, rather than viewing the moral aspects of the country. Whether our remarks are pertinent to our title we shall not stop to inquire-it is enough that they are apropos to our purpose. In pursuing our subject we may not rightfully magnify the virtues or close our eyes to the faults of our people. We shall not flatter that national vanity with which we have been too justly reproached from abroad. There is much, very much, when contrasted with the moral condition of other nations, over which we may rejoice; and there is not less, when contrasted with attainable perfection, over which to mourn.

In all ages, there has been a prevailing dispo

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sition to regard the present as inferior to the past. Men are naturally inclined to magnify the virtues and to forget the faults of their ancestors. A better patriotism, a holier spirit of piety, and a higher grade of moral virtues, are attributed to those who have gone before us, while we reproach our own as a degenerate age. This respect to our sires and reverence for antiquity is not without its use, so long as we find much in the present to regret, and much that demands rebuke. It is not without its effect in awakening a generous emulation in whatever is good and excellent. Yet, it should not repress an intelligent comparison of the present with the past. If a general advance is discovered, it will at the same time be found that some virtues in our ancestors have lost their vigorous power in their descendants.

In the United States full scope is given to the promulgation of opinions and to the agitation of any subject of morals which individuals may choose to embrace. Public opinion is the tribunal before which every question of politics or morals is brought. This tribunal has been acquiring power in other countries, but the means of creating and influencing public opinion are there comparatively limited. With us the means are abundant. The pulpit, the press, public lectures and discussions reach at once the masses. Truth, in its contests with error, has only the power of its own intrinsic merits. And neither truth nor error is so consecrated by antiquity that the one or the other can safely rest on any established order of things in thought or action. Both must stand forth on the public arena, and mind grappling with mind, makes our country a moral battle-field. Though error may gain an occasional triumph, yet we have an abiding confidence that this must be temporary in its power, and that truth will ultimately be victorious. Notions, crude and absurd, acquire, sometimes, a momentary popularity by the boldness and impudence with which they are brought forth, but the better judgment of the community, when it has time to operate, sets its seal of condemnation upon them. And assault after assault on the great principles of moral truth, while they keep up the active energy of mind, will also result in rendering that truth more apparent and more unassailable. Authority, save the authority of the Bible, has less power over public opinion than in any other nation-all claim the right to think and decide for themselves. There is no safety for dogmas, and they who cannot make good their positions by convincing the un

derstanding, however strenuous the struggles of bigotry, must ultimately submit to defeat.

Since the Reformation, no age of the world has presented scenes of such stirring moral interest as the present, and no nation holds a more prominent position in these scenes than the United States. Our influence is felt through the nations of Europe and Asia, and among the tribes of Africa. The spirit of liberty from our shores has awakened new ideas in rulers and subjects throughout Christendom. We have shown to the world that religion can exist by its own intrinsic power without the aid of governments, and that to its spiritual power human laws can add no efficiency. Against intemperance our banded forces are counted by millions. Our apostles of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks, have been welcomed to the courts of kings, and have gathered converts from all the nations of Europe. The principles of temperance reform, having their origin with us, have worked miracles over the whole extent of Ireland, seemingly the most unpromising field on the earth. In Asia, and on the ocean, these principles are making their way with irrepressible energy. Our missionaries stand on every shore proclaiming the truths of the gospel amid the dark superstitions of heathenism. We claim, then, that young as we are in the family of nations, we have done something for the world beyond even our own borders, and we have done this while society among ourselves has been only in its forming state, and while we have had annually thousands or hundreds of thousands from other shores to care for.

During the last quarter of a century, peace has prevailed, with slight interruptions, among the nations. A public sentiment has been rapidly forming that national misunderstandings may be settled by a better arbitrament than the sword, and by more rational means than human butchery. Changes within this period have been in progress promising much for the regeneration of the world. In the great moral battle now fighting, and which will wax hotter and hotter, till He, whose right it is, shall reign, this country, as she has commenced, must continue to bear an important part. With stout hearts and unbending resolution must the ministers of a pure faith, and all good men of every creed, nerve themselves to the work. There must be a moral courage in the pulpit ready to rebuke error in all its forms--that shall not falter before the pride of station or the influence of wealth --that shall not fear to hold up to just odium

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