diffused throughout the earth a faint foretaste of the blessings of futurity. It is benign as the light of heaven, and comprehensive as its span.-An iris in the sky of the Christian, it quickens perseverance with the promises of reward-reanimates the drooping spirit-invigorates the decrepitude of age-and directs, with a prophetic ken, to the regions of eternal felicity. Like the sun, it gilds every object with its rays, without being diminished in its lustre, or shorn of its power.

man.

INTEGRITY

Integrity is a great and commendable virtue.—A man of integrity is a true man, a bold man, and a steady He is to be trusted and relied upon. No bribes can corrupt him, no fear daunt him. His word is slow in coming, but sure. He shines brightest in the fire, and his friend hears of him most when he most needs him. His courage grows with danger, and conquers opposition by obstinacy. As he cannot be flattered or frighted into that he dislikes, so he hates flattery and temporizing in others. He runs with truth and not with the times-with right and not with might his rule is straight, soon seen, but too seldom followed.

SIMPLICITY OF MANNERS.

If we look into the manners of the most remote ages of the world, we discover human nature in her simplicity -and the more we come down to our own times, may observe her hiding herself in artifices and refinements, polished insensibly out of her original plainness, and at length entirely lost under form and ceremony, (and what we call) good breeding. Read the accounts of men and women as they are given us by the most ancient writers, both sacred and profane, and you would think you were reading the history of another species.

ALLEGORY

Every fly, and every pebble, and every flower, are tutors in the great school of nature, to instruct the mind and improve the heart. The four Elements are the four volumes, in which all her works are written.

POETRY & MUSIC.

THE TWO ADVENTS-A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS DAY.

BY THE REV. G. W. DOANE.

He came not with his heavenly crown, his sceptre clad with power, His coming was in feebleness, the infant of an hour,

An humble manger cradled first the Virgin's holy birth,

And lowing herds companioned there the Lord of heaven and earth, He came not in his robe of wrath, with arm outstretched to slay, But on the darkling paths of earth to pour celestial day,

To guide in peace the wandering feet, the broken heart to bind,
And bear, upon the painful cross, the sins of human kind.

And thou hast borne them, Saviour meek! and therefore unto thee,
In humbleness and gratitude, our hearts shall offered be,
And greenly as the festal bough that on thy altars lies,
Our souls, our bodies, all be thine, a living sacrifice!

Yet once again thy sign shall be upon the heavens displayed,
And earth and its inhabitants be terribly afraid,

For not in weakness clad thou com'st, our woes, our sins to bear,
But girt with all thy Father's might, his vengeance to declare.
The terrors of that awful day, oh! who shall understand?
Or who abide when thou in wrath shall lift thy holy hand?
The earth shall quake, the sea shall roar, the sun in heaven grow
pale,

But thou hast sworn, and will not change, thy faithful shall not fail!
Then grant us, Saviour! so to pass our time in trembling here,
That when upon the clouds of heaven thy glory shall appear,
Uplifting high our joyful heads, in triumph we may rise,
And enter, with thine angel train, thy temple in the skies!

OUR DAILY PATHS.

BY MRS, HEMANS.

There's Beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes
Can trace it 'midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise;
We may find it where a hedge-row showers its blossoms o'er our
way,

Or a cottage-window sparkles forth in the last red light of day.
We may find it where a spring shines clear, beneath an aged tree,
With the foxglove o'er the water's glass borne downwards by the
bee;

Or where a swift and sunny gleam on the birchen-stems is thrown, And a soft wind playing parts the leaves, in copses green and lone. We may find it in the winter boughs, as they cross the cold blue sky, While soft on icy pool and stream their pencilled shadows lie, When we look upon their tracery, by the fairest frost-work bound, Whence the flitting redbreast shakes a shower of crystals to the ground.

Yes! Beauty dwells in all our paths-but Sorrow too is there;
How oft some cloud within us dims the bright still summer air!
When we carry our sick hearts abroad amidst the joyous things
That through the leafy places glanc'd on many-colored wings.
With shadows from the past we fill the happy woodland shades,
And a mournful memory of the dead is with us in the glades;
And our dream-like fancies lend the wind an echo's plaintive tone,
Of voices, and of melodies, and of silvery laughter gone.
But are we free to do ev'n thus-to wander as we will-
Bearing sad visions through the grove, and o'er the breezy hill?
No! in our daily paths lie cares, that oft-times bind us fast,
While from their narrow round we see the golden day fleet past.
They hold us from the woodlark's haunts and the violet-dingles back
And from all the lovely sound and gleams in the shining river's track;
They bar us from our heritage of spring-time, hope and mirth,
And weigh our burthened spirits down with the cumbering dust of
earth.

Yet should this be? Too much, too soon, despondingly we yield!
A better lesson we are taught by the lilies of the field!

A sweeter by the birds o heaven-which tell us, in their flight,
Of One that through the desert air for ever guides them right!
Shall not this knowledge calm our hearts, and bid vain conflicts
cease?

-Aye, when they commune with themselves in holy hours of peace,
And feel that by the lights and clouds through which our pathway lics,
By the Beauty and the Grief alike, we are training for the skies!

THE PILGRIM'S HOME.

There are climates of sunshine, of beauty, and gladness,
Where roses are flourishing all the year long;
Their bowers are despoiled not by wintry sadness,
And their echoes reply to the nightingale's song:
But coldly the Briton regards their temptations,

Condemned from his friends and his kindred to roam,

He looks on the brightness of lovelier nations,

But his heart and his wishes still turn to his home.
Oh! why is this duteous and home-loving feeling
So seldom displayed by the pilgrim of life?
While faith to his mind a bright scene is revealing,
He toils through a world of sin, sorrow, and strife.
Yet, lured by the paltry attractions around him,
Too oft he forgets the pure pleasures to come,
And wildly foregoes, for the toys that surround him,
His hopes of a lasting, a glorious home.

Not such is the Christian-devoted, believing,

Through storm and through sunshine his trust shall abide,

The way that he wends may be dark or deceiving,

But heaven is his shrine, and the Lord is his guide.

And when death's warning angel around him shall hover,
He dreads not the mandate that bids him to come;

It tells that his toils and temptations are over

"Tis the voice of his Father; it calls to his home. Lon. Amulet.

THE RUINED TOWER.

I saw upon a lonely height,

The ruins of a beauteous tower;
Gloomy and dark in day's best light,
It bowed to Time's resistless power.
Yet still, around one turret flung,

That reared alone its head in air,
The mantling Ivy fondly clung,

And wreathed its sheltering foliage there.
And thus, I said, man's lot is cast―·
The heart to ruin wastes away;
And oft-too oft-ere youth is past,
Finds nought is left it but decay.
Yet still there is a wreath divine,
Fate's darkest tempest cannot part,
That round the ruined form will twine,
And gently bind the broken heart.

SONNET, TO WINTER.

Welcome to thee, in all thy loneliness!

What though the flowers of spring no longer bloom, And summer's sweets are slumbering in the tomb, Stern monitor! I do not love thee less.

There is a grandeur in the raging storm,

That wheels its course in giant fury by-
A power-a majesty in yonder sky,

That spreads its mantle o'er thy haggard form.
Come fom thy home upon the mountain's height,
Thy brow encircled with eternal snow-
Bid all the winds of Heaven conflicting blow,
And urge thy spirits on their gloomy flight.
Come, on the wings of Time, that never tire,

And sweep with hurried hand tired nature's trembling lyre!

PHILOSOPHY'S CELL.

W. G. C.

Philosophy's cell is dug deep in the ground,

"Tis cold and 'tis comfortless all,

There the sunbeams of Heaven no entrance have found,

And the rushlight that gleams on the wall

Scarce enables this goddess of man's feeble brain,

To distinguish her own dreary way,

And no avenue leads her that world to obtain,

Where shadow shall melt into day;

No tidings of heavenly peace had been known
To illumine this cavern so drear;

No bright gleam of righteousness ever has shone,
Its darkness and coldness to cheer;

Here the blossoms of genius and science have blown,
But God is not worshipped, a Saviour not known.

(From the Christian Lyre, edited by the Rev. J. Leavitt.)

STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

When marshall'd on the nightly plain, The glittering star alone of all the train, Can fix the

cho-rus breaks, From eve-ry host, from eve-ry gem; But