pencil in the unfading colors of inspiration, might as well paint the thunderbolts of Jupiter. Christianity has too, not only a Paradise in the far off past and a millennium in the far off future, but a heaven near at hand, embracing the material world on every side, compassing the path and the lying down of mortals, though their eyes be holden that they see it not-a heaven into which the beloved have already gone, and from which there are well known voices, saying, "Come up hither," a heaven, with which man may hold unceasing communion by that ever-flowing prayer, which needs no voice or sound. This past, this future, this unchanging present satisfies those aspirations and yearnings, which would otherwise prompt to the higher efforts of fiction. mind, that would lift itself above the visible and the tangible, approaches the ark of the covenant, draws nigh to the holy of holies, and brings thence, not fiction, but the treasures of eternal truth.

The

The spirit of Christianity will supersede fiction in yet another way, by revealing the infinite sig nificancy and worth of the actual, by bringing to light the traces of divinity in all that is, by breathing new life into every sense of nature, by attaching a momentous importance to the experience and fate of every human being, by displaying, in the depths of the individual heart, and in the records of every individual life, the elements of the highest and most thrilling interest. Things that are have hitherto been passed by in the search after things that are not. Imagination must henceforth, so far as she ranks herself with the Christian school, busy herself in bringing to light, and setting forth the sympathy and wor ship of man, the things that are; and for this alone, as it comprehends the mysteries of an infinite presence and an exhaustless Providence, is the work of an eternity. Delineation must take the place of fiction. For one who takes Christian views of the world in which he lives, to think of inventing aught, with an unexplored infinity around and within him for the range of his fancy, is as pitiful a conceit, as it was for the magicians of old to redden with their drugs a cup or two of water, when a divine hand had turned all the rivers and fountains in the land into blood. Why should we invent, when there is everything around us, for us to discover and to learn? Think what an exhaustless fund of poetry, what a boundless scope for the imagination there is in the actual. The idea of an infinite presence in all things seen, in the glad sun and the bright stars, in the glow of morning and the blush of evening, in the rushing wind and the flying cloud, how does it breathe new life into all the hues and

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forms of nature, load the air with harmonies, and crowd the most dreary scene with beauty! To think of every dew-drop and snow-flake, every ray of light, and breath of air, as a shrine of the Infinite One, how does it invest these material forms with an inexpressible grandeur and loveliness, impart a lofty dignity to life, shed a hallo of glory over the most familiar scenes, and draw strains of adoring melody from God's least tuneful works! This present, this passing moment, how fast it fits by, how vapid as an idle tale does it seem to the sluggish spirit, that will not stay its flight, and analyze it, and trace the whence and the whither of its mystery of love! But immensity and twin eternities are enfolded beneath its wings. For this present moment the whole past has been a preparation day, and treasured mercies of the entire eternity that is gone are poured upon it, while the rays of an eternity come to light it up with hope and promise; nor is there an instant of that boundless past or that boundless future, which helps not to make the fleeting present blessed. And then the vast whole of nature smiles upon it, it chimes in with the harmony of the spheres. It is embraced in those mighty laws, that comprehend all space. The stars in their courses shed sweet influences upon it. It concentrates the whole energy and love of God.

Then, too, in every human soul, in every man's experience, how much is there which in the light of Christianity commends itself as worthy of the most diligent study and the tenderest sympathy! Whose life is there, that has not within itself the elements of more than an epic or a tragedy? What more touching and absorbing themes of poetic interest, than are furnished by the life of the humblest human being, who comes forth on the arena of action to win or lose eternity; who does battle with manifold trial and temptation, compassed about by the cloud of heavenly witnesses, who is to be a member of a family, of society, and to transmit the impress of his character for countless generations, who at length must cross alone the valley of death, and alone face in judgment the Majesty of the Universe? In the light of Christianity, how are the least incidents magnified, how does every scene in life swarm with the true elements of poetry! Think you that the widow's mite or the pile of garments which Dorcas made for the poor saints and widows, fills not a vastly larger place on the mental retina of mankind, and has not inspired the imagination in far more numerous, more various and richer forms, than ever did the seige of Troy or the fortunes of Ulysses!

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Delineation then, not fiction; the delineation of nature and of man must be the work of the Christian imagination, must form the basis of the Christian school of poetry and fancy. Not that the old forms of fiction will be necessarily abandoned; for the traits of human character and experience cannot be generalized and idealized without the use of fictitious names and artificial forms. Sketches of exalted character and exciting incidents may still be run into the epic or the tragic mould; and the modern style of narrative fiction, (call it tale, or novel, or whatever else you please,) from its extreme flexibility,

from its independence of conventional rules, and its boundless capacity of modification, will doubtless retain a permanent place in the literature of Christendom. But under all these forms, the effort of the imagination will be to reach the actual traits of nature and life as they are, to touch the springs of human experience, to make known the diversities of human condition, and the infinitely various modes of human thought and feeling, and to reveal the hidings of divine power, the workings of an overruling Providence in the affairs of earth.

IN kindred dust where darkness sleeps,

There let my dust repose;

Not in the tombs where death oft heaps
The honored at life's close;

Not where the living with their tread

Disturb the sleep of night,

Whene'er they bring earth's glorious dead With pomp and banners bright.

In quiet, as the evening bird

Drops in his shaded nest,

There lay me where no sound is heard

Of glory o'er my rest;
Where pilgrim-crowds may never throng,
As at a shrine to bend,
In worshipping a name to wrong
HIM who did goodness lend.

Life's good is wrought, let that survive,
To cheer each prisoner's lot,

The seeds thus planted, let them thrive
But let me be forgot;

Enough for me it was to know

The joy of blessing hearts,
Life's honor with its earthly show
No bliss of heaven imparts.

Build not the marble monument,
Carve not my image-bust,

To name the mission on which sent
I wore my frame to dust;

But in all hearts, once wounded, breathe
The notes of love I taught,
And round the hopeless brow still wreathe
Hope's garland by me wrought.

Yet, if there need be some sure sign

To tell where I am laid,
Place there the dial-plate to shine

'Mid rays that may have played Within some prison cell when oped,

By these unwearied hands, And blest some captive who had groped Too long in midnight bands.

There let that dial's gnomon cast

Its shadow toward the bours
Of hope and joy when justice passed
To break oppressive powers;
Or by its ever-moving mark to tell
How few life's moments are,
And point another toward some cell,
To burst the sufferer's bar,

Such be my grave, such be my rest,
My epitaph-no more;
Can earthly glories make me blest
When I have left earth's shore?
Or can the monuments of time
Renew the life now spent,

Which, breathed out in a work sublime.
Was but by GOODNESS lent?

THIS passion is declared by high authority to be the root of all evil, and an examination of the conduct of men verifies the fact surprisingly. We find Achan, under its influence, violating an express command of God, and Judas betraying Jesus Christ. In profane history we find it underlaying and pervading the causes of war. It has sounded the onset to armies, and has soaked the earth with blood. It has given courage to the midnight assassin, and then has betrayed the assassin himself to justice. This passion has tenanted prisons with robbers. Like a fierce fire it has burned asunder the cords of love. Sometimes goaded on by it, fathers have murdered their sons, and sons their fathers. The strong barriers of natural affection have not been proof against it.

This passion has been the prolific mother of impostures, from the silver shrines of Diana to the holy coat at Treves. It breeds dishonest speculations, steals and sells men, commits robbery on the highways, and piracy on the high seas. It has dishonored the new grave which had just received the remains of a father with quarrels among his children. Avarice has been the demon pimp selling virtue for a price, and innocence for a bribe. In fact it has been a most mischievous agent for every species and degree of evil in the world.

These grosser forms of this evil are not always the most ruinous. They are confined to the aristocracy of wickedness, but secretly it pervades and debases many hearts. It becomes the idol of multitudes, who make a decent show of morality, religion, and benevolence. One remarkable case came under my notice. As I am informed, some sixty or seventy years ago, a man began life penniless, but eager to be rich. The moment money was earned it was invested at interest. The work of to-day must not only bring him money, but the money earned yesterday must be at work also. At first his increase was very small. It was like adding drop by drop to fill a large cistern. But living on the scantiest portion, those drops gradually increased to a stream. His whole heart was set on the increase

of money, and the more energy he expended, the stronger grew the unholy lust. By and by he could reckon his money by the hundreds. Already he had attained more than most men during a long life. But he was no more satisfied than the sea which cries "give, give!" With sleepless diligence he worked on, and his hundreds already acquired worked also with an energy as untiring as that which inspired their master. In a few years he could number his money by thousands. Still he was not satisfied. A greedy passion was consuming him, and guided his shrewd investments. Liberal as a spendthrift when he saw a large return; on all other occasions as penurious as avarice could make him, he seemed to combine in himself the choicest qualities for making and accumulating money. The few trickling drops had first increased to a small rivulet, and this into a large, rapid stream, which poured treasures by the thousands into his coffers, until at last he counted his money by the hundreds of thousands.

At last the years which had swelled his property to such a greatness, had brought him to old age. By degrees the truth crept into his dark mind that his darling money would not remain with him; the day of parting between him and it was drawing nigh. His friends felt anxious that his heart should relax its idolatrous grasp and fix itself on those treasures which may be laid up in heaven, but it seemed as if the capacity to think of such things had been killed by the master passion of his soul. There was moral beauty enough to look at, and there was a pressing necessity for looking elsewhere than to money, and yet his eyes seemed blind. Only a short time before his death, it is said that he had the gold, silver, and bank notes which were by him, brought to his bed side. Then he sent for his deeds, his notes, and his mortgages. Altogether it constituted a goodly fortune. The old man's eyes were fixed on his treasures with an earnest gaze, and at last he unburdened his soul of the thought which was pressing him in words memorable enough to be recorded. "These are good enough for me, if I could only stay with them !"

THE characters, and words, and deeds of the great and good of our age, are the property, and should be the study of all succeeding ages. But it is now and then found to be true in the vicissitudes of human history, that a personage of signal worth and ability, plunged under, and quite lost to view in the swelling current of affairs at one period of time, reappears, and gains a posi tion of far greater eminence and power in a generation following.

This has happened in a remarkable manner in our times, to an illustrious French woman, Madame De La Mothe Guyon.

The highly intellectual character of the authoress in question, the number and influence of her published works, comprising forty volumes in French, the ascendancy given her by superior powers, accomplishments, and beauty of person, the extent of her private influence and associations, the part she had in moulding the opinions and character of some of the leading men of the age of Louis Fourteenth, her intimacy with Fenelon, her controversy with the celebrated Bossuet, the revivals of religion that ensued in the bosom of the Church wherever she labored in Catholic France, constituting a series of phenomena that make an important chapter in ecclesiastical and humanomental history; together with the reverence of posterity for her great virtues and piety, invest the relics of her remarkable life, and the glimpses of her rare and high-wrought experience with an interest which time can do but little to impair; her memoirs having been ushered before the American public, naturally justify an extended review of the same.

Passing as they have into the parlor and study of the thoughtful, they will serve like a pocket telescope to help many a Christian to new and clearer subjective views of Bible truth, especially that of sanctification by faith. The work furnishes a very rare and most delightful instance to the praise of God's sovereign grace, of His taking one of "His hidden ones" in the apostate Church of Rome, and conducting her, through the discipline of faith in remarkable ways, to a height

of holiness very rarely attained, and all the while permitting her to remain in the same corrupt communion. And although no one may safely take her case as an exclusive guide, yet, from its contemplation, we may gather much instruction concerning the ways of God with the soul of man, and in regard to the nature, province, and power of spiritual faith.

While the attempts to imitate as a model, or purposely seek after, or even to inculcate directly, as part of a system, the phase of religion herein exhibited as a natural gift of the severally dividing Spirit, will almost unavoidably lead to sentimentality, affectedness, and spiritual pride; on the other hand the seeking after Christ, like Madame Guyon, and a constant resort to Him as a sanctifying Savior, is always safe, and will always be rewarded with grace and strength in the soul, and with joyous spiritual progress like hers, just in proportion to the measure of faith.

The true Christian experience of a child of God is always an original experience; and it is just as possible now as ever at any period of the world before, to have original modes of religious experience and for new ideas to be started in theology; and that, too, away from the schools, and without the cognizance of the Rabbis, It is as true at this day, as it was in the time of the noble Puritan, John Robinson, who said it, "The Lord has more truth yet to brake forth out of His Holy word." And a truth is no more a truth, nor any better, for being born into the world by the aid of doctors and midwives than if brought forth alone, and left so long to get its growth in the wild woods that it has become shaggy.

It is these plebeian-born notions, in the hairy strength and rude dressings of nature, untrammeled by the schools, that have come up out of the wilderness from age to age, and had broke prison for the human mind, chained by the dogmas of false priests and philosophers, and have started it on its grand cycles of improvement. The ideas that have revolutionized the Church and world, have generally originated in the cells of obscure enthusiasts, or the necessity-sharpened