wrapped up in costly linen and spices, but it is a mummy still. It moves through the world like a graven image, endued with the powers of speech, reason, and locomotion, but with nothing else. It ciphers, calculates, suspects, but never feels. As the coralline or fossil endrinite grew to its rock, and fastened there, so they have grown to the yard-stick, the counter, or the desk. It is ossified, and never beats with the pulsations of a generous sympathy. It can revisit the scenes of early and hallowed association, without one quicker throb of feeling. It can read the inscription on the head-stone of a father's or mother's grave, and remain as impassive as if that inscription were traced in hieroglyphs. It can meet an old friend or associate, and pass him with the coldest salutation. If it weeps, it is crocodilelike, for effect. Its tears, if they fell fast enough, would form icicles. As it is, they are hailstones for the plate of charity. As they strike the money that others have contributed, there is a ring of metal, but that is all. Bestowed on others, they chill the warm grasp and exhale.

A young heart made prematurely old, is one of time's saddest as well as most magical transformations. It is as though we felt the warm hand of friendship changed to ice or stone in our grasp. Where there was a human being that we could love, there is nothing left but a pillar of salt. Some Midas' finger has touched each warm living sympathy, and turned it into gold.

No wonder the poet should say.

"I saw two children intertwine

Their arms about each other,
Like the little tendrils of a vine
About its nearest brother;
And ever and anon,

As gayly they ran on,

Each looked into the other's face,
Anticipating an embrace.

I marked those two when they were men:
I watched them meet one day:

They touched each other's hands, and then
Each went on his own way.

There did not seem a tie

Of love, the lightest chain,

To make them turn a lingering eye,
Or press the hand again."

And then, as the years come pressing around such, and isolating them still more from the days and scenes of youth and hope, what a sad sense of loneliness and desolation must be theirs, "from all the cheerful ways of men cut off!" They are tired of life, and while they strangely cling to it, quit it in disgust. They feel that a new generation sloughs them off like the cast skin of a serpent, an antiquated, obsolete, superseded

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thing. They forget that they have committed the wrong which society unconsciously but instinctively resents, and that what they suffer is the retribution of their own crimes, hey chose to be hermits among men once, and men will leave them such now.

How far different is that quick, ever-youthful susceptibility which some men carry with them to the limit of their "threescore years and ten." Willis has well described it in one of his poems. It is in the language of an old man gazing upon a scene of children at play.

"I love to look on a scene like this,
Of wild and careless play,

And persuade myself that I am not old,
And my locks are not yet gray.

"For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart,
And makes his pulses fly,

To catch the thrill of a happy voice,
And the light of a pleasant eye.

"I have walked the world for fourscore years,
I'm old, and 'I bide my time,'

But my heart will leap at a scene like this,
And I half renew my prime.

"Play on, play on! I am with you there,
In the midst of your merry ring;

I can feel the thrill of the daring jump,
And the rush of the breathless swing.
"I hide with you in the fragrant hay,

And I whoop the smothered call,
And my feet slip up on the seedy floor,
And I care not for the fall."

Old age is pitiable without respect or love, when the snows of age have fallen on the heart as well as head, and left it chilled and frostbound. And yet to such a lot multitudes are hastening. Our systems of education and family training are in fault. The child is taught to aim at wealth or distinction, to seek the riches that belong to the intellect or the pocket, while the claims of the heart are neglected. It is forgotten that he is preeminently and emphatically the poor man, who is poor in the sympathies of that friendship which, like the ivy about the crumbling tower, should wreathe his old age with the gentle clasp of a beautiful fidelity. Our children at the earliest practicable age are sent away from home, thrown among others, like pebbles on the sea-shore of time, to be ground down to a smooth and polished isolation, developing to an extreme the individuality of a cold selfishness. Ere they can grow attached to any one spot, or clasp any one object, even home, with the tendrils of a true and strong affection, they are transplanted and hurried through the scenes that are to prepare them to "act for themselves," -an expres

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sion which often means, becoming moral Ishmaelites. The heart is left uncultivated. The intellect is trained out of all proportion. Prospects of success in business are kept ever before the eye. And then business itself succeeds, pursued with a steadfastness of purpose, or an all-absorbing greed, that admits of no relaxation. Life has no oasis. It is one wide desert of money-making or money-losing. A man is merely a machine to manage stock in trade, and he who can make it most productive is counted most of a man. Heart-experience is a chapter of asterisks in the volume of life. It is carelessly skipped over, as though what should be found there was altogether unimportant. Can we wonder that old age is so often wretched-a hollow, heartless trunk, without a living branch or a green leaf to cast a shadow about its parched roots?

PASSING AWAY.

BY MRS. SIGOURNEY.

"The fashion of this world passeth away."-1 Cor. vii. 31.

A ROSE upon her mossy stem,

Fair queen of Flora's gay domain,

All graceful wore her diadem,

The brightest mid the brilliant train;

But evening came, with frosty breath, And ere the quick return of day, Her beauties in the blight of death Had passed away.

I saw, when morning gemmed the sky,
A fair young creature gladly rove;
Her moving lip was melody,

Her varying smile the charm of love.
At eve I came-but on her bed

She drooped, with forehead pale as clay: "What dost thou here?"-she faintly said, "Passing away."

: I looked on manhood's towering form, Like some tall oak, when tempests blow, That scorns the fury of the storm,

And strongly strikes its root below. Again I looked-with idiot cower,

His vacant eye's unmeaning ray Told how the mind of godlike power May pass away.

Of earth I asked, with deep surprise,
Hast thou no more enduring grace
To lure thy trusting votaries

Along their toil-worn, shadowy race?
She answered not-the grave replied,
"Lo! to my sceptre's silent sway
Her boasted beauty, pomp, and pride,
Must pass away."

THE SPELL OF LOVE.

BY HORACE DRESSER, ESQ

DUPLICITY, under any circumstances, never fails to engender in the minds of the frank, honest, and ingenuous, a feeling of deep disapprobation. Accustomed in their own conduct to put that construction and interpretation on words and actions which usage, under the circumstances of the case, and legitimate inference universally allow, they are slow to tolerate a departure from the same in others. The acuteness of this feeling is in exact proportion to the degree of their frankness, honesty and ingenuousness; and its depth correspondent to the discrimination exercised in refusing their assent to conduct which they condemn. He whose shuffling actions and ambiguous words affect only the sordid interests and relations of man, sinks in their esteem proportionately to the value placed upon the object affected by such conduct. If property in goods and chattels only be the end to be attained by the adoption of such means, they involuntarily feel strongly to disapprove. But how much stronger are their feelings, and with how much more intensity burns their indignation, when the fresh, pure, priceless, unsullied and unpractised affections of woman's heart are taken captive by the artful double-dealing barterer in sham, false and spurious pretensions!

In matters of such moment as the enlistment of the love of a female, it would seem that no one could so far forget his humanity, as deliberately and with set purpose to kindle and foster an affection which is never to be reciprocated by conjugal vows. But such there are and have been, who have delighted to impassion the soul and secure its idolatry, for no higher purpose than the ascertainment of their power over the heart, or the indulgence of a fitfulness of fancy or freakishness of gallantry. Practised in the school of deception, they are careful that their language be susceptible of no positive signification. Although the gift be offered under circumstances strongly marked, and which the loveimpassioned maiden can construe into nothing but a token of love and affection, yet cautiously is she charged to receive it only as a fraternal oblation. The kiss, though sealed upon her lip with a lover's fondness, albeit must be considered as a brotherly salutation. Their every movement is indicative of some reservation, and their declarations always seasoned with some

thing of obscurity. Nothing is palpable-nothing is tangible: concealment of purpose, darkness of design, and softness of inuendo, are the traits which mark their character. Their answers, like those of the oracles of the ancients, are clothed with bifold meaning, and uttered with Delphic uncertainty. Aware that, though love is fabled blind, it is no less fact and reality, they too often, therefore, gain the vantage-ground, and conquer only to batten in triumph and ignoble victory.

Too often is there painful evidence that one skilled in the language of passion, and an adept in the legerdemain of love, can come off victorious over the female heart that is unhackneyed, and untaught of the disastrous consequences of credulity, without uttering a syllable that shall any the least expose him to the amercements of the law. Though black with hatefulness and depravity, chameleon-like, he can appear bright and beautiful in the assemblage of graces which is clustered upon him. Though the features of his character may resemble the hideous visage of the veiled prophet of Khorassan, yet he may still, like him, draw innocence and purity around himself to offer up their love and adoration. Without a promise or any committal, he may elicit pure, fresh, and immutable affections; he may deeply drink from the springs of feeling, those fountains of unsealed and gushing tenderness; he may fling around his object a spell that shall tell on her future years and undying memory; he may light up a pure, unquenchable flame, whose immaculate glow shall be constant, and flicker only in death; he may strike a chord which will vibrate amid desolation and ruin; he may gain mastery over the feelings of the heart, which will gush forth as a torrent, in despite of earthly consideration or friendly wisdom. The idolatry of Mecca's prophet is less devout than the love which he can command; the gems of Golconda less priceless than the heart which pulsates at his bidding. An infatuation absorbing and concentrating all the warmth of the heart, all the emotions of the soul, steals in at his behest. Sole monarch of an empire of feeling, possessor of impassioned and high-souled devotions, he sits on his throne of subdued affections, bidding defiance to legal enactments, and laughing at the credulity of his captive. In guise of an angel of light he imparadises himself in the soul, whispers softly of happiness, causes dreams of felicity, and charms and entrances the enraptured maiden; nor knows she of the reptile, till desertion, like the spear of Ithuriel, starts up and

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reveals the infernal. Dissimulation base, perfidy

most foul!

"Loved by a father and a mother's love,

In rural peace she lived, so fair, so light

Of heart, so good and young, that reason scarce
The eye could credit, but would doubt, as she
Did stoop to pull the lily or the rose
From morning's dew, of its reality
Of flesh and blood, or holy vision saw,

In imagery of perfect womanhood.

But short her bloom, her happiness was short.
One saw her loveliness, and, with desire
Unhallowed burning, to her ear addressed
Dishonest words. Her favor was his life,

His heaven; her frown his woe, his night, his death."
With turgid phrase, thus wove in flattery's loom,
He on her womanish nature won, and age
Suspicionless, and ruined, and forsook.
For he a chosen villain was at heart,
And capable of deeds that durst not seek
Repentance."

Expectation cut off, and the haleyon dreams of happiness now becoming stern realities, disappointment, with its train of woes, plunges the hapless and too credulous maiden into the abyss of despair.

"Disappointment rather seemed

Negation of delight. It was a thing
Sluggish and torpid, tending towards death.
Its breath was cold, and made the sportive blood
Stagnant and dull, and heavy round the wheels
Of life; the roots of that whereon it blew
Decayed, and with the genial soil no more
Held sympathy; the leaves, the branches drooped,
And mouldered slowly down to formless dust;
Not tossed and driven by violence of winds;
But withering where they sprang, and rotting there.
Long disappointed-disappointed still,

The hopeless maid, hopeless in har main wish,
As if returning back to nothing lt;
In strange vacuity of living hung,

And rolled and rolled her eye on emptiness,
That seemed to grow more empty every hour."

The man who can thus sport and trifle with the sacredness of woman's love; who will bask in the phosphorescent light of woman's countenance, that light so kind and genial, though "unborrowed of the sun," with no intent of answering the expectation which he has caused to spring up in the soul, deserves little less of execration than he whose character is soiled and polluted with seduction.

SPEAKING of the goods of life, Sir William Temple says: "The greatest pleasure of life is love; the greatest treasure is contentment; the greatest possession is health; the greatest ease is sleep; and the greatest medicine is a true friend."

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GOD'S HAND IN THE REFORMATION.

IF the Reformation was not without preparation, it was manifestly without human prearrangement. He who has all minds under his control, caused many to move at once in reference to this matter. The great moral earthquake shook spots both distant and dissimilar, revealing the oneness of its hidden cause. "Germany," says D'Aubigné, "did not communicate the light of truth to Switzerland Switzerland to FranceFrance to England: all these lands received it from God; just as no one region transmits light to another, but the same orb of splendor dispenses it direct to the earth. Raised far above men, Christ, the day-star from on high, was at the period of the Reformation, as at the first introduction of the gospel, the Divine source whence came the life of the world." And if we look at the Reformers individually, we shall find that, for the most part, when they began their protest, they did not know what it would include, or where it would end. They were led, if ever men were led, "by a way which they knew not." They entered on their course in the spirit of earnest and honest inquiry after truth, and, walking in the light which they had received, they increased it. One true idea prepared their minds for other and greater ideas, until they attained to the great principles of the whole counsel of God. They did the will they knew, and thus, according to the promise, they learned the doctrine they knew not. Could they have foreseen, at first, the whole result to which they would be afterwards committed, they might have been unfitted by the prospect for the issue; but they were taught and guided by Him who "sees 'the end from the beginning," and who shows to his people the "many things he has to say unto them," as they are able to bear them. The religious history of Luther's mind was that of many others. That remarkable man used the following striking language in reference to himself:

"I began this affair with great fear and trembling. What was I at that time? A poor, wretched, contemptible friar, more like a corpse than a man. Who was I to oppose the Pope's majesty, before which not only the kings of the whole earth trembled, but also, if I may so speak, heaven and hell were constrained to obey the slightest intimation of his will! No one can know what I suffered those first two years, and in what dejection-I might say, in what despair, I was often plunged. Those proud spirits who afterwards attacked the Pope with such boldness, can form

no idea of my sufferings; though, with all their skill, they could have done him no injury, if Christ had not inflicted upon him, through me, his weak and unworthy instrument, a wound from which he will never recover. But whilst they were satisfied to look on and leave me to face the danger alone, I was not so happy, so calm, or so sure of success; for I did not know many things which now, thanks be to God, I do know. There were, it is true, many pious Chris tians who were much pleased with my proposi tions, and thought highly of them. But I was not able to recognize these, or look upon them as inspired by the Holy Ghost; I only looked to the Pope, the cardinals, the monks, the priests. It was from thence that I expected the spirit to breathe. However, after having triumphed, by means of the Scriptures, over all opposing arguments, I at last overcame, by the grace of Christ, with much anguish, labor, and great difficulty, the only argument that still stopped me, namely, 'that I must hear the Church,' for, from my heart, I honored the Church of the Pope as the true Church, and I did so with more sincerity and veneration than those disgraceful and infamous corrupters of the Church, who, to oppose me, now so much extol it. If I had despised the Pope, as those persons do in their hearts, who praise him so much with their lips, I should have feared that the earth would open at that instant, and swallow me up alive, like Korah and his company."

THE FINAL JUDGMENT.

A CAREFUL observer of human nature, as he casts his eye over different classes of society, sees that their peculiar sins differ rather in kind than in degree. And they who are generally deemed most guilty are often in the eye of God the most excusable.

The wandering vagabonds of earth, the bloodthirsty savage, the ragged, bloated beggar, the prowling gangs of riot and violence, are not those upon whom God's frown will fall most severely in the day of judgment.

They have generally been nurtured in the school of vice, from the cradle to the grave; their minds are uninformed, their hearts uncultivated, and their moral accountability is only to be measured by the good influences they have re sisted and trampled upon. Guilty and degraded as they are, they are far, very far from being