clamors and curses and mutual wounds, they climb ore. heaps of slain, and wade through seas of blood. The sun is ready to sink below the sea, hastening to escape the sight of blood; and the moist-eyed moon looks forth from the east, half-robed in clouds, and pale as if with approaching death. But no less terrible upon the broken rear of their foes the faithful armies hang, and their shouts of insult and victory rend the sky. At length they cease with the approach of night, and leave large space between their phalanx and the fainting bands of the fugitives. The Most High bares his red arm from heaven, and hurls down amain his thunders and blasting hail in a whirlwind that uproots the ancient oaks, and prostrates with a crash whole forests at once upon the foe. In hosts they perish, and encumber hill and plain with their multitudes, now left to be torn by wild beasts and all birds of rapine. The rivers swell and choke with their dead bodies, that scarcely they find their way to pass into the sea, and Jordan rolls above his tallest banks with blood and water, or foams gory down his thousand cataracts to redden the Asphaltic pool with heaps of slaughter upon his dangerous shores. The miserable parricide is caught by his dainty hair in the boughs of a spreading oak, and hangs like another Judas suspended betwixt the heavens and the earth, ready to be slain by any one that shall find him; nor shall it be long ere Zeruiah's son shall transfix the traitor through his impious heart. But, the troubles of David's house are not ended. Scarcely has he returned to Sion and restored his contested throne in its ancient place, when a sedition arises concerning the peace, and another civil war rages through the land; but it is soon quelled in the death of its leader at Abel. Three years of famine come over the nation for the murder of the men of Gibeon by Saul, and seven of his sons must bleed under the hands of the executioner before it can cease. The Philistine impudence raises new wars fatal to the remnant of the giants, and well nigh fatal to Jesse's son. Then follows the census of the tribes-for which seventy thousand of the sons of Israel must perish beneath the blows of a destroying angel. Alas! poor Bathsheba, shall there be no end? Hard is her lot, that, like another Helen, by her fatal charms, has involved the nation in a labyrinth of woes. Scarce has the smoke of fed beasts dispersed from the altar in Moriah, before another sedition arises in her own family, and the son of Haggith lifts up a standard against her Solomon. The high priest and many of the great lords, whom the intrigues of Absalom could not move, are in the plot, and nothing remains but the executioner's block and the gibbet for herself and her son, with all his adherents. But this storm shall blow over also, and carry with it the confederates of the usurper. Zadok the priest and Nathan. the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, with the men of war, anoint Solomon king; and long-afflicted Bathsheba finds in her latter days the quiet that she has sought in vain since she relinquished the retirement of her private mansion. to be the star of the royal harem. She lives to behold her son the most magnificent and glorious monarch that ever sat upon a throne; and at last, full of years and of honors, lays down her beautiful form to rest in the quiet of the grave. Ah! who shall relate what kings shall rise and fall, what virtues or what crimes shall mark their lives, and what glory or infamy awaits them in the opinion of mankind, as they live their brief day, and each come in turn to lie down and sleep by her side as the mother of all? Her son shall turn idolist and her grandson prove a fool-under whose stupid misrule Jeroboam shall draw away ten tribes from the house of David, and set up their golden calves in Bethel and in Dan, until the Assyrians lead them away to a returnless captivity beyond Euphrates. The terrible Sesonchis shall come also to avenge the wrong of his sister, the imperial daughter of Pharaoh, against the son of Naamah, the Ammonitish devotee to absurd Chemosh, and plunder the treasures of Sion and the Temple, for the honor of the brutish God's by the Nile. Few indeed shall be the heirs of her line hat will fear God, though they shall know when Elias ascends the heavens in a whirlwind, and a lawless match with the daughter of Jezebel shall make the streets of Je rusalem run with blood through centuries of tyranny. But none of these things move the daughter of Eliam. Herself repentant and forgiven, and filled with joy of the beatific vision, she sits innocent of their wrongs, and congratulates the race that shall live when Messiah comes to quiet the earth in the last days. TRUE STANDARD OF MORALITY. A MAN's moral worth is not to be graduated by his nega tive virtues-the evil he merely refrains from doing-but by the amount of temptation he overcomes. He is not to be judged by his defeats alone, but also by his victories. Many a man passes through life without a spot on his charac ter, who, notwithstanding, never struggled so bravely as he who fell and was disgraced. The latter may have called to his aid more principle, overcome more evil, before he yielded, than the former, either from circumstances or his physical constitution, was ever called to do. It would be as unnatural, it would require as great an effort for the cold, phlegmatic, and passionless being to be vehement, wild, and headlong, as for the fiery and tempestuous man to be quiet and emotionless. Victory is nothing: it depends upon the nature of the conflict and the odds overcome. Greater generalship, cooler bravery, and loftier effort may be shown in one defeat, than in a hundred victories. THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. A DRAMA, IN FOUR PARTS. BY THE EDITOR. PART I.-INFANCY. CHORUS OF SPIRITS. He comes, the beautiful stranger, To a contest full of danger, That ends but with the grave. Along his dubious way. God and good angels shall shield him From perils else too strong, That danger and sorrow may yield him A never-ending song. Strew ye the way with roses and every sweetest bloom, The seal of heaven is on his brow, And sprinkled waters-emblem of pure life above- So shall he joy forever in the realms of peace and love. The sharp temptations of this earthly life, Till Death's iron gates at last Receive him victor in the dubious strife. Then strew the way with roses and every sweetest bloom, Fiends shall weave snares about him, And the false world set forth her lures; Wars and hatreds rage without him, And fears within, that scarce endures The mightiest, tho' aided of supernal power; But vain shall pleasure lure him-in vain shall sorrow lower, PART II. -- -YOUTH. SOLO. O what ecstacy! what joy! Spirits of earth, and spirits of air, Revel in bliss without alloy; Dance we and sing, dissolved from care. CHORUS. Have a care, O precious child! Earthly bliss-deceitful shows; SOLO. O what bliss is everywhere! Trees are blossoming, founts are flowing, CHORUS. May has flowers, but serpents hide them Have a care, O precious child! And look beyond the things of sense and time; |