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ence. And when death comes, and the head of the husband and the father is laid low in the grave, it throws its protecting shield around the widow and orphans, and saves them from those grinding oppressions and wants that drive so many to vice and infamy. If it did no more than this—if it uttered no word of counsel or warningif all its teachings were merely negative, its emblems, forms, and ceremonies, unmeaning shows, still it would be a powerful coadjutor of those who seek by religious influences to improve the morals of the world, for the reason that it places its members in the best physical condition for moral improvement. But when it is known that lectures of pure and sublime morality are rehearsed at every lodge-meeting, that every form and emblem points to the path of virtue, and, that thus a thousand voices are constantly sounding in the ear of every member, calling him to the performance of moral duty, and the cultivation of "Friendship, Love, and Truth," it is not claiming too much to say, that Odd-Fellowship is powerful and salutary in its moral influences.

MOBILE ALA., March, 1846.

ON THE LOSS OF A FRIEND.

BY JOHN D. HOYT.

DEATH "insatiate archer!"

--

never wings in vain

The shaft that cuts the silver thread of life;

The thread, that binds eternity and time, in twain

He rends; and takes the Friend, the Sister, and the Wife.

The glittering star, that through the darkness gleams From its high place, shoots out to realms unknown: The rose, that blooms beside the purling stream, Breaks with the summer's blast, or winter's frown.

But grieve we not: the star will shine again,

In cloudless skies - where changes never come: Beside Life's stream - where joys for ever reignThe fragrant rose shall ever, ever bloom!

NEW YORK, August, 1846.

THE WINTER OF THIRTY-SEVEN.

BY DANIEL ADEE.

WHAT New-Yorker does not remember the winter of 1837?-when the streets were rendered almost impassable by the vast quantities of snow, that covered alike the great thoroughfares and the humble alleys-the extensive warehouse, the stately mansion, and the tottering tenements of the poor -with a garment of extreme whiteness and brilliancy, the appearance of which seemed to add additional rigor to the piercing cold?-when our rivers were as firmly locked in the embraces of the icy king as though they were turned to stone, and the keen, biting blast howled through the streets, causing all who encountered it, no matter how warmly clad, to turn hastily aside and shrink trembling from its searching embrace? To add to the horrors of such a winter, the community were still suffering from the effects of the disastrous conflagration of the preceding one, which had laid in ashes about one quarter of the entire metropolis-depriving thousands of the only means of earning their daily bread,

and hurling them at once from competence to unex

pected poverty.

In the city of Rochester, on one of the bitter days of that winter, a pale, careworn man, with an old, weatherbeaten hat upon his head, and a threadbare coat closely buttoned up to his chin, accosted a surly, hard-featured teamster, inquiring the price of a load of wood he was offering for sale.

"Three dollars,” was the prompt reply.

"It is too much," replied the first, whom we shall call Herbert. "Your charge is enormous, and I can not afford to pay it."

"Then let it alone," replied the other. "You may think yourself fortunate to be able to get wood at any price on such a day as this."

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Herbert hesitated he had indeed been searching some time for a load of wood, and this was the only one he had yet seen. Well," said he, at length, with a deep-drawn sigh, "I suppose I shall be obliged to give you your price, exorbitant as it is."

"If you please, then," replied the other, "I will take the money now. I do not deliver my wood without that." As he spoke, he cast a suspicious glance upon the wellworn habiliments of his companion. Herbert drew from his pocket a tattered bill, and handed it to the teamster. "You will give me two dollars change," said he; "'tis all I have in the world." The teamster took the bill, and, after scrutinizing it for a few moments, coldly returned it.

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Keep it, then," said he; "the bill is not worth a straw : and if you want my wood, you must give me the silver for it, or you can not have it. I will have nothing to do with your broken-bank bills!"

Herbert clasped his hands in despair; and, turning his eyes to the dark and gloomy sky, seemed to call upon the heavens for that aid which a cold, unfeeling world denied him.

At this moment a stranger, muffled in a warm Spanish cloak, who had paused as he was toiling on against the rushing blast, observed the gesture of Herbert. Melville (for such was the stranger's name) was at his side in an instant, and clasping Herbert's hand, desired in an earnest tone to know in what he could assist him.

"If you will assist me, then are you indeed sent from heaven!" replied Herbert," for man has forsaken me."

He then, in a few words, recounted his simple story: He had been a clerk in one of the large mercantile establishments of New York for a few years previous, during which time he had married and been blessed with two sweet children. But the terrible revulsion in business which had succeeded the great fire of '35, swept the land as with a scourge, and, together with thousands of others, prostrated at once the company in which he had served, and quickly reduced him from circumstances of happiness to a state of wretchedness difficult if not impossible to describe. In vain did he exert himself to the utmost to obtain even the most menial employment that might yield

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