3 Mother! who gazes with a mother's joy,
And all a mother's changeless love and pride,
Upon the noble forehead of thy boy,

Who stands in childish beauty by thy side,
And, gazing through the mists of coming time,
Beholds him standing in the verdant prime
Of manhood's day,-

I warn thee! build no castles in the air:
That form, so full of life, so matchless fair,
Is only clay;

That bud, just bursting to a perfect flower,
May, like the treasures of thy garden bower,
Soon pass away.

4. Father! whose days, though in "the yellow leaf,"
Have golden tints from life's rich sunset thrown;
Whose heart, a stranger to the pangs of grief,
Still suns itself within the loves of home;
Who, with thy dear companion by thy side,
Hast felt thy bark adown life's current glide
With peaceful breeze,-

Burn thou no incense here! hast thou not seen
The forest change its summer robe of

For leafless trees'?

green

Believe me, all who breathe the vital breath
Are subjects to the laws of life and death;
And so are these.

5. Ah, yes! beneath the church-yard's grassy mound Too many an early-smitten idol lies,

Too many a star of promise has gone down
The soul's horizon, never more to rise,

For thou to safely rear thy temple here,
And fancy, while the storm-cloud hovers near,
It stands secure.

Oh! trust it not; that flash of brilliant light
Will only from the thorny path of night
Thy steps allure :

One Arm, that never fails, that never tires,
That moves in harmony the heavenly choirs,
Alone is sure.

6. Be this thy spirit's anchor,

that when all

Most near and dear to thee shall pass away,

When pride, and power, and human hope, shall fall,
A faith in God shall be thy shield and stay.
Lay up thy treasures where the hand of Time,
The storms and changes of this fickle clime,
Shall seek in vain ;

Where the bright dreams of youth shall know no blight,
The days of love and joy no starless night,

And life no pain ;

And where thou yet shalt find, when cares are o'er,
The loved and lost ones who have gone before
Are thine again.

name,

ing to God of a farthing! We know nothing of her her family, or her tribe. We only know that she was a poor woman, and a widow, of whom there is nothing left upon record but this sublimely simple story; that, when the rich men came to cast their proud offerings into the treasury, this poor woman came also, and cast in her

two mites, which made a farthing.

2. And the example, thus made the subject of Divine commendation, has been read, and told, and has gone abroad everywhere, and sunk deep into a hundred million of hearts, since the commencement of the Christian era, and has done more good than could be accomplished by a thousand marble palaces; because it was charity mingled with true benevolence, given in the fear, the love, the service, and the honor of God.

II.

THE HONEY-BEE.

THE honey-bee that wanders all day long
The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er,
To gather in his fragrant winter-store,
Humming in calm content his quiet song,
Sucks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips ;
But from all rank and noisome weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness ever pressed
Within the poison chalice. Thus, if we
Seek only to draw forth the hidden sweet
In all the varied human flowers we meet
In the wide garden of Humanity,
And, like the bee, if home the spoil we bear,

Hived in our hearts, it turns to nectar there.

III.

VIRTUE.

COLTON.

1. THERE are two things which speak as with a voice from Heaven, that He who fills the eternal throne must be on the side of Virtue; and that which He befriends must finally prosper and prevail. The first is, that the BAD are never completely happy and at ease, although possessed of every thing that this world can bestow; and that the GOOD are never completely miserable, although deprived of every thing this world can take away.

2. We are so framed and constituted, that the most vicious can not but pay a secret though unwilling homage to Virtue, inasmuch as the worst men can not bring themselves thoroughly to esteem a bad man, although he may be their dearest friend; nor can they thoroughly despise a good man, although he may be their bitter enemy. From this inward esteem for Virtue, which the noblest cherish, and which the basest can not expel, it follows that Virtue is the only bond of union on which we can thoroughly depend.

IV.

HAPPINESS.

POPE.

O HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim, —

Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content, whate'er thy name;
That something still which prompts the eternal sigh;
For which we bear to live, or dare to die;
Which still so near uş, yet beyond us, lies,

O'erlooked, seen double, by the fool and wise,

Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below,
Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Know, all the good that individuals find,

Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence:
But Health consists with Temperance alone;
And Peace, O Virtue! Peace is all thy own.

V.

ADVANCE OF SCIENCE.

1. BACON's prophecies of the advance of Science have been fulfilled far beyond what even he could have anticipated. For Knowledge partakes of Infinity. It widens with our capacities: the higher we mount in it, the vaster and more magnificent are the prospects it stretches out before us. Nor are we in these days, as men are ever apt to imagine of their own times, approaching to the end of them; nor shall we be nearer the end a thousand years hence than we are now.

2. The family of Sciences has multiplied: new sciences, hitherto unnamed, unthought of, have arisen. The seed which Bacon sowed sprang up, and grew to be a mighty tree; and the thoughts of thousands of men came and lodged in its branches; and those branches spread "so broad and long, that in the ground the bended twigs took root, and daughters grew about the mother-tree, a pillared shade high overarched, and echoing walks between," walks where Poetry may wander, and wreathe her blossoms around the massy stems; and where Religion may hymn the praises of that Wisdom of which Science erects the hundred-aisled Temple.