What a wretch I have been! None but God knoweth how great is my sin; Have you 'mong you a book, The book that tells of the " prodigal son?" I shall trust and hope to behold his throne. I am going-good bye! No one loves me down here -I hope that on high By the great crystal sea; She loved me till death, so true was her heart. THE VISION OF IMMORTALITY.-E. P. WESTON. Yet once again, O man! come forth and view The haunts of nature; walk the waving fields, Enter the silent groves, or pierce again The depths of the untrodden wilderness, And she shall teach thee. Thou hast learned before With melancholy sweetness on thine ear; And she shall teach thee that the dead have slept The flowers that spring above their last year's grave Where the crushed mould beneath thy sunken foot Seems but the sepulchre of old decay, Turn thou a keener glance, and thou shalt find Bears on its wing a cloud of witnesses That earth from her unnumbered caves of death Kings that lay down in state, and earth's poor slaves, The white-haired patriarch and the tender babe They of immortal fame and they whose praise Was never sounded in the ears of men; Archon and priest, and the poor common crowd,- Aye, learn the lesson! Though the worm shall be And all shall pass, humble and proud and gay, Yet the immortal is thy heritage! The grave shall gather thee. Yet thou shalt come, In rags or purple, but arrayed as those Then mourn not when thou markest the decay A king and priest to God-when thou shalt pass So live, that when the mighty caravan THE SHEPHERD OF THE PEOPLE. A tribute to ABRAHAM LINCOLN, by the Rev. Phillips Brooks. Philadelphia, 1865. So let him lie here in our midst to-day, and let our people go and bend with solemn thoughtfulness and look upon his face and read the lessons of his burial. As he paused here on his journey from his Western home and told us what by the help of God he meant to do, so let him pause upon his way back to his Western grave and tell us, with a silence more eloquent than words, how bravely, how truly, by the strength of God he did it. God brought him up as he brought David up from the sheepfolds to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. He came up in earnestness and faith, and he goes back in triumph. As he pauses here to-day, and from his cold lips bids us bear witness how he has met the duty that was laid on him, what can we say out of our full hearts but this" He fed them with a faithful and true heart, and ruled them prudently with all his power." The Shepherd of the People! that old name that the best rulers ever craved. What ruler ever won it like this dead President of ours? He fed us faithfully and truly. He fed us with counsel when we were in doubt, with inspiration when we sometimes faltered, with caution when we would be rash, with calm, clear, trustful cheerfulness through many an hour when our hearts were dark. He fed hungry souls all over the country with sympathy and consolation. He spread before the whole land feasts of great duty and devotion and patriotism on which the land grew strong. He fed us with solemn, solid truths. He taught us the sacredness of government, the wickedness of treason. He made our souls glad and vigorous with the love of liberty that was in his. He showed us how to love truth and yet be charitable; how to hate wrong and all oppression, and yet not treasure one personal injury or insult. He fed all his people from the highest to the lowest, from the most privileged down to the most enslaved. Best of all, he fed us with a reverent and genuine religion. He spread before us the love and fear of God just in that shape in which we need them most, and out of his faithful service of a higher Master, who of us has not taken and eaten and grown strong? "He fed them with a faithful and true heart." Yes, till the last. For at the last, behold him standing with hand reached out to feed the South with mercy and the North with charity, and the whole land with peace, when the Lord, who had sent him, called him—and his work was done. AN IRISH LETTER. Tullymucclescrag, Parish of Ballyraggett, near Ireland, Jinuary the 1th. MY DEAR NEPHEW,-I haven't sent ye a letther since the last time I wrote to ye, bekase we have moved from our former place of livin' and I didn't know where a letther would find ye; but I now with pleasure take up me pin to inform ye of the death of yer own livin' uncle, Ned Fitzpatrick, who died very suddenly a few days ago afther a lingerin' illness of six weeks. The poor fellow was in violent convulsions the whole time of his sickness, lyin' perfectly quiet, and intirely spacheless-all the while talkin' incoherently, and cryin' for wather. I had no opportunity of informin' ye of his death sooner, except I wrote to ye by the last post, which same went off two days before he died; and then ye would have postage to pay. I am at a loss to tell what his death was occasioned by, but I fear it was by his last sickness, for he was niver well tin days togither durin' the whole of his confinement; and I believe his death was brought about by his aitin' too much of rabbit stuffed with pais and gravy, or pais and gravy stuffed with rabbit; but be that as it may, when he brathed his last, the docther gave up all hope of his recovery. I needn't tell ye anything about his age, for ye well know that in June next he would have been just seventy-five years old lackin' ten months, and, had he lived till that time, would have. been just six months dead. His property now devolves to his next of kin, which all died some time ago, so that I expect it will be divided between us; and ye know his property, which was very large, was sold to pay his debts, and the remainder he lost at a horse race; but it was the opinion of ivery body at the time that he would have won the race if the baste he run aginst hadn't been too fast for him. |