chanical process, which he cannot understand; he regards it as an object of inquiry, and begins to penetrate the reasons, and acquire a new mastery over his own instruments. He finds other and better modes of doing what he had done before, blindly and without interest, a thousand times. He learns to profit by the experience of others, and ventures upon untried paths. Difficulties, which before would have stopped him at the outset, receive a ready solution from some luminous principle of science. He gains new knowledge and new skill, and can improve the quality of his manufacture, while he shortens the process, and diminishes his own labour. Then labour becomes sweet to him; it is accompanied by the consciousness of increasing power; it is leading him forward to a higher place among his fellow men. Relaxation, too, is sweet to him, as it enables him to add to his intellectual stores, and to mature, by undisturbed meditation, the plans and conceptions of the hour of labour. His home has acquired a new charm; for he is become a man of thought, and feels and enjoys the peace and seclusion of that sacred retreat; and he carries thither the honest complacency which is the companion of well-earned success. There, too, bright visions of the future sphere open upon him, and excite a kindly feeling towards those who are to share in his prosperity. Thus his mind and heart expand together. He has become an intelligent being, and, while he has learnt to esteem himself, he has also learnt to live no longer for himself alone. Society opens like a new world to him; he looks upon his fellow-creatures with interest and sympathy, and feels that he has a place in their affections and respect. Temptations assail him in vain. He is armed by high and pure thoughts. He takes a wider view of his relations with the beings about and above him. He welcomes every generous virtue that adorns and dignifies the human character. He delights in the exercise of reason-he glories in the consciousness and the hope of immortality. WHITFIELD IN AMERICA. BY MISS FRANCIS. His THERE was nothing in the appearance of this extraordinary man which would lead you to suppose that a Felix could tremble before him. He was something above the middle stature, well proportioned, and remarkable for a native gracefulness of manner. complexion was very fair, his features regular, and his dark blue eyes small and lively: in recovering from the measles, he had contracted a squint with one of them; but this peculiarity rather rendered the expression of his countenance more rememberable, than in any degree lessened the effect of its uncom mon sweetness. His voice excelled, both in melody and compass; and its fine modulations were happily accompanied by that grace of action, which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which has been said to be the chief requisite for an orator. To have seen him when he first commenced, one would have thought him anything but enthusiastic and glowing; but, as he proceed ed, his heart warmed with his subject, and his manner became impetuous and animated, till, forgetful of everything around him, he seemed to kneel at the throne of Jehovah, and to beseech in agony for his fellow-beings. After he had finished his prayer, he knelt for a long time in profound silence; and so powerfully had it affected the most heartless of his audience, that a stillness like that of the tomb pervaded the whole house. Before he commenced his sermon, long, darkening columns crowded the bright, sunny sky of the morning, and swept their dull shadows over the building, in fearful augury of the storm. His text was, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able." "See that emblem of human life," said he, pointing to a shadow that was flitting across the floor. "It passed for a moment, and concealed the brightness of heaven from our view;-but it is gone. And where will ye be, my hearers, when your lives have passed away like that dark cloud? Oh, my dear friends, I see thousands sitting attentive, with their eyes fixed on the poor, unworthy preacher. In a few days, we shall all meet at the judgment seat of Christ. We shall form a part of that vast assembly that will gather before the throne; and every eye will behold tho judge. With a voice whose call you must abide and answer, he will inquire whether on earth ye strove to enter in at the strait gate; whether you were supremely devoted to God; whether your hearts were absorbed in him. My blood runs cold when I think how many of you will then seek to enter in, and shall not be able. what plea can you make before the Judge of the whole earth? Can you say it has been your whole endeavour to mortify the flesh, with its affections and lusts? that your life has been one long effort to do the will of God? No! you must answer, I made myself easy in the world by flattering myself that all would end well; but I have deceived my own soul, and am lost. Oh, "You, O false and hollow Christian, of what avail will it be that you have done many things; that you have read much in the sacred word; that you have made long prayers; that you have attended religious duties, and appeared holy in the eyes of men? What will all this be, if instead of loving Him supremely, you have been supposing you should exalt yourself in heaven by acts really polluted and unholy? "And you, rich man, wherefore do you hoard your silver? wherefore count the price you have received for him whom you every day crucify in your love of gain? Why, that when you are too poor to buy a drop of cold water, your beloved son may be rolled to hell in his chariot pillowed and cushioned around him." His eye gradually lighted up, as he proceeded, till, towards the close, it seemed to spark'e with celestial fire. "Oh, sinners!" he exclaimed, "by all your hopes of happiness, I beseech you to repent. Let not the wrath of God be awakened. Let not the fires of eternity be kindled against you. See there!" said he, pointing to the lightning, which played on the corner of the pulpit-Tis a glance from the angry eye of Jehovah! Hark!" continued he, raising his finger in a listening attitude, as the distant thunder grew louder and louder, and broke in one tremendous crash over the building. "It was the voice of the Almighty as he passed by in his anger!" As the sound died away, he covered his face with his hands, and knelt beside his pulpit, apparently lost in inward and intense prayer. The storm passed rapidly away, and the sun, bursting forth in his might, threw across the heavens a magnificent arch of peace. Rising, and pointing to the beautiful object, he exclaimed, Look upon the rainbow, and praise him that made it. Very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof. It compasseth the heavens about with glory; and the hands of the Most High have bended it." SONG. BY PRANCES S. OSGOOD. YES! I will do thy bidding Then, dearest, I'll forget! And glowing summer boasts no more And lost to Love and Hope and Truth, But while the sunlight still recalls The glorious hours we met On upland slope, in woody glade, While every pure and lovely thing Some semblance bears to theeWhile the rose wears thy virgin blush, Thy floating grace, the sea While in the stars thy blessed smile THE CHARIB BRIDE. CHAPTER II. -no DAYS, months, and seasons held their course; yet there was no change in the deep azure of the glowing skies-no alteration in the green luxuriance of the forest-no falling of the woods "into the sear, the yellow leaf”— fast-succeeding variation from the young floweriness of springtide, to the deep flush of gorgeous summer, or thence to the mature but melancholy autumn-to the grim tyrant, winter. In that delicious island, nature had lavished on the earth, in her most generous mood, the mingled attributes of every clime and region. The tender greenery of the young budding leaf was blent at one and the same moment-and that moment, as it seemed, eternal-with the broad verdant foliage-the smiling bud, the odoriferous and full-blown flower, the rich fruit, might be seen side by side on the same tree-the same bough. Nothing was there to mark the flight of time-the gradual advance of the destroyer over that lovely land. Nothing to warn the charmed spectator that, for him, too, as for the glowing landscape, maturity but leads to decay-decay which ends in death! Verily, but it is a paradise for the unthinking. And who were more unthinking than the young Spaniard and his Indian love-who were more happy? Morn after morn beheld Hernando de Leon, threading the pathless forest-now with horse, horn, and hound, sweeping the tangled thickets, now skirring in pursuit of his fleet falcon, over the watery with keen, observant eye, vegas, and now, and cat-like pace, wandering, arbalast in hand, in silent search after the timid deerbut still in one direction, and still with one intent, to join the fair Guarica! Day after day they loitered, side by side, among the cool shades of the mighty woods, while the fierce sun was scourging the clear champaign with intolerable heat; or sat reclined by the cold heap of some streamlet, fuller, to them, of inspiration and of love, than were those fabled founts of Gadara, whence Eros rose of yore, twin-born with the dark Anteros, to greet the rapt eyes of Iamblichus. The powerful mind of the young soldier had been cultured, from his earliest youth, to skill, in all those liberal arts and high accomplishments, by which the gallant cavaliers of Spain had gained such honorable eminence above the ruder aristocracy of every other land-to his lands, no less familiar were the harp and gittern, than the toledo or the lance; to his well-tutored voice, the high heroic ballads of his native lands the plaintive elegies of Moorish Spain, the wild musical areytos of the Indian tongue were equally adapted-nor did its accents sound less joyously in the clear hunting holloa, less fearfully in the shrill war-ahout, that it was oft attuned to the peaceful cadences of a lady's lute-his foot firm in the stirrup, whether in the warlike tilt, in the swift race, or in the perilous leap, was no less graceful in the rapid dance, or agile in the wrestler's struggle on the greensward. He was, in short, a gentleman of singular accomplishment, of a mind well and deeply trained, shrewd, polished, courteous, yet keen and energetical withal, and brave as his own trusty weapon. Like every dweller of a mountain land, he possessed that high and romantic adoration of the charms of nature, that exquisite appreciation of the picturesque and beautiful-whether embodied in the mute creations of wood and wild and water, or in the animated dwellers of earth's surface, which, in the breasts of others, is rather an acquired taste, nurtured by delicate and liberal education, than an intuitive and innate sense. Handsome, moreover, eloquent and young, it would have been no great marvel had the brightest lady of the proudest European court selected Don Hernando as the ennobled object of a fresh heart's holiest aspirations. What wonder, then, that the untutored Indian girl, princess although she was, revered almost to adoration by her own simple people, secluded, from her earliest childhood, from aught of mean or low association, removed from any contact with the debasing influences of the corrupt and contaminating world, secured from any need of grovelling and sordid labour-voluptuous and luxurious as the soft climate of her native isle, yet pure as the bright skies that overhang it-romantic and poetical, as it would seem, by necessity arising from her lonely musings;-what wonder that Guarica should have surrendered, almost on the instant-to one who seemed, to her artless fancy, not merely one of a superior mortal race, but as a god in wisdom, worth, and beauty-a heart which had been sought in vain by the most valiant and most proud of her nation's young nobility. His grace, his delicate and courteous bearing, so different from the coarse wooing of her Charib lovers, who seemed to fancy that they were conferring, rather than imploring an honour, when they sought her hand-his eloquent and glowing conversation-these would alone have been sufficient to secure the wondering admiration of the forest maiden- but when, to these, were added the deep claim which he now possessed to her gratitude, by the swift aid which he had borne to her when in extremity of peril-and the respectful earnestness of pure and selfdenying love which he displayed toward her, it would, in truth, have been well nigh miraculous, had she resisted the impression of her youthful fancy, Nor were these unions between the dusky maidens of the west and the hidalgos of old Spain, by any means unfrequent or surprising among the earliest of those bold adventurers who had been sharers-in his first and second voyages-of the great toils and mighty perils which had been undergone by that wise navigator, who, in the quaint parlance of the day, gave a new world to Leon and Castile. On the contrary, it was rather the policy of that great and good discoverer, who, in almost all his dealings with the rude natives, showed higher sentiments of justice and of honour than could have been expected from the fiercc and turbulent age in which he lived-to encourage such permanent and indissoluble alliances between the best and bravest of his own followers, and the daughters of the Caciques and nobles of the land, as would assuredly tend, more than any other means, to bind, in real amity, the jarring races brought into close and intimate contact by his discoveries and conquests. There was, therefore, not any thing to deter Guarica from lavishing her heart's gem on the handsome cavalier, who had so singularly introduced himself to her favour, and who so eagerly-nay, devotedly, followed up that chance-formed acquaintance. For seve ral months, despite the ancient adage, the course of true-love did, in their case, run smooth. No day, however stormy,—for heavy falls of rain, accompanied by sudden gusts of wind, with thunder-claps and the broad fearful lightning of the tropics, were by no means unfrequent-prevented the adventurous lover from threading the tangled brake, scaling the steep, precipitous ascent, fording the swollen river, straight as the bird flies to his distant nest. No turn of duty hindered him,-the imposed task performed from hurrying through the hot glare of noon, or through the moonless night, to visit his beloved. At first, his well-known ardour in the chase accounted to his comrades for his protracted and continual absences from their assemblies, whether convened for woodland sports or wild adventure; but when it was observed that, though he never went abroad save with the hawk and hound, or arbalast and bird-bolts, he brooked no longer any comrade in his sportive labours; that, though renowned above all his compeers for skill and courage in the mimicry of war, he often now returned, jaded indeed, and overspent with toil, but either altogether emptyhanded, or, at least, so ill-provided with the objects of his unwearying pursuit, that it was utterly impossible to suppose that a hunter, so renowned, could have, indeed, spent so much toil and time all to so little purpose. This, for a short space the point of many ally grew to be the subject of grave wonder a light jest, many a merry surmise, graduand deliberation; for it was now remarked by all, even by his superiors, that Hernando, who of yore had been the keenest volunteer to offer, nay, to urge his services, when any foray was proposed against the daring tribe of Caonabo, the bold Cacique of the Charibs, who now alone, of the five hereditary monarchs who held sway in Hispaniola, dared to wage war against the white invaders of his native fastnesses, no longer sought to be employed on such occasions; nay, that he even had refused, as it appeared to those who had solicited his aid, on slight and feigned excuses, to join their perilous excursions. Whispers increased among his comrades, and, ere long, grew to be dark murmurs; rumour said that no hunter ever saw the form of Don Hernando backing his fiery Andalusian, or heard the furious bay of his staunch bloodhounds, in any of those haunts where strayed most frequently, and in the greatest plenty, the quarry which he feigned to chase; fame said, and for once truly, that though the best scouts of the Spaniards had been urged by curiosity to play the spy upon his movements, their utmost skill had availed nothing; that, whether in broad day or in the noon of night, they never could keep him in view beyond the margin of one belt of forest land, or track the foot prints of his charger, although the soil was deep and loomy, into its dark recesses; that, in whatever course he turned his horse's head, or bent his footsteps, on departing from the fortress of his friends, he ever reached, by devious turns and secret byepaths, that same almost impenetrable thicket, and there vanished. It was an age of credulous fear of dark fanatical superstition! Ie, who a few short months before had been the idol of his countrymen, the soul of their Convivial meetings, the foremost and the blithest in their bold hunting-matches, the best lance in their forays, was now the object of distrust, of doubt, of actual fear, and almost actual hatred. Some said that he had cast by his allegiance to his country and his king-that he had wedded with an Indian girl, and joined himself to her people, heart and hand-that he kept up this hollow show of amity with his betrayed, forsaken countrymen, only that he might gain some sure and fatal opportunity of yielding them, at once, to the implacable resentment of the Charib Caonabo. Others, more credulous still, averred, in secret, that he had leagued himself more desperately yet, and yet more guiltily -with creatures of another world!-that mystic sounds, and voices, not as of human beings, had been heard by the neighbours of his barrack-chamber! and one-he who had scouted him the farthest and most closelyswore that, on more than one occasion, he had beheld a grim and dusky form rise suddenly, as if from out the earth, and join him in the wildest of those woodlands, through which he loved to wander, Thus did the time pass onward-Hernando and Guarica becoming, every day, more fond and more confiding, and, if that could be, more inseparable- and at the same time, suspicion, enmity, distrust, becoming more and more apparent at every hour, between him and his Spanish kinsmen. "It will be but a little while," he said, one lovely evening, as they sat by the verge of their favourite streamlet, with the cold round moon soaring slowly through the immeasurable azure, and the dews rustling gently on the rich foliage, "it will be but a little while, beloved, before the good and great Columbus shall return; and then, then, sweet one, there will be an end to all your doubts, anxieties, and fears. He is the best, the noblest, the most just of men-he is my friend, too, and a tried one. He once returned-I will avow at once, to him, my love for my Guarica; his consent it is meet that we should have before our union-and of it I am certain! Then-then, thou shalt be mine for ever-mine in the sight of men-as thou art now in the sight of Heaven and all its angels!" My own Hernando!" was her sole answer-for her heart swelled as she spoke, and her soul was too full for words, and two large diamond tears collected slowly on the long silky fringes of her eyelids, and hanging there like dewdrops on the violet's petals, slid slowly down her soft transcendant cheeks. "Tears-tears, Guarica!" cried the lover, half reproachfully-" and wherefore? Can it be that thou doubtest me?-me, who have never asked the slightest freedom-never assayed the smallest and most innocent familiarity-me, who would rather die-die, not on earth only, but for all eternity, than call up one chaste blush upon those maiden cheeks-than wake one doubt in that purc heart--than print one stain upon the whiteness of that virgin mind! Can it be" "No! no!" exclaimed the girl, panting with eagerness to interrupt him, for he had spoken, hitherto, with such impetuous haste, that she had vainly sought to answer him. "No! no! Sooner could I doubt Heaven than thee, Hernando. They were tears not of sorrow, nor of doubt, but of pure, heartfelt joy! I know thou art the very soul of honour-I know thou wouldst ask nothing of thy Guarica, that it would not be her pride, her joy, her duty, to bestow. It was but joy, dear, dear Hernando, to think that we so soon should be united, beyond the power of man to part us." Even as she spoke, while her cheek almost touched the face of her young lover, for, in the intense excitement of the moment, she had leaned forward, clasping Hernando's hand in both her own and watering it with her tears a sharp, keen twang, mixed with a clash as if of steel, was heard behind them -a long dark streak seemed to glance through the narrow space between their heads with a loud whizzing sound, and on the instant a bolt or arrow stood quivering, buried almost to the feather, in the stem of a palmtree opposite. To spring upon his feet, to whirl his long two-edged toledo from the scabbard-to dash, with a loud shout, into the thicket, calling upon his trusty hounds, which, quite unconscious of the vicinity of any peril, were slumbering at Guarica's feet, to whom they had become familiar guardians-was but an instant's work to the young and fiery hidalgo. For at the least ten minutes' space he was absent from the Indian maiden, who, trembling with apprehension for the safety of him whom she had learned to love far more than life itself, with every tinge of colour banished by mortal terror from her features, awaited his return. With every sense on the alert, eye, ear, and spirit, on the watch, she stood in terrible excitement. She heard him crashing through the tangled brake, she heard his loud voice cheering the eager bloodhounds to track out the footsteps of his hidden foeman, but no bay of the sagacious animals, no clash of steel, or answering defiance, fell on her anxious ear. His search was vain-his anxious labour fruitless-no fraying of the interlaced and thorny branches showed where the dastardly assassin had forced a passage for his retreating footsteps-no print in the clayey soil revealed where he had troddenand, stranger yet, the keen scent of the sagacious dogs detected not the slightest taint upon the earth or on the dewy herbage, although they quested to and fro, three hun dred yards, at least, in circuit, around the tree wherein the well-aimed arrow stood meet evidence of the murderer's intent. He returned, baulked and disappointed, to Guarica, big drops of icy perspiration standing, like bubbles, on his high, clear forehead, and his whole frame trembling with the agitation of strong excitement. By him who made me," he exclaimed as he returned to her, "this is most marvellous! there is not, nor hath been, within two hundred yards of us, a human being since we have sat here if I may trust on mine own eyes, or what is truer far, the scent of my good hounds! Yet here," he added, as he tore, from the stem of the tall palm-tree, the short massive bolt, with its fourcornered barbed steel head, "here is the evidence that oneand that, too, a Spaniard-hath been, or now is beside us. Come, dearest, come, let us leave this perilous spot. By Heaven! but it is wondrous strange !" In silence for the girl was too full of terror, the cavalier of dark and anxious thought, to enter into any converse-he led her homeward. Across the bright savannah gleaming in the moonlight, they reached rapidly the portico of her loved home-and there, after a tender parting. Hernando vaulted into the saddle of his fiery Andalusisn—whistled his faithful bloodhounds to his heel, and dashed away, at a furious gallop, toward the fortress of his unfriendly countrymen. Eager still to discover, if so it might be, something of him who had so ruthlessly aimed the murderer's shaft that night, Hernando rode directly to the spot where he had sat with Guarica when the fell missile was discharged-he saw the grass, betraying, by its bruised and prostrate blades, the very spot on which they had been sitting; but all was still and lonely. Onward he went across the very ground which he had searched so carefully, scarce half an hour before, and ere he had traversed fifty paces, both bloodhounds challenged fiercely. Calling them instantly to heel, the cavalier alighted, bound his hot war horse to a tree, and eagerly scanned the soil. At the first glance, deep printed in the yielding mould, he found the clear print of a Spanish buskin, furnished with a long knightly spur. To follow the track backward was his first impulse, and scarce three minutes were consumed, before he had tracked it to a tall and shadowy oak, the bark of which, scarred and defaced, showed that some person had not long before both climbed it and descended. "Ha!" he exclaimed, striking his breast with his clenched hand, "Ha! idiot that I was, who thought not of this. It matters not, however. By God! it matters not, for right soon will I have him! Forward, good hounds," he added, "forward, hark. Halloa, ho! Hark, forward!" and the vexed woodlands rang to the tremendous baying of the deep-mouthed dogs, and the hard gallop of the hunter. They reached the open ground, a league of forest having been already passed, and the hounds, for a moment, were at fault. Springing again to earth, Hernando easily discovered by the prints in the soil, that here the fugitive had taken horse, having, it would seem, left his charger under the keeping of a menial, while prosecuting his foul enterprise. For, henceforth, two broad horse-tracks might be seen running distinctly over the bare sa vannah, homeward. Laying the hounds upon the horse-track, the cavalier again remounted, and the fresh dew aiding the scent, away they drove at a pace almost unexampled, through brake and bush, over the open plain, athwart the murky covert-hill and hollow vanished beneath their fiery speedrock and tree glanced by and disappeared, so furious was their pace-the deepest torrent barred him not, nor the most perilous leap deterred him-for the most fiery, the most constant, the most pervading of all human passions, deadly revenge, was burning his heart's core, turning the healthful currents of his blood to streams of fiery lava. |