a moment, the consequence to be such, this much is yielded, that, upon the supposition which was made, man would not be the creature which he now is, nor human life the state which we now behold. How far the change would contribute to his welfare comes to be considered. If there be any principle fully ascertained by religion, it is that this life was intended for a state of trial and improvement to man. His preparation for a better world required a gradual purification, carried on by steps of progressive discipline. The situation, therefore, here assigned him, was such as to answer his design, by calling forth all his active. powers, by giving full scope to his moral dispositions, and bringing to light his whole character. Hence it became proper that difficulty and temptation should arise in the course of his duty. Ample rewards were promised to virtue, but these rewards were left, as yet, in obscurity and distant prospect. The impressions of sense were so balanced against the discoveries of immortality as to allow a conflict between faith and sense, between conscience and desire, between present pleasure and future good. In this conflict the souls of good men are tried, improved, and strengthened. In this field their honors are reaped. Here are forined the capital virtues of fortitude, temperance, and self-denial; moderation in prosperity, patience in adversity, submission to the will of God, and charity and forgiveness to men, amid the various competitions of worldly interest. Such is the plan of divine wisdom for man's improvement. But put the case that the plan devised by human wisdom were to take place, and that the rewards of the just were to be more fully displayed to view, the exercise of all those graces which I have mentioned, would be entirely superseded. Their very names would be unknown. Every temptation being withdrawn, every worldly attachment being subdued by the overpowering discoveries of eternity, no trial of sin cerity, no discrimination of characters would remain; no opportunity would be afforded for those active exertions which are the means of purifying and perfecting the good. On the competition between time and eternity depends the chief exercise of human virtue. The obscurity which at present hangs over eternal objects preserves the competition. Remove that obscurity, and you remove human virtue from its place. You overthrow that whole system of discipline by which imperfect creatures are, in this life, gradually trained up for a more perfect state. This, then, is the conclusion to which at last we arrive: that the full display which was demanded of the heavenly glory would be so far from improving the human soul, that it would abolish those virtues and duties which are the great instruments of its improvement. It would be unsuitable to the character of man in every view, either as an active being or a moral agent. It would disqualify him from taking part in the af fairs of the world; for relishing the pleasures or for discharging the duties of life; in a word, it would entirely defeat the purpose of his being placed on this earth. And the question why the Almighty has been pleased to leave a spiritual world and the future existence of man under so much obscurity, resolves, in the end, into this: Why there should be such a creature as man in the universe of God. Such is the issue of the improvements proposed to be made on the plans of Providence. They add to the discoveries of the superior wisdom of God, and of the presumption and folly of man. THE HOUR OF PRAYER. MRS. HEMANS. CHILD, amidst the flowers at play, While the red light fades away; Mother, with thine earnest eye, Ever following silently; Father, by the breeze of eve Called by harvest work to leavePray: ere yet the dark hours be, Lift the heart and bend the knee! Traveler, in the stranger's land, Warrior, that from battle won THE EVENING BELLS. MOORE. THOSE evening bells! those evening bells How many a tale their music tells Those joyous hours are passed away; And so 't will be when I am gone; THE THREE SONS. [James Moultrie, an English clergyman; born in 1799.] I HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years old, With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of gentle mold: They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways appears, That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond his childish years. I can not say how this may be, I know his face is fair, And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and serious air; I know his heart is kind and fond, I know he loveth me, But loveth yet his mother more with grateful fervency; But that which others most admire is the thought which fills his mind, The food for grave inquiring speech he every-where doth find. Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we together walk; He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as children talk. Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not on bat or ball, But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly mimics all. His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perplexed With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the next. He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she teacheth him to pray, And strange, and sweet, and solemn then are the words which he will say. Oh, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years like me, A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will be; And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow, I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now. I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three; I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be, How silver sweet those tones of his when he prattles on my knee; I do not think his light blue eye is, liko his brother's, keen, of joy forever fresh. I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings, Nor his brow so full of childish thought | But his sleep is blest with endless dreams as his hath ever been; But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and tender feeling, And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing. When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass us in the street, Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks so mild and sweet. And soothe him with a song that breathes of Heaven's divinest things. I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother dear and I), Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every eye. Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can never cease; Their lot may here be grief and fear, but It may be that the tempter's wiles their must be ours forever. When we think of what our darling is, and what we still must be; When we muse on that world's perfect When we groan beneath this load of sin, THE INSECT OF A DAY. ARISTOTLE says, that upon the river Hypanis there exist little animals who live only one day. Those who die at eight o'clock in the morning, die in their youth; those who die at five o'clock in the evening, die in a state of decrepitude. Suppose one of the most robust of these Hypanians as old, according to these nations, as time itself; he would have begun to exist at the break of day, and, through the strength of his constitution, would have been enabled to support an active life during the infinite number of seconds contained in ten or twelve hours. During so long a succession of instants, by his own experience, and by his reflections on all he had seen, he must have acquired great wisdom; he looks upon his fellows that have died at noon as creatures happily delivered from the great number of infirmities to which old age is subject. He may have to relate to his grandsons an astonishing tradition of facts anterior to all the memory of the nation. The young swarm, composed of beings who have lived but an hour, approach the venerable patriarch with respect, and listen, with admiration, to his instructive discourse. Every thing he relates to them appears a prodigy to this generation, whose life has been so short. A day appears to them the entire duration of time, and the dawn of day would be called, in their chronology, the great era of their creation. Suppose, now, that the venerable insect, this Nestor of the Hypanians, a short time before his death, about the hour of sunset, assembles all his descendants, his friends and acquaintances, to give them, with his dying breath, his last advice. They gather from all parts under the vast shelter of the mushroom, and the dying sage addresses them in the following manner: Friends and compatriots, I feel that the longest life must have an end. The term of mine has arrived, and I do not regret my fate, since my great age has become a burden to me, and there is nothing new under the sun for me. The revolutions and calamities that have desolated my country, the great number of particular accidents to which we are all subject, the infirmities that afflict our species, and the misfortunes that have happened to my own family-all that I have seen in the course of a long life-has only too well taught me this great truth, that happiness, placed in things which do not depend upon ourselves, can never be certain and lasting. An entire generation has perished by a violent wind; a multitude of our imprudent youth has been swept into the water by a brisk and unexpected breeze. What terrible floods a sudden rain has caused! Our firmest shelters even are not proof against a hail-storm. A dark cloud causes the most courageous hearts to tremble. I lived in the early ages, and conversed with insects of larger growth, of stronger constitutions, and I may say of greater wisdom, than any of the present generation. I conjure you to give credit to my last words, when I assure you that the sun, which seems not far from the earth, I have seen in times past fixed in the middle of the heavens, its rays darting directly upor us. The earth was much lighter in past ages, the air was much warmer, and our ancestors were more sober and virtuous. Although my senses are enfeebled, my memory is not; I can assure you that this glorious luminary moves. I have seen it rising over the summit of that mountain; and I began my life about the time that it commenced its immense career. It has, during several centuries, advanced in the heavens with an astonishing heat and brilliancy, of which you can have no idea, and which assuredly you could not have supported; but now, by its decline, and the sensible diminution of its vigor, I foresee that all nature must shortly terminate, and that this world will be buried in darkness in less than a hundred minutes. Alas! my friends, how I flattered myself, at one time, with the deceitful hope of always living on this earth! how magnificent were the cells I had hollowed out for myself! what confidence did I put in the firmness of my limbs and in the strength of my wings! But I have lived long enough for nature and for glory, and none of those I leave behind me will have that same satisfaction in the century of darkness and decay that I see about to begin. OMAR, the hermit of the mountain Aubukabis, which rises on the east of Mecca, and overlooks the city, found, one evening, a man sitting pensive and alone, within a few paces of his cell. Omar regarded him with attention, and perceived that his looks were wild and haggard, and that his body was feeble and emaciated. The man also seemed to gaze steadfastly on Omar; but such was the abstraction of his mind, that his eye did not immediately take cognizance of its object. In the moment of recollection, he started, as from a dream; he covered his face in confusion, and bowed himself to the ground. "Son of affliction," said Omar, "who art thou, and what is thy distress?" My name," replied the stranger, "is Hassan, and I am a native of this city; the Angel of Adversity has laid his hand upon me, and the wretch whom thine eye compassionates, thou canst not deliver." "To deliver thee," said Omar, "belongs to Him only from whom we should receive with humility both good and evil; yet hide not thy life from me; for the burden which 1 can not remove, I may, at least, enable thee to sustain." Hassan fixed his eyes upon the ground, and remained some time silent; then fetching a deep sigh, he looked up at the hermit, and thus complied with his request: "It is now six years since our mighty lord, the caliph Almalic, whose memory be blessed, first came privately to worship in the temple of the holy city. The blessing which he petitioned of the prophet, as the prophet's vicegerent, he was diligent to dispense; in the intervals of his devotion, therefore, he went about the city relieving distress and restraining oppression; the widow smiled under his protection, and the weakness of age and infancy was sus tained by his bounty. I, who dreaded no evil but sickness, and expected no good beyond the reward of my labor, was singing at my work when Almalic entered my dwelling. He looked round with a smile of complacency, perceiving that, though it was mean, it was neat, and though I was poor, I appeared te be content. As his habit was that of a pilgrim, I hastened to receive him with such hospitality as was in my power; and my cheerfulness was rather increased than restrained by his presence. After he had accepted some coffee, he asked me many questions; and though, by my answers, I always endeavored to excite him to mirth, yet I perceived that he grew thoughtful, and eyed me with a placid but fixed attention. I suspected that he had some knowledge of me, and, therefore, inquired his country and his name. 'Hassan,' said he, 'I have raised thy curiosity, and it shall be satisfied. He who now talks with thee is Almalic, the sovereign of the faithful, whose scat is the throne of Medina, and whose commission is from above.' These words struck me dumb with astonishment, though I had some doubt of their truth; but Almalic, throwing back his garment, discovered the peculiarity of his vest, and put the royal signet upon his finger. I then started up, and was about to prostrate myself before him, but he prevented me. 'Hassan,' said he, forbear; thou art greater than I, and from thee I have at once derived humility and wisdom.' I answered: 'Mock not thy servant, who is but as a worm before thee; life and death are in thy hands, and happiness and misery are the daughters of thy will.' Hassan,' he replied, I can no otherwise give life or happiness than by not taking them away; thou art thyself beyond the reach of my bounty, and possessed of felicity which I can neither communicate noi obtain. My influence over others fills my bosom with perpetual solicitude and เ |