WASHINGTON AT THE DELAWARE.

A winter's night with cloud and wind,
Hung gloomy on the Delaware,-
No watch-fire shone on Jersey shore,
Nor trod the sentry soldier there;
That sound might be icy rush
Of gelid waters sweeping by;
That deep toned echo in the blast
Might be the owlet's forage cry-
For man in dreamy slumbers blest
Had long his grateful pillow prest.

The stirring, dipping, muffled strokes
That swept along the cloud or wave
Might be the phanthom winds at play
As when they leave Eolus' cave-
But, mounted on the Jersey shore,
Half seen through gloom, he must be man,
Or spirit, on a war-house throned,
Like one who leads the battle van-

"Tis one who leads the battle on,
The Patriot soldier, WASHINGTON !

An army from the frosty flood,
Like spectres into column drawn,
Awaits the wild hurra of death
When morn shall lift its sullen dawn;
Dark wheels beneath the cannon bent
Roll dreary on the crusty snow-
That snow shall redden with the morn,
And sheet the icy dead below,―
For, like an orb of blood at even,
The warning sun discolored heaven.

Hope, as the day-dawn struck the hills,
Had lighted up the Chieftain's eye,—

Fair Trenton heard his thunder peal,
And saw his charging cavalry;
Wo then to Hesse's sleeping ranks,
Harsh hail-stones swept their tents away,
The battle fires, the chills of death,
Grew bright-then marble cold, that day,-
And rude hands pulled the standards down
That waved for England's haughty crown.

THE COMING OF CHRIST.

For thus saith the Lord of Hosts; yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts.-Haggai ii. 6-8.

First-The commotions in the world subsequent to the appearance of the Messiah were literal. No metaphor was intended by prophecy in this instance. The great movement here foretold commenced in less than 200 years after the utterance of this passage. The conquest of Babylon by Cyrus opened the Drama. Then followed the conquest of Greece by Alexander-then the Persain monarchy was swallowed up in the whirlpool of Alexander's victories. Soon, however, under this warrior's four successors, the great Syro-Grecian empire melted away before the stern generals of Rome. The earth bowed before the conquering eagles of the sevenhilled city; every nation became, in its turn, a component part of the magnificent republic just putting on the mantle of royalty, the imperial purple. Then the temple of

Janus was closed. War shook the earth no more. Every heart was enlarged with the expectation of a blessing more exalted than earth could afford.

The Jewish nation had not been exempted from the general tumult. The soldiers of the holy land shared in those convulsive throes of battle that covered the earth with blood, rapine and terror; but they still, to a great extent, held on to their nationality, supported by their mountain positions, and, more than all, by the promise of God, given through the departing Jacob's words, that the sceptre should not depart from Judah nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh came. Less than any other nation was the Jewish people subsidized or crushed by the Roman yoke, when in one of the provinces a babe was born, who was to rule the Great Rome itself, and make the blessings of a new and peculiar kingdom, unlike earthly power, co-extensive with the years of time added to the unmeasured units of eternity.

Second. The religions of the world-the fabrics of opinion were shaken. The ancient beauty of the Jewish ceremonials, all glorious as they had been, was on the decay-like the stars of night that wane as the god of day approaches in the blushes of the morning. The Shekinah was dull in the holiest of holies, and gave no responses from heaven. A pride, equalled only by the cloud of selfish ignorance, hung over the minds of the descendants of seers, elders, priests and kings, and the once undivided faith of Israel was now rent into factions, sects, or fierce clans that would have devoured each other from the earth if power had only equalled their mutual hate.

The pagan philosophers had worn themselves out in their fruitless search after the universal good. Their theories had multiplied like the dew-drops of the morning. Heathen mythology, as affording any views of futurity, or any system of faith or morals, had been exploded by the action of the philosophic Grecian mind. Socrates, the brightest light in the gentile world, had reasoned deeply into the mysteries of human nature, had seen the bewildering errors of the schools-reached out his supplicating hand for a superhuman helper, and almost repeated the prophecy of the men of God when he predicted that one should be revealed, who, through suffering, should dictate to man the path of virtue. Morals and public virtue were low in consequence of the doubting and unsettled state of the public mind. Temples were deserted. The oracles were dumb. Heavenward was every expectation turned for a new dispensation and for a mental light to irradiate the thick darkness of a world.

Third. The coming of the desire of all nations, here predicted, is rendered most strikingly significant by the phrase applied to him.

Desire of all nations-because the expectation had gone abroad from the cataracts of the Nile to the pillars of Hercules that a great personage was about to appear and act an indescribably grand part on the theatre of the earth. Josephus, Tacitus and Seutonius testify that a rumor went through the Roman empire, awakening alarm and jealousy, that this universal king was to arise in Jewry.

Desire of all nations-because all nations sought wis

dom and light. Thus Christ is called the light of the Gentiles.

Desire of all nations-because in his person he was beautiful, the likeness of his Father's glory, fairest among ten thousand, the one altogether lovely, the one whose errand was benevolence-whose advent was love.

Desire of all nations-because of the offices with which he was invested, the Savior of man from the tyranny of sin, the link between heaven and earth, the days man to bear our burdens and taste the bitterness of our doom, the good physician to heal when mortal skill is of no avail, the prophet to teach the heart the mysteries of perpetual love, the king to rule with a sceptre of mercy and then to make all his subjects the partners of his kingdom and the sharers of his throne, the priest to offer sacrifice and make intercession for us where flesh cannot stand before the burning throne.

Desire of all nations-because of the structure of the human mind which universally feels its need of something more than earth can bestow, because of the anxieties. which throb in every bosom, the endless reachings of thought, the unsatisfying researches of the learned, the pantings after immortality,-all teach that the Desire' of the human heart must be satisfied from God and from the living fountain opened by the toils and dying labors of Calvary.

Fourth. The object for which the Desire of all nations came was to fill this house with glory. It was to fill the Jewish temple with his presence. It was to fill, spiritally, the dark heart of man, the temple of the Holy