pale; I was glad to see it, for candidly I never knew much done in the pulpit by rosy cheeks. Emotion dwells in the pale rose not in the red. A clergyman who has not, before he reaches the pulpit, thought enough of his subject to feel its emotion resting on his spirit like an unseen power or influence will not expect to storm heaven or frighten hell on that same day. But, perhaps, I am out of the line of my business in making these remarks--although I have a heavy interest at stake, and must even be permitted sometimes to preach to preach

ers.

The introductory services were finished in rather a low, husky voice-but a sound ever and anon reached the very heart and sent a thrilling emotion through my frame like the jarring of an organ. Ah, thought J, emotion and prayer are hid in the husky volume of that low toned voice! Right glad was I to be forgotten in the commencement of his sermon that I might be remembered, as I thought I must be, in the peroration. I like a wet notice. I had rather be called out into an aisle slippery with tears than into one radiant with smiles. I do not like plumes, or pokes, or ribbands in church; although they are good creatures they should not obtain the mastery and shut out from the view of mortals the light of heaven and the light of the messenger's counte nance, and--but I am leaving my subject. The minister rose and in about five minutes threw the toils of the gospel net around every living soul within the hearing of a voice that began to discover an intimate connexion between itself and the attention and the passions and the

hearts of the audience. No one had thought of the minister's figure, his eyes, his voice, or his gesture, excepting my humble self, and I began to be ashamed that I had. The subject he had chosen-I do not like my phrase his sermon was the Great Gospel itself like a fresh shower of rain rolling down almost without a cloud upon the smoking earth, while the bright sun-beams and the dancing rainbows came down with it. I saw the cloud, as I called it, coming up and expected a clap or two of thunder-but it never so much as shut out the sunshine, while it deluged all below it.—It was all weeping and no battle.

I was glad of one thing-which was that there was an upright, living body within the discourse—a palpable substance as it were which would always be remembered by those present so that no one who wept that morning would ever be ashamed of his tears if he had never wept before.

I expected every moment that the minister would plead his cause as he had so nobly done that of his Lord. But no-no such thing. He only spoke of a woody region, a scattered people, and no one to lead them heaven ward, and incidentally remarked that every one there knew how to relieve them as well as felt the acknowledged privilege. He ended-and, although he never mentioned my name, I instinctively went to my work. The first person I addressed dropped his penny back again into his pocket and wrote a check which he gave me to be paid on the morrow: bank bills came to light : I went to the sea of waving plumes and heaving bosoms

-the first bedewed me with tears-the next gave me a ring—the next a diamond pin-and hundreds wept the more that they had nothing to give-in the gallery a sailor gave me the last shot in his locker-another the last twist of his tobacco.

I was then full. I could contain no longer. I overflowed in the sight of the whole assembly. The next morning I read my fame in every newspaper.

PLAINTIVE HARP OF JUDEA.

Oh that I had wings like a dove,

I would fly away to my rest!
In the desart thick woven above,

I would find a moss-covered nest ;-
The wilderness, solemn with shade,
Should shelter from storm and from wind,
The wanderer sorrow hath made,
And soothe with soft murmurs his mind.

The song of the mountain bird, heard
All lonely and plaintive at night,
Is sweeter than timbrels that cheered
The dance in the silver moonlight-
There's more peace in the waterfall
Than in angry shoutings of men
Who loudly upon heaven call,
Then go to their sinning again.

Dark city! how violence roams
From thy wall to the central tower,

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Ejecting the poor from their homes,
And wreathing for wealth a bower;
The Sorceress skill'd to destroy,
And Guile, with a serpent's deep art,
The palace and cot shall annoy.

But, afar, on the mountain top,
Where solitude spreadeth her throne,
Where the clouds their first showers drop,
I will bow me in prayer-alone;
At morning and evening and noon
I will speak, and be heard above,
And answered, from heaven full soon,
With the Cherubim voice of love.

PAIN.

THERE is a lesson for man in the infliction of pain and sickness. These must originate in the command or permission of God, and we are to receive them as coming from his hand in a line still more direct than those calamities which originate in the wickedness or ignorance of men. Pain comes upon us as a teacher of humility. Earth wears no longer the thousand illusive colors of deception-the drapery which our vivid fancy may have woven over the deformities and tasteless enjoyments of the world do not float in the sunless atmosphere of a sick chamber. We learn what life is --and begin to feel what death will be. The astronomer who would send his farthest gaze through the deeps of

heaven avoids the sun, and his telescope takes the altitude of the skies at dusky eve or in quarters adverse to the orb of day. Too much light near at hand obscures a distant view-and too much of life and the joys of health obscure the view to that better country reserved for the pure in heart. In sickness the room is darkened like that in which the camera obscura is located. It is overshadowed that the waving trees, the rushing streams, the dewy meadows, the mountains and vales of a distant scenery shall be made visible-and the hour of sickness should be made the hour of looking away to the hills where our Redeemer has gone. As the functions of nature and the senses become the occasions and the avenues of pain, the time is favorable to ascertain if the mind has that culture which will give it happiness when flesh and sense are alike in the cold tomb. Like to a wandering star, travelling with dubious course from dark to darker spheres towards the blackness of darkness intense, is that intelligence which has ever relied on sense as the minister of its every pleasure, when sense no longer stands by in the warm habiliments of flesh and blood. On earth, such an one has received his good things.

THE PARTING.

And are the moments past,
The loved ones flown-

And must we part at last
To weep alone?

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