because thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' I often hear the wise talking about things as though they were greatly puzzled, when little children see the truth at a glance. I am only a child, you know."

"A darling, puzzling little pet, who always has a strange way of confusing others," returned he, as he kissed her again and again, and then mounted his horse for a morning ride among his tenantry. TO BE CONTINUED.]

He that has never suffered extreme adversity, knows not the full extent of his own depravation; and he that has never enjoyed the summit of prosperity, is equally ignorant how far the iniquity of others can go. For our adversity will excite temptations in ourselves, our prosperity in others. Sir Robert Walpole observed, it was fortunate that few men could be prime ministers, because it was fortunate that few men could know the abandoned profligacy of the human mind. Therefore, a beautiful woman, if poor, should use a double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself.

"Felix, quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum :" this is well translated by some one, who observes that it is far better to borrow experience than to buy it. He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness, and he that is warned by all the folly of others, has perhaps attained the soundest wisdom. But such is the purblind egotism, and the suicidal selfishness of mankind, that things so desirable are seldom pursued, things so accessible, seldom attained. That is indeed a twofold knowledge, which profits alike by the folly of the foolish. and the wisdom of the wise; it is both a shield and a sword; it borrows its security from the darkness, and its confidence from the light.

There's a cot on the banks of Muskingum's bright waters,
Beneath the tall shade of the sycamore tree,

Where the sweetest and fairest of old Morgan's daughters,
Sings sweetly her song in moonlight to me.

Her cheek is as fresh as the rosebud, and lighter

Her step than the fawn's, as she skips through the dale;
The star of the eve is not clearer or brighter

Than the eye of my Mary, who lives in the vale.

Oh! sweet is the song of the lark or canary

Their notes are all cheerfulness, music and glee,
But sweeter by far is the voice of my Mary,

As sweetly she sings in the moonlight to me.
The worldling may boast of his gold and his pleasures,
And breathe in my ear all his flattering tale,

The choicest, and purest, and fairest of treasures
Is the heart of my Mary who lives in the vale.

When the wild storms of life put my heart in commotion,
And 'tis toss'd to and fro like the waves of the sea,

The voice of my Mary stills every emotion,

As sweetly she sings in the moonlight to me.

Her spirit is kind as the clouds of the even',

As gently they fall on the flowers of the dale,
And life will to me be a foretaste of heaven,

If spent with my Mary who lives in the vale.

PLEASURE is to woman, what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates, and destroys. But the duties of domestic life, exercised as they must be in retirement, and calling forth all the sensibilities of the female, are perhaps as necessary to the full development of her charms, as the shade and the shower are to the rose, confirming its beauty, and increasing its fragrance.

Most neighborhoods have a ministering angel, in the form of some elderly lady, who has had more than an ordinary share in the trials of life, and has thus become qualified to rejoice with the joyful, and weep with the weeping. Unbroken prosperity, if it does not harden the heart, still induces a thoughtlessness and ignorance of the joys and sorrows of others. Howard learned in a prison to feel for the prisoner, and most who have distinguished themselves in relieving human woe, have acquired this art in the school of affliction. It has pleased God to make not only "the Captain of our salvation," but many of his followers, "perfect through suffering."

In the place where the days of my childhood were passed, "Aunt Patty" was the ministering spirit. She was an aunt of my mother, yet scarcely more my Aunt Patty than everybody's Aunt Patty. Patience was the name she received from her parents, who were of the Pilgrim race; and one is almost tempted to think that she was named prophetically, like some of the characters in Scripture. If she had not received that name in her infancy, universal consent would have appropriated it to her in after life. Yet, like all other valuable acquisitions, this trait of character did not come without cost. The cup of sorrow which she was called to drink was the very one which, as if in anticipation, she had prayed might depart from her. To be the wife of a drunkard was the trial which she had thought, in her early life, she could never endure; nor did she believe it could ever be a woman's duty to live with a drunken husband. But many of our theories, when weighed by conscience in the balance of facts, are found wanting.

Within a few weeks after her marriage, her husband was brought home from a training, intoxicated. The thunder cloud had burst over her head, but hope, like the conducting rod, disarmed it of half its terror. The shock was distributed through weeks and months during

the confirmation of her terrible fear. She was a drunkard's wife. It is not necessary to accompany her through the years that followed. All that is dreadful, and loathsome, and crushing in such a connection, it was her lot to bear. Her husband possessed naturally a noble heart, but strong drink transformed him into a fiend. The very demon of drunkenness, in person, seemed to possess him. In his sober moments, he would weep and promise; but "when the fit was on him," every vestige of humanity was obliterated. When other objects were beyond his reach, his threats and violence were heaped upon his wife. For hours together, when no human help was near, he would stand over her with the butcher-knife, bidding her prepare to die. All this she bore, of course, without resistance. Once, and only once, in the extremity of her fear, she seized a chair, and struck him. The blow, so unexpected, seemed to restore him to himself; he dropped the weapon, sat down, and wept like a child. Twice or thrice, in his shame and desperation, he hung himself, but was found before life was extinct; and many a night have his half-grown sons, by their mother's direction, watched him, to save him from such a death.

More than twenty-five years of such experience produced a character almost as rare as the discipline itself. It must be pure gold which could pass through such a fire. Aunt Patty was not a crushed or heart-broken woman; she did not feel called upon to reckon life a burden, or the world a desert. Doubtless she often looked with longing for a home "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." But her life was not wasted in sighs; she had learned by contrast to value human happiness. None could suffer in her neighborhood without feeling that there was at least one heart that sympathized, and one hand extended to relieve. Yet there was no parade in all this—it was the unconscious instinct of benevolence.

Children know their friends as readily as the squirrel the sound nut, and children loved Aunt Patty. Whether it was the gentle countenance, and the kind words with which she greeted them, or the nice things with which her pantry was stored, I do not know; but a combination of such attractions operated like a charm upon the children of the place. I was one of the many boys who considered a visit at Aunt Patty's, a sufficient reward for the performance of any

task, or an adequate treat for any holiday. To be sure, we always approached the house with some misgivings, lest the old man should be at home, and possessed of the demon. When the sky was clear, we enjoyed the hour. There was a large spring, back of the house, stocked with interesting fishes. Aunt Patty would equip each of us with a pin fishhook, and a line of black thread, and, by way of rations, a broad slice of bread and butter for ourselves, and some extra crumbs for the fishes. We were not to hurt the fishes, for they were as dear to Aunt Patty and to us as any other domestic animal could be. We were only to feed them with the nice crumbs, which we stuck upon the crooked pins, and let down into the water within their reach. They were very expert in getting the bread, but occasionally their jaws would be pierced by the barbless hook, and we were obliged to lift them a little out of the water to detach them; but we never dreamed of keeping them out. We would as soon have killed a toad, or robbed a bird's nest-the hight of wickedness among us boys-as to leave one of Aunt Patty's fishes out of the water to die. We only took them out to relieve them from the pin, which they were so unfortunate as to bite.

Occasionally, in our visits, we noticed Aunt Patty's countenance more sad than usual, as she met us at the door; then we understood that all was not right within the evil spirit was there. We needed no intimation that it would be best to defer our visit to a more convenient season; for we would as soon have met the wolves that used to howl about our dwellings at night, as to encounter "Uncle Sam" in one of his dark hours. Once, when not sufficiently on our guard, my two brothers and myself accompanied the old man and two of his sons to the hay-field. The day was cloudy in every sense of the word. The old man was just able to stand with the help of his scythe, and he seemed to be annoyed that we were witnesses of his disgrace. He began to accuse our father of dishonesty in a certain business transaction. My oldest brother, forgetting that "discretion was the better part of valor," indignantly repelled the charge. The old man, enraged at what he called our impudence, seized a club, and swung it vigorously over our heads. We retreated hastily from the field, looking back at the danger, somewhat like Adam and Eve