DEATH OF A TRUE WIFE.

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had so long brightened at his entrance was to shed its mild beam no more. There the voice which had daily inquired into his labors, and like another conscience had whispered. a sweet approval, was still. There the sympathy which had pressed with tender hand his aching head, and by its nursing care had postponed the hour of exhaustion and disease, was gone. He was not indeed left alone; for filial love and reverence spared no soothing offices; but these, though felt and spoken of as most precious, could not take the place of what had been removed. This great loss produced no burst of grief. It was a still, deep sorrow, the feeling of a mighty void, the last burden which the spirit can cast off. sensibly declined.

His attachment to life from this moment In seasons of peculiar sensibility he wished to be gone. He kept near him the likeness of his departed friends, and spoke of the solace which he had found in it. He heard her voice from another world, and his anticipations of that world, always strong, became now more vivid and touching.

Longing for Reunion with the Dead.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

-FULL oft the innocent sufferer sees
Too clearly, feels too vividly, and longs
To realize the vision with intense

And ever constant yearning; there, there lies
The excess by which the balance is destroy'd.
Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh,
This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs,
Though inconceivably endow'd, too dim,
For any passion of the soul that leads
To ecstasy; and all the crooked paths

Of time and change disdaining, takes its course
Along the line of limitless desire.

THE FUTURE OF THE SOUL.

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The Future of the Soul.

HERDER.

Look at the heavens, God's star writing, the primeval tradition of our immortality, the luminous chart of our far pilgrimage! Where does the universe end! And why do rays come down to us from yonder farthest star? Why have there been given to man the glance and the flaming light of immortal hopes? Why, when we have been exhausted with the rays of the sun, and bound fast to the dust all the day, does God unveil to us at night this sublime field of infinite eternal prospects? We stand lost amid the host of the worlds of God—lost in the abyss of his immensity round about us. And what should bind my spirit to this weary sand grain, when my body, the hull, has sunk into the ground? All the laws which bind me here evidently relate to my body only; that is formed of this earth and must return to this earth again. The laws of motion, the pressure of the atmosphere, everything confines that, and only that here below. The spirit once escaped, once rid of the delicate but strong bands of sense, impulse,

propensity, duty, and custom which bind us to this little sphere of visibility, what earthly power can hold it longer? What law of nature has been discovered which should compel souls to revolve in this narrow race-course ? The spirit is raised above the bounds of time; it despises space, and the slow movements of earth. Once disembodied, it is immediately in its place, its sphere, in the new kingdom to which it belongs. Perhaps that kingdom is around us, and we perceive it not; perhaps it is near us, and we know not of it, except in occasional moments of happy fore-feeling, when the soul, as it were, attracts it to itself, or it the soul. Perhaps, too, there are appointed for us places of rest, regions of preparation-other worlds in which, as on a golden heaven ladder, ever lighter, more active and blest, we may climb upwards to the fountain of all light, ever seeking, never reaching, the centre of our pilgrimage—the bosom of the Godhead. For we are, and must ever be, limited, imperfect, finite beings. But wherever I may be, through whatever worlds I may be led, I shall remain forever in the hands of the Father who has brought me hither, and who calls me further; forever in the infinite bosom of God.

COMFORT IN AFFLICTION.

Comfort in Affliction.

ANONYMOUS.

OH, thou who dry'st the mourner's tear,
How dark this world would be,

If, when deceiv'd and wounded here,
We could not fly to thee!

The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes, are flown;
And he who has but tears to give,
Must weep those tears alone;

But thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw

Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.

When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And e'en the hope that threw

A moment's sparkle o'er our tears,

Is dimm'd and vanish'd too!

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