GOING HOME.

"Mother, let us go home. Why did we come here?”

ON an evening of early autumn, in a rural cottage, on one of the most retired streets of our pleasant village, a fair young girl lay on her dying bed. She had left, some two years before, her home on the Wabash, and had come to this place to spend a few years at school. . In her were associated unusual sweetness of disposition, and extraordinary power and refinement of mind, with great beauty of person. She seemed one of the highly-gifted children of earth, who partake more of the spirituality and intellect of angels, than of the materiality and imperfections of mortals. She had pursued her studies with extraordinary success, and saw before her the highest honors of the seminary of which she was a member. She fell sick of fever, and for many days her friends were suffering the agitating anxieties of fluctuating hope and ever-recurring despair. We had gathered around her as she lay quietly sinking under the influence of disease and slightly affected with delirium. For a moment she aroused, opened her eyes, and saw her mother leaning over her bed. "Mother," said she gently, "let us go home. Why did we come here?" She closed her eyes again, and quietly fell asleep to wake no more. Her last thought seemed of home-the home of her childhood. A few weeks before she fell sick, while apparently under the influence of some presentiment of her early death, she wrote, as a school exercise, the following delightful passage:

"The heart has memories that can not die. They are

memories of home, of early-loved home. Home! there is magic in the very word. The sound sends a thrill to the heart, vibrating on every nerve. Home! how dear and cherished are its remembrances! How hallowed is childhood's rosy

the spot! There passed sweetly our hours. O, I sympathize with the lone wanderer, who has not in all the world a spot he may call home. Sad must be his heart when, weary, forsaken, and forlorn, he finds no asylum, where the weary rest, where the forsaken find comfort, and the forlorn hope. Though separated from my own cottage home, my thoughts often wander back to its rural charms. Sometimes I fancy I am wandering by the crystal brook that winds by the cottage door, and gazing on its lucid stream as it goes singing and dancing along in the bright sunshine, or sparkles in the silver moonbeams. Along the verdant and flowery brink of that little brook I have passed some of the happiest moments of my life.

"Often, at the sweet hour of evening, when memory's sacred spell was on my soul, have I strolled out, while the dew-drops were sparkling in the moonlight, and sat down on the soft carpet of green, sprinkled with little tufts of beautiful wild flowers, and listened to the waters as they murmured through the vale. Oft was my heart enraptured with the scene, and I thought this was the 'happy land where care was unknown.'

"Near by the cottage stands the old school-house, in which I first was taught to read. And there, too, about that dear cottage home, was my favorite garden walk, my pleasant arbor, my beautiful flowers, the rose-bush that twined about my chamber window, and every loved spot that my infancy knew.' I wonder if my flowers still bloom as fair and as sweet, and if the rose-bushes twine as lovingly about the window, as when I used to trim them. Ah! lovely flowers! you may bloom on, but not

for me. Other footsteps will tread my garden walk; others will sit in my shady bower.

"But my cottage home throws a still stronger spell over my heart. There, on the brow of a hill, beneath the floating branches of a tree, sleeps sweet Ellen, my only sister. I weep when I think of Ellen's grave. Who will train the rose-bush over the spot? Who will plant the myrtle and the snow-drop, and bedew them with tears of affection? Who will kneel at twilight beside her grave, and say to her, good-night?"

This lovely human angel, more seemingly a native of some bright, heavenly sphere than of earth, for some months before her death, and when in full health and blooming in beauty, appeared conscious that her days were few, and that she was standing on the very verge of the spirit-land. The following beautiful essay was written on her nineteenth birthday:

"The morning smiles with cheerful beams of rosy hue. The pearly dew-drop, in its chariot of cloud, glides away to its 'bower in air.' The lark sings sweetly, as he upward flies to greet the glorious king of day, now approaching in sublime grandeur, cheering all nature with his refulgent rays. Calmness and serenity sit smiling on the beauteous face of Nature. The gentle whispering of a lonely, wandering zephyr, as it plays among the lovely flowers, or sports in the leafy groves, falls upon my listening ear. A romantic charm seems floating on the soft gale, leaving a fairy impress on every object.

'O, there is joy and happiness.

In every thing I see,

Which bids my soul rise up and bless

The God that blesses me.'

"Again I hail the return of my birthday; and though amidst joyful salutations and happy wishes that are wont to greet me-though surrounded by Nature arrayed in

her loveliest garb, yet there is a pensive sadness pervades my would-be gay and happy heart. In vain do I wear a cheerful smile and an air of careless mirth and gayety; for naught can exile the melancholy vision that hovers. about my spirit, or obliterate the deep impression made upon my heart by the return of my birthday. Methinks I hear a visitor from the land of silence softly whisper, 'Every birthday finds thee nearer a visionless sleep and a couch of clay.' Yes, a few more fleeting birthdays, and who will think of Minerva? Who will ever dream that such a being appeared on the stage of existence? Who will cherish her name and love her memory? O, none! Another will take her place, the vacuum occupied all will be well, and not one will hold her in sweet remembrance.

"Ah! I have planned full many a scheme of earthly happiness; but how soon may the hand of the fell destroyer throw a chill blight on all my budding hopes and blooming prospects, crush all my bright anticipations, and hasten me to the shades of oblivion, there to slumber alone and forgotten! That word 'forgotten,' how sadly it falls on my pensive heart! It is a mournful theme to dream of the land of oblivion. All shrink from its dark and gloomy shades, with a kind of instinctive reluctance to enter its dismal abodes. How transient is our mortal existence! Flowers are truly our emblems. In the morning we gaze on the sweet rose-bud, with its petals folded in tender infancy-the emblem of pure and innocent childhood; at noon it bursts forth, in exquisite beauty and loveliness, 'the queen of flowers,' displaying its irresistible charms as it proudly and gracefully bows to the gentle breeze and basks in the sunbeams, captivating its unnumbered admirers-the emblem of the most interesting period of life—our blooming, gay, and happy youth. But mark the change of the scene.

For an

hour we see it the pride and admiration of all, a perfect flower; but soon the destroyer comes; it begins to droop; the rude blast is too much for its delicate and fragile form; its richly-tinted petals wither, and when evening throws her sable mantle around us, the work of destruction is complete, and naught remains to tell its mournful fate. It dies, the emblem of our transient being. And think ye the flowers that bloomed by its side, the companions of its youth, wept long for the untimely fall of their lovely sister? No! they breathed, 'Our sister is no more;' the bud that grew by her side, half entombed in her robe, sprung up in her place, and she was from memory forever erased. Such is her fate; her knell unrung; her requiem unsung; her epitaph unwritten; and such shall be mine. Yes! I shall sink like that flower. Perhaps a few more scenes of youthful pleasure, interspersed with those of pain, a few more sips at the cup of happiness, mingled with drops of sorrow, and the curtain will fall. Perhaps a few cherished and devoted friends may mark my decline, and breathe a sigh of sympathy. A tear of sorrow and regret may tremble on the cheek of some fond and loved associate, as she gazes on me for the last time; a soft whisper of, 'Peace to the lone and silent couch of her who sleeps forever!' may pass round my humble tomb; they turn away, the occurrence assumes the mystic form of a dream, and vanishes. Yet why am I sad? Why thus dejected? Is it not sweet to pass from earth so quietly; and with such calmness and serenity to leave the afflictions, cares, disappointments, and thorny paths of this mundane sphere? 'Yes, unhonored and unknown let me live, unwept and unlamented let me die.' It is a beautiful thought, that, when I sleep that last, long, dreamless sleep, they will place my lowly couch in some sequestered grove, 'far from the world's gay stroll,' by the side of some gentle,