Take him between your knees, peruse his face,
While all you know, or think you know, you trace;
Tell him who spoke creation into birth,

Arched the broad heavens, and spread the rolling earth,
Who formed a pathway for the obedient sun,

And bade the seasons in their circles run;
Who filled the air, the forest and the flood,
And gave man all, for comfort or for food,
Tell him they sprang at God's creating nod-
He stops you short, with-Father, who made God?'

Thus, through life's stages, may we mark the power
That masters man in every changing hour;
It tempts him, from the blandishments of home,
Mountains to climb, and frozen seas to roam;
By air-blown bubbles buoyed, it bids him rise,
And hang an atom in the vaulted skies;
Lured by its charm, he sits and learns to trace,
The midnight wanderings of the orbs of space;
Boldly he knocks at wisdom's inmost gate,
With nature counsels, and communes with fate;
Below, above, o'er all he dares to rove,

In all finds God, and finds that God all love.

HYMN

For the second Centennial Celebration of the settlement of Charlestown, Mass.

Two hundred years!-two hundred years!-
How much of human power and pride,
What glorious hopes, what gloomy fears,
Have sunk beneath their noiseless tide!

The red-man, at his horrid rite,
Seen by the stars at night's cold noon,
His bark canoe, its track of light
Left on the wave beneath the moon,-

His dance, his yell, his council fire,
The altar where his victim lay,
His death song, and his funeral pyre,—
That still, strong tide hath borne away.

And that pale pilgrim band is gone,
That, on this shore, with trembling trod,
Ready to faint, yet bearing on

The ark of freedom and of God.

And war-that since o'er ocean came,
And thundered loud from yonder hill,
And wrapped its foot in sheets of flame,
To blast that ark-its storm is still.

Chief, sachem, sage, bards, heroes, seers,
That live in story and in song,

Time, for the last two hundred years,
Has raised, and shown, and swept along.

"Tis like a dream when one awakes-
This vision of the scenes of old:
"Tis like the moon when morning breaks,
"Tis like a tale round watch-fires told.

Then, what are we?-then, what are we?
Yes, when two hundred years have rolled
O'er our green graves, our names shall be
A morning dream, a tale that's told.

God of our fathers,-in whose sight
The thousand years, that sweep away
Man, and the traces of his might,
Are but the break and close of day,—

Grant us that love of truth sublime,
That love of goodness and of thee,
Which makes thy children, in all time,
To share thine own eternity.

MUSIC OF NATURE.

In what rich harmony, what polished lays, Should man address thy throne, when nature pays Her wild her tuneful tribute to the sky!

Yes, Lord, she sings thee; but she knows not why
The fountains gush, the long-resounding shore,
The zephyrs whisper, and the tempests roar,
The rustling leaf, in autumn's fading woods,

The wintry storm, the rush of vernal floods,
The summer bower, by cooling breezes fanned,
The torrent's fall by dancing rainbows spanned,
The streamlet, guggling through its rocky glen,
The long grass sighing o'er the graves of men,
The bird that crests yon dew-bespangled tree,
Shakes his bright plumes, and trills his descant free,
The scorching bolt that from thine armory hurl'd,
Burns its red path, and cleaves a shrinking world;
All these are music to Religion's ear:-
Music, thy hand awakes, for man to hear.

THE EFFECTS

Which Christianity ought to produce on Manners.

THE catalogue of natural vices exhibits a true and disgusting picture of man untaught, and unpurified by his Creator. The works of the flesh says he, are hatred, variance, strife, wrath, emulation, envyings, and seditions. But the Christian religion teaches another mind; the fruits of that spirit it would inculcate are love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, and goodness. In this manner, the general scope of Christianity is pointed out in a few words, and a test afforded us, by which we may estimate our progress in religion. We say, in our language, to seize on the spirit of a thing; we talk of the spirit of our political constitution, of the spirit of our civil, and criminal law; and we seem to mean by the expressions, those few leading principles which uniformly pervade these respective codes, and give them consistency of character; in this sense, the apostle unfolds to us the spirit of Christianity, the object, and tendency of all its laws; they are instituted to increase love, and affection amongst mankind; to make us happy to diffuse peace, to inculcate forbearance, gentleness, goodness, and meekness. The fruits of the spirit are love. By love, the apostle means philanthropy, the general love of our fellowcreatures, a passion dwelling more often on the lip, than in the heart, and rather a theme on which we declaim, than a motive from which we act. The mass of us, who are called Christians, do not hate our fellow-creatures, but we do not love them. Misanthropy is a compound of ill-temper, disappointment, and folly, which does not often occur.

But most

men are indifferent to that part of the species, which is out of the pale of their own private acquaintance; the cry of public wretchedness never reaches them; they never seek for hidden misery; they shrink from that courageous benevolence which wades through mockery and contempt, and horror to curb the infamous with laws, and comfort the poor with bread; and when the rain, and the tempest blacken the earth, they gather round their comforts within; and make fast the bars of their gates against the crying Lazarus, and leave his sores to the dogs, and his head to the storm. Again, nothing can be more dissimilar from the fruits of the spirit, than that little indulgence, which our mutual faults experience one from the other. The character, and conduct of those with whom we live, is not only a very natural, but a very necessary object of inquiry. We should love, and act in the dark, if we were not to make it so; but the strong tendency to injustice, and ill nature is the thing to be corrected. Tear the veil off your heart, and look at it steadily and boldly; for a keener eye than yours shall one day pierce into its darkest chambers. Is there no secret wish to find the imputation true, by which another is degraded? - Is there no secret fear that it should be refuted? Do these sentiments never lurk beneath the affectation of pity and condolence. Have you never concealed those circumstances and considerations, which you knew would extenuate the guilt of an absent, and an accused person? Have you never sat in the prudent ecstacy of silence, and seen the fame of a good, and an eminent man mangled before your eyes? Have you never given credit, and circulation to improbable evidence of crime? Have you examined the guilt of your neighbor, as you would examine the guilt of your child, with heaviness of heart, and in all the reluctant evidence of conviction? Have you never added to evil report? never in a bad hour, and with accursed tongue, and with unblushing face, heaped up infamy on a better man than yourself; and spoke that which was false of the helpless, the good, the wise, or the great? And if you have done it, if it forms the daily habit of your life, what title have you to the name of Christian? Or by what right do you call on Jesus the merciful and the good? Be not deceived; God is never scorned. Think you that he who set at nought the idle sacrifice of the Jews, who would not eat bull's flesh, or drink the blood of goats, will be mocked with bended knees, and uplifted hands? Are we the dis

ciples of Christ, because we stand at this prayer, or rise at that, and sanctify the face, and strain at trifles, and fill the temple with the cry of God, God, and Lord, Lord? If these are our notions of religion, we walk on deceitful ashes, which will burn our bodies with flame. Christ came down from the mercy-seat of God to heal our woes, and minister to our infirmities, to soften the nature of man, and to bend his heart to mercy. If you truly venerate that holy name, walk in that spirit, with which he walked on the earth, forgive, as you would be forgiven, do unto others, as you would they should do unto you; judge your brethren in mercy, be slow to condemn, and swift to forgive, bearing always upon you the fruits of the spirit, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, and goodness.

SUBJECT CONCLUDED.

FEW human creatures, indeed, are eminent either for birth, fortune, beauty, learning, or any thing on which the world sets a value, without considering such distinctions as a justification of pride in themselves, or the want of it, as a mark of degradation in others. The sole object for which they mingle in society, is to display what they possess, and to insinuate what the rest of the world want. Their intercourse with their fellow creatures, is an eternal mixture of ostentation and sarcasm; and they would seem to be certain beings of a superior order, made by some other God, and hoping for a more select salvation.

The effect of Christian faith upon daily behavior, is often, indeed, scarcely discernible, if it exists at all; every one is the greatest in his own eyes; our forms of speech only are humble, our hearts are full of disdain. And yet, there is nothing in the humility of a Christian, incompatible with the elegance of a gentleman: and that polish of manners on which the world places so great, and perhaps, so merited a value, proceeds chiefly from the indication of qualities, which it is so much the object of the Christian religion to diffuse. A man of graceful behavior counterfeits humility, throws a veil over his advantages and perfections; he discovers concealed merit, brings it into light, and gives it brilliancy and force. Nobody has any fault before him, he is in appearance gentle, long-suffering and benevolent. There is hardly any one Christian quality which a man, actuated by the mere vanity