The golden twinkles of the westering sun
Deepened to richest crimson: now from out
The solemn beech-grove, through the natural aisles
Of pillared trunks, the glory in the west
Shewed like Jehovah's presence fire, beheld
In olden times above the Mercy-seat
Between the folded wings of Cherubim ;-
I loved to wander, with the evening star
Heading my way, till from the palest speck
Of virgin silver, evermore lit up
With radiance as by spirits ministered,
She seemed a living pool of golden light:
I loved to learn the strange array of shapes
That pass along the circle of the year;
Some, for the love of ancient yore, I kept;
And they would call into my fancy's eye
Chaldæan beacons, over the drear sand
Seen faintly from thick-towered Babylon,
Against the sunset-shepherds in the field,
Watching their flocks by night-or shapes of men
And high-necked camels, passing leisurely
Along the starred horizon, where the spice
Swims in the air, in Araby the Blest;
And some, as Fancy led, I figured forth,
Misliking their old names; one circlet bright
Gladdens me often, near the northern wain,
Which, with a childish playfulness of choice
That hath not passed away, I loved to call
The crown of glory, by the righteous Judge
Against the day of his appearing, laid

In store for him who fought the fight of faith.

The beauty of the strain steals over us; memories arise, clad in a soft, golden light; once again we are seated in the snug parlour, it is the still and quiet hour of evening; the blinds are drawn, the shutters closed, and the fire stirred; the taper is brought in; our mother opens "the big ha' Bible at creation's tale-she reads! we listen intently; our little eyes glisten with delight: we arise, we clamber up the knees of that beloved one, and throw our arms around her neck: tenderly she looks down on us; tenderly we look up to her. Reader, rememberest thou a similar scene ?-if so, think thereon, and heed not if it makes thee "play the woman."

And when we grew older, how soothing it was to wander up some hill, watching the evening star: the pensive feelings of that hour return upon us. We wondered what could make it shine so brightly, yet influence us to so much melancholy; and they told us that it was a better land than ours, that its fields yielded the amaranth and wild olive, that its pure and unfallen beings sang hymns of liquid praise. Then would imaginings come of that home's sweet joys and that home's sweet charms; and sometimes, too, we fancied that a strain of the immortal song caught our ears, and we would walk faster and listen; but it was the note of the wood pigeon, or the plaintive warbling of the nightingale; and when we went to rest, we thought of that star, and it seemed begirt with mystery; waking or sleeping, it filled all our mind.

How many there are who love the remaining Crosses of our native land! How sweet, when entering a secluded and quiet village, to behold a fine old cross standing upon a grassy mound, the emblem of our holy faith; we scarce know of any sight more pleasing. There is a solitariness and loneliness about such mouldering pillars, that while they remind us of our blessed religion, forget not also to teach us the lesson of earthly decay. To the past they belong, and to the past they carry us back; they breathe into the soul the pensive music of other years:

we mingle with our forefathers, with those who once sat in yonder school-house, who worshipped within those grey walls, and knelt at that sacred altar to receive the memorials of Christ's death and Christ's resurrection, and who now sleep in that silent ground; and we are sad "because they are not."

Methinks I could have borne to live my days
When by the path-way side, and in the dells,
By shading resting-place, or hollow bank
Where curved the streamlet, or on peeping rock,
Rose sweetly to the traveller's humble eye
The Cross in every corner of our land;

When from the wooded valleys morn and eve
Past the low murmur of the angel-bell;
Methinks I could have led a peaceful life
Daily beneath the triple-vaulted roof
Chanting glad matins, and amidst the glow
Of mellow evening towards the village-tower
Pacing my humble way.

Gentlest girl,

Thou wert a bright creation of my thought
In earliest childhood-and my seeking soul
Wandered ill-satisfied, till one blest day
Thine image passed athwart it-thou wert then
A young and happy child, sprightly as life;
Yet not so bright or beautiful as that
Mine inward vision;-but a whispering voice
Said softly-This is she whom thou didst choose;
And thenceforth ever, through the morn of life,
Thou wert my playmate-thou my only joy,
Thou my chief sorrow when I saw thee not.-
And when my daily consciousness of life
Was born and died-thy name the last went up,
Thy name the first, before our Heavenly Guide,
For favour and protection. All the flowers
Whose buds I cherished, and in summer heats [bloom,
Fed with mock showers, and proudly showed their
For thee I reared, because all beautiful
And gentle things reminded me of thee:
Yea, and the morning, and the rise of sun,
And the fall of evening, and the starry host,
If aught I loved, I loved because thy name
Sounded about me when I looked on them.

A sweet reminiscence this of faithful lovea gem gained from the beautiful Eden !-it seems surrounded by the delicious breath of Paradise. This affection creates anew the world; the woods waving in the breeze become vocal; the streams pouring along their limpidwaters whisper as with a song; the flowers, casting upward their odoriferous perfumes, murmur as with a silver strain; the mountains piercing the deep blue heavens with their " snow-capped" summits, and on which the sun pours down its rays, making them glow as if an emerald or an amethyst burned, resound as with a holy hymn and the vast rolling ocean, bellowing beneath the twinkling stars and lashing the searocks and the shore, gushes as with an everlasting anthem. Man awakens to a new being— enters into a new life; the imagination sees in all created things some semblance to the object of its regard; a passion has taken possession of his spirit, and sways it with a mighty energy; within its grasp he is all weakness, and yet all powerful-he is a subject, and yet a king; it is a higher state of existence; he is born anew from the nether world: he is exalted above the

earth, and yet he loves the earth with a fonder love than heretofore-for once he feels himself the lord of the universe. Everything has a significancy-all is symbolical; his thoughts, which were formerly confined to some narrow spot, now burst their fetters, and expatiate over the whole scene of vitality. "The height is gained, the mist has fallen; he stands as in a blooming landscape girt by immensity-a purer sunshine has illuminated all his conceptions; he is refined and ennobled; his pristine dignity is restored; soul meets soul; and in some mysterious commingling they love for ever. How it comes to pass we know not; how it begins, we cannot discover; it must remain unravelled; it is not of time, it is of eternity: our sacrifices become purest delights; our afflictions, holiest joys; it is a theriac against the injuries and scoffs of the world-a crucible in which the very dregs of bitterness are changed into the nectar of the gods.

Another extract, and we close our notice of this beautiful poem :

We have been dwellers in a lovely land,
A land of lavish lights and floating shades,
And broad green flats, bordered by woody capes
That lessen ever as they stretch away
Into the distant blue; a land of hills,
Cloud-gathering ranges, on whose ancient breast
The morning mists repose; each autumn tide

Deep purple with the heath-bloom; from whose brow
We might behold the crimson sun go down

Behind the barrier of the western sea:

A land of beautiful and stately fanes,

Aerial temples most magnificent,
Rising with clusters of rich pinnacles
And fretted battlements; a land of towers,
Where sleeps the music of deep-voiced bells,
Save when in holyday time the joyous air
Ebbs to the welling sound; and Sabbath morn,
When from a choir of hill-side villages
The peaceful invitation churchward chimes.
So were our souls brought up to love this earth
And feed on natural beauty: and the light
Of our own sunsets, and the mountains blue
That girt around our home, were very parts
Of our young being; linked with all we knew,
Centres of interest for undying thoughts
And themes of mindful converse. Happy they
Who in the fresh and dawning time of youth
Have dwelt in such a land, tuning their souls
To the deep melodies of Nature's laws
Heard in the after-time of riper thought
Reflective on past seasons of delight.

Yes, this is indeed a lovely land; a land of groves and gardens; a land of hills and dales; a land of running brooks and wide curving rivers; a land of the butterfly and bee; a land of lordly mansions and princely castles; a land of secluded villages and bustling towns; a land of the beautiful church and the magnificent cathedral; a land of Sabbath bells and soft eventides; a land of religious freedom and religious truth! The woodbine cottage, and the ruddy child, and the low sweet parsonage, and the wild heaths and purple mountains, and the gushing torrents, and the dark deep lakes, and the romantic ruins of a former age, are ours, and belong for ever to the land we love.

Man must gaze alone on the vast universe; he must be its presiding genius; he must throw around it every colour and every tinge of his inward mind; he must shape and form it to the thoughts of his own spirit-the priest at creation's altar. Symbolical, too, of the fair majesty of the eternal-what grandeur it puts on! what sublimity! what serenity! what quiet!

what fresh and blushing loveliness! and how sweet its music-sweet, yet having the roll of thunders! All soul to comprehend it fully-to realize it in all its grace, and truth, and meaning! Perhaps some of the finest descriptions we have, are those which depict the calmness of universal nature amid the confusion and tumult of man. Billow and surge and roll as he may, still the golden beauty of the morning, and the silver loveliness of the evening, spread themselves over the earth. "The flowers return with the cuckoo in the spring: the daisy fresh looks bright in the sun; the rainbow still lifts its head above the storm to the eye of infancy or age."-There may be hurry and noise amongst us, yet creation is one unruffled quietude; no sound is emitted but the sound of peace; no voice but the voice of birds, and trees, and rills; no language but the language of soft, hushed eloquence. Strange this and marvellous! All is serene above and around; the stars shine out as before, and the moon glimmers in the ocean.

This striking fact painters and poets have seized. How sweet and spring-scented, for instance, are the last few lines of the second book of the Æneid, which shew us the morning star rising above Mount Ida: the din and bloodshed and flames have passed-the Trojan city is in ruins-the dark night is rolling backwards-dawn streaks the horizon-the dimness fades away-the sun veers upwards, and the hill-tops are golden with his beams. There is relief; man feels it. The break of day, as calm and as silent as ever: it takes no note of a fallen empire: no, it is as fresh and unruffled as when the holy pair erst stood, and lowly bending, hymned their welcome. All so still, all so

quiet. The light comes down as usual; the valleys stand out in the bright rays; the forests are radiant with beauty; the hare starts in the thicket as before; the lion roars in the desert; the dove coos in the copse; nature is the same; Priam's imperial throne how darkened!

Ever thus, creation changes and yet changes not; the snow-drop comes out, blooms, and dies; still the sweet, modest floweret lives; it has breathed its consolation into the heart, amid dark, drear winter it unfolded its white petals in silence, but not in vain ;-wintry sleet came down, and wintry winds swept by, but they bore not away its beauty. The soul took the emblem; it was a symbol; it has passed away, but in man's spirit it exists; there it has an immortality; tumult was hovering, and night ready to cover as with a huge thunderous cloud, and yet it sprang up and blossomed, as if no harm or danger was near.

This quietude of nature is a semblance of the eternal rest; it whispers to us of the better land. What mysteries entwine this beautiful earth! They speak to our heart; they sing a holy song of the coming paradise; yet its stillness is its most exquisite music.

Our love of this softness and tranquillity in creation is linked with a higher principle than we at first perceive; it is the doctrine of rest and energy in the future abode. We may behold this idea worked out in the sculptured marble of the ancient world; so exquisitely chiselled it is, that whilst gazing on the per

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sonification of almighty power or superhuman agony, we feel a stillness breathing itself over the soul. There is a serene beauty in each feature; a soothing quietude: those ancient men felt that rest was the emblem of the celestial realm; nature deepened this feeling. Amid the stormy scenes of life would they oftentimes look back on the days of infancy, when as openhearted babes they played beneath the vine, and gathered the orange-blossom, and narcissus, and anemone, or when they nestled themselves in the fond bosoms of their mothers: it was rest then, and lively activity. And oftentimes, too, would they, when casting a glance into the dread unknown, deem that it would be something like the time of childhood and the days of youth; that over all would reign a delicious and undisturbed repose. Rest to men, stormbeaten, weather-beaten men, would be the elysium of their dreams, the Arcadia of their fondest hopes. And the serene peacefulness of their eventides would confirm the anticipation. At those seasons, every care was laid aside, and they sat with their own beloved ones under the spreading branches of some majestic tree. Rest then would be associated with all their ideas of happiness and unsullied bliss: and we find this to be true; for when their mighty spirits arose, they gave the expression of this fact in their immortal works of art.

The heathen philosophers, who taught that the soul was a particle of the Divinity, and that at death it would return, and become again linked to the Supreme, had this idea of rest at bottom. There was a sublime truth in their doctrines; once with the Deity, and there would be peace profound as the blue of heaven. This union with the Creator was the perfection of happiness. As He was beyond all change and decay, so the soul, when joined again to Him, would likewise be without change and without decay. They felt that there could be no lasting bliss apart from God; and their hearts told them that in the re-union of the spirit with him, there could alone be unruffled and imperishable joy. Those evening hours in which they meditated in the deep gloom of some umbrageous forest, revealed to them that quietude was the distinguishing feature in the future world. Once and again they felt a principle within which threw a sweet and chastened beauty over the events of life, and over the visible creation: a principle which shaped every tumultuous chaos, and moulded every stormy passion to order and gracefulness; a principle which beamed on the throbbing soul a soft alabaster light, and soothed and subdued many of its evil desires. From whence came this principle, they could not tell; suffice for us to know, that it often steered them onwards through the tempestuous ocean to the haven of everlasting rest. Ah! reader, have you never watched the setting sun from the home of childhood, and when its departing glories have calmed your bosom, and its fine crimson and golden colouring threw something of their tinge on the flowers beneath your feet, and when, letting your fancy loose, you have called to remembrance the beloved face of parent, and of kinsman, and of friend, and losing yourself among the hallowed associations of the past, and min

gling in bygone years, have you not felt a peace and a quietude, deep as the grey of yonder sky, yet profound as the magnificent roll of existence? Then was shadowed forth the eternal rest; and these men, these ancient men, would ofttimes experience the same enchanting influence; and they sang a song of the nether paradise, and its delicious music lingers yet on the ear.

Even their fables discover the same principle. We select one-the story of Psyche and Cupid: how exquisitely it reveals the scriptural fact that the coming heaven consists in love and rest. This doctrine pervades the whole of this sweet tale: how it unfolds the soul's affection for something higher, and loftier, and purer than aught on earth; how it exhibits the spirit's attachment to the everlasting love! Psyche catches a glimpse of the perfect beauty, and she loves once and for ever: but she is earthly, and hence she doubts and mistrusts. The fine sunny radiance which before streamed from heaven becomes darkened: to regain that light, there must be struggles, deep, mighty struggles; there must be faith. Ah! these ancient men knew something of the coming revelation: by struggles, by faith, by the help of invisible or Almighty powers, by encouragement from above, by starlight in shades, and sunlight in gloom, the soul triumphs. Psyche wins her first and fondest Cupid; they are for ever united; the alliance is immaculate; their home is garlanded by the celestial flowers, and those flowers are love and rest. Is there nothing taught here? Is there not a divine breathing, and a divine expression? Union with the God of love, what means it? Everlasting intimacy with the source of all tenderness, what does it tell? Is there here no true shadowing of the future; no breaking in of unseen reality; no bursting forth of immortal verity?

Not only do we discern this principle in the work of the sculptor, of poet, and of philosopher, but we think it may be discovered in those vast piles which rear their pinnacles and minarets and cupolas to the fair heavens: these breathe out a tranquil beauty; there seems to be a deep, soft, spiritual power about them; the very air around them is hushed to stillness; when we gaze on their architectural symmetry, we are enchained; we speak not; words are too grating, they disturb too much the unruffled quietude. It is the same with the simple kirk and the magnificent cathedral: we feel that they possess a potent power; that power fetters the soul, and yet leaves it freer than before; we are calmed—it is as if we stood in the presence of a greater intellect; we are awed; and it is even so, that stately fane was the conception and the design of the immortal mind. When it first glanced across the spirit, the architect was gladdened, and he cherished the idea as fondly as a mother cherisheth her first-born. Well may it be so vital with expression, so vocal with language; it is the creation of the soul; she formed, and shaped, and moulded it into grace, and then gave it substance and reality. We can touch, we can handle it: there it stands-a monument of what man can do; it is thought embodied; it is the imagination clothed. Is it any wonder,

then, that we are moved and stirred by its influence? All these glorious buildings are significant of peace; one almost feels solitary and alone whilst admiring their beauty, so sweet is the music they whisper.

The Grecian temples, wherever they stand, seem to spread a tranquil softness over creation; there is a solitude wherever they uprear their graceful columns. They may, indeed, be surrounded by worshippers, but there is yet a sensible stillness; silence is the presiding divinity: if there are sounds, they are lost in the supreme sense of quietude. That polished temple, with its clear serene sky overhead, and its overhanging palms, is rest sculptured.

Man's mightiest works are instinct with this doctrine: it matters not whether it be poetry or architecture, painting or sculpture, rest is the characteristic of each and all. Look at Martin's Deluge; and is it not true that, amid the tremendous dashing of the rain, the surging and billowing of the waters, the cries of infants, the shrieks of men and women, and the awful confusion of the scene, silence is felt to be the pervading element? One cannot well explain how, among things so opposite, there should issue such calmness; but it is no less real because undivined. Were the Chaos sketched by a master-hand, even from this, with all its jarring noises, and discordant sounds, and crashing thunders, would there breathe forth a stillness and a tranquil quietude. Why labour we so earnestly in our youth and manhood? why exhaust we our strength and energy in the heyday of our existence? why the sunken eye? why the enfeebled frame? why the pallid cheek? Is it not that when life's shadows deepen, the evening of our days may be passed in the enjoyment of rest? It is not for the gold-god that we toil; no, not for that, not for that! We long after rest; we pray for rest. But remember, it is an active rest; a rest on which may beam affection and constant love. Rest is grateful after hardship; rest is sweet after the beating and raging of the elements; rest is delicious after years of suffering; and when man looks on the fair and beautiful creation, he feels that this, too, is the bliss of heaven.

Ambition may stir the breast of many, and it may seem to be the ruling principle in their struggle for pre-eminence and wealth; but even this is kept alive by the idea of rest. Behind those honours, and far more honourable, arises an abode of peace and contentment. Here they would spend the remainder of their days. It is not rank, it is not station that they want so much; it is this. Fancy ever calleth up some rural retirement to nerve and sinew the aspiring spirit in his conflict with the world. Have you ever marked the pure blue ether that often gleams through some broken cloud? It is an emblem of the rest he desires.

We have lain in the deep flowery grass which skirted a sylvan stream, and whilst listening to its murmuring waters, and gazing upwards with half-closed eye, have we been wafted as in a sweet and pleasant dream to the land where there is an unruffled calm. Why do we recollect such moments with delight? It is that they spoke to us of rest.

And we may, indeed, trace some knowledge thus gathered from the outward universe, in every bosom. The spirit culleth all the beautiful things of earth, and out of them doth it take such as are in sweet accordance with its own bright anticipation of the future world. Ah, it is a creation bathed in love and quietude. There may the feet stray in orange-groves; there the almond-tree buds, and the cassia flowers, and the clove and basil pour forth their perfumes on every passing breeze; there the cedar, and the pine, and the fir adorn its vales, and the sun looks gloriously down upon its pure and holy inhabitants. Rest is there, and love-rest and love: all is one enchanting stillness-one enchanting silence. There is love, which signifies activity; rest, which signifies happiness: it is a fair and hallowed spot; and this expression of poet, and of painter, and of sculptor, is but a shadow of its eternal softness and eternal beauty.

Seest thou a soul struggling after a pleasant home, embowered in shady grove, and trellised with the woodbine, rose, and sweet-pea, and beaming within with all the tenderness of faithful love; knowest thou that it is but pursuing the object of existence, and obeying the great principle of its being? Love and rest: who would not live and die for these?

Stillness is the perfection of human nature: in that unruffled silence there is the exercise of every faculty and every attribute.

In man's most blissful moments he is silent; in his holiest seasons he is still; in his most hallowed communion with those he loves he is without language; words fail him then: he needs them not; there is a deeper expression than the softest intonations of the lips. See it in the sculptured marble, and the dark, dim cathedral pile, and the sketch of painter, and the creation of poet; see it, too, in our homes, when we kneel before the throne; see it in those eventides when we sit with those "whom God has given us," and watch the closing flower, the rising moon, the vesper star.

Among our author's minor productions there are many choice gems. There is much of Wordsworth's style and sentiment in the following:

There is an ancient man who dwells
Without our parish bounds,
Beyond the poplar-avenue,
Across two meadow-grounds;
And whensoe'er our two small bells
To church call merrily,
Leaning on our churchyard gate,
This old man ye may see.

He is a man of many thoughts,
That long have found their rest,
Each in its proper dwelling-place
Settled within his breast:
A form erect, a stately brow,
A set and measured mien-
The satisfied unroving look
Of one who much hath seen.

And once, when young in care of souls,
I watched a sick man's bed,
And willing half, and half ashamed,
Lingered, and nothing said:
The ancient man, in accents mild,
Removed my shame away-
"Listen!" he said; "the minister
Prepares to kneel and pray."

These lines of humble thankfulness
Will never meet his eye;
Unknown that old man means to live,
And unremembered die.