tion or spectacle. ANIMOSITY; active enmity. ANALOGOUS; having RETROSPECT; view or contemplation of something

some resemblance.

past. RENOVATE; to restore to the first state, to renew.

THE CLOSING YEAR.

SWEEPING; give n its ringing sound. SHROUD; sound the sh before r. SOLEMN; short e, not short u. WINTER; SUMMER; er as in her SHIVERED; er as in her; erd, not ŭd.

'Tis midnight's holy hour; and silence now

Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling- 'tis the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
ls sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred
As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand,-

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter with his aged locks, and breathe,

In mournful cadences, that come abroad

Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
Gone from the earth forever.

'Tis a time

For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
Heard from the tomb of Ages, points its cold

And solemn finger to the beautiful

And holy visions that have passed away,

And left no shadow of their loveliness

On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts
The coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love;
And, bending mournfully above the pale,

Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has passed to nothingness. The year
Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.

It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous-and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er
The battle-plain, where sword, and spear, and shield,
Flashed in the light of midday- and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came,
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,

It heralded its millions to their home

In the dim land of dreams.

Remorseless Time

Fierce Spirit of the Glass and Scythe-what power

Can stay him in his silent course, or melt

His iron heart to pity? On, still on

He presses, and forever. The proud bird,

The condor of the Andes, that can soar

Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave

The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,

Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain-crag; but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,

And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time,
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

G. D. PRENTICE.

PLACIDLY; quietly, calmly. WIZARD; enchanting, charming. WAIL; loud weeping, violent lamentation. ERST; once, formerly. RECKLESS; careless, heedless, mindless. CARNAGE; slaughter of men.

ts 166-171.

9 255.

$ 204.

DISCOVERIES OF THE TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE COMPARED.

CONVERSANT; accent first syllable.

PRODUCE; o long; u, not oo. WONDERS; ers as in hers, not uz. GOVERNED; er as in her; ernd, not und. BOUNDLESS; èss, not iss. WORMS; sound rmz.

THE inconceivable space and innumerable quantities with which we become conversant in contemplating the phenomena of the heavens, not only stretch the human mind till it is lost in infinity, but are calculated to produce a peculiar effect on our religious views and feelings. They elevate our conceptions of the Creator, and fill us with the utmost astonishment and awe.

But there is something so incomprehensible in the attri butes of that self-existent Being, by whose power these wonders were created, and by whose wisdom they are governed, as to overpower and confound the mind. In the presence of such a God, we appear to become as nothing; and, were we only to dwell on the immensities of nature, it seems as if we should scarcely be in a fit state for receiving the truths of revealed religion, or for cherishing those pious and filial affections, which the doctrines of the gospel are so admirably adapted to excite.

After wandering through the boundless realms of space, and observing worlds on worlds, and systems on systems, and even groups of systems on groups, in interminable succession, all glorious with the perfections of the Eternal, it is not easy to conceive that the dreadful and stupendous Power who created and sustains this infinite universe, should condescend to care for such worms of earth as we are, - much less that he should extend to us the tender affections of a father.

To think of such a being as providing food for the ravens and sustaining the sparrow in its flight, or even looking

regardfully on man, and numbering the hairs of the hoary head, or counting the beatings of the infant's heart, seems to the mind, thus exclusively prepossessed, as little better than a fond and idle dream. A general providence such a mind will readily admit; but that the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, should occupy himself with the little affairs of such an insignificant and worthless creature as man, is a doctrine, to say the least, by no means so congenial to the habits of thinking which astronomy induces.

"The

It is not, however, only in the magnificent scale of operations, to which the view of the starry heavens introduces us, that the perfections of the Creator are visible. We have seen that the hand of the Almighty may be equally perceived to be at work in little things as in great. cattle on a thousand hills are his." He not only created them, and endowed them with most wonderful instincts for self-preservation, and faculties for enjoyment; but adapts these instincts and faculties to the revolution of the seasons, and the revolution of the seasons to them.

The deeper we examine this subject, the more powerfully are we struck with proofs of the minute and tender care of a parent in making provision for the wants of his offspring. Descending from the larger to the smaller animals, we find no point in the scale where this parental character stops, or is even diminished. The same wise and most wonderful provision is made for the worm and the mite as for the lion and the elephant; their bodies are equally formed with consummate art, and equally contrived with amazing care, for the circumstances in which they are placed, and the means of subsistence and happiness within their reach.

Nor is this all. Science applies its skill to aid nature in investigating the little as well as the great. If, by means of a telescope, the astronomer has been enabled to lay open a thousand wonders of the starry heavens, hid from our unaided sight, and has taught us to believe that, after all, we are only