But for one month I see no day (poor soul),
Like those far situate under the pole,

Which day by day long wait for thy arise,

Oh, how they joy when thou dost light the skies!
O Phœbus, hadst thou but thus long from thine
Restrained the beams of thy beloved shrine,
At thy return, if so thou couldst or durst,
Behold a Chaos blacker than the first.
Tell him here's worse than a confused matter,
His little world's a fathom under water,
Nought but the fervor of his ardent beams,
Hath power to dry the torrent of these streams.
Tell him I would say more, but cannot well,
Oppressed minds abrupted tales do tell.
Now post with double speed, mark what I say,
By all our loves conjure him not to stay.

MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH.

THIS "little feeble shadow of a man" was the pastor of Meldon for about fifty years, though occasionally obliged by physical weakness to suspend preaching. He died in 1705, aged seventy-four. His poem "The Day of Doom," describing the last judgment, remains a monument of the severest Puritanical theology. Another of his poems "Meat out of the Eater," is a series of meditations on afflictions as useful to Christians. The following verses are given as an appendix to the former poem.

A SONG OF EMPTINESS.-VANITY OF VANITIES.

VAIN, frail, short-lived, and miserable man,
Learn what thou art, when thy estate is best,

A restless wave o' th' troubled ocean,

A dream, a lifeless picture finely dressed.

A wind, a flower, a vapor and a bubble,

A wheel that stands not still, a trembling reed,
A trolling stone, dry dust, light chaff and stuff,
A shadow of something, but truly nought indeed.

Learn what deceitful toys, and empty things,
This world and all its best enjoyments be:
Out of the earth no true contentment springs,
But all things here are vexing vanity.

For what is beauty but a fading flower,
Or what is pleasure but the devil's bait,
Whereby he catcheth whom he would devour,
And multitudes of souls doth ruinate?

And what are friends, but mortal men as we,
Whom death from us may quickly separate?
Or else their hearts may quite estranged be,
And all their love be turned into hate.

And what are riches, to be doated on?
Uncertain, fickle, and ensnaring things;

They draw men's souls into perdition,

And when most needed, take them to their wings.

Ah, foolish man! that sets his heart upon

Such empty shadows, such wild fowl as these,

That being gotten will be quickly gone,

And whilst they stay increase but his disease.

COTTON MATHER.

No family was more prominent in the ecclesiastical history of New England than that of the Mathers. The non-conformist minister, Richard Mather, emigrated to Massachusetts in 1635. His son, Increase Mather, for a time resided in England, but returned to America and was made pastor of the North Church, Boston. He was also president of Harvard College and obtained from William III. a new charter for the colony. Still more famous was his son Cotton Mather (16631728), noted for his learning, industry and piety, yet full of vanity. His fluency in writing was shown in the production of nearly four hundred books. But his fatal delusion about witchcraft has affixed an indelible stigma on his name. He had written "Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft"

in 1685, and when the mania broke out in Salem in 1692 he eagerly promoted the agitation, and wrote his "Wonders of the Invisible World," which was controverted by Robert Calef's "More Wonders of the Invisible World," published in London in 1700. When the witch-hunting epidemic had passed away, it was found that Mather's reputation had suffered. He was unable to obtain the object of his ambition, the presidency of Harvard. His chief work, the ecclesiastical history of New England, which he called "Magnalia Christi Americana" ("The Great Doings of Christ in America”), is a crude undigested mass of materials rather than a history, for he had no sense of proportion. Franklin commended his "Essays to do Good." Mather was the first American to be elected a member of the Royal Society of London.

THE LIFE OF MR. RALPH PARTRIDGE.

(From the "Magnalia.")

WHEN David was driven from his friends into the wilderness, he made this pathetical representation of his condition, ""Twas as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains." Among the many worthy persons who were persecuted into an American wilderness for their fidelity to the ecclesiastical kingdom of our true David, there was one that bore the name as well as the state of a hunted partridge. What befel him, was, as Bede saith of what was done by Fælix, Juxta nominis sui sacramentum [according to the sacred obligation of his name.]

This was Mr. Ralph Partridge, who for no fault but the delicacy of his good spirit, being distressed by the ecclesiastical setters, had no defence, neither of beak nor claw, but a flight over the ocean.

The place where he took covert was the colony of Plymouth, and the town of Duxbury in that colony.

This Partridge had not only the innocency of the dove, conspicuous in his blameless and pious life, which made him very acceptable in his conversation, but also the loftiness of an eagle, in the great soar of his intellectual abilities. There are some interpreters who, understanding church officers by the living creatures in the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse,

will have the teacher to be intended by the eagle there, for his quick insight into remote and hidden things. The church of Duxbury had such an eagle in their Partridge, when they enjoyed such a teacher.

By the same token, when the Platform of Church Discipline was to be composed, the Synod at Cambridge appointed three persons to draw up each of them, "a model of churchgovernment, according to the word of God," unto the end that out of those the synod might form what should be found most agreeable; which three persons were Mr. Cotton and Mr. Mather and Mr. Partridge. So that, in the opinion of that reverend assembly, this person did not come far behind the first two for some of his accomplishments.

After he had been forty years a faithful and painful preacher of the gospel, rarely, if ever, in all that while interrupted in his work by any bodily sickness, he died in a good old age, about the year 1658.

There was one singular instance of a weaned spirit, whereby he signalized himself unto the churches of God. That was this: there was a time when most of the ministers in the colony of Plymouth left the colony, upon the discouragement which the want of a competent maintenance among the needy and froward inhabitants gave unto them. Nevertheless Mr. Partridge was, notwithstanding the paucity and the poverty of his congregation, so afraid of being anything that looked like a bird wandering from his nest, that he remained with his poor people till he took wing to become a bird of paradise, along with the winged seraphim of heaven.

ON THE DEATH OF HIS SON.

(The motto inscribed on his gravestone, "Reserved for a glorious Resurrection.")

THE exhortation of the Lord

With consolation speaks to us,
As to his children, his good word
We must remember, speaking thus:

My child, when God shall chasten thee,

His chastening do thou not contemn:
When thou his just rebukes dost see,

Faint not rebuked under them,

The Lord with fit afflictions will

Correct the children of his love;
He doth himself their father still
By his most wise corrections prove.

Afflictions for the present here

The vexed flesh will grievous call,
But afterwards there will appear,

Not grief, but peace, the end of all.

BISHOP GEORGE BERKELEY.

AMERICA is indebted to Bishop Berkeley (1684-1753), not only for his gracious prophecy of her future importance, but for what he tried to do to bring about its fulfillment, though his residence in America did not last three years. George Berkeley, born near Kilkenny, Ireland, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, early manifested a strong predilection for metaphysical speculation. His opposition to philosophic materialism led him to use arguments so subtle that he was popularly supposed to deny the existence of matter. But his aim was rather to establish the doctrine that a continual exercise of creative power is implied in the world presented to the senses. His views were set forth in a "Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge" (1710), and in "Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous" (1713). After publishing these works Berkeley went to London, where he enjoyed the society of the wits who gave literary fame to the reign of Queen Anne. Then he spent some years in travel on the Continent. After his return to Ireland he was made Dean of Derry, and married the daughter of the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. Having received a bequest of nearly £4000 from Miss Vanhomrigh, Dean Swift's "Vanessa," he offered to devote his talents and fortune to the promotion of education in America. Relying on the promises of the king and his ministers, he crossed the ocean to found a college at Newport, Rhode Island. During his residence here he meditated and composed his "Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher," a dialogue in defence of religion. Receiving no parliamentary grant, he was obliged to return, but transferred the library of 880 volumes he had brought for his own use to Yale College,