warm beds, and hire others to sleep on the cold and damp earthwho sit at their well-spread board, and hire others to take the chance of starving-who nurse the slightest hurt in their own bodies, and hire others to expose themselves to mortal wounds and to linger in comfortless hospitals;-certainly this mass reap little honour from war; the honour belongs to those immediately engaged in it. Let me ask, then, what is the chief business of war? It is to destroy human life; to mangle the limbs, to gash and hew the body; to plunge the sword into the heart of a fellow creature; to strew the earth with bleeding frames, and to trample them under foot with horses' hoofs. It is to batter down and burn cities; to turn fruitful fields into deserts; to level the cottage of the peasant and the magnificent abode of opulence; to scourge nations with famine; to multiply widows and orphans. Are these honourable deeds? Were you called to name exploits worthy of demons, would you not naturally select such as these? Grant that a necessity for them may exist; it is a dreadful necessity, such as a good man must recoil from with instinctive horror; and though it may exempt them from guilt, it cannot turn them into glory. We have thought that it was honourable to heal, to save, to mitigate pain, to snatch the sick and sinking from the jaws of death. We have placed among the revered benefactors of the human race the discoverers of arts which alleviate human sufferings, which prolong, comfort, adorn, and cheer human life; and, if these arts be honourable, where is the glory of multiplying and aggravating tortures and death?"- Channing.

STAY, lady, stay, for mercy's sake,

And hear a helpless orphan's tale!

Ah! sure my looks must pity wake!

"Tis want that makes my cheek so pale.

Yet I was once a mother's pride,

And my brave father's hope and joy;
But in the Nile's' proud fight he died,
And I am now an orphan boy.

Poor foolish child! how pleased was I,
When news of Nelson's victory came,
Along the crowded streets to fly,

And see the lighted window's flame!
To force me home my mother sought,
She could not bear to see my joy;
For with my father's life 'twas bought,2
And made me a poor orphan boy."

66

BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN.

The people's shouts were long and loud;
My mother shuddering closed her ears!
Rejoice! rejoice!" still cried the crowd;
My mother answer'd with her tears.
"Oh! why do tears steal down your cheek,"
Cried I, "while others shout for joy?
She kiss'd me, and in accents weak,
She call'd me her poor orphan boy.

"What is an orphan boy ?" I said,

When suddenly she gasp'd for breath;
And her eyes closed;-I shriek'd for aid,—
But, ah! her eyes were closed in death!
My hardships since I will not tell;
But now no more a parent's joy-
Ah, lady! I have learnt too well,
What 'tis to be an orphan boy.
O were I by your bounty fed!-
Nay, gentle lady! do not chide!
Trust me, I mean to earn my bread;
The sailor's orphan boy has pride.
Lady, you weep:-what is't you say?
You'll give me clothing, food, employ ?—
Look down, dear parents! look and see,
Your happy, happy orphan boy.

315

OPIE.

1. When was the battle of the 'Nile 2. What was bought with his father's fought?

life?

LI." BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN."

"SUFFERING fills a large place in the present system. It is not r accident, an exception to the course of nature, a strange work exciting wonder as a prodigy, but it enters into every life, and may I not say enters largely into every life. Youth is slow to see this. Youth, unable to sympathize with and appreciate sorrows which it has not felt, and throwing the light of its own native joyousness over the future, dreams sometimes of a paradise on earth. But how soon does it find that blighting changes, solemn events, break in sternly, irresistably on its path? And even when the outward life is smooth and prosperous, how soon does it find in its vehement affections, its unrequited friendships, its wounded pride, its unappeased thirst for happiness, fountains of bitterer grief than comes from abroad. Sometimes the religious man, with good intentions, but wanting wisdom and strength, tries to palliate the evils of life, to cover its dark features, to exaggerate its transient pleasures, for the purpose of sheltering God's goodness from reproach. But this will not avail. The truth cannot be hidden. Life is laid open to every eye, as well as known by each man's experience! and we do and must see that

suffering, deep suffering is one of the chief elements in our lot. It is not a slender, dark thread, winding now and then through a warp of dazzling brightness; but is interwoven with the whole texture. Not that suffering exceeds enjoyment, not that life, if viewed simply in reference to pleasure, is not a great good. But to every man it is a struggle. It has heavy burdens, deep wounds for each; and this I state, that we may all of us understand, that suffering is not accidental, but designed for us, that it enters into God's purpose, that it has a great work to do, and that we know nothing of life till we comprehend its uses, and have learned how to accomplish them."-Channing.

Оí, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The power who pities man, has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.
There is a day of sunny rest

For every dark and troubled night,
And grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.
And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddeth the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.
Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny,—
Though with a pierced and broken heart
And spurned of men, he goes to die.
For God has marked each sorrowing day
And numbered every secret tear,
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.

BRYANT.

LII. THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

"THE true poet is he who finds the most of beauty and of dignity in the universal feelings and interests of human life: and increased wisdom and sympathy, (the infallible attendant on increased wisdom) is rapidly tending to make all mankind echo the exclamation of Burns, when he wept at the sight of a lovely and peasant-peopled scene: The sight,' he said, 'of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind, which none could understand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth which they conOne of his most, admirable poems, The Cotter's Saturday

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

317 Night,' is nothing but an amplification of this profound and beautiful sentiment."- Shaw's Outlines of English Literature.

"Would I then withhold the Bible from the cottager and the artisan? Heaven forfend! The fairest flower that ever clomb up a cottage window is not so fair a sight to my eyes, as the Bible gleaming through the lower panes. Let it but be read as by such men it used to be read; when they came to it as to a ground covered with manna, even the bread which the Lord had given for his people to eat; where he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according to his eating. They came to it as to a treasure-house of Scriptures; each visitant taking what was precious, and leaving as precious for others; yea, more, says our worthy old church historian, Fuller, where the same man at several times may in his apprehension prefer several scriptures as best, formerly most affected with one place, for the present more delighted with another, and, afterwards conceiving comfort therein not so clear, choose other places as more pregnant and pertinent to his purpose. Thus God orders it, that divers men (and perhaps the same men at divers times), make use of all his gifts, gleaning and gathering comfort, as it is scattered through the whole field of Scripture."--Coleridge.

THE cheerfu' supper' done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare:
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;

And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise;
Or plaintive Martyr's, worthy of the name!
Or noble Elgin beats the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays :
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ear no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny;

Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of heaven's avenging ire;
Or, Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;

Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed:
How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head;
How his first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,'

6

That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear,

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's ev'ry grace except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;2
But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well-pleased, the language of the soul:
And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol.

*

*

*

BURNS.

1. Case of supper?

2. What is a stole?

LIII. WOE WORKS WISDOM.

(A paraphrase of Eccles. VII. 2-6.)

"THE greatest evils are from within us, and from ourselves also we must look for our greatest good; for God is the fountain of it, but reaches it to us by our own hands, and when all things look sadly round about us, then only we shall find how excellent a fortune it is to have God to be our friend; and of all friendships, that only is created to support us in our needs; for it is sin that turns an ague