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; Poor foolish child! how pleased was I, And see the lighted window's flame! 66 BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN. The people's shouts were long and loud; "What is an orphan boy ?" I said, When suddenly she gasp'd for breath; 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 For every dark and troubled night, 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, His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare: And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air. The tickled ear no heart-felt raptures raise; With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 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, 6 That thus they all shall meet in future days: No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. May hear, well-pleased, the language of the soul: * * * 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 |