120 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER, 
APRIL 10 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
RUTH AND NAOMI. 
BY ANNA M. BATES. 
Titas a fair scene, the vintage and the grain 
Were brightening over Moab’s fertile plain, 
J l faint wind all the feathery palm tops stirred. 
And the acanthus and acacia heard, 
Till o’er them crept a low delicious quiver, 
While softly came the voice of Arnon’s river, 
On its slow joumeyings to the Dead Sea going, 
Bearing the sunlight thither on its flowing. 
But oh, what mournful group are they who stand 
Gazing with tearful eyes o’er this fair land? 
Their peaceful camels ’mid the near shrubs straying, 
While they a long and last farewell are saying. 
Two fresh as yet in girlhood’s sunrise bloom, 
And one o’er whom the years have cast their gloom, 
The widowed wife and mother. Desolation 
Reigns in Joy’s habitation. 
« Return, my daughters,” cried the mother brave, 
“ Peace dwelleth not for me this side grave, 
To mine own land of Judah hence I go, 
But shall I take thee with me? No, ah not 
Hence to your peaceful homes and be forgot 
The care and sorrow that hath been our lot.” 
Still those white arms round her neck were creeping 
“ We go with thee,” they said, amid their weeping. 
Again Naomi anwered—“ Nay, my daughters, 
My bark must anchor soon in Death’s cold waters.” 
And then she pressed them softly to her breast, 
Saying, “ May the Almighty give thee rest.” 
Then Ortha kissed the lips that had been kind, 
She turned in silence to the path of home, 
Back to her people, as a freed young hind 
Seeketh its native herd wherein to roam. 
But Ruth yet lingered, and her voice was low, 
And steadfast as she said, “ With thee I go. 
Entreat me not to leave thee, thine are mine, 
Together will we worship at one shrine, 
I will dwell with thee, die where thou dost die, 
And in one narrow graye beside thee lie; 
More may the God of Israel do to me 
If aught but death shall sever I and thee.” 
ThuB went they forth together, fond and true, 
And as the touching story we pursue. 
We see the Highest had them in His sight, 
And how He turned their darkness into light. 
In kindness caring for the alien bird, 
A pining exile from her olden nest, 
O’er the deep waters of one true heart stirred, 
She bore the olive to an ark of rest. 
Oh, shall we doubt when all around is dim, 
And life a vale of weariness appears? 
The shadows turn to sunlight touched by Him 
Who counteth all our tears. 
Suncook, N. H., 1858. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker 
CHARLEY. 
“ It is all so desolate without Charley ! ” and 
the bereaved father bowed his head on the table 
before him, and wept the bitter tears so terrible to 
see from a strong, proud man. 
What to him now was that princely home! its 
statues, its exquisite paintings, its floors of rare 
mosaic, its lofty halls, its richly furnished apart¬ 
ments! What the broad lands which called him 
master, the stately trees in the old park, where he 
had wandered so often at evening with Charley— 
his Charley! What but painful reminders of the 
fair boy who had left him forever? aye, forever for 
this life. Over every rood of those broad domains, 
Charley had trodden with the free step of merry 
childhood. Every room in that splendid home had 
echoed to Charley’s voice and ringing laughter. 
And every plan for the future, every improvement 
in house or grounds, had been made by the father 
with reference to this only, this idolized child—the 
heir of his ancient line—his pride, his darling!— 
What wonder that the light seemed blotted out 
from the face of heaven when Charley died!— 
What wonder that the father, in his deep sorrow, 
bowed himself even to the dust, refusing to be 
comforted! 
Aye, tread reverently, for human sorrow is a 
sacred thing. Bear in fresh flowers to fill the 
Parian, Porphyry and Agate vases—exquisite snow¬ 
drops, queenly African lilies, pure white camellias. 
He will not heed them in his bitter grief, but others 
shall see, and recognize in them fitting types of 
the beautiful child-angel who has left us. Dear 
Charley! Place those faintly tinted rose-buds in 
the waxen fingers—curtain the sunshine from the 
room,—the gay, glad sunshine, which those blue 
eyes will never more open to welcome. Look! 
you might almost fancy him sleeping; but on that 
white brow there is an impress of something 
grander, and calmer, and deeper than sleep.— 
Death, for a time, has but solemnized his beauty. 
“ It is all so desolate without Charley ! ” Again 
that low moan comes to the ear, with words uttered 
in such heart-breaking tones. Yes, it is desolate, 
poor, stricken mourner! Wealth cannot bribe the 
destroyer—love may not turn aside his barbed 
arrows—human skill is powerless before him.— 
Yet there is One who was victorious in the contest 
One who has power over death and the grave— 
and Charley is safe, with Him! Safe, and watch¬ 
ed over with a tenderer love than even thine! 
The Good Shepherd has taken this little one to the 
heavenly fold. Here there must have been thorns 
to wound him, cares to perplex him, sorrows to 
sadden his heart and enfeeble his frame. Look up, 
then, even though it be through almost blinding 
tears. He who has smitten, alone know's how 
deeply thy soul is wounded, and only He, the un¬ 
failing Comforter, can heal. Every day the pang 
will grow less piercing, remembering that the way 
is shorter, that every sunrise, every fall of the grey 
eventide, brings thee nearer Charley — nearer 
home! Only keep thy hand closely in the clasp of 
the All-Wise Guide, only trust to Him in every 
perilous hour, and thou shalt yet find Charley 
where the river of life is flowing, and the redeemed 
ones are singing the new song forever and ever. 
Philadelpba, Pa., 1858. Evei.tb. 
The love of ornament creeps slowly, but surely 
into the female heart A girl who twines the lily 
in her tresses, and looks at herself in the stream, 
will soon wish that the lily were fadeless, and the 
stream a mirror. We say, let the young girl seek 
to adorn her beauty, if she be taught to also to 
adorn her mind and heart, that she may have wis¬ 
dom to direot her love of ornament in due mod¬ 
eration. 
THE EARLY TRAINING OF CHILDREN. 
The gardener takes good care of the plants with 
which he fills up the beds of his garden. When 
young and tender they most need his care. After 
a given time they take care of themselves, if pro¬ 
tected from weeds and injury. The beasts of the 
field, by the instinctive promptings of nature, with 
great tenderness and affection take care of their 
young. Nothing to which nature prompts is left 
undone; and they will risk their own life to nour¬ 
ish and defend their offspring; and when undis¬ 
turbed by man, they rear up their offspring to the 
proportions and perfection of which they are «apa- 
ble. And there are reasons to believe that, in the 
care of their young, there is less deviation from the 
promptings of instinct among the beasts of the 
field or the fowls of the air, than among the parents 
of our own race, created in the image of God!— 
When men and women become brutes, they are the 
worst, and the least excusable of all brutes. For 
the proof of this statement, you need not go to the 
South Sea Cannibals, nor to the infantrkillers of 
India, nor to the infant deformers of China, nor to 
the infant neglectors of Italy or France for proof 
and illustration. You need only to go into the huts 
of ignorance and irreligion, even in our most 
highly favored communities. That infant in the 
cradle is the plant from which the man grows, and 
before it changes from the cradle to the couch its 
mind and body may receive an impress which they 
may never lose. Those neglected children who are 
permitted to run in the street long after the hen 
has collected her chickens under her wings for the 
night, are liable to imbibe vicious tastes and habits 
which may never be corrected; and those children 
that are decked and jewelled in the cradle, that ap¬ 
pear as dolls in the streets, that are marshalled at 
children’s parties, where they play the gentleman 
and lady long after 
“The Bea-fowl hag gone to it* nest. 
And the beast hag laid down in its lair,” 
are not very likely to be as sons grown up in their 
youth, nor as daughters polished after the simili¬ 
tude of a palace. The men who, like Moses, David, 
Paul, Luther, Washington, have given religion and 
liberty to the world,— the women who, like Sarah, 
Miriam, Cornelia, Monica, Mrs. Fry, Mary, the 
mother of Washington, and Mary Lyon, have writ¬ 
ten their names on the rock forever, were not so 
trained in their youth. We once heard of a mother 
who boasted that the dress of the child in the arms 
of her nurse had cost seven thousand dollars; and 
the feeling excited was only one of sorrow that the 
Lord had committed an heir of immortality to the 
care of a woman so extravagantly foolish. There 
is but little choice as far as the children are con¬ 
cerned, between the nurse of Romulus and Remus, 
and the nursing of a giddy, senseless and fashiona¬ 
ble mother. 
The miserable fashions and follies that have been 
long destroying men and women are fast descend¬ 
ing to our children, and unless the bad process 
is arrested, alas! alas! for the future of the Church 
and of State. The men and women whose names 
are indelibly written on the pages of the world’s 
history were not in their infancy decked in dia¬ 
monds nor cradled in crimson, nor in their youth 
were they dressed, and drilled by dancing-masters 
for juvenile polkas at juvenile entertainments con¬ 
tinued until the noon of night; they bore the yoke 
in their youth, and were thus prepared to bear, in 
mature years, the burdens and responsibilities of 
pillars in society. It is the trees that grow, not in 
hot-houses, but in the open air, that attain a strength 
that defies the tempest, and a hardness of texture 
which fits them for all the great purposes of archi¬ 
tecture. The right physical training of children 
has very much to do with the forming of a happy 
home.— The Happy Home. 
-+. • - 
THE EMPTY CRADLE. 
The ' death of a little child is to the mother’s 
heart like the dew on a plant, from which a bud has 
just perished. The plant lifts up its head in fresh¬ 
ened greenness to the morning light; so the moth¬ 
er’s soul gathers, from the dark sorrow which she 
has passed, a fresh brightening of her heavenly 
hopes. 
As she bends over the empty cradle, and fancy 
brings her sweet infant before her, a ray of divine 
light is on the cherub face. It is her son still, but 
with the seal of immortality on his brow. She 
feels that Heaven was the only atmosphere where 
her precious flower could unfold without spot or 
blemish, and she would not recall the lost. But 
the anniversary of his departure seems to bring 
his spiritual presence near her. She indulges in 
that tender grief which soothes, like an opiate in 
pain, all hard passages and cares in life. The 
world to her is no longer filled with human love 
and hope in the future, so glorious with heavenly 
love and joy; she has treasures of happiness which 
the worldly, unchastened heart never conceived. 
The bright, fresh flowers with which she has deco¬ 
rated her room, the apartment where her infant 
died, are mementoes of the far brighter hopes now 
dawning on her day dream. She thinks of the 
glory and beauty of the new Jerusalem, where the 
little foot will never find a thorn among the flowers, 
to render a shoe necessary. Nor will a pillow be 
wanted for the dear head reposing on the breast of 
a kind Savior. And she knows that her infant is 
there in that world of eternal bliss. 
She has marked one passage in that book, to her 
emphatically the Word of Life, now lying closed 
on the toilet table, which she daily reads:—“Suffer 
little children to come unto me, for of such is the 
kingdom of Heaven .”—Good News. 
Pretty True. —A clever young bride says that 
gentlemen talk nonsense before young ladies, be¬ 
cause they think the ladies like it; for it makes 
them laugh. If the ladies would always look grave 
when the gentlemen talk ridiculous nonsense, and 
smile when they talk sense, gentlemen might im¬ 
prove. But ladies often begin to yawn when gen¬ 
tlemen attempt sense; and so, in self-defence, the 
gentlemen are compelled to adhere to the line of 
conversation which brightens up the ladies’ faces 
most. The fact is, the ladies are difficult to please 
with sense; and they want so much poetry, senti¬ 
mentality and eye-white, that very few gentlemen 
are able to supply them. 
Small talk is the small change of life; there is 
no getting on without it 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
FAREWELL SHALL NOT BE SPOKEN.” 
BY EDWARD KXOWLBS. 
Oh! farewell shall not be spoken, 
Though the time has come to part; 
But we leave the spell unbroken, 
By uniting hand and heart 
Wo would hare the pleasure linger, 
Like the echoes that remain 
When the minstrel’s trembling finger 
Softly gives the last, sweet strain. 
After such a blissful meeting 
As the one from which we go, 
O, remind us not how fleeting 
Are the joys that sway us so. 
It would sadden us to listen 
To a parting word like this, 
And bring tears to eyes that glisten 
With the joy of social bliss. 
Then, farewell shall not be spoken, 
Though the time has come to part; 
But we leave the spell unbroken. 
By uniting hand and heart. 
We would have the pleasure linger. 
Like the echoes that remain 
When the minstrel’s trembling finger 
Softly gives the last, sweet strain. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker 
DETRACTION. 
Ip, from the long catalogue of vicious and evil 
practices, into which fallen humanity does at times 
most deeply plunge, any one may be selected as 
more degrading and pernicious in its effects upon 
the practicer, that one, in our humble opinion, is 
our chosen theme. Who that has traveled life’s 
dusty highway but a score of years hast not felt the 
bitter sting of its busy, brawling tongue? Poor 
human nature is so constituted that a knowledge 
of our own defects suggests like blemishes in 
others, and too frequently is their magnitude un¬ 
righteously judged by comparison with our own 
glaring faults. And so grossly selfish are we, that 
whatsoever good we obtain, oris likely to be attribu¬ 
ted to to us, we are extremely anxious to secure, 
however unworthy we may be, more especially if 
'dear self is to be benefited thereby. But when we 
are made to feel in all its force the blighting influ¬ 
ence of some long-continued fault, and fully sensi¬ 
ble of its effects, how pleasing then, the company 
of one we thought almost immaculate, gone astray. 
It is no work for a novice, but requires a profi¬ 
cient in the science to wield skillfully the dagger 
of calumny. None but him w’hose heart is debased 
to the core, will venture to practice out and out 
detraction. It must be an adept who has thoroughly 
conned the lessons of dissimulation, who views all 
things through the murky moral atmosphere of his 
own debased soul, and what wonder that scenes 
delineated on the brain by such diseased vision, 
should leave demoralizing impressions but too in¬ 
delibly engraved. In perusing the historic page, 
how forcibly are we reminded by numerous exam¬ 
ples of those who occupied the highest position 
which human ambition could covet—who breathed 
their expiring words in the ears of those who 
grimly smiled to note how sure the poisoned arrow 
had done its work. A little word sharpened by the 
venom of detraction has changed many a palace 
int® a living tomb. Oh, what power this little 
word implies, and how often employed to the extent 
of its giant strength in demolishing the high and 
spotless character which time, trial and study have 
but just succeeded in establishing, in creating dis¬ 
turbance which bids fair to overthrow a hitherto 
peaceful and pleasant society and destroying the 
happiness of communities and families. An inu- 
endo is caught by the ever-waiting ear of report, 
and accumulating as it circulates, gradually in¬ 
creases to a mountain of calumny, of weight suffi¬ 
cient to crush in sadness some struggling spirit 
innocent of approaching danger. Busy rumor ex¬ 
erts herself to the utmost limits of her strength 
to spread the message of defamation vividly 
painted in her own exaggerated colors, while insult 
added to injury, scorn united to hate, goads her 
victim on to the furthest extreme of human for 
bearance,—he is provoked to deeds of violence and 
blood. Men, elevated to the highest position world¬ 
ly honor could bestow, have been sunk in degra¬ 
dation by a whisper of defamation. 
“ The man 
In whom this spirit entered was undone, 
His toDgue was set on fire of hell, his heart 
Was bleak as death, his legs were faint with haste 
To propagate the lie his soul had framed; 
Yet did he spare his sleep, and hear the clock 
Number the midnight watches, on his bed 
Devising mischief more; and early rose, 
And made most hellish meals of good men's names.” 
It is an axiom not needing demonstration, and we 
need not attempt further to establish our position. 
All have witnessed the sad results that may and do 
emanate from the lowest whisper of defamation, the 
faintest hint derogatory to one’s character. How 
important that a strict guard be kept over that 
unruly member, and above all, whisper not evil of a 
brother. Some One. 
March, 1858. 
- 4^4 - 
Prudence. — The great end of prudence is to 
give cheerfulness to those hours which splendor 
cannot gild, and exclamation cannot exhilarate.— 
Those soft intervals of unbended amusement in 
which a man shrinks to his natural dimension, and 
throws aside the ornaments or disguises which he 
feels, in privacy, to be useless incumbrances, and 
to lose all effect when they become familiar. To 
be happy at home is the ultimate result of ambi¬ 
tion—the end to which every enterprise and labor 
tends, and of which every desire prompts the 
prosecution. It is indeed at home that every man 
must be known, by those who would make a just 
estimate either of virtue or felicity; for smiles and 
embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is 
often dressed for show in painted honor and ficti¬ 
tious benevolence. 
Riches. —There is, too often, a burden of care 
in getting them, a burden of anxiety in keeping 
them, a burden of temptation in using them, a bur¬ 
den of guilt in abusing them, a burden of sorrow 
in losing them, and a burden of account at last to 
be given up for possessing and either improving 
or mis-improving them. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
THE CONDITIONS OF EXCELLENCE. 
Beldom have the judgments of men wandered 
further from justice, than in the estimate they have 
placed upon the extent and intricacy of the poeti¬ 
cal art It is said to be a prevailing principle, that 
the members of every profession regard those of 
all others superior to art, though themselves care¬ 
fully cherishing its aid. Thus, though each class 
has praised the productions of all others, it has 
despised or denied its instruments. In no instance 
has greater respect been awarded than to the de¬ 
velopments of poetical genius, and never have the 
instruments of an art been more stoutly denied.— 
Few indeed seem to have dared or desired to doubt 
the poets divinity. The self pride which this delu¬ 
sion has flattered has been slow to confess itself.— 
And the hallucination has doubtless added to the 
witchery of the poet’s name. Mystery unquestion¬ 
ably serves the ends of idolatry. But the poet as¬ 
sures us his art is as intricate as sublime; that his 
toils are as arduous and endless, as his rewards are 
high. We who are unable to profit by his secret 
confessions love not well to dissolve the charm 
which has bound us, and deem we have acknow¬ 
ledged much, when we have endorsed at all the de¬ 
mand of industry. But those who have themselves 
come out of the thick hold our fancies have cast 
round them, stoutly claim the privilege of unde¬ 
ceiving us. Irving says, emphatically—and who 
should know better than he—that there is no genius 
but that of industry and endurance. Though such 
a declaration reduces our notions of inspiration, it 
is of higher advantage in the assurance it brings 
that equally lofty ambition may not be wholly 
irrational; in the higher view of man in his man¬ 
hood. Those intellectual operations which have 
resulted in the sublimest developments have been, 
we find, slow, laborious, even mechanical. A clearer 
vision of the “ divine art” is granted us when we 
trace the quiet story of some trifle which seemed 
to be dropped almost unguardedly from some 
o’erful heart That which we deemed a spontane¬ 
ous overflow of soul, will be found, singularly 
enough, to be the slow product of toil and patience. 
Still does not a knowledge of these developments 
of genius detract from our real respect for them? 
It is rather with a knowledge of means to bridge 
the gulf yawning between ourselves and high 
achievement, and an acquaintance with the highest 
mental developments, which direct us to cherish 
the confessions of Poe respecting his inimitable 
“Raven;” an effort divine in completion as crude 
in conception, and wrought out with coolest delib¬ 
eration and utmost toil. All are familiar with the 
untiring industry of Pope —the endless varieties in 
thought and expression all his productions under¬ 
went. Hardly can we estimate the labor expended 
on all of the divine songs of Tom Moore. A sin¬ 
gle stanza was on one occasion the object of a 
month’s solitude. Of his minor effusions a couplet 
per day was more than an average production.— 
Horace devoted his energies to four lines a day— 
Balzac, the French writer, did not grudge to be¬ 
stow a week on a page, while Malharbe, the father 
of French poetry, after finishing a poem of a hun¬ 
dred lines, used to say that he deserved to repose 
for ten years. Not less do we love Goldsmith’s 
melodious numbers, tho’ we learn that they were 
the slow result of a half dozen lines per day. Nor 
less does Bryant’s lightly tripping “Robert of 
Lincoln,” charm every one, though we are told it 
was the slow effort of many an earnest hour—even 
the foster child of three careful years. Labor and 
excellence have indeed gone hand in hand. Ob¬ 
livion has rebuked those authors who have been 
vain of their rapid productions. 
Lima, N. Y., March, 1858. J. Wuiynky 3-. 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO SUMMER. 
A pretty conceit, and one well worth perusal 
and hearty compliance with its lessons, is the fol¬ 
lowing from that true poet, B. F. Taylor, of the 
Chicago Journal: 
“ Now is the time to begin to think about it and 
read Nature’s advertisement for the Summer Cam¬ 
paign. 
“Contributions to Summer solicited! By that 
blank, unseemly wall—that vacant spot beside your 
threshold, uneloquent while all the world around 
enjoys the gift of tongues—everywhere. ‘Apply 
here,’ says the dark, rich loam; ‘here,’ adds the 
sand, and ‘here,' the low lands by the water-courses. 
< Give us a willow, a maple, an evergreen pine,’ 
they utter as they can; for it is a law unrepealed 
that Nature must be busy before she can be beau¬ 
tiful. 
“ Contributions to Summer, indeed! How richly 
will she reward our little faith—our faith that the 
shrivelled, dusty bulb shall be transfigured before 
our eyes—that the dry walking stick we plant shall 
bud in beauty—that the vine we train shall wreath 
our homes with Corinthian beauty. 
« So, if there be any who aspire to as good society 
as the world has ever seen, let them group around 
them the dwellers of the forest and garden—any 
that would ‘wake up some morning and find them¬ 
selves famous,’ let them made one tree grow where 
no tree grew before.” 
The Beautiful. — The sentiment for the beauti¬ 
ful resides in every breast The lovely forms of 
the external world delight us from their adaptation 
to our powers: 
Yea, what were mighty Nature’s self? 
Her features could win us, 
Unheiped by the poetic sense 
That hourly speaks within us? 
The Indian mother, on the borders of Hudson’s 
Bay, decorates her manufactures with ingenious 
devices and lively colors, prompted by the same 
instinct which guided the pencil and mixed the 
colors of Raphael. The inhabitant of Nootka 
Sound tattooes his body with the method of har¬ 
monious arabesques. Every form to which the 
hands of the artist have ever given birth, sprung 
first into being as a conception of his mind, from a 
natural faculty, which belongs not to the artist 
exclusively, but to man. Beauty, like truth and 
justice, lives within us; like virtue and the moral 
law, is a companion of the sonl. The power which 
leads to the production of the beautiful forms, or 
to the perception of them in their works, which 
God has made, is an attribute of humanity.— 
Bancroft. 
A LITTLE WHILE. 
BY RRV. DR. BOXAK. 
Beyotd the smiling and the weeping, 
I shall be soon; 
Beyond the waking and the sleeping, 
Beyond the sowing and the reaping, 
I shall be soon. 
Lore, rest and hornet 
Sweet home! 
Lord, tarry not, but come. 
Beyond the blooming and the fading, 
I shall be soon; 
Beyond the shiDing and the shading, 
Beyond the hoping and the dreading, 
I shall be soon. 
Love, rest and home! 
Sweet home! 
Lord, tarry not, bnt come. 
Beyond the rising and the setting, 
I shall be soon; 
Beyond the calming and the freezing, 
Beyond remembering and forgetting, 
I shall be soon. 
Love, rest and home! 
Sweet home! 
Lord, tarry not, bat come. 
Beyond the parting and the meeting, 
I shall be soon; 
Beyond the farewell and the greeting. 
Beyond the pulse’s fever beating, 
I shall be soon. 
Love, rest and home! 
Sweet home! 
Lord, tarry not, but come. 
Beyond th© frost-chain and the fever, 
I shall be soon; 
Beyond the rock-waste and the river, 
Beyond the ever and the never, 
I shall be soon. 
Love, rest and home! 
Sweet home! 
Lord, tarry not, but come. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yoriser. 
THE CALM OF DEATH. 
“Tub moon looks calmly down when man is dying, 
The earth still holds her sway; 
Flowers breathe their perfumes and the wind keeps sighing, 
Naught seems to pause or stay.” 
Thank God they are at rest! No more sighing 
—no more weeping—no more earthly trouble to 
sadden their life. Those waxen hands lying so 
meekly and still over the cold breast have no more 
work to do—those weary eyes, closed by the veined 
lids, with lashes sweeping the pale cheeks, will Lave 
no more tears to shed, for “God will wipe them 
away.” 
Now the damp locks can be parted above the 
brow, for neither care nor pain can furrow graven 
lines, — they will have eternal rest, sweetly and 
calmly. 
Love’s kind voice will never call a smile to those 
beautiful chiseled lips, neither will they curl in 
scorn at calumny’s stinging whisper. Go look 
upon that marble brow, and weep that yon have 
caused a moment’s pain to that breast now still 
and hushed, wheu those eyes looked so pleadingly 
into thine. 
Ah! too late, too late—not for the penitent tear 
to flow,—no forgiving hand will clasp your own 
until you have passed Death’s cold river and left 
the sunny earth for the brighter Heaven above, 
the grave has claimed its victim for its “voiceless 
keeping,” and it is one of earth’s purest flowers. 
There all are silent Within yonder palings no 
husband speaks to his fond and faithful wife, no 
sister’s or brother’s loving words can speak to the 
household band. 
If there was no hope beyond the grave of re¬ 
uniting the broken links, with what sorrow would 
we hail the Death Messenger. But thank God our 
broken households are waiting to receive the 
earthly hearts. Kate Montague. 
Noble Centre, Mich., 1858. 
SABBATH-BREAKING A LEADING SIN. 
There is a peculiarity in the law of the Sabbath, 
as a test of simple obedience, and of a temper 
generally right towards the Divine government.— 
For obedience to the other commandments, rea¬ 
sons may be found in the obvious interests of so¬ 
ciety and of the individual; but this is so far from 
being the case with the Sabbath, that of all the 
Ten Commandments, this is the only one concern¬ 
ing which the question has been raised, whether 
it was moral or positive. This is not because the 
connection between the violation of this law and 
its results is less certain, but that it is less immedi¬ 
ate and obvious. Its sanctions do not come di¬ 
rectly, as when one puts his hand into the fire; 
hut they come according to another general 
method in God’s natural government, remotely, as 
in the effects upon the social fabric, of intemper¬ 
ance, of licentiousness, or revenge. Of these, in¬ 
dividual instances may seem slight, and alarm on 
account of them may be mocked at; yet through 
them there will gradually steal in a moral malaria 
that will poison and blast everything noble. Thus 
it is more especially with the Sabbath. God has 
infallibly linked cause and effect here; he has 
plainly revealed that connection; yet the chain it¬ 
self which binds them together is often concealed, 
or revealed only to the eye of faith. Hence it is 
that Sabbath-breaking is what has been called a 
leading sin; it is the point at which men natu¬ 
rally break away from God; and wheu that is 
fully done, nothing can restrain them from any 
crime but the absence of temptation or the fear of 
detection. 
Under these circumstances, let an individual de¬ 
vote the Sabbath to religious duties, publio and 
private, honoring God and delighting himself in 
him, and he will show that regard to the principle 
of duty, as such, which will make him a good citi¬ 
zen—a pillar of strength to free institutions. He 
who thus walks humbly with his God, will do justly 
and love mercy .—President Hopkins. 
In the worst of times there is still more cause to 
complain of an evil heart, than of an evil and cor¬ 
rupt world. 
The comfort of a Christian lieth not in his own 
fulness, but in Christ’s. 
