scape so bright, that youth, all restless, pursuing 
the phantom pleasure, needlessly enter, eagerly 
striving to grasp the innumerable seeming gems. 
But alas! one by one, these worldly, unsatisfying 
pleasures crumble and fade while yet the pos¬ 
sessor has them in his grasp: and the same vague, 
restless yearning fills the heart,— the same wild, 
sad longing for something purer and better. 
Are wc deciding? Ponder well, 0! youth! not 
[Written for Moore's P.aral New-Yorker.] 
DAYLIGHT. 
JERUSALEM BY MOONLIGHT 
The broad steep of Zion, crowned with the 
tower of David; nearer still Mount Moriah, with 
the gorgeous temple of the God of Abraham, 
built, alas! by the child of Hagar, and not by 
Sarah's chosen one; close to its cedars and its 
cypresses, its lofty spires and airy arches, the 
moonlight falls upon Bcthseda’s pool; further on, 
entered by the gate of St. Stephen, the eye, though 
it is the noon of night, traces with case the street 
of Grief, a long, winding ascent to a vast cupolaed 
pile that now covers Calvary, called the Street of 
Grief, because there the most illustrious of the 
human as well as the Hebrew race, the descendant 
of King David, and the Divine Son of the most 
favored of women, twice sank under that burden 
of eufTeriug and shame which is now throughout 
Christendom the emblem of triumph and honor. 
Passing over groups and masses of houses built of 
stone, with terraced roofs or surmounted with 
small domes, we reach the hill of Salem, where 
Melchiaedeck built his mystic citadel; and still 
remains the Hill of Bcopas, where Titus gazed 
upon Jerusalem on the eve of his final assault. 
Titus destroyed the Temple. The religion of 
Judea has in turn subverted the fanes which 
were raised to his father and to himself in their 
imperial capital, aud the God of Abraham, Isaac 
and of Jacob, is now worshiped before every | 
altar in Rome. 
Jerusalem by moonlight! >' 
BY MBS. K. P. A. CBOZIIia 
f), Wirr do you li« ‘raid the darkness of oiglit, 
When the day-dawn of Heaven upon you 1« beaming? 
0, why do you cover your eyes from the light 
That down from the portals of glory is streaming? 
Tear oil the Mack bandage—tbc light will not harm yon; 
There are flowers a blooming upon every side; 
Have these, In their beauty, no power to charm you, 
That thus you should seek the gay viwou to hide? 
A heaven-wrougbt Jewel, new-polishod and fair, 
Like a starlet is Hashing on each purple blossom; 
As meekly as angels their coronets wear, 
It weareth the gem on its pure, tinted bosom! 
Have all the bright gifle of the newly-born morning, 
No brightness for you, poor, conservative soul, 
That you sigh, when we herald its glorious dawning,— 
That forward, not backward, the ages must roll? 
To make the earth glad, God hath given the. day, 
Yet you dare to despise the sweet sunshine of Heaven 
You can walk by the light of the star-beams, you say, 
So you blindfold your eyes that the daylight is given! 
When the angel announced, from the top of the moun¬ 
tain, 
The breaking of morn to the valley below, 
The chill of tho night-time had frown the fountain 
Of feeling that once from thy spirit did flow! 
So while we look up to the blue sky above, 
And rejoice in the orb that Is shining there brightlv, 
And while we give thanks to the Father we love 
For tho flowers that our children trip over so light! v; 
Aud while we are glad that the dim mists of error 
Have folded their banners and laid them away. 
Four blindfolded spirit, in silence and terror, 
Is crouching in midnight, surrounded by day. 
Grand Rapid#, Mich., 1860. 
[Written for Moore's Kura] New-Yorker.] 
HYMNS FOR DEVOTIONAL HOURS 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.! 
WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 
BT 8DWARI* K.VOWl.KS. 
BY CAUODIMK A. HOWARD. 
Will that sweet moment ever be 
That I so long hare wished my own,' 
When Christ shall be as dear to me 
As to the saints around the throne? 
Oh, what a sweet, delightful state! 
Who would not daily strive for this? 
And with a zeal that cannot wait 
So long for the delaying bliss. 
Christ, precious to the longing heart! 
Light, peace aud joy, instead of gloom! 
When will the long desire depart 
To give the thing desired room ? 
That we may taste the bliss, and know 
The larger liberty and love 
Of that sweet state that gives, below, 
A foretaste of the bliss above. 
Climn.v. iiai, Co,, Mich,, 1860, 
Dark is the night, from the murky skie* 
Not a ray doth cheer my longing eyes; 
Darker the way of my future lies. 
The storm beat* wild on the window pane, 
The air is heavy with sleet and rain; 
Wilder yet is the storm in my brain. 
The wind, like a restless spirit, moans 
To the break ej's dirge dike monotones; 
The oaken forest tremble# aud groans. 
Wail on, wild Winds! Moan over, oh. Sea! 
Far better thy music suiteth me 
Than tho most angelic melody. 
To-night I make in my heart a grave, 
For Lore is dead;—a requiem brave 
Ye're chanting for him, oh, Wind and Wave! 
Dedham, Mass., 1860. 
path bo narrow that, if we step usidc, tottering 
aud dizzy, we shudder us wc look down the Bteep 
bank over which wo hang. But as wc enter, an 
angel form, is pointing fur on ahead,—on, be¬ 
yond these dilfictillies,dangers and temptations; 
the path grows broader; crystal streams and 
flowing fountain*, flowers, not false ones, bat 
those of hope and tenth,—azure skies and lovely 
verdure; and on, still on,— ho far that the brain 
grows bewildered as it strives to measure the 
distance,—a glittering goal. 
Wc shall meet but few travelers, who, like us, 
are striving for truth and purity. But a strength 
will be imparted by that augel guide, and not 
vainly shall we strive, if zealously we press for¬ 
ward, for before us is a throng of happy ones, 
who, braving and overcoming all obstacles, have 
reached that feoftl. Which will we choose, dear 
friends? The broad and glowing way—the “Path 
of Worldly Pleasure,”—or the narrow one—the 
“Path of Right,"—the guide, our guardian angel, 
and the goal, a great and good character. Oh! if 
our influence is going forth hourly, daily and 
yearly, Bliall we not, by kindly words in good 
season, raise the despairing among us, and by 
untiring efforts render this little circle purer and 
better fitted to meet life, and fulfill its duties? 
Cleveland, N. Y., I860, Clara. 
[Written for Moore'# Rural New-Yorker.] 
TO A LITTLE GIRL. 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
THE WEB OF LIFE, 
[■• Tub web of our life is of mingled yarn, good and ill 
together; our virtues would be proud if our faults whip¬ 
ped them not; and our crimes would despair If they wore 
not cherished by our virtue*."] 
Ir it bo true that we may superintend the weav¬ 
ing of the fabric, let ns endeavor to have the 
golden threads of truth unbroken throughout the 
whole length and breadth of life's changeable 
web. Truth, like a beautiful flower, will shed a 
healthful fragrance around our pathway, sur¬ 
rounding us with a halo of glory more bright and 
enduring than the stars which gem the vault or 
night. We must scatter, here and there, in the 
woof, kind words and little acts of love, like stray 
sunbeams, whose mellow light will irradiate with 
joy the hearts crushed with disappointment and 
anguish. Kind words are priceless pearls, whioh, 
if freely used, will make this earth a beautiful 
place—one such as angels love to visit; but if 
withheld by a miserly spirit, it becomes a place 
over which angels may well shed the bitter tears 
of pity, 
Borne one has very truthfully said, “ ]f we would 
hear a sweet and pleasing echo, we must speak 
sweetly and pleaeantly ourselves," Instead of 
speaking harshly and angrily to those we raoet in 
life's busy thoroughfare, we should speak “ sweet¬ 
ly and pleasantly,’' and every passing breeze will 
Tis a fine spectacle, 
apart from all its indissoluble associations of awe 
and beauty. The mitigating hour softens the aus¬ 
terity of u mountain landscape, magnificent in 
outline, however harsh and severe in detail; and, 
while it retains all its sublimity, removes much of 
the savage sternness of tho strange and unrivaled 
sccno. A fortified city, almost surrounded by 
ravines, and rising in the centre of chains of far- 
ofi' spreading hills, occasionally offering, through 
their rocky glens, the gleams of a distant and 
richer land! 
The moon has sunk behind the Mount of Olives, 
and the stars in the darker sky shine doubly 
bright on the sacred city. The all-pervading 
stillness is broken by a breeze, that seems to 
have traveled over tho plain of Sharon from the 
sea. It wails among the tombs, and sighs among 
the cypress groves. The palm tree trembles as it 
passes, as if it were a spirit of woe. Is it the 
breeze that has traveled over the plain of Sharon 
from the sea? 
The last light is extinguished in the village of 
Bethany. The wailing breeze has become a 
moaning wind; a white film spreads over the 
purple sky; the sky is dark, the stars are hid; all 
become as dark as the waters of Kedron and the 
valley of Jehosaphat. Tho tower of David merges 
no longer glitter the minarets of 
the mosque of Omar. Bethseda's angelic waters, 
the gate of Stephen, the street of Sorrow, the hill 
of Salem, and the height of Scopes, can no longer 
be discerned. Alone in the increasing darkness, 
while the very line of the walla gradually dudes 
the eye, tho church of the Holy Sepulchre is u 
beacon of light.— I)'Israeli. 
BY nKUKOff 1JKI.L, 
Tub wannest heart of noble worth 
More often boat# 'death homely look#, 
And thug the fairest llowera of earth 
Oft blossom iu aecluded nooks. 
The rich and proud may boast of wealth 
With never-ending Care and strife, 
Bat calm coutoutmeut, peace and health 
Are found iu humble'walks of life. 
And thus the sweetest girl I know 
Can boast of neither wealth nor power, 
I've searched tho rank# of high aud low, 
But never found a Purer flower. 
Her soul is free from every stain, 
Her heart la warmed by Pity’s touch, 
Her thoughts are never proud nor vain— 
Oh, that the world had many such. 
GIRL HEALTH 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
“ LIFE IS A DREAM." 
It will be an immense advantage when the 
day comes for boys and girls learning and playing 
together as children of several foreign countries 
do. Climbing trees is admirable exercise for 
everybody; and so is cricket, and trap-ball, and 
ball-piny of all kinds; and racing und jumping. 
Instead of this, we see not a few schools where 
the girls, after sitting and standing all day, are 
taken out for a walk in the twilight, to save light¬ 
ing candles. Thoy seldom feel the sun; they 
have chilblains and other ailments from bad cir¬ 
culation; and in such schools nearly every girl 
has more or less distortion of the spine when she 
has been there more than two years. In the last 
century people knew no better. Little girls wore 
put upon hard benches without bucks, and so high 
that the feet bung in tho air 
“Life is a dream.” Stay, my friend—is it so? 
Is the great drama which is being constantly 
enacted on the stage of life but a fantastic vision, 
which shall fade away and leave no trace behind, 
when the flood-gates of Eternity shall be opened, 
and the resplendent light of the World where 
comes no night shall dispel the shades of mortal 
life? The sweet unfoldings of the youthful bud,— 
the untiring action of maturer thought,—the rich 
possessions which may crown the ripened age,— 
are these of no account? Oh, yes, most truly they I into obscurity 
are, for life is no dream, it is a solemn reality, and 
naught should binder it being as beautiful and 
barmonions ns it is solemn and real. We are 
to act, then, not as listless voyagers on the sea of 
life, but with energetic power, with elevated aim, 
and with unfaltering faith, are we to work our 
way to higher points of intellectual worth and 
purity of soul. We arc to apt to forget that such 
should be our aim, aud so we wander oarrleHniv 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
FAMILIAR CHAT WITH FRIENDS 
Who does not linger with fond thoughts over 
the memory of precious ones, and, when the 
name of friend is spoken, where is the heart that 
does not respond fervently to the sound? Aye, 
and with it too, come sighs and tears, perchance; 
not unmoved can we think of some who shared 
with us in childhood’s joys—who, with ns, met 
youthful disappointments that prepared us for the 
sterner sorrows of later years. We have been 
thinking of friends, some who mingle with ns in 
the sacred home circle, and of others who have 
found other homes in western lands,—tearfully, 
too, do our thoughts dwell on one, the eldest, 
fairest of our little household band, 
; and so perched, 
they were required to sit bolt upright, and sew 
for hours together. The consequence was, the 
deformed shoulder, tho humpback, the weary, 
aching spine, which many thousands of English 
women have carried to the grave. There is no 
more reason for women being crooked than any 
other creature born with a proper backbone; and 
this is better understood than it used to be. We 
see that the seats in schools are ol'tener accommo¬ 
dated to the height of the children; and if lean¬ 
ing back is not countenanced, there is more 
frequent change of posture and of occupation. 
Calistlieuic exercise, and even the inclined plane 
for the relief of the bucks of fast-growing girls, 
are common sights in our day. The improve¬ 
ment is marked; but the conditiou of school girls 
needs more consideration than lias yet been given 
to it. Their average of health is far below that of 
boys; more of them will languish in invalidism; 
fewer will have genuine, robust health; more, in 
particular, will die of consumption within ten 
years. The main cause of this is the unequal 
development of the faculties There is too much 
intellectual acquisition, though nut too much 
mental exercise, if it were made more general; 
and there is an almost total absence of physical 
education. If the muscles were called upon us 
strenuously as the memory, to show what they 
could do, the long train of school girls who insti¬ 
tute the romance of the coming generation would 
flock merrily into ten thousand homes, instead of 
parting off—some to gladden their home, cer¬ 
tainly, but loo many to tho languid lot of invali¬ 
dism, or to the actual sick-room: wliil 
who at her 
Father’s call entered a homo more glorious aud 
holy than earth affords. We have been thinking 
of dear ones, scattered, it may bo, far overland 
and sea, but more of a pleasant little circle where 
wc are passing some of youth's happiest hours. 
Would you know these? Go with me into our 
cosy little school-room, where scores of young and 
happy hearts are daily receiving Impressions that 
are to influence them through life. Do we think 
of this, dear friends, as we gather here, that our 
characters are being formed, and that we arc to 
carry from this place these impressions? A re wc 
entering tho field of life with noble purposes, 
high resolves, aud with the firm determination to 
overcome all opposing obstacles? Have we 
resolved that not one precious moment#—not one 
golden opportunity, as it comes to us freighted 
with hope, shall pass unimproved? Surely, wc 
do not, cannot fully realize the importance of our 
life-work, if we listlessly come and go, accept¬ 
ing willingly whatever circumstances may oiler, 
with no high purposes,—no ambition to become 
belter,—no aim in life,—no hope in the unfat homed, 
and unfathomable future. Shall we say our infiu- 
Jt is not so easy to account for the fact that 
the vice of avarice commonly increases with age 
where it has been one of tho characteristics of the 
man in his better days, or that it often springs up 
in tho bosom of an old man as a new trait of char¬ 
acter, in cases where it hud in no way distin¬ 
guished his earlier years. Perhaps the true 
solution is to be found in the fact that, though it 
may have existed in middle life, either in the 
germ or in the development, yet it was then kept 
in comparative subjection because tho man was 
in a condition to satisfy its cravings, or was able 
from day to day by his labor to meet his own 
wants ami the wants of those dependent on him. 
In old age the power of accumulating by toil lias 
passed away. The old man can add nothing to 
mind, the man, forgetting that he is old, and that 
he will pass away long before all is gone, looks 
forward to the time when every grain shall be 
carried away from the heap, and when he will be 
penniless. If he cannot hoard, he can at least 
endeavor to retain; or if he cannot add by labor 
to what lie has, the desire to do it may manifest 
itself in the meanest forms of avarice and parsi¬ 
mony, aud this becomes often the main and the 
melancholy characteristics of an old man. To 
learn the art of growing old is, then, to discipline 
the mind on this point; to form early habits of 
liberality, and to carry them forward resolutely in 
advancing years. “ What avarice iu an old man," 
says Cicero, “can propose to itself, 1 cannot con¬ 
ceive; lbr can anything be more absurd than, in 
proportion as less of our journey remains, to seek 
a greater supply of provisions?” 
Outlived Sorrow. —He had not outlived his 
sorrow, nor felt it slip from him as a temporary 
burden, leaving him the same man again. Do any 
of us ! God forbid. It would be a poor result of 
all our anguish and wrestling, if we were uotbing 
but our old selves at the end of it,—if we could 
return to the same blind loves, the same self-confi¬ 
dent blame, the same light thoughts of human 
suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted 
humau lives, the same feeble sense of that un¬ 
known, toward which we have sent forth irrepres¬ 
sible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be 
thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an inde¬ 
structible force, only changing its forms, as forces 
do, and passing from pain into sympathy —the 
one poor word which includes all our beat insight 
and our best love. —Adam Bede. 
e an inter¬ 
minable procession of them is forever on its way 
to the cemetery—the foremost dropping into the 
grave while the number is kej>t up from behind. 
Many a survivor will be still wondering, with 
grandchildren round the fire, that this and that 
and the other pretty or clever school-fellow should 
have died so early. 
Tiie Wife.— To partake secretly, and in her 
heart, of all bis joys and sorrows, to believe him 
comely and fair, though the sun hath drawn a 
cypress over hiru, (for as marriages are not to be 
contracted by the hands and eyes, bnt with reason 
and the heart, so are these judgments to be made 
bv the mind, not by the sight,) and diamonds can¬ 
not make the woman virtuous, nor him to value 
her who sees her put them off then, when chastity 
and modesty are her brightest ornaments. Indeed 
the outward ornament is fit to take fools, but they 
are not worth the taking. But she that bath a 
wise husband, must entice bim to an eternal 
dearness, by the veil of modesty, aud the grave 
robes of chastity, tho ornament of meekness, and 
the jewels of faith and charity; her brightness 
must be parity, and she must shine round about 
with sweetness and friendship, and she shall be 
pleasant while she lives, and desired when she 
dies.— Jeremy Taylor, 
Tue Silent Conflicts of Life. 
A triumph 
in the field is a theme for poetry, for painting, 
for history, for all the eugolistic and aggrandizing 
agencies whose united tribute constitute Fame; 
but there are victories won by men over them¬ 
selves, more truly honorable to the conqueror 
than any that can be achieved in w.,r. The 
battles in which they are obtained are fought iu 
solitude and without help, save from above. The 
conflict is sometimes waged in the still watches 
of the night, and the straggle is often fearful. 
Honor to every conqueror in such a warfare! 
Honor to the man or woman who fights tempta¬ 
tion, hatred, revenge, envy, selfishness, back to 
its last cover in the heart, and then expels it 
forever. Although no outward show of honor 
accrues to the victor of these good fights, they 
have their reward—a higher one than Fame can 
bestow. They ever come out of the combat self- 
ennobled. 
Words of Man’s Wisdom _The troth of the 
Gospel shines best in its bare proposal; and its 
beauty, in its simple and naked delivery. We 
may observe from the Church history, that still as 
soundness of doctrine and the power of godliness 
decayed in the Church, the vanity of an affected 
way of speaking, and of writing of divine things, 
came in. Quotations from the Fathers, Latin aud 
languages, are pitiful ornaments unto preaching- 
sorrows 
Ambition is frequently the only refuge which 
life has left to the denied or mortified affections. 
Wc chide at the grasping eye, the daring wing, 
the soul that seems to thirst for sovereignty only, 
and know not that the flight of this ambitious 
bird has been from a bosom or a home that is 
filled with ashes. 
True Heroism. —Patience is a sublime virtue 
The truest heroism in human life is that private 
heroism which bears with calmness inevitable 
ills, regardless of the consolations of a fruitless 
sympathy, and without the soothing conscious¬ 
ness of public attention. 
Tiie fact that mankind “know the right, and 
yet the wrong pursue,” settles the point that de¬ 
pravity lies in the heart and not iu the head. 
