moment crossed the room, their amazement could not have been greater than it was from what followed. The most eloquent and unanswerable appeal that he had ever heard or read was made for nearly an hour, by the old gentleman. So perfect was his recollection, that every argument urged against the Christian religion, was met in the order in which it was advanced. Hume's sophistry on the subject of miracles, was, if possible, more perfectly answered, than it had already been done by Campbell. And in the whole lecture there was so much simplicity and energry, *pathos and sublimity, that not another word was uttered. 6. An attempt to describe it, said the traveler, would be an attempt to paint the sunbeams. It was now a matter of curiosity and inquiry, who the old gentleman was. The traveler concluded that it was the preacher from whom the pulpit eloquence was heard; but no; it was JOHN Marshal, the CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES. CXVII. — NEW YEAR'S NIGHT OF AN UNHAPPY MAN. 1. ON new-year's night, an old man stood at his window, and looked, with a glance of fearful despair, up to the immovable, unfading heaven, and down upon the still, pure, white earth, on which no one was no now so joyless and sleepless as he. His grave stood near him; it was covered only with the snows of age, not with the verdure of youth; and he brought with him out of a whole, rich life, nothing but errors, sins, and diseases; a wasted body; a desolate soul; a heart, full of poison; and an old age, full of repentance. 2. The happy days of his early youth passed before him, like a procession of specters, and brought back to him that lovely morning, when his father first placed him on the cross-way of life, where the right hand led by the sunny paths of virtue, into a large and quiet land, full of light and harvests; and the left plunged by the subterranean walks of vice, into a black cave, full of distilling poison, of hissing snakes, and of dark, sultry vapors. 3. Alas, the snakes were hanging upon his breast, and the drops of poison on his tongue; and he now, at length, felt all the horror of his situation. +Distracted, with unspeakable grief, and with face up-turned to heaven, he cried, "My father! give me back my youth! O, place me once again upon life's cross-way, that I may choose aright." But his father and his youth were long since gone. He saw *phantom-lights dancing upon the marshes, and disappearing at the church-yard; and he said, "These are my foolish days!" He saw a star shoot from heaven, and glittering in its fall, vanish upon the earth. "Behold an emblem of my career," said his bleeding heart, and the serpent tooth of repentance digged deeper into his wounds. 4. His excited imagination showed him specters flying upon the roof, and a skull, which had been left in the charnelhouse, gradually assumed his own features. In the midst of this confusion of objects, the music of the new-year flowed down from the steeple, like distant +church-melodies. His heart began to melt. He looked around the horizon, and over the wide earth, and thought of the friends of his youth, who now, better and happier than he, were the wise of the earth, prosperous men, and the fathers of happy children; and he said, "Like you, I also might slumber, with tearless eyes, through the long nights, had I chosen aright in the outset of my career. Ah, my father! had I hearkened to thy instructions, I too might have been happy." 5. In this feverish remembrance of his youthful days, a skull bearing his features, seemed slowly to rise from the door of the charnel-house. At length, by that superstition, which, in the new-year's night, sees the shadow of the future, it became a living youth. He could look no longer; he covered his eyes; a thousand burning tears streamed down, and fell upon the snow. In accents scarcely audible, he sighed disconsolately: "Oh, days of my youth, return, return!" And they did return. It had only been a horrible dream. But, although he was still a youth, his errors had been a reality. And he thanked God, that he, still young, was able to pause in the degrading course of vice, and return to the sunny path which leads to the land of harvests. 6. Return with him, young reader, if thou art walking in the same downward path, lest his dream become thy reality. For if thou turnest not now, in the spring-time of thy days, vainly, in after years, when the shadows of age are darkening around thee, shalt thou call, "Return, oh beautiful days of youth!" Those beautiful days, gone, gone forever, and hidden in the shadows of the misty past, shall close their ears against thy miserable cries, or answer thee in hollow accents, "Alas! we return no more."· CXVIII. THE CLOSING YEAR. FROM PRENTICE. 1. "T is midnight's holy hour, and silence now 2. The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds, Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, In mournful +cadences, that come abroad Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching +wail, A melancholy +dirge o'er the dead year, Gone from the earth forever. 'Tis a time For memory and for tears. Within the deep, Still chambers of the heart, a +specter dim, Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, And solemn finger to the beautiful And holy visions, that have pass'd away, And left no shadow of their loveliness On the dead waste of life. The *specter lifts The coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love, And bending mournfully above the pale, Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers, 3. 4. 5. The year Has gone, and with it, many a glorious throng Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, In the dim land of dreams. +Remorseless Time! Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt His iron heart to pity! On, still on, He presses, and forever. The proud bird, Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, +Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast And rush down, like the Alpine tavalanche, And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 1. WHEN Music, heavenly maid! was young, 2. First Fear, his hand, its skill to try, 3. Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire |