decide, seldom obey the laws of a regulated mind. Arguments cannot reach them. The channel of the canal may be dug, but who can draw lines by which the river shall run? The wayward fancy often gets the start of reason and becomes uncontrollable. Any warrant drawn from certain facts in scripture, in confirmation of superstitious signs, must be regarded as unauthorized. If Jehovah did, in olden times, speak in dreams and visions, it was in fulfilment of a great plan that he was executing. Are circumstances similar now? If the prophetical system were maintained once, does it follow that it is now in operation? The object of all those miraculous interferences was to bring the world into such a condition as to render miraculous interferences undesirable and unnecessary. That condition has been secured. No man has now any right to look for the will of Jehovah beyond the Bible, and the fixed ordinations of nature. If he do, he depreciates these standards, and by multiplying forms of revelation, enfeebles the great principles on which true revelation stands.

Another illustration of the power of nature over the human mind is presented in poetry. The office of this noble art is to discern the beauties of nature. It is the interpreter of those symbols that fill the universe. It is the Priestess, offering up sacrifices from mountain tops, radiant with golden sunshine. The names of Prophet and Poet were anciently one, and what could more significantly mark the illustrious work of the Poet than this circumstance? There are two eminent advantages derived from poetry. The first is, it expresses truths, known and felt in such a way, as that they may be known better and felt more deeply than ever before. All of us understand the import of filial affection towards our mothers, but if we peruse Cowper's lines on receiving his mother's picture from Norfolk, the delightful sentiments involved in our grateful love appear invested with new beauty and strength. The second advantage is, it has a sphere belonging only to itself. If a man were to employ his reason in producing a prose work on the plan of Milton's Paradise Lost, he would be viewed as approaching a state of intellectual alienation, and malignant critics might sport with him, as spiders sport with luckless flies, that have become entangled in their skilfully woven net. A number of great minds that now exert a prodigious influence over thought and sentiment, would have been comparatively lost to the world, but for this medium of mental exertion.

The sublimest form of knowledge is theology; the next is history. Without theology, we should be ignorant of eternity; without history, we should be ignorant of time. Without the one, we should know nothing of God; without the other, we

should know nothing of man. We are indebted to poetry for much of our theology and history. It was in poetry, that Isaiah recited the magnificent strains of redemption; it was thus that David echoed the sweet strains of the seraphim. It was in poetry, that the early legends of nations were embodied. Heaven and earth have honored it. See the poet acting as the priest of his country's religion; see him preserving national events from oblivion by recording them in poetic language; see him standing upon the mount of vision, and writing the annals of future ages; see him holding rapt communion with the Invisible!

The source of poetry is nature. If it describe spiritual things, it is by natural things. Its eye is ever open to beauty, and its ear to melody. Wherever it meets with the traces of the creative skill, there it erects an altar and worships. If, with Mungo Park, it discovers a small tuft of green grass, in the barren desert, it sings its praise. If, with Alexander Selkirk, it occupies the ocean-isle, with the expanse of waters around, and the expanse of firmament above, it sings in Cowper's strains:

"I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute."

The most popular of recent poetry has been of the descriptive character. It has pictured nature in her manifold aspects. It has inspired a taste for her communion, such as was never felt before. If Cowper commenced this style of poetry, Wordsworth has probably carried it to perfection. The genius of Lord Byron is never so powerful as when it sings:

"I live not in myself, but I become

Portion of that around me; and to me

High mountains are a feeling, but the hum

Of cities torture; I can see

Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be

A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,

Classed among creatures; where the soul can flee,

And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain

Of ocean, or the stars mingle, and not in vain."

It must be acknowledged, however, that Byron's appreciation of visible nature was at the expense of society, and consequently, it was a morbid sentiment. Let a mind be properly balanced, and its love of the material universe and society will exist and operate together. The misanthropy that discolors all the writings of this celebrated poet, is probably only assumed, for no man could be alive to the charms of nature as he was, and be dead to all social sensibilities. Is not beauty a unit-and sublimity a unit? If a man love the beautiful and the sublime in nature with true fervency, how can he hate the beautiful and the sublime, that are ever shining through these thin vestments of mor. tality, and like the twilight sky, reflecting a departed glory?

WOMAN.

BY GRENVILLE MELLEN.

THE world has had its mysteries-but none
More strange than this sweet riddle. From the hour
When she broke on the bowers of Paradise,

All lustre and all loveliness, the earth
Has had at once its wonder and its wo!
Nature assum'd new beauty when she came,
And through Creation's garden there went forth
A crowning creature 'mid its countless flowers.

To Man, the monarch of the earth he trod,
Great, yet disconsolate, amid his home,
She came like Mercy, robed beyond all dreams,
In such unvision'd mastery of form-

With brow so pregnant with divinity

With eye so lumin'd from its god-like fount

With tongue so angel toned, and voiced like lyres

In everything, so chisel'd like the work

Of some Heav'n-guided sculptor, that she sat,

At once the guardian and the joy of man,

Bound to his leaping heart!

The years went on.

She met temptation mid her home of bloom.

She listen'd-and she fell! A wilderness

Seem'd closing round them in great shadow. Song

Was lost in discord-and a poisonous breath

Went up from the black weeds that crush'd the flowers!

Then Time went hand in hand with Trial. Death,

Commission'd on black pinion, by each door

Swoop'd with his midnight wing. No summons there Was left unanswer'd-but with faint white lip,

The passing victims whisper'd-'We are here!'

A change went o'er the world-and Man was chang'd His monarchy was lost-his sceptre gone

His empire, that of old he sway'd alone,

Thenceforth divided with the thing he spurn'd.

Reason, that erst in him confess'd her throne,
Found new abiding-place, and Man beheld

Matter triumphant rival of the Mind.

Yet Woman fell not, like some stricken star,

For ever from her sphere. She travel'd yet
On the same pilgrimage, and shared with Man
His greatness and his curse. She 'bode with him
In beautiful fidelity, though once

To her own soul unfaithful. She abode,
With Beauty yet like morning on her brow,
And joyance on her lips. With Mercy yet,
She walked beneath the roofs of weary men,

Smooth'd the low couch of sickness-and unbow'd,

Clos'd on the reeking path of pestilence,
With step unfaltering, where he who once
Rode as creation's lord earth's battle-field,
And launched on seas of blood for victory,

Had paled with fear-or stretched with quiv'ring hand
The drug he dared extend to misery!

How the years sped, and what dim centuries
Left like a seal on Woman's destiny,

Grey history tells. The mem'ry of young days,
When in unsham'd dependency she sat,

At once the grace and glory of his bower,
Close to the heart of man, now pass'd away
Before new aspirations. Crown and throne
No longer closed the vista of her dreams,
But both were hers. She heard deep voices call,
And saw hands beckon her to royalty;
And she became the ruler of great lands,
And saw men bow to her, as to old kings
That she had heard of-till she felt a power
Was in her that she knew not till that time:
And with the consciousness came a new hope,
And a new struggle-and she turned from tears,
And all that made her beautiful, to try

A rivalry with Man in all that made
Man aught but an immortal! She would dare
To dally with those sterner elements,

In which the Tyrant oft has sunk the man,
Or Man, like idiot, disgraced his power.

She gather'd, as a banner, beneath helm,
The locks that were her glory, and with plume
Tossing with charger's mane to the battle-wind,
Led on to victory, in the thundering van

Of great o'ershadowing armies. The red sword
Wav'd in the mail'd white hand, that scarce could grasp
Its pondrous hilt, as some wild meteor blade,

Swung by the warrior through his murky field.
Men follow'd her, as a great captain, forth-
Not on some errand, where the heart led on,
But where the spirit, black as demon's urg'd
On hellish mission to its grave of blood!

And such was Woman, as she left the sky!
And such did she become. The veil that rose,
As the years swept it, from the struggling mind,
Betray'd to her her sorrow and her power!

Yet did she see idolatry. The spell
Was round her like an atmosphere-and Man
Could not but worship, though the idol, then,
Had pass'd from its first loveliness. But still,
The charm was not unearthly. There were gems
From no Golconda of the spirit-but

A baser jewelry that lighted her,

And drew Man to his bondage. The quick fire
Of an unnatural beauty, and the flash
Of passion, in some splendid rivalry-
The fascination of a light, whose blaze
Is born of fashion, and with fashion dies,
Then made, and make Man's worship.

O, if now

Woman would lift the noble wand she bore,
Once so transcendent-and which still she wears,
Half-hidden, though not powerless-and again
Wave in its magic power o'er pilgrim Man,
How would she win him from apostasy,
Lure back the world from its dim path to wo,
And open a new Eden on our years!

CIRCUMSTANTIAL TESTIMONY.

On the summit of a hill near Muhlbach, a small town of Rhenish Prussia, there is a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph. Being a place of pilgrimage, this chapel is on festival days visited by many of the inhabitants of the surrounding country; but on other days of the year it seldom happens that the sound of a human footstep disturbs the sacred solitude.

Very early on the morning of the 19th of July, 1818, a peasant proceeding to work, was wending his way along a narrow path at the foot of the hill. His dog was running before him. Suddenly the animal stopped short, and in another moment darted off rapidly in the direction of the chapel. The dog soon returned to his master, howling piteously, and betraying unequivocal signs of terror. The peasant quickened his pace, and turned directly into the path leading up to the chapel. On coming within sight of the portal of the little edifice, he was horrorstruck to behold, stretched on the steps, the lifeless body of a young man.

The terrified peasant hurried to a neighboring village with tidings of what he had seen. The news spread with the swiftness of lightning, and in a very short space of tiine the magistrate