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This experiment on a small scale indicates how easy it would be to dispense with armies and navies, if men only had faith in the religion they profess to believe. When France lately reduced her army, England immediately did the same; for the existence of one army creates the necessity for another, unless men are safely ensconced in the bomb-proof fortress, above mentioned.

reasons, Swedenborgians would add another; for according to the doctrine of Correspondence unfolded by their illuminated scribe," spring corresponds to peace; that diapason note, from which all growth rises in harmonious order.

But I am willing to accept this wintry anniversary, and take it to my heart. As the sun now begins to return to us, so may the truth and love which he The doctrines of Jesus are not beautiful abstrac-typifies gradually irradiate and warm the globe. The tions, but living, vital truths. There is in them no Romans kept their festival with social feasts and elaborate calculation of consequences, but simply mutual gifts; and the windows of New York are the divine impulse uttered. They are few and sim-to-day, filled with all forms of luxury and splendor, ple, but infinite in spirit, and of universal application. Like the algebraic X, they stand for the unknown quantity, and, if consulted aright, always give the true answer. The world has been deluged with arguments about war, slavery, &c., and the wisest product of them all, is simply an enlightened application of the maxims of Jesus. Faith in God, love to man, and action obedient thereto, from these flow all that belong to order, peace, and progress. Probably, the laws by which the universe were made, are thus reducible to three in one, and all varieties of creation are thence unfolded, as all melody and harmony, flow from three primal notes. God works synthetically. The divine idea goes forth and clothes itself in form, from which all the infinity of forms are evolved. We mortals see truth in fragments, and try to trace it upwards to its origin by painful analysis. In this there is no growth. All creation, all life, is evolved by the opposite pro- A friend of mine, who has no money to spend for cess. We must reverence truth. We must have jewels or silks, or even antique vases, has employed that faith in it, of which action is the appropriate | his Christmas more wisely than this; and in his acform; and lo, the progress which we have sought for so painfully, will unfold upon us, as naturally as the seed expands into blossoms and fruit.

I did not mean to preach a sermon. greens, and the music from neighboring churches, carried me back to the hill-sides of Palestine, and my spirit involuntary began to ask, What response does earth now give to that chorus of peace and good will?

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to tempt the wealthy, who are making up Christmas boxes for family and friends. Many are the rich jewels and shining stuffs, this day bestowed by affection or vanity. In this I have no share; but if I were as rich as John Jacob Astor, and not so fearful of poverty, as he is said to be, I would this day go to the shop of Baronto, a poor Italian artist, in Orchard street, buy all he has, and give freely to every one who enjoys forms of beauty. There are hidden in that small obscure workshop, some little gems of art. Alabaster nymphs, antique urns of agate, and Hebe vases of the costly Verd de Prato. There is something that moves me strangely in those old Grecian forms. They stand like petrified melodies from the world's youthful heart. I would like to buy out Baronto every Christmss, and mix those "fair humanities of old religion," with the Madonnas and Saviours of a more spiritual time.

tion, there is more angelic music, than in those divine old statues. He filled a large basket full of cakes, and went forth into our most miserable But the ever-streets, to distribute them among hungry children. How little dirty faces peeped after him, round street corners, and laughed from behind open gates! How their eyes sparkled as they led along some shivering barefooted urchin, and cried out, "This little boy has had no cake, sir!" Sometimes a greedy lad would get two shares by false pretences; but this was no conclusive proof of total depravity, in children who never ate cake from Christmas to Christmas. No wonder the stranger with his basket, excited a prodigious sensation. Mothers came to see who it was that had been so kind to their little ones. Every one had a story to tell of health ruined by hard work, of sickly children, or drunken husbands. It was a

It matters little that Christ was not born on that day, which the church has chosen to commemorate his birth. The associations twined around it for many centuries, have consecrated it to my mind. Nor am I indifferent to the fact, that it was the old Roman festival for the birth of the Sun. As a form of their religious idea, it is interesting to me, and I see peculiar beauty in thus identifying the birth of the natural sun, with the advent of the Son of Right-genuine out-pouring of hearts. An honest son of eousness, which, in an infinitely higher sense, enlightens and vivifies the nations. The learned argue that Christ was probably born in the spring; because the Jewish people were at that season enrolled for taxation, and this was the business which carried Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem :-and because the shepherds of Syria would not be watching their flocks in the open air, during the cold months. To these

the Emerald Isle stood by, rubbing his head, and exclaimed, " Did my eyes ever see the like o' that? A jintleman giving cake to folks he don't know, and never asking a bit o' money for the same!"

Alas, eighteen centuries ago, that chorus of good will was sung, and yet so simple an act of sympathizing kindness, astonishes the poor!

In the course of his Christmas rambles, my friend

entered a house occupied by fifteen families. In the corner of one room, on a heap of rags, lay a woman with a babe, three days old, without food or fire. In another very small apartment, was an aged, weather-beaten woman. She pointed to an old basket of pins and tape, as she said, "For sixteen years I have carried that basket on my arm, through the streets of New York; and often have I come home with weary feet, without money enough to buy my supper. But we must always pay our rent in advance, whether we have a loaf of bread to eat or not." Seeing the bed without clothing, her visiter inquired how she slept. ..Oh the house is very leaky. The wind whistles through and through, and the rain and snow come driving in. When any of us are sick, or the weather is extra cold, we lend our bedding, and some of us sit up while others get a nap." As she spoke, a ragged little girl came in to say, "Mammy wants to know whether you will lend her your fork?" "To be sure, I will, dear," she replied, in the heartiest tone imaginable. She would have been less generous, had her fork been a silver one. Her visiter smiled as he said, "I suppose you borrow your neighbor's knife, in return for

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your fork?" Oh, yes," she replied; and she is as willing to lend as I am. We poor folks must help one another. It is all the comfort we have." The kind-hearted creature did not know, perhaps, that it was precisely such comfort as the angels have in heaven; only theirs is without the drawback of physical suffering and limited means.

I have said that these families, owning a knife and fork between them, and loaning their bedclothes after a day of toil, were always compelled to pay their rent in advance. Upon adding together the sums paid by each, for accommodations so wretched, it was found that the income from that dilapidated building, in a filthy and crowded street, was greater than the rent of many a princely mansion in Broadway. This mode of oppressing the poor, is a crying sin, in our city. A benevolent rich man could not make a better investment of capital, than to build tenements for the laboring class, and let them on reasonable terms.

This Christmas tour of observation, has suggested to my mind many thoughts concerning the present relations of labor and capital. But I forbear; for I see that this path, like every other, "if you do but follow it, leads to the end of the world." I had rather dwell on the perpetual efforts of Divine Providence to equalize what the selfishness of man strives to make unequal. If the poor have fewer pleasures than the rich, they enjoy them more keenly; if they have not that consideration in society, which brings with it so many advantages, they avoid the irksome slavery of conventional forms; and what exercise of the benevolent sympathies could a rich man enjoy, in making the most magnificent Christmas gift, compared with the beautiful self-denial which lends its

last blanket, that another may sleep? That there should exist the necessity for such sacrifices, what does it say to us concerning the structure of society, on this Christmas day, nearly two thousand years after the advent of Him, who said, "God is your father, and all ye are brethren"?

THE BATTLE-FIELD.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd;
And fiery hearts and armed hands

Encountered in the battle cloud.

Ah! never shall the land forget

How gushed the life.blood of her braveGushed, warm with hope and valor yet,

Upon the soil they fought to save. Now all is calm and fresh and still; Alone the chirp of flitting bird, And talk of children on the hill,

And bell of wandering kine are heard. No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain; Men start not at the battle-cry

Oh, be it never heard again!

Soon rested those who fought-but thou,

Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.

A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year;
A wild and many-weaponed throng
Hang on thy front and flank and rear.
Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,

And blench not at thy chosen lot;
The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown-yet faint thou not!
Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,-

The hissing, stinging bolt of scorn;
For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are her's;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,

When those who helped thee flee in fear, Die full of hope and manly trust,

Like those who fell in battle here. Another hand thy sword shall wield,

Another hand the standard wave, Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed

The blast of triumph o'er thy grave!

VOICES OF THE TRUE HEARTED.

No. 2.

THE STAR-GAZER.

BY C. P. CRANCH.

Star after star looked glimmering down,
As in the night he sat alone:
And in the firmament of mind

Thought after thought upon him shone.

An inner sky did sometimes seem

To show him truths of deepest worth,
Which custom's daylight long had dimmed,
Or sense had clouded in their birth.

And well he knew the world was dark,
And few would hear what he could tell,
And fewer still would sit with him

And watch that sky he loved so well.

One solitary soul he seemed—

And yet he knew that all might see The orbs that showed to him alone The fulness of their majesty.

He knew that all the silent scorn

Which now in meekness he must bear,
Would change to worship when his ear
No longer was a list'ner there.

And when the cold and rugged sod
Had pressed the brain that toiled for them,
That on his statue men would hang

The unavailing diadem.

All this he felt, and yet his faith,
In uncomplaining silence, kept
With starry Truth its vigils brave,
While all his brothers round him slept.
They slept and would not wake—until

The distant lights that fixed his gaze,
Came moving on, and spread abroad
The glory of a noontide blaze.

And then they started from their dreams,
And slowly oped their leaden eyes,
And saw the light whose splendors now
Are darting through the azure skies.
Then turned and sought for him whose name;
They in their sleep had mocked and cursed,
But he had left them long before

The vision on their souls had burst.

And underneath the sod he lay,

Now all bedued with fruitful tears; And they could only deck the tomb

That told of his neglected years.

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She who is slain 'neath the winter weather-
Ah, she once had a village fame,
Listened to love on the moonlit heather,

Had gentleness-vanity-maiden shame.
Now her allies are the tempests howling,
Prodigal's curses-self disdain,
Poverty-misery-Well, no matter,

There is an end unto every pain.

The harlot's fame was her doom to-day,

Disdain-despair; by to-morrow's light The ragged boards and the pauper's pall;

And so she'll be given to the dusky night. Without a tear or a human sigh,

She's gone-poor life and it's "fever" o'er; So let her in calm oblivion lie,

While the world runs merry as heretofore!

(Within.)

He who yon lordly feast enjoyeth,

He who doth rest on his couch of down,

He it was, who threw the forsaken

Under the feet of the trampling town. Liar-betrayer-false as cruel

What is the doom for his dastard sin?

His peers, they scorn?-high dames, they shun him? Unbar yon palace and gaze within.

There yet the deeds are all trumpet sounded-
There, upon silken seats recline
Maidens as fair as the summer morning,
Watching him rise from the sparkling wine.
Mothers all proffer their stainless daughters;
Men of high honor salute him "friend ;”
Skies! Oh, where are your cleansing waters ?
World! oh, where do thy wonders end?

BLANKETS.

To be read on a cold night in November.
BY OLD HUMPHREY."

Help me my young friends! Help me, for the poor stand in need of comfort: let us try to do them

a kindness.

It is

said, when speaking of kindnesses done to his disciples, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Think of these things now, for it will be of no use to reflect on them in summer. Charity is never so cordial as when it feels the misery it relieves ; while you feel the cold, then do something to protect others from the inclemency of the season. It is enough to be ill-fed, and ill-clothed, and to sit bending over a dying fire without a handful of fuel to revive it; but after that to pass the night without a blanket for a covering, must indeed be terrible.

See in the sharpest night the poor old man, over whose head threescore and ten winters have rolled,

climbing with difficulty his narrow staircase, to
See
creep beneath his thin and ragged coverlet !
the aged widow, once lulled in the lap of luxury, but

bundle of straw!

How the casements rattle! and hark, how the bit-now girt around with trials, in fastings often, in cold, and almost nakedness, worn by poverty to the very bones, stretching her cramped limbs upon her Fancy, but why fancy what you know to be true?—these poor, aged, miserable beings have to shiver through the live-long night, when a blanket would gird them round with comfort. could weep at such miseries as these,-miseries

ter, biting blast whistles among the trees!
very cold, and soon will be colder. I could shiver
at the thought of winter, when the icicles hang from
the water-butt, when the snow lies deep upon the
ground, and the cold, cold wind seems to freeze the
heart as well as the finger ends.

Yet, after all, the darkest night, the bitterest blast, and the rudest storm confer some benefit, for they make us thankful for the roof that covers us, the fire that warms us, and for the grateful influence of a comfortable bed.

Oh the luxury of a good, thick, warm pair of blankets, when the wintry blast roars in the chimney, while the feathery flakes of snow are flying abroad, and the sharp hail patters against the windowpanes!

Did you ever travel a hundred miles on the outside of a coach, on a sharp frosty night; your eyes stiffened, your face smarting, and your body halfpetrified ! Did you ever keep watch in December in the open air, till the more than midnight blast had pinched all your features into sharpness; till your feet were cold as a stone, and the very stars appeared as if frozen to the sky? If you have never borne these things, I have; but what are they compared with the trials that some people have to endure?

Who can tell the sufferings of thousands of poor people in winter, from the want of warm bedclothes! and who can describe the comfort that a pair or two of blankets communicate to a destitute family! How often have I seen the wretched children of a wretched habitation, huddling together on the floor, beneath a ragged great-coat, or flimsy petticoat, striving to derive that warmth from each other which their scanty covering failed to supply! In many places, benevolent persons give or lend blankets to the poor, and thus confer a benefit, the value of which can hardly be told. May they be abundantly repaid by the grace of that Saviour who

I

The table

which so small an effort might relieve.
crumbs of the rich would make a banquet for the
poor, and the spare remnants of their clothing would
defend them from the cold.

Come, come, reader! you are not without some feeling of pity and affection for your fellow creatures. Be not satisfied in wishing them well; let something be done for their welfare,

If there be a heart within you, if you have a soul that ever offered up an expression of thanksgiving for the manifold mercies which your heavenly Father has bestowed upon you, then sympathize with the wretched, and relieve, according to your ability, the wants of the destitute. Let me beseech you to do something this very winter towards enabling some poor, aged, helpless, or friendless person, who is slenderly provided for, to purchase a blanket. You will not sleep the less comfortably, when you reflect that some shivering wretch has been, by your assistance, enabled to pass the wintry night in comfort.

It is not a great thing that is required; do what you can, but do something. Let me not plead in vain; and shame betide me if I neglect to do myself the thing that I recommend to you to perform.

Did you ever lie snug and warm in bleak December, the bed-clothes drawn close round your neck, and your nightcap pulled over your ears, listening to the midnight blast, and exulting in the grateful glow of your delightful snuggery? I know you have, and I trust, too, that the very reading of these remarks will affect your hearts, and dispose you to some " gentle deed of charity" towards those who are destitute of such an enjoyment.

!

Now, then, while the subject is before you, while you look round on your manifold comforts, while you feel the nipping and frosty air, resolve, aye, and act, in a way that will bless others, and give comfort to your own heart.

Youth and health may rejoice in frost and snow, and while the warm blood rushes through the exulting frame, we can smile at the wintry blast; but age, sickness, and infirmity, can take no exercise sufficient to quicken the sluggish current of their veins. Wrap them round, then, with your charity; help them to obtain a pair of warm blankets, and the blessing of the widow and the fatherless, the aged and infirm, the destitute, and those ready to erish, shall rest upon you.

TRUE REST.

Sweet is the pleasure, Itself cannot spoil!

Is not true leisure

One with true toil?

Thou that wouldst taste it,

Still do thy best;

Use it, not waste it,
Else 'tis no rest.

Wouldst behold beauty
Near thee? all round?

Only hath duty

Such a sight found.

Rest is not quitting

The busy career;

Rest is the fitting

Of self to its sphere.

'Tis the brook's motion,
Clear without strife,

Fleeing to ocean
After its life.

Deeper devotion

Nowhere hath knelt;

Fuller emotion

Heart never felt.

'Tis loving and serving The highest and best! 'Tis ONWARDS! unswerving, And that is true rest.

THE MOURNERS.

BY CAROLINE E. S. NORTON.

Low she lies, who blest our eyes
Through many a sunny day;

She may not smile, she will not rise,-
The life hath passed away!

Yet there is a world of light beyond,

Where we neither die nor sleep;

She is there of whom our souls were found,-
Then wherefore do we weep?

The heart is cold whose thoughts were told
In each glance of her glad bright eye;
And she lies pale, who was so bright,

She scarce seemed made to die.
Yet we know that her soul is happy now,

Where the saints their calm watch keep;
That angels are crowning that fair young brow,—
Then wherefore do we weep?

Her laughing voice made all rejoice,
Who caught the happy sound;
There was gladness in her very step,

As it lightly touched the ground.
The echoes of voice and step are gone,

There is silence still and deep;

Yet we know she sings by God's bright throne,-
Then wherefore do we weep?

The cheek's pale tinge, the lid's dark fringe,
That lies like a shadow there,

Were beautiful in the eyes of all,

And her glossy golden hair!

But though that lid may never wake

From its dark and dreamless sleep;

She is gone where young hearts do not break,Then wherefore do we weep?

That world of light with joy is bright;

This is a world of wo:

Shall we grieve that her soul hath taken flight,

Because we dwell below?

We will bury her under the mossy sod,

And one long bright tress we'll keep; We have only given her back to God,Ah! wherefore do we weep?

MY MOTHER.

BY "OLD HUMPHREY,"

Whether you have, or have not a mother, my present address will not be unsuitable.

With whatever respect and admiration a child may regard a father, whose example has called forth his energies and animated him in his various pursuits, he turns with greater affection, and intenser love, to a kind-hearted mother. The same emotion follows him through life, and when the changing vicissitudes of after years have removed his parents from him, seldom does the remembrance of his mother occur to his mind, unaccompanied by the most affectionate recollections.

Show me a man, though his brow be furrowed, and his hair grey, who has forgotten his mother, and I shall suspect that something is going on wrong within him; either his memory is impaired, or a hard heart is beating in his bosom. 66 My Mother"

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