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THE GALLICAN CHURCH, AT THE PERIOD OF THE REVOlu

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[An example of elevated and impressive narrative, combining depth and force of expressive tone.]

It is among the most memorable facts of intellectual decline, that of the forty thousand clergy of France, not one man of conspicuous ability was roused by the imminent danger of his church. Like a flock of sheep, they relied on their numbers; and the infidel drove them before him, like a flock of sheep. While the battlements of their gigantic church were rocking in every blast, there was no sign of manly precaution, none of generous selfexposure for the common cause, and scarcely any even of that wise suspicion which is the strength of the weak.

They took it for granted that the church would last their time, and were comforted. The pride of the day was distinction in literature; but the whole ecclesiastical body of France saw the race run, without an effort for the prize. They sat wrapped in their old recollections, on the benches of the amphitheatre, and looked on, without alarm, while a new generation of mankind were trying their athletic limbs, and stimulating their young ambition, in the arena where they had once been unrivalled. Raynal, and the few clerics who distinguished themselves by authorship, were avowed deists or atheists; and ostentatious of their complete, if not contemptuous separation from the establishment.

The last light of ecclesiastical literature had glimmered from the cells of Port Royal; but, with the fall of the Jansenists, "middle and utter darkness" came. During half a century, no work of public utility, none of popular estimation, none of genius, none which evinced loftiness of spirit, vigor of understanding, or depth of knowledge, had been produced by a churchman.

The consequence was inevitable and fatal. The old awe of the church's power was changed into contempt for its understanding. Ten thousand rents were made in the fabric: still they let in no light upon the voluntary slumberers within. The revolutionary roar echoed through all its chambers; but it stirred no champion of the altar. The high ecclesiastics relied upon their connection with the court, their rank, and the formal homage of their officials; shields of gossamer against the pike and firebrand of the people. The inferior priesthood, consigned to obscurity, shrank into their villages into cumberers of the earth, or were irritated into rebels. The feeble contracted themselves within the drowsy round of their prescribed duties; the daring brooded over the national discontents and their own, until they heard the trumpet sounding to every angry heart and form of ill in France; and came forth, a gloomy and desperate tribe, trampling

their images and altars under foot, and waving the torch in the front of the grand insurrection.

NIHGT.-J. Montgomery.

[The following piece is peculiarly expressive in its style of elocution, as well as of sentiment and language. It exemplifies, successively, the the tones of tranquility, wonder, joy, pathos, regret, horror, sublimity, and devout emotion.]

Night is the time for rest;·

How sweet, when labors close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Upon our own accustomed bed.

Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is, and truth that seems,

Blend in fantastic strife:

Ah! visions less beguiling far

Than waking dreams by daylight are!

Night is the time for toil;

To.plough the classic field,

Intent to find the buried spoil

Its wealthy furrows yield;

Till all is ours that sages taught,

That poets sang, or heroes wrought.

Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory, where sleep

The joys of other years,

Hopes that were angels in their birth,

But perished young-like things of earth.

Night is the time to watch;

On ocean's dark expanse,

To hail the Pleiades, or catch

The full moon's earliest glance,

That brings unto the home-sick mind

All we have loved-and left behind.

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THE LAND OF BEULAH.-G. B. Cheever.

[The prevalent "Expression" of the following passage, is that of admiration rising to rapture; the tone of joy, however, softened by that of sacred and solemn feeling.]

No other language than that of Bunyan himself, perused in the pages of his own sweet book, could be successful in portraying the beauty and glory of such a scene; for now he seems to feel that all the dangers of the pilgrimage are almost over; and he gives himself up without restraint so entirely to the sea of bliss that surrounds him, and to the gales of heaven that are wafting

him on, and to the sounds of melody that float in the whole air around him, that nothing in the English language can be compared with this whole closing part of the "Pilgrim's Progress," for its entrancing splendor, yet serene and simple loveliness. The coloring is that of heaven in the soul; and Bunyan has poured his own. heaven-entranced soul into it. With all its depth and power, there is nothing exaggerated; and it is made up of the simplest and most scriptural materials and images. We seem to stand in a flood of light poured on us from the open gates of Paradise. It falls on every leaf and shrub by the way-side; it is reflected from the crystal streams, that between grassy banks wind amidst groves of fruit-trees into vineyards and flower-gardens. These fields of Beulah are just below the gate of heaven; and with the light of heaven there come floating down the melodies of heaven: so that here there is almost an open revelation of the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

During the last days of that eminent man of God, Dr. Payson, he once said, "When I formerly read Bunyan's description of the land of Beulah, where the sun shines and the birds sing day and night, I used to doubt whether there was such a place; but now my own experience has convinced me of it, and it infinitely transcends all my previous conceptions." The best possible commentary on the glowing description in Bunyan is to be found in that very remarkable letter dictated by Dr. Payson to his sister, a few weeks before his death. "Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which I have been for weeks a happy inhabitant. The Celestial City is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me; its breezes fan me; its odors are wafted to me; its sounds strike upon my ears; and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the River of Death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be

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