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UNIVERSAL KINDNESS.

"He prayeth well, that loveth well

Both man, and bird, and beast."

COLERIDGE, Ancient Mariner.

"Man, like the generous vine, supported lives,

The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives."
POPE, Essay on Man.

How truly beautiful is nature! Go forth when you will, there is ever some object of admiration and love; whether in the childhood of the year, when the infant spring is painting the fields and meadows with her tender green, and "the yellow cowslip and the pale primrose" are peeping up with their tiny heads from the ground beneath the cheerful beams of the welcome sun; or whether in the ripe summer, when the fruits of vegetation are sprung up and have attained the hardy growth of mature age, and the thick swathes of the new-mown hay lie shedding their perfume on the sultry air;whether in the autumn, when the brown harvest of the " wavy corn" cheers the heart of the husbandman with the hope of plenty; and the bough, laden with the rich fruit of the apple, or the purple clusters of the vine, promises that which makes glad the heart of man; or even in the cold hours of the freezing winter, when the "icicles hang on the wall," and the "milk comes frozen home in pail;" in each of these, throughout the revolving year, there is beauty and happiness for the eye and heart, not of man alone, but also of all other living creatures. And man is the lord-the appointed master of this beautiful world: set over it as a steward, -a keeper-a father. In sooth, a weighty charge! All creation entrusted to his care, and himself provided with reason and capability of fulfilling this great duty, must surely entail on him a responsibility of no slight moment; a responsibility which he cannot throw off, but is compelled to retain until that day, when the Master of all shall call him into his presence, and demand an "account of his stewardship."

How kind, then, should man show himself to his useful and dutiful vassals! How should he strive to lighten their burdens, and make their toil sweet by affection and encouragement! How

careful lest an unkind act to an inferior being should stand in cowardly array to confront him in the awful register of good and ill!

Nay, putting aside the responsibility, ought not very gratitude to make us kind to all things? No living thing is without its use in creation, and the labour of all tends to the profit of man; man, the unworthy, the only creature that disdains to bend his knee. Are these considerations nothing to us? Shall we receive labour, and repay our servants with oppression? Shall we receive love, and return unkindness? Shall we reap the fruit of "vineyards which we have not planted," and grudge the poor helpless the superfluity? Nay! should we not rather seek how we may repay the love which has been shown us?

But there is another reason why we should love all created things-we are all brothers, fellows in one common curse-mortality. Although the masters, we are, in many respects, equal with the servants; death, sickness, and decay, those giant destroyers, come alike upon us all. To everything, from the blade of grass, "which to-day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven," to the kings of the earth, these ills of life are common,—we are all fed by the same hand, live upon the same air, feel and enjoy the same sun, are refreshed by the same rain, and, finally, perish by the same universal law; ay! and even beyond this there is an equality, for we all rot together: "variable service, two dishes, but to one Surely, then, if

table; that's the end."

"No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother,"

we shall stand in greater peril, if we neglect to love those whom the Creator has placed in fellowship with us.

Oh! how happy would this beautiful world be, how supremely happy, if there were one common feeling of love pervading it! Who can picture a more excellent heaven than this fair earth in its beauty and fertility, inhabited by myriads of living creatures, all striving to make each other happy? Oh! teach this lesson to your children-teach it to yourselves ! Let not the worm and the fly want your mercy, or register their wrongs against you in the great book of retribution! Remember the value of life, and consider, for a moment, that he who wantonly tramples even on a worm, takes a life that he never can restore-a life dear perhaps to some of its own race as a father, or a brother, or a friend;

and

where there is no point to be gained by its death, beyond the gratification of an evil temper, turn aside, and spare the poor insect,

"whose intent,

Though it did ill, was innocent!"

But I would encourage a feeling higher in the scale of the virtues than mercy: I would fain urge the claims of the brute creation upon our love. They are not ungrateful; many an instance of the return of some kind deed warrants us in the assertion, that our little acts of love are not lost upon them; and we may blush to think how unmindful we are of them, when we perceive how great is their appreciation of our affection. Oh! then, let us not be forgetful of our duties towards these, our servants. Mercy and love will look most excellently as our forerunners to the tribunal at which we must appear,-mercy, that "droppeth as the gentle rain. from heaven," and manliness, that teacheth us

""Tis excellent to have a giant's strength,

But tyrannous to use it like a giant ;"

and love,-universal love,-which pleadeth to us,

"Never to mix our pleasure or our pride

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

So shall we enjoy the beauties of "this goodly frame, the earth," with a quiet mind, and leave the world, which we have made happy, with a heart peaceable and contented, from the conviction of our own endeavours to increase its happiness, and, by kindness and love, to lighten the heaviness and alleviate the bitterness of those "ills that flesh is heir to."

C. H. H.

WOMAN.

I HAVE lingered o'er the jessamine,

I have loitered o'er the rose,

I have slept beneath the shady bower
Where the fragrant maythorn blows;
I have travelled where the gem is found,
Bright as the stars above;

But what so prized, so sweet, so bright,

As Woman-formed to love?

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HYMNS TO NIGHT.

(Translated from the German of Novalis.)

II.

MUST ever the morn return? Is there no end to the sovereignty of earth? Unhallowed occupation breaks the heavenly pinion of the Night. Shall the secret offering of love at no time burn for ever? To the Light is its period allotted; but beyond time and space is the empire of the Night. Eternal is the duration of sleep. Thou holy sleep! bless not too rarely the Night's dedicated son in this earth's daily work! Fools alone recognise thee not, and know of no sleep beyond the shadow which in that twilight of the actual Night thou throwest in compassion over us. They feel thee not in the vine's golden flood, in the almond tree's marvel oil, and in the brown juice of the manna: they know not that it is thou that enhaloest the tender maiden's breast, and makest a heaven of her bosom; conceive not that out of histories of old thou steppest forth, an opener of heaven, and bearest the key to the abodes of the blessed, the silent messenger of unending mysteries.

III.

;

Once, when I was shedding bitter tears, when my hope streamed away dissolved in sorrow, and I stood alone beside the barren hill, that concealed in narrow, gloomy space, the form of my existence alone, as never solitary yet hath been, urged by an agony beyond expression, powerless, no more than a mere thought of sorrow; as I looked around me there for aid, could not advance, could not retire; and hung with incessant longing upon fleeting, failing life; then came there from the blue distance, from the heights of my former happiness, a thin veil of the twilight gloom, and in a moment burst the bondage of the fetters of the birth of light. Then fled the glories of the earth, and all my sorrow with them; sadness melted away in a new, an unfathomable world; thou, inspiration of the Night, slumber of heaven, camest over me; the spot whereon I stood rose insensibly on high; above the spot soared forth my released and new-born spirit. The hill became a cloud of dust; through the cloud I beheld the revealed features of

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