MORS JANUA VITÆ.
« THROUGH Death alone we enter into Life" -
He only can set wide the gates which lead
To Light, to Life, to Immortality.
Nor to the humble Christian doth he come
Clad in the awful terrors of his form,
In ghastly semblance, and with frowning brow;
But as a friend, whose gentle hand unlocks
The fetters that have bound him to the earth
And kept him back from his eternal home:
Death is no Conqueror nor Monarch now.
Jesus hath conquered Death ;--divested him
Of all the ensigns of his reign-bis dart
The “ the likeness of his kingly crown"-and led
Him captive to his heavenly Father's throne.
The Christian turns not shuddering now away
From his approaching footsteps; for he sees
With Faith's prophetic eye-th' invisible world
And through the dreary passage of the grave
He sees a place of rest—where he shall dwell
With spirits of the just, made pure and washed
In his and their Redeemer's blood-until
That last, long, thrilling trumpet-call shall sound,
And rouse the sleepers of the tomb-to stand
Before the judgment—and to hear the voice
Of perfect justice speak their final doom.

R. L.

RESURGAM.
“I SUALL arise again!"-But where?
In regions of untold despair,
Where tortured spirits aye bewail
Their sins - when grief will not avail
Where never-dying agony
Looks up, with swoll'n and tearless eye,
To supplicate,-but vainly now
For mercy-God will not bestow
Where the worm dies not, and the fire
That burns within, will not expire;
For this is an eternal doom
Of woe, of anguish, and of gloom.

“I shall arise again!"-But where ?
In realms of pure and cloudless air,
Where angel harps are ever ringing,
And angel voices ever singing-..
Where sin and sorrow are not known,
But peace and deathless joy alone.
There are the “poor in spirit' blest,
And there “the weary are at rest”-
And humbled by his chastening rod,
The “pure in heart” behold their God.
Oh! in that brighter, better land,
No human heart can understand ;
The countless blessings there shall be,
For ever-yea, eternally!

Most mighty God! to me is given
The awful choice of Hell or Heaven:
Oh! may thy Spirit guide my heart
To choose that holier, better part,
That when I leave this world of pain,
In Heaven I may arise again.

R. L.

IN CELO QUIES.

“THERE will be peace in Heaven!" Oh! how this thought Should arm the soul with patience strong to bear

The petty ills of life; to cast our care
On Him, who this eternal peace hath bought
So dearly for us,-and himself hath taught

Patience in deepest suffering Light as air
Seem all the griefs the human heart which tear,
To those with which His holy life was fraught;
And when of Hope this most consoling ray

To cheer our darkling path on earth is given
To all who humbly to their Father pray,

Shall it be said that we have vainly striven?
Though deepest clouds deform our closing day,
Our hope is sure, “ There will be peace in Heaven !"

R. L.

TTI,

SONNET OF MICHEL AGNOLO BUONAROTTI,

Written in the near view of Death.
Grunto è gia 'l corso della mia vita
Per tempestoso mar con fragil barca
Al comun porto, ov à render si varca
Giusta ragion d'ogni opra trista e pià.
Onde l'affetuosa fantasia
Ché l'Arte si fece idolo e monarca,
Conosco ben quant 'era d'error carca;
Ch' errore è ciò, che l'uom quaggiu desia.

O pensier miei gia de miei danni lieti
Che fia or s'a due morti m'avvicino,
L'una ch'è certa, e l'altra che minaccia ?
Nè pinger, nè scolpir fia piu che queti,
L'anima volta a quell'amor divino
Ch’aperse a prender noi in croce e braccia.

(The following translation does not give the exact words of the original, still

less its spirit. It is subjoined to give the meaning to those who do not un. derstand the Italian, and to assist the learner in translating it.]

In fragile bark o'er troubled waters borne,

Now has my life its destin'd passage run,
And anchors there, whence all must pass to answer,

Or good, or ill, the deeds that they have done.

Well prove I now the burden of that sin,

Sin, still the path by earthly passion trod,
That with impassioned eagerness pursued,

And made of Art its monarch and its God,
Thoughts that were erst so joyful o'er my ruin,

What can ye now to comfort and to cure?
Now that the touch of death is even nigh-

Two deaths-one threatened and the other sure.
Vain are the pencil and the chissel now,

To soothe the soul that nothing more can calm,
But He whose love divine the cross discloses,

And gently bears us on his sacred arm.

REVIEW OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS,

AND
NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

siderable objewe live in a day on that we

A Tribute of Parental Affection to the Memory of a beloved and only Daughter, containing some Account of the Character and Death of Hannah Jerram. By C. Jerram. G. Wilson, Essex Street. 1823.

We took up this little book under the influence of considerable objections to the great increase of such works in general. We live in a day when truth and fiction have come to be so blended in religion, that we begin to tremble lest it soon should wear the character of fiction altogether--a tale to weep over and shudder at; but no reality, big with eternal consequences. Precose piety and happy deaths have grown so common in our juvenile reading, and are so much calculated to work on the imagination of the young, that we confess ourselves alarmed lest they become as exciting, as inebriating, and as delusive, as the blue lights, and moving curtains, and midnight whispers, that were used to be the never-failing flowers of fiction-lest our young readers should become as anxious, and with much the same feeling, to be the heroine of a pious tale, as once they were to be the prisoner in an enchanted castle. We hope we shall not be misunderstood. Far is it from us to imply that these things are no realities. As far are we from desiring that what passes in the chambers of death should be veiled from the eyes of youth, as something with which they have not to do. On the contrary, we would introduce them on every fitting occasion to the things themselves; they should be early led to witness, if possible, the awful reality of death. But let it be the reality-and if the dying Christian's last struggles are to be written and published, and cried like a ballad through the streets, let us not venture one word of exaggeration to awaken the feelings, and kindle the imagination, in the hope of making a useful impression. And at least let such reading be sparingly and carefully administered. We all know that what moves the feelings is acceptable. There is nothing we naturally enjoy so much as the dying scenes of a tragedy, and the more horrors and the more marvels attend the death, the greater the enjoyment. So when we have seen sensitive children devouring in motionless excitation these tales of happy or unhappy deaths, we own our hearts have misgiven us, lest we are making the awful question on which our eternal bappiness or misery depends—that deep, internal question, which is between the dying sinner and his God, of which angels perhaps wait the decision in suspensive silence—is there no danger lest we are making it the mere winding-up of every ştory, sure to end well, however it begins?

And if it cannot be as our fears have whispered, that by the habitual perusal of these scenes, our children may learn to find them as amusing, and as affecting, and as little alarming to themselves as any other tragick story, is there no danger that we shall teach them to presume on a similar opportunity of demonstrating their own piety, and making their peace with a neglected God?

There is no delusion on earth so false and so fatal as the idea, that the bed of sickness and death is the place for manifesting our faith and settling our eternal interests. Thank God, it is the place where the too little trusted Saviour proves himself faithful to the weakest of his people—where the benighted pilgrim sees the bright openings of eternal day-where the weary and heart-broken lay down their burden—it is most awfully the place where the careless sinner parts from the delusion that persuaded him he was righteous. But they who know most of these scenes, know best how seldom it is that there is any fitness in that hour to attend to concerns so important. The confusion of the severed brain, the distracting influence of pain, the application of remedies, the bustling watchfulness of doctors, friends, nurses, all conspiring to banish reflection, and forbid the retirement of the mind into itself, the danger, sometimes real and some