the jarring cares of state with Judah's harp, attuned alternately to joy or sadness. We have a long list of names, high in the Church and the state, celebrated for their religious, literary, and temporal labors. Among these may be cited Dr. Young, the Wesleys, Bishop Heber; they were Christian philosophers, poets, and working men. Among statesmen and politicians there is Mr. Canning, the late premier of England, Martines de la Rosas, minister of Spain, both poets of enviable celebrity; Chateaubriand, the minister of Charles X., still living, who stands high on record as philosopher, traveller, biographer, historian, ambassador, statesman, and poet.

I am not one of those who would deny the flights of the imagination when properly directed; and for this reason, their tendency is upward. There is already too much of earthliness in our nature. Whatever unlooses the soul, though but in part, from this tenacious clod, lends it a pinion more to soar away and mingle with the blaze of day.

I have commenced paraphrasing where the poem properly commences, at the third chapter, wherein Job curses the day of his birth, and regrets that he ever saw the light; describes the empire of death, and its inhabitants; regrets that he is appointed to live in the midst of sorrows, for the calamities that he feared had overtaken him.

LET the day perish wherein I was born!

From the days of the year be it blotted and torn ;

Shine not upon it, O God! with thy light,

Rest fearfully on it the death stain and blight;
Unrescued, a prey to blackness and gloom,
Be terror its meed, and darkness its doom!
And, as for that day, be it stricken with fear
No glimmer of light o'er its darkness appear;
Disjoin'd from the days, a curse-stricken thing,
Let no cheerful note o'er its solitude ring;
For it cut me not off in my mother's womb,
But gave me alive to a world of gloom.
Ah! would that my spirit had burst away
The moment it woke in its barrier of clay!

Ah! would that the knees, which refused me to die,
Had fail'd, and the breasts withheld their supply!
For now had I lain composed, unopprest,

In slumber serene, in unbroken rest,

With earth's counsellors wise, the mighty of old—
The strong arm, the valiant, the amasser of gold!
Or else, would to God, as untimely birth

I had dropp'd from the womb, but to moulder in earth!
There on that silent, oblivious shore,

Grades, classes, complexions are thought of no more;
There the wicked for ever have ceased to revile,
And the weary and worn their sorrows beguile !
The poor, the opprest, the slave, with toil spent,
Have forgotten to weep-have ceased to lament!
The high and the low, the small and the great,
Lie blended together in one common fate.

Ah! why dispense the fair light of heaven
To him, whose soul with anguish is riven;
Who long for their death, who covet the grave,
And welcome the signal of its shadowy wave;
Who bend o'er the tomb, with hope-lighted eye,
And ardently ask to sicken and die!

Ah! why am I mock'd with Heaven's blest light;
My way is hedged up, bewilder'd my sight.
With fast falling tears I have moisten'd my food-
My groans are unstay'd, as the swift-rushing flood.
The woes that my soul dreaded even in thought
Are suddenly made my portion and lot;
My bosom was far from anxiety free:
But this is the climax of misery!

CHAPTER XXIX.

Job Haments his present condition, and gives an affecting account of his former prosperity, having property in abundance, and being surrounded by a numerous family, and enjoying every mark of the approbation of God; speaks of the respect he received from the young, from the nobles; details his conduct as magistrate and judge in supporting the poor and repressing the wicked, his confidence, general prosperity, and respect.

O! that I were as in days that are past,

When the Eternal arms around me were cast

When the light of His candle shone bright on my head,
And by its blest beam through the darkness I sped!
O! that the days of my youth would return,
Ere the secret of God from my bosom was torn,
When my Father in heaven was with me to bless,
And my children around to share my caress—
When I wash'd my steps in the butter-milk stream,
And rivers of oil from the flinty rock came.
When I walk'd forth to the citadel gate,
Or my seat prepared in the populous street,
The young men hid away when they saw my face,
And the aged rose up to honor and bless ;

The princes were silent, the nobles refrain'd,
While their hands on their lips in deference remain'd.
Honor and gratitude greeted my ways;

The ear heard but to bless, the eye saw but to praise ;
For I minded the cry of the wretched and lone,
And the fatherless' wrongs I made my own;

Who were ready to perish I snatch'd from the grave,
And her joy to the heart of the widow I gave.
Righteousness cloth'd me, judgment array'd;
Or like a bright diadem, circled my head.
I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame,
And boldly I plead the poor man's claim :
But the spoiler I crush'd my feet beneath,
And pluck'd the spoil from between his teeth.
Then I said in my nest I shall flourish and die,
When my days, as the sand of the sea, multiply:

For by the fresh waters my root was spread,
And the dews of heaven my branches fed.
My glory declined not, but flourish'd apace,
And my bow was renew'd in vigor and grace.
When I spake none utter'd their counsel again,
For my words dropp'd down as the latter rain ;
And men were bound, as if by a spell,
For never the light of my countenance
I chose out their way, and sat as a chief
While the suppliant sought and obtained relief.

CHAPTER XXX.

fell.

Job proceeds to lament the change of his former condition, and the contempt into which his adversity had brought him; pathetically describes the afflictions of his body and mind.

But now they, that are younger

Deride me with scorn, and mock at my tears,
Whose fathers I would have disdain'd to set
With the dogs of the flock, that ate of my meat.
Perish'd in vigor, and weak through infirmity,
Could the strength of their hands have profited me?
Want and famine had made them their own;
In the desolate wilderness was their home.
'Neath the nettle and bramble for shelter they stood,
And the juniper roots were their meagre food.
They were scouted from men, and driven to dwell
In the caves of the earth and the clefts of the hill;
Children were they of fools, base born and bred,
More vile than the earth-more rank than the dead.
And now I am their song, by-word, and reproach!
They spare not their taunts, and are swift to encroach.
With scornful abhorrence they turn from my sight,
Or stay but to heap new insult and spite;
For He hath loosed my cord, made bitter my
Therefore, unbridled, they cease not to rail.
The youth rise against me; they mar my path,
As the out-break of waters that rush in their wrath!
Dismay on me they roll, with anguish I start,
Then languishing sink, as the poor stricken hart.
Swift, as the wind, fresh terrors pursue

Till my vigor is gone, like the morning dew.

wail;

. At the night-watch my bones are pierced with pain,
And the sinews no respite from anguish obtain.
Debased and degraded He treadeth me down,
And I perish beneath His withering frown.
Stay thy arm! I cry, in my fierce agony;
The wail of my grief riseth up to the sky.
Thou regardest me not; thou art cruel become ;
Thy strong hand oppresseth me, feeble and lone :
Thou liftest me up on the driving air,
And I ride the wind till dissolved with fear,

For I know that to death thou wilt bring me soon
To the house appointed, the living's long home.
But not to the grave will thy hand extend,
For there my sorrows will have an end.
Ah! wept I not for the poor man's fate,
And grieved was my soul for the desolate ;
But, alas! when I look'd for good, there came
To my grief-struck bosom evil and shame!
I was ready to greet the look'd for light;
And lo! I am plung'd in a darker night!
My bowels boil in me; my bosom is reft;
What solace upholds me-what refuge is left!
With a voice of wo, in the assembly, I cried,
I am a brother to dragons, and with owls abide.
The force of disease hath blacken'd my skin;
A fire is raging my bones within.

As the voice of the weeper, my lute breathes out;
And my harp is struck with a mournful note.

THE COLONIZATION CAUSE.

WE give below the first annual Report of the Young Men's Colonization Society of Pennsylvania, together with extracts from the speeches of some Christian gentlemen who addressed the meeting at the first anniversary. This cause has recently received a new impulse; and it will be found, we humbly trust, a safe rallying point for all the friends of African melioration and salvation.

The first annual Report of the Young Men's Colonization Society of Penn. The God who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' hath never left the afflicted people of color in this country without warm and zealous friends.

The principles of that man of peace and mercy, William Penn, remained in active exercise among his benevolent followers; and at a very early date we find in Pennsylvania societies for the emancipation of slaves and the relief of free blacks. Immediately after the successful issue of the war of independence, the attention of the freemen of the United States was turned to the evil of slavery, and the unjust oppression of the colored race, in those states where there were few or no distinctions of color recognized by their laws, and all enjoyed the right of freedom. In other states, where the blacks were more numerous, and, of consequence, the difficulties in the way of their relief greater, the friends of humanity were not idle. Dr. Franklin was at the head of an anti-slavery society, in 1787, and similar associations were formed in several other portions of the confederacy. The political sagacity of Mr. Jefferson discovered very early the inconsistency of involuntary servitude with free institutions, and earnestly, but unsuccessfully endeavored to commence its eradication from Virginia.

Notwithstanding, however, the zeal and number of these direct efforts against slavery, and in favor of the colored people, but little was accomplished. The evils which the patriot and the philanthropist deplored continued rapidly to increase. It is true, that in several states a system of gradual emancipation was successfully pursued. Many were delivered from illegal bondage, and more received the benefits of education. Yet mercy sighed for some method of relief. more promising and immediate. The intelligent friend of the negro could not but perceive the difficulties, natural, moral, and political, in the way of securing to him all the good which he needed. He knew that the south, excited as well by fear of the physical force of her slave population, as her supposed sense of interest from her peculiar agriculture, must regard with jealousy every attempt

to interfere with her domestic relations. He also knew that the free states could not interfere directly in the matter without a violation of the constitution, nor would they consent to jeopard the integrity of the union and the national safety by the agitation of this exciting topic on the floor of Congress. He was also aware of the jealousy which must ever exist (until perfect holiness subdues all prejudice) between two races, markedly distinct, yet inhabiting the same country; and the contempt with which the descendants of slaves are ever regarded by the offspring of the free. He could also foresee the difficulty of elevating the character-the character of the blacks themselves-while depressed by this load of contumely, and surrounded by all the associations of their former bondage. No sufficient plan for obviating all these difficulties was proposed to the American public until the year 1817, when the American Colonization Society was instituted at Washington.

The idea of colonizing the people of color in the land of their fathers was indeed of a much earlier date. To Mr. Jefferson is, probably, due the honor of the discovery; for so early as the year 1777 he proposed a plan providing, in his own emphatic language, "for the restoration to Africa of her stolen children." In 1787 the British colony at Sierra Leone was established, through the influence of Sharp, Clarkson, and Wilberforce; and excited the attention of several reflecting minds in this country, among whom were Dr. Thornton of Washington, and the Rev. Dr. Hopkins of Rhode Island. Indeed before the year 1800, Paul Cuffee, a negro of great talent, proposed colonization; and subsequently carried out a number of emigrants, at his own expense, but was prevented only by death from seeking, with a large number of his oppressed fellows, a home in Africa. The establishment, however, of the national society first gave to the plan substance and life. It has often been remarked, that when the God of providence intends to employ human instrumentality in some new display of benevolence, he inspires several minds, perhaps widely distant, with the same purpose. This was eminently true of the rise of this enterprise. The Rev. Dr. Finley of NewJersey, and Elias B. Caldwell, Esq., originally of the same state, had long been revolving in their minds the duty of imitating the God of Israel, in sending forth the oppressed Africans from the land of their bondage to the land God gave to their fathers, and of recompensing that bleeding continent for her wrongs, by the healing influence of the Gospel of peace. These views were communicated to several gentlemen, among whom were the Hon. Elias Boudinot and Gov. Bloomfield, who had discovered by painful experience the inefficiency of mere anti-slavery efforts, in which they have long been engaged, and who heartily coincided in the merciful expediency of the measure. About the same time a distinguished son of Virginia, Hon. C. F. Mercer, whose living merit needs no panegyric, revived the idea of Mr. Jefferson before alluded to, and had already consulted with several benevolent and approving friends. Through the united efforts of these philanthropic individuals the society was formed, having for its distinct purpose" the colonization of the free people of color, residing in this country, in Africa or elsewhere, with their own consent."

In the succeeding year the work was commenced, and, amid innumerable difficulties, has given to the history of the world the most successful instance of colonization upon record. In less than thirteen years, since its foundation, Liberia contains about three thousand free and happy citizens, who have removed from oppression and bondage to the enjoyment of liberal institutions. The slave trade has been utterly destroyed along its entire coast, formerly the most frequented market of human flesh; and missionaries of every leading religious denomination of this country have made it their avenue to the blessed work of evangelizing Africa.

It is not wonderful that many errors and faults have been committed in the prosecution of an enterprise so stupendous and novel, upon a foreign and very distant shore, by an association of individuals. Perfect wisdom and foresight belong not to man. Neither is it remarkable that change of climate, or the circumstances of a new settlement, should produce much disease and death.

Nor should we be surprised that a people so long humbled and degraded, as the colored people of this country, should, many of them, prefer inglorious ease and indolence to the self.denial and courageous adventure of emigration, in search of hardy independence. The long enslaved Israelites preferred to die in Egypt rather than encounter the fatigues and perils of pilgrimage to the land of Canaan. It is evident, however, that increased vigilance is necessary on the outpost as