eyes, but his heart and his life, so he may only devote to his beloved as much happiness as he receives. Canst thou forget that affection, in which one heart stands for millions, and the soul for a whole lifetime is nourished and animated by one soul, as the century-oak clings with its roots to the self-same spot, and for a hundred springs in succession draws from it new vigor and bloom." "Dost thou mean me too?" said the father. "Yes, and I think also of my mother," said the son. Justa melted into tears, for she seemed to hear her beloved cheering his own last hours with their days of love; and the father said softly, thinking of his spouse," to meet again! to meet again!" "Think then upon this in the last hours," continued Gottrich-" of the youthful times when life was fair and greatwhen thou didst weep for joy in the spring-when thou wast exalted in prayer, and when God appeared to thee-when thou didst find the first and last heart of love-think of this and cheerfully close thine eyes." Suddenly the storm split upon the dark, high mountains, and from between, as from a valley from between walls of rock, the deep sun once more looked kindly upon the earth, with a joyful, sparkling, motherly eye. Then said the dying man, "See what lightnings!" "It is only the setting sun, my father!" "Yes, I see her again,-I see her still," continued the father; but he was thinking of his long buried wife. And now the son was not able for his emotions, to pourtray to his father the blessedness of earthly re-union, which he had this very day felt and written down on the road-nor to tell him how re-union renews love on a higher scale, nor how, while the first sight only stretched away to some future period, the second binds in one wreath the fruits of the past with the blossoms of the future. But how could he have showed the charms of an earthly re-union to a dying man who already began to gaze into the glories of a heavenly! At length he asked in a tone of alarm: "Father, how is it with thee?" "I think upon this in the dark hour,-yea, upon this and upon this; and it is sweet too to die and to depart in Christ," murmured the old man to himself, and grasped Gottrich's hand, but without pressing it, for it was only the usual random grasp of dying persons. He fancied he heard his son still speaking, and said with more and more clear and extatic voice: "Oh thou, my all-gracious God!". For the mock scenes of life were all quenched to his eyes, and only the Sun stood before his soul-God. All at once he raised himself up, and spread out his arms energetically, and cried-" Yonder stand the three beautiful rainbows over the setting sun: I must follow the sun, and go whithersoever he goeth." Then he sank back, and it was all over with him. He was gone hence. And now the sun went down, and while sinking, still glimmered in a broad eastern rainbow. "He is indeed gone," said Gottrich with choking voice to Justa-"gone all in the midst of great, holy joys, from us to his God: weep not then too sorely, Justa!" But now his own tears, hitherto pent up, broke forth in torrents, and he pressed the hands of the deceased to his burning eyes. It was dark, and a warm rain pattered softly down on the dusky earth. The two lovers left the silent form, and wept still more softly as they followed with the soul's eye after their sun, the father, who from the tempestuous clouds of life had gone with benignant splendor to another morning. W. S. THE AIMS OF MAN. RICHTER. "WHEN this is once done and that gained, and every thing has succeeded according to my wishes, I shall reach my heaven, and rest at length," says man, and he enters a haven indeed, which, as seamen sometimes do, he has hewn out for himself in an ice-island; and there he abides till the haven either melts down or floats away. OLD MEN. They are long shadows, indeed, and their evening-sun lies cold upon the earth; but they all point toward morning. THE CHILD WITH A CRUTCH. Gaily the child hops round on his crutch; while the old man creeps about painfully on his. What distinguishes the two children? Hope and memory. On seeing some poor children gleaning. Behold blossoms which already bear fruit! HEAVEN. THE earth is beautiful, with its waving woods, its fields of green, enameled with purple and gold, its sublime hills, its dancing streams, its ever-sounding ocean; and the eye delights and expands the soul with the messages of love and truth it gathers thence. But the joy of earth is active, mild, stirring, an image of the life and ever-moving face of the earth. It is a joy that invites to action-that animates to move and do, and take part in the universal stir and motion of life. But the clear, blue, motionless vault of Heaven, with its serene, cold moonlight, and its silent stars, excites a calm, a holy, a sublime joy, that separates and raises from earth, and exalts us to communion with the High and Holy One, whom the mind of the devout man in every age, as it lifted itself up to the motionless and calm sublimity of the sky, has seen enthroned there. Specially when day has set, and earth's bright reflection of sunlight has become dimmed and gray, and its glare has passed away, and its motion and tumult ceased, and we are called to leave the labors of the day, does the Heaven become beautiful and useful to us. During the brightness and the bustle of the day, the Heaven in its stillness is unregarded. The earth calls us to its labors. But when these labors are over, the earth becomes darkened, silent, hushed in repose. Then the Heaven begins to glow with its pure, calm light-with its stars, soft and bright like angels' eyes; and our gaze is attracted from the dusky earth, and the daily cares and tumult of her children, to the soft light, the silence and sublimity of Heaven; and our joy is calm, serene and silent, like the vault above. By night the Heaven seems nearer to us than by day. Then it bends down over us, and speaks to our souls with a voiceless melody; and the rays of the moonlight touch the heart-strings, like the fingers of the Omnipresent One, thrilling our whole frame, and waking solemn music in our souls. Then the voice of man is stilled; even the winds are hushed at sunset, or before the midnight comes; and no voice is heard but that of the Universal Spirit, whispering to our souls. Therefore Jesus, and good men in all times, have retired to the desert, from the turmoil of the world, and have "spent the night in prayer,"-in spiritual communion with the Divine; therefore have they departed in the day from the bustle of earth, and ascended the mountains, to approach nearer the silence and sublimity of the Heavens. This purity, this calmness, this sublimity, this si lence, that allows the still small voice of God to speak and be heard by the soul, and which we feel to be the character of the Heaven-the sky-the ether; and its teaching to us also receives the name of Heaven. Various simple nations have made the sublimity of the mountains, that lift up their heads to the Heavens, the place of their worship. The Indian points to the lofty summit as the altar and temple of his Manitou, (Mannitto); and the Grecian placed his gods on the ethereal top of mount Olympus. The very word "ouranus," which signifies not only the sky, but also God, the Sublime, the Invisible, an exalted condition, seems to me to be most properly derived from "oros," a mountain, an exalted place. "Cælum," the Latin word for sky, and "celestis," (whence our celestial,) its adjective, are used also to denote supreme happiness, mental happiness, the divine, the true, the pure. "E Basileia tou ouranou," may be translated better, the kingdom of the invisible, of the spiritual, instead of "kingdom of Heaven." For Heaven, (in the material, the sky,) in the abstract, signifies all that is pure, calm, sublime and infinite in the soul. As Heaven arches above the earth, so does this high and pure state of the soul rise above worldly passion and earthly interests. As the glorious vault above glows the brighter to our eye when darkness shrouds the earth, so the Heaven within becomes more clearly discernible, as the noxious vapors of earthly life disappear, as worldly cares and passions die within us, and earthly attractions fade away. As the sublimity of the firmament most strikingly impresses itself upon our minds in the deepest silence, so Our God and there our Heaven we find.” These two significations of Heaven, the material and the abstract, are too often confounded. The sublime beauty of the material Heavens-in other words, of the sky, or air,with its glowing worlds, carrying the mind far into the infinity of space, as they roll in their distant and still more distant courses, while it excites in us those calm and holy feelings which make the spirit's heaven, seems to us a fit dwelling place for Deity. We are too apt to forget, when mingled with man and his present imperfections, that God is acting in and with this mysterious mankind, and regard him as existing only in those fields of azure purity above. We forget that he is everywhere, and that no place can be found in the infinity of space to which his peculiar presence is confined. He is not only present among those starry orbs that roll through the infinite ether, but on our own little planet does he manifest himself, in sunshine, in tree, in verdure, in laughing stream, soft air and rolling ocean, and most especially in the head and lord of earth-in man, made in his own image. To us indeed he is most particularly visible in our own souls. The human soul is his most glorious temple, and there is he more directly present to us. The more we know ourselves, and consequently know God and his creation, the more we shall find that "The mind is its own palace, And makes a heaven of hell-a hell of heaven." I would thus endeavor to discountenance the false notion of a material and future Heaven, distinct from that Heaven of peace, purity and love within the soul. Heaven knows no place nor time: it is everywhere-it is now, and exists in the real present salvation and God's presence in the soul. J. R. ONE EVENING. UHLAND. Now as though nought had happened-all is still; I knew not where to seek my heart's best friend- The evening sun blazed forth-I sought the shade, And all my joy, on high in azure realms, behold. |