Repentance may be slow to bring,
Comfort and healing on its wing;
The doubting sinner in despair,
Asks, trembling, in a hurried prayer,
If guilt like his, of foulest trace,
Can hope for pardon and for grace;
But when such doubts are swept away,
The still small voice of truth bears sway:
For Jesus died and rose again,

To free the world from guilt and pain;
Jesus, the only Son of God!

Like Moses, takes the gospel rod,

And strikes the barren rock within,
Harden'd by wickedness and sin;
Whence springs a living well, to free
The thirsty soul from misery.

He, like Elijah from his cave,

Came to the world with power to save;

And Israel, trusting to his aid,

Shall innocent and pure be made;

Redeem'd, shall reach the heavenly land,

Supported by his mighty hand.

THE ORPHANS.

'Twas a lovely Sabbath morning. The sun shone in glory, enlivening by his presence the holy day. William and Mary issued from their cottage to contemplate the beauties of nature. They were cousins and orphans. The old church bell began its sober peals to rouse each slumberer, and remind him of the earliest duties of the hallowed day. The meditative pair wandered slowly and silently towards the church, and entered A with faltering steps its sacred enclosure. country burial-place is to a town church

yard, as a lovely garden to a barren wild. In the latter, burials occur every day; there, they are few in comparison, and sorrowing friends revere and cherish the spot where rest the cold remains of those they loved. Behold those graves luxuriantly dressed and watered into verdure by the tears of sorrowing relatives; and that-Oh! 'tis an infant's couch; but the mother amidst her grief has not neglected to deck her baby's earthly home-the daisy and the cowslip-flowers which in life its tender hands had often pulled, seem richer there than in any other spot, as if in unison with the feelings and pursuits of the innocent sleeper below. "Look here Mary," said the youth to his no less pensive companion. "This is a sight which tells of more than usual grief, and pictures scenes of dire bereavements. Mary's tear-sparkling eyes were already directed to the well-known spot. That cluster of graves so much alike in dimensions-does it not tell of nature's decline, and the successive victims of relentless death? Alas! 'twas even so: too soon

or else too late had each succeeded to the narrow cell. For a while the mourners stood entranced in silent grief, with eyes directed to the affecting interesting spot, where rested all they once had reckoned dear on earth. William, in trembling accents, broke the solemn silence. "Ah! Mary, these (for we are selfish even in grief) these graves possess attractions above all those that surround us-there lie in death's cold embrace father and mother-uncle and aunt-all snatched away in one short year-borne away from earth and all its sorrows, to heaven and the joys of eternity! and we their only offspring are decreed to linger yet a while below. Behold these flowers which bloom above their graves. O, who would grieve to sleep within a home so peacefulbeneath so fair a sod, so beautiful, so fragrant? Alas! The paths of life are strewn with thorns, whereas in death's sure tract do blossom lovely flowers!""

And wouldst thou know the fate of these sorrowing orphans? Ask the sexton-inquire of the parish chronicles, they will in

form of those whose souls were alike unfitted for the pleasures as the pains of this world-of those who had sprung up like two delicate flowers-exotics amidst a different race, unknowing and unknown; who like tender plants from a warmer, fairer clime, had bent beneath the cold blasts of a foreign temperature, whose roots could not expand in a soil so rude, and who, agreeing with nought of earthly nourishment, nor earthly intercourse, faded away, and sought their own dear home. Like lone twin stars, they shone in nature's hemisphere-translated now to the light and the joys of Eternal Heaven!

CLARENS.