"I was about to depart.Pause,' said my friend; other solemnities will presently be celebrated; and, here, a tender mother came forward, her smiling baby clasped to her bosom. Now she held it up with proud maternal fondness, that it should receive a name, by which henceforth it should be known among the children of men, and be dedicated at once to the service of God and of its kind. Wouldst have it bear thy name,' said Anselmo; it is a mark of respect which we are wont to pay strangers?' I started, murmured, but ere I could well reply, words had been exchanged, and the venerable pastor had pronounced the name-Edward, which the innocent was thenceforth to bear. 'O, stranger,' he said, 'bless this thy namesake, in thy secret heart; pray that he may be wise and good, and happily realize the desirable ends of life.' The young mother looked wistfully at me; my lips moved in prayer; in my inmost soul, I intreated that the infant might prove all which those who dearly loved it, could desire. They retired. Again, a throng, silent and slow, moved forward. On a bier, borne on mens' decent shoulders, lay an aged man. He had died in peace, and in the fulness of his time. 'Behold,' said the speaker, 'a brother who has disappeared from among us, and whom we shall all rejoin again. As son, brother, husband, man, he has well performed his part. His body returns to the elements whence it came; but his soul goes to the God who gave it, by whom it shall receive another mission, and be enjoined another career. O, like him may we die when our work is done-like him may we part, with the calm and happy consciousness that we have performed our task; and that we are prepared with calmness and submission to undertake whatever the master of life may further require." "I departed from the sacred edifice, and joined a multitude of persons taking their recreation in the open air. Here were young children, infants almost, sportingon the gree turf, or amid the flowers; aged men and women, decrepit, but cheerful; adults, matrons in the vigour of their prime; young men, earnest, vehement, and bashful maidens. They held sweet converse each with each; amenity, courtesy, intelligence, and urbanity, marked all that was said and done. The matrons communed with dignified sweetness and self-possession; the men with noble frankness; the youths with the deferential mean they owed their elders and superiors; the maidens timidly and retiringly, with eyes that spoke more than words might tell. O, for the looks of affection, devotion, love, which each and all displayedO, for the majestic, graceful bearing, and the utter absence of vaunting pride, which marked these.noble specimens of the sons and daughters of men. There was something so winning, so candid, so ingenuous, so friendly, in all they said and did, as to be impossible to describeno, I shall never forget it to my dying day! Now delicious melodies rang through my ears, sweet odours regaled my nostrils-gales from paradise were wafted towards me: I was in ecstacy. All at once, the faces became indistinct, the sweet voices inaudible: my eyes slowly opened; my head was resting on my hands, and the orient sun now risen gilded with his rays the place where I sat." CHAPTER XVII. TROUBLES. "Blicke nicht an Boden haften, Frisch gewegt und frisch hinaus! THE perusal of these relics, if I might so term them, of Perkins, filled me with varied emotions. They further suggested ideas of no common place or every-day order; and without perhaps, coinciding with all his sentiments, there was much that was high-minded, original, |