flavor of the new mown hay, would then become aggrieved by the most exquisite aroma. Let us appreciate also the constancy in the plans of Omniscience. Astronomy finds, in the celestial sphere, everduring ordinations, and agriculture sees reflected back on earth the same immutable legislation. And experience, without this invariableness in God's purposes, whence would it have derived its birth, and how have deduced its now made out analogies, whither traced up its at present demonstrable conclusions? Who knows not that spring, at her stated period, will bring her offspring of blossoms? Who does not confidently anticipate that the coming summer will bear on her wing the luxuriant fruitage of the last, and autumn in her predestined day, yield her mellow tribute. Yes, thanks to the Omnipotent! his intentions are unalterable. He has made a covenant of mercy and placed his rainbow in the sky as its unfailing token. It is the pictorial attestation that this great league stands inviolably. Who can behold that prismatic arch, and fear that a second deluge will ever overwhelm this comely planet, and convert into one vast solitude, a peopled world! But man is sometimes insensible, and will not heed—ungrateful, and will not remember, the warning voice of God wafted on the breeze, and His handwriting luminous in the sunbeam. Then a sterner manifestation may be needed to rouse the ungrateful, and He makes His ordination heard dreadfully in the thunder, and seen glaringly in the lightning, and revealed in the howling of the wind and the awful heaving of the waters! Yet if, amid such recurrences, a sense of danger steals over the mind, though a sad memento-it is furnished, as the emblematic coffin at the Egyptian banquets, in providential kindness, teaching a salutary lesson of dependence and protection. THE WIZARD OF THE CATHEDRAL. BY GEORGE W. CHRISTY, ESQ. WHEN the Vesper bell doth toll, And the dim old arches ring, As the full voiced choir do sing, Up and down, as in a spell, Treads that ancient sentinel, Day and night, and night and day, Ever seemeth he a prey, To black despair. Wan in feature, bent in form, Through the sunshine, through the storm, Round that ancient building going, Upward glances often throwing, Never weary, in a spell, Treads that aged sentinel. People say that he is crazed: Where he lives, and what his name, Where he goes, and whence he came. Whence he came, or whither goes, Dreaming ever in his mind, Lost to him long years before, Of his joys, will come again, Wan in feature, bent in form, Through the sunshine and the storm, For that treasure, Looks he here, and looks he there, Round the building everywhere; That the measure Of his joys, may come again, To relieve his fevered brain. Sentinel, thy vigils keep, |