scorned and deserted wife should confess, "there is no killing like that which kills the heart"? that though it would have been hard to kiss for the last time the cold lips of a dead husband, and lay his body for ever in the dust, it is harder still to behold him so debasing life that even death would be greeted in mercy?

Had he died in the light of his goodness, bequeathing to his family the inheritance of an untarnished name and the example of virtues that should blossom for his sons and daughters from the tomb, though she would have wept bitterly indeed, the tears of grief would not have been also the tears of shame. She beholds him, fallen from the station he once adorned, degraded from eminence to ignominy; at home turning his dwelling to darkness and its holy endearments to mockery; abroad, thrust from the companionship of the worthy, a self-branded outlaw.

THE RUINED FAMILY.-IRVING.

THE depopulating pestilence that walketh at noonday-the carnage of cruel and devastating war-can scarcely exhibit their victims in a more terrible array than exterminating drunk

enness.

I have seen a promising family spring up from the parent trunk, and stretch abroad its populous limbs like a flowering tree covered with green and healthy foliage. I have seen the unnatural decay beginning upon the yet tender leaf, gnawing like a worm in an unopened bud, while they dropped off, one by one, and the ruined shaft stood alone until the winds and rains of many a sorrow laid that too in the dust. On one of those holy days, when the patriarch, rich in virtue as in years, gathered about him the great and the little ones of his flock, his sons and his daughters, I too sat at the board, I pledged therein hospitable health, and expatiated with delight upon the eventful future, while the good old man, warmed in the genial glow of youthful enthusiasm, wiped a tear from his eye. He

was happy. I met them again when the rolling year brought the festive season round. But all were not there. The kind old man sighed as his suffused eye dwelt on the then unoccupied seat, but joy yet came to his relief, and he is happy. A parent's love knows no diminution-time, distance, poverty, shame, but give intensity and strength to that passion before which all others dissolve and melt away. The board was spread, but the guests came not. The man cried, "Where are my children?" and echo answered, "Where?" His heart broke, for they were Could not Heaven have spared him this affliction? Alas! the demon of drunkenness had been there. They had fallen victims to his spell; and one short month sufficed to cast the veil of oblivion over the old man's sorrow and the young one's shame. They are all dead.

not.

INTEMPERANCE.-LORD CHESTERfield.

LUXURY, my lords, is to be taxed, but vice prohibited, let the difficulty in the law be what it will. Vice is not properly to be taxed, but suppressed. The use of things which are simply hurtful in their own nature, and in every degree, is to be prohibited. None, my lords, ever heard, in any nation, of a tax upon theft or adultery, because a tax implies a license granted for the use of that which is taxed to all who are willing to pay for it. Drunkenness is universally, and in all circumstances, an evil, and therefore ought not to be taxed, but punished. We are told that the trade of distilling is very extensive-that it employs great numbers--that a large capital is invested in it— and therefore it is not to be prohibited. But it appears to me, that since the spirit which distillers produce is allowed to enfeeble the limbs, vitiate the blood, pervert the heart, and obscure the intellect, that the number of distillers should be no argument in their favor; for I never heard that a law against theft was repealed or delayed because thieves were numerous. appears to me, that if so formidable a body are confederated against the virtue and the lives of their fellow-citizens, it is

It

time to put an end to the havoc, and to interpose, while it is yet in our power, to stop the destruction. It is said distillers have

arrived at exquisite skill in their business. But, in my judgment, it is no great use to mankind to prepare for them palatable poison; nor shall I ever contribute my interest for the reprieve of a murderer, because he has, by long practice, obtained great dexterity in his trade. If their liquors are so delicious that the people are tempted to their own destruction, let us at length, my lords, secure them from their fatal draught, by bursting the vials that contain them. Let us crush at once these artists in human slaughter, who have reconciled their countrymen to sickness and ruin, and spread over the pitfalls of debauchery such bait as cannot be resisted. I am very far from thinking that there are, this year, any peculiar reasons for tolerating murder; nor can I conceive why this manufacture is to be held sacred now, if it is to be destroyed hereafter.

THE HEAVENS PROCLAIM THE DEITY.-O. M. MITCHEL.

WOULD you gather some idea of the eternity past of God's existence, go to the astronomer, and bid him lead you with him in one of his walks through space; and, as he sweeps outward from object to object, from universe to universe, remember that the light from those filmy stains on the deep pure blue of heaven, now falling on your eye, has been traversing space for a million of years. Would you gather some knowledge of the omnipotence of God, weigh the earth on which we dwell, then count the millions of its inhabitants that have come and gone for the last six thousand years. Unite their strength into one arm, and test its power in an effort to move this earth. It could not stir it a single foot in a thousand years; and yet under the omnipotent hand of God, not a minute passes that it does not fly for more than a thousand miles. But this is a mere atom;-the most insignificant point among His innumerable worlds. At His bidding, every planet, and satellite, and comet, and the sun himself, fly onward in their appointed courses. His single arm

guides the millions of sweeping suns, and around His throne circles the great constellation of unnumbered universes.

Would you comprehend the idea of the omniscience of God, remember that the highest pinnacle of knowledge reached by the whole human race, by the combined efforts of its brightest intellects, has enabled the astronomer to compute approximately the perturbations of the planetary worlds. He has predicted roughly the return of half a score of comets. But God has computed the mutual perturbations of millions of suns, and planets, and comets, and worlds, without number, through the ages that are passed, and throughout the ages which are yet to come, not approximately, but with perfect and absolute precision. The universe is in motion,-system rising above system, cluster above cluster, nebula above nebula,—all majestically sweeping around under the providence of God, who alone knows the end from the beginning, and before whose glory and power all intelligent beings, whether in heaven or on earth, should bow with humility and awe.

Would you gain some idea of the wisdom of God, look to the admirable adjustments of the magnificent retinue of planets and satellites which sweep around the sun. Every globe has been weighed and poised, every orbit has been measured and bent to its beautiful form. All is changing, but the laws fixed by the wisdom of God, though they permit the rocking to and fro of the system, never introduce disorder, or lead to destruction. All is perfect and harmonious, and the music of the spheres that burn and roll around our sun is echoed by that of ten millions of moving worlds, that sing and shine around the ight suns that reign above.

ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.-CICERO.

How far, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long shalt thou baffle justice in thy mad career? To what extreme wilt thou carry thy audacity? Art thou nothing daunted by the nightly watch posted to secure the Palatium?

Nothing, by the city guards? Nothing, by the rally of all good citizens? Nothing, by the assembling of the Senate in this fortified place? Nothing, by the averted looks of all here present? Seest thou not that all thy plots are exposed?-that thy wretched conspiracy is laid bare to every man's knowledge here in the Senate?-that we are well aware of thy proceedings of last night; of the night before;-the place of meeting, the company convoked, the measures concerted? Alas, the times! Alas, the public morals! The Senate understands all this. The consul sees it. Yet the traitor lives! Lives? Ay, truly, and confronts us here in council-takes part in our deliberations— and, with his measuring eye, marks out each man of us for slaughter! And we, all this while, strenuous that we are, think we have amply discharged our duty to the state, if we but shun this madman's sword and fury!

Long since, O Catiline, ought the consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless because forbearing. We have a decree-though it rests among our archives like a sword in its scabbard―a decree by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think it done rather too late than any man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow long since deserved Then will I doom thee, when no man is found so lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live! But thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized by the vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the republic without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason—the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most