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winter. And, as to flowers, words cannot express their loveliness. But the wide earth is covered with them; the air is loaded with their fragrance. At every step, you trample on some wonder of elaborate workmanship and beauty. Fruits too, at least most of them, must be set down among the beautiful. Here are ruby cherries, golden pears, fair-cheeked apples, purple grapes which are not only good to cat, but pleasant to look upon.

the useful and precious metals, but also beau-faithfully against frosts, and storms, and tiful gems. Those most useful often appear diffusing a smile over the cold face of in pleasing forms and combinations. Here are the diamond, sapphire, emerald, topaz, ruby, and other precious stones, which, under the hand of the lapidary, reveal the most exquisite tints and shades of color. What wonder that wealth and beauty, and the pride of kingdoms, have, in all ages come to this kingdom of nature for their ornaments! Surely utility had little need of these minerals in laying the foundations of the earth. Caverns would have afforded the wild beasts and reptiles just as safe and convenient lurkingplaces, though they had not been paved and arched over with gems.

There is beauty also in the elements of fire and water. In fire, glowing in our evening lamps, cracking on our hearth-stones, throwing far its beams, by night from many a casement on hill-side and plain, illuminating the streets of cities, flashing on the headlands of rocky coasts, and shining from the sun and stars. In water, when the dew scatters diamonds on grass, shrub, and tree; when the mist spreads along the valley, or rolls up the mountain side, and when the departing shower garlands its locks with rainbows; beauty, too, when it ripples on the sea-shore, when the ocean is burnished with gold by day, and silver by night, and when its waves are gemmed with phosphorescent fires; beauty in lakes, rivers, creeks, and musical brooks in the silvery spray of fountains, and in the silent springs, reflecting the overhanging woods. The revolving seasons have many pleasing aspects. Spring scatters the heptica and an

In the vegetable kingdom, there is beauty in the seed cast into the earth; and in the plant shooting up into the sunlight, in its opening leaves, with their various forms and hues; in the outspreading branches, stems, tendrils; in the forming bud, the expanding flower, and the ripening fruit. Notice the shape and structure of trees. Yonder elm, for example. It is not set in the ground like a post, but springs from it like a thing of life. Its massive trunk, braced up with buttresses rises on high, then spreads out in tapering branches on every side, supporting a leafy dome whose majesty and grace charm every beholder. Analyze the tree more minutely. Examine its bark, twigs, leaves; cut into its very heart wood, and beauty haunts you still. How wide the diversity between the pendu- emone on the hillside, tinges the meadow lous willow and the stately dense maple, the with green, breathes on tree and shrub, and gnarled oak, the columnar popular, and the bids them revive, and awakes the song of heaven-kissing pine. Observe the variety in birds. Summer fills the air with fragrance the form, size, and color of leaves, both of and music, robes the forest in deep, rich folitrees and plants. There is a vast range be- age, supplies man with fair and invigorating tween those of the palm-tree and the Victoria fruits, and decks his fields with the tokens of a regia, down to the leaflets of the mosses.coming harvest. She brings us cool and dewy Even in midsummer, there are purple and mornings, long twilights, evening airs, resoblue, gray and yellow, striped and veined, nant with the chirp of insects, the peal of dissplashed and spotted, and various other color-tant bells, and the murmur of leaves and ed leaves, with every conceivable shade of streams. She brings that green. And then, what changes are wrought in their color between the first pale hues of spring and the crimson and gold of autumn! And after the varied glory of summer has passed by, and the pomp of autumn is blasted it is not the least pleasant sight of the year to observe the evergreen trees, holding out

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strange, superfluous glory of the air," which poetry feels, though chemistry cannot discover it; brings skies of tropical richness and splendor, clouds and refreshing rain. Autumn comes laden with ruddy fruit and golden grain; she decks the hills with variegated banners, and over all casts a thin, azure haze,

suppose that God made the world beautiful, because in giving visible expression to the thoughts of his own perfect mind, he could not embody them otherwise than in forms of beauty.

softening the rugged outlines of the landscape, suffusing every object with a dreamy spell which laps the beholder in an Elysium of delight. And last in the train comes winter, spreading his white mantle over the earth, hanging crystal pendants on tree and shrub, Moreover, the earth so made contributes to purifying the atmosphere, giving the sky a the Divine happiness. Tell us not that the deeper blue, and the stars an intenser lustre, Almighty takes no pleasure in that on whose filling the northern air with Auroral corusca- adornment he has lavished so much care, and tions, and compelling the oldest heart to ex- which his own lips have pronounced "very claim, "God hath made everything beauti-good." The earth was not made as it is soleful in its time!" ly for man's enjoyment; else, what mean the

But is the world, indeed, one wide, unva-thousand, thousand flowers which bloom and rying scene of beauty? There are exceptions, shed their fragrance amid untrodden forests certainly to this general fact. In the animal and on inaccessible mountains? What mean and vegetable kingdoms, there are imperfect the uncounted gems and precious stones which development, and deformities even. There are lie undiscovered on the bottom of the ocean thorns and poisons, as well as flowers and and in the bowels of the earth? Untold wonwholesome fruits. Barren deserts, vast marshes ders lay open to the Divine Eye before the inand rocky wastes abound, as well as fertile vention of the microscope, and doubtless still plains and blooming gardens. Tempests howl greater remain undiscovered, which no perfecthrough the sky, the lightning smites the tion of human instruments will ever enable earth, volcanoes and earthquakes rend its bo- men to behold. The Infinite Mind sees all som. Does not this mixed state of things these things at once, the vast and the minute, indicate that something has happened to the and finds happiness in them. earth since its creation? May it not be that the natural world sympathizes with its chief inhabitant and lord, bearing part of the woe which has fallen upon him?

"O earth! dost thou, too, sorrow for the past, Like man, thy offspring?

*

* Dost thou wail

For that fair age of which the poets tell,
Ere yet the winds grow keen with frosts, or fire
Fell with the rains, or spouted from the hills,
To blast thy greenness !"

No one will deny that the world, so made, promotes man's happiness. The brute creation cannot appreciate beauty, and hence their happiness was not taken into the account in this thing. An ox can detect poisonous herbs by their odors, but he never stops to admire a sunset; he has no passion for mignonnette. A dog will trample down the finest parterre, in search of a bone. Man alone, of all creatures on earth, is permitted to share with the Divine Being in the enjoyment of the beautiBut without pursuing this inquiry, it is ob- ful. And has not that Being dealt toward vious that the world is full of beauty; it sur-man, in this respect, with a Godlike benevorounds man with a continual presence, and ad- lence? He has made the earth a Paradisedresses his soul through every possible avenue? not a prison-house. He has made it not What, now, is the meaning of this beauty? simply endurable, but a place of delight. It is not here by accident. The machinery of These things being so, the beautiful in nathe universe might have been firmly construct-ture should receive attentive regard. Some ed, and its parts closely fitted and properly men affect indifference to every form of beaulubricated, without being adorned with trace-ty, and others associate a taste for such things ry and not with gems. Why then, did the with mental effeminacy. The fairest lily Creator superadd the ornamental to the useful? We answer-why should he have done otherwise? It is hardly conceivable that the Divine Intelligence should manifest itself spontaneously in the way of deformity and ugliness. On the contrary, it seems proper to

pleases them less than the blossom of a pumpkin vine, for it promises nothing really useful. The most charming river charms them only as it feeds canals, or drives machinery. The most stately tree excites only apprehensions of its injury to some growing crop, or suggests cal

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culations as to its worth in firewood and lumber. Let such men hear Channing's words: Suppose that I were to visit a cottage, and see its walls lined with the choicest pictures of Raphael, and every spare nook filled with statues of the most exquisite workmanship, and that neither man, woman, nor child ever cast an eye at those miracles of art, how should I feel their privation? how should I want to open their eyes, and to help them to comprehend and feel the loveliness and grandeur which in vain courted their notice! But every dweller in the country is living in sight of the works of a diviner Artist; and how much would his existence be elevated, could he see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hues, proportions, and moral expression?"

No one need fear that the beautiful in nature-say what he will of art-will prove a snare to him. Why should it not rather purify his thoughts and lift them upward, give them higher conceptions of God and of heaven? For, if God has so wonderfully adorned this distant and comparatively insignificant planet, what will He not do in the immediate presence of His throne.

The view we have now taken suggests an argument for rural improvement. If, as many suppose, man has brought in a measure of deformity upon the otherwise beautiful earth, let him seek to restore the earth to its primitive loveliness. He cannot, indeed, robe the entire globe in the beauty of Eden, but he can remove much of its ugliness, can fertilize much of its barrenness, and some small portion of This love of the beautiful should be care- its surface he can highly adorn. He can clear fully fostered. Too often is it repressed and away wild forests, root out the thorn and overshadowed by severely practical pursuits. thistle, and clothe even the most sterile soil Were it more assiduously cultivated we should with verdure. Whatever is already beautiful see less of that hard materialism and Epicu- he can preserve from desecration. He can reanism which now prevail; less of that per-erect comfortable and tasteful dwellings, and ilous haste to be rich; less of that vulgar am- so arrange them within and without, that their bition for display, and more real culture of occupants shall have daily familiarity with mind and simplicity of manners, more purity objects affording pleasure and promoting reand contentment. Happily the means for its finement. culture are confined to no class in society. Wealth and power may lock up many rare specimens of art from the common gaze, but they cannot monopolize the sunset, nor the thousand forms of beauty which fill the earth. It hardly need be added here, that it is right to enjoy the beautiful. Did not the Per-language of contentment and social culture. fect Man, as he trod the earth, delight to look upon its various, pleasing aspects! "Consider," said he, "the lilies of the field! * Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." Man might have lived a brute's life, subsisting upon roots and nuts, but God saw fit to endow him with a higher style of existence, and planned the world expressly to minister to his intellectual wants and tastes. Docs it, then, become man to turn away from things forbidden? They are a royal gift, and should be gratefully received. They are not a radical cure for the ills of life, but they are a most pleasing solace. They serve to refine and elevate the taste, to calm the passions, to soothe grief, and lighten heavy burdens.

Were the public taste more generally and highly cultivated, our hill-sides and valleys would present a spectacle of greater beauty than they now exhibit. The neat cottage, the farm-house, the mansion, each embowered in leafy beauty, would speak, in no mistaken

Broad avenues of trees, mile after mile, would refresh the highway traveller. Public parks, *and gardens, and cemeteries would be amply provided in the neighborhood of all our cities and villages. And, above all, each home would be surrounded with whatever could lend it ornament and grace, binding to it the heart of the child and the man of years, weaving about it precious memories, which no lapse of time nor turn of fortune could ever destroy.

PUBLIC opinion cannot do for virtue what it does for vice. It is the essence of virtue to look above opinion. Vice is consistent with, and very often strengthened by entire subserviency to it.-Channing.

For the Schoolmaster.

To the Teacher.

SOWER of Truth-Go forth,

And scatter wide thy seed;
The growing blade shall spring
And bear for future need:
No matter if the soil is hard,
If frost yet bind the sod;
Go, scatter wide the fruitful seed,
And trust the living God.

Though chilling blasts sweep o'er
Thy bare and sterile fields,
And in the trying hour

Thy wearied spirit yields;
Cheer up,-for yet the glowing sun
In beauty will arise,

And fertile fields with burdens fair,

Yet bless thy waiting eyes.

The golden "Harvest Home"
Will yet reward thy toil,

No stubborn, stony ground

True diligence can foil:

For, when the reaping Angels bear
Their sheaves unto their God,

Joy will break forth from all the ground

Thou wearily hast trod.

Fairhaven, Mass., May 15, 1857.

From the N. Y. Examiner.

laughter and boisterous games. She has experienced among them-she knows the lessons taught by their mirth, and by their sadness; she feels the genial influence of the dead one over the heart. O, children are often the wise teachers, while we, with earth-stained and sinhardened hearts, are the cold, dumb learners. Many a lesson of faith and meek submission can be learned of "these little ones;" and many a "care can be banished by their guileless prattle and original questions. How many an artless word spoken by a baby gone, is this day locked up like a jewel in the torn heart from which the child was severed. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

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The village Squire―never too amiable—was returning from court, where he had been nonsuited in a case involving about a fiftieth part of his estate; of course, he was morose and impatient. A worn-looking woman was trying to quiet a restless baby by tossing it up where there was not room to toss a bird, because a simpering school girl on the next seat

Little Children, and Labors they Perform. had whispered aloud to her very young gal

gant that "babies were a nuisance in a stageCHARLES LAMB in one of his essays, writes coach, and that she should think any one thus pitifully of the schoolmaster: "Wherev- would rather stay at home than travel with er he goes, this uneasy shadow (a boy) at- one." Poor, unfortunate baby; poor sensitends him. A boy is at his board, and in his tive, widowed mother! Theirs was no pleapath, and in all his movements. Boys are cap- sure trip; they were going, uncertain of a ital fellows in their own way, among their welcome, to a rich relative of the newly dead, mates; but they are unwholesome compan- the only one on earth of whom they could ions for grown people. Even a child, that ask to aid. Comfort or pity the mother did 'plaything for an hour,' tires always." Alas!not look for. It was between her and the for poor Lamb; he never had companionship surly Squire that Miss Trimmer inserted herenough with children to know their influence self. At the cruel remark of the incipient on the heart. He was himself his mother's belle, the widow turned her head to wipe a youngest born, and his own dull hearth-stone tear, when her innocent half-yearling grasped was never made bright by children's smiles, with her plump hand a huge bunch of honeynor his sad reveries broken by the joyous suckles and carnation pinks which dangled romping. One of our writers who now wields from the near side of Miss Trimmer's bonnet. a magic pen, speaks of “that much oppressed and calumniated class called boys," and to her better judgment we yield, for her ears have been for long years used to their ringing|

"Will no one take pity on me? shrieked the bearer of the flower burden. "Will no gentleman shield me from annoyances?" "Yes, madam, I will," answered an old

gentleman, who sat in a corner, resting his chin upon the ivory head of his cane. The lady was soon safely installed in the seat furthest removed from the vicious baby, and the old man in her place. Now this crampedup child was a perfect democrat. She did not know that she was poor and fatherless; nor that when he lived her father was only a hard working brick-layer. She knew nothing of all this, and seemed to think she had as good a right to shout and crow as any other baby, and to pull flowers out of bonnets, too, if she would. Her first effort was to secure his white beard, but this was immovable. She next reached out her hand for the seals, and lastly grasped the cane. "Well, little imp," cried the dear old man, "if you want to get at my seals you had better come a little nearer." So he took the willing chub from the weary mother, and installed her on his own knee. The poor woman straightened herself and drew a long breath, as if relieved from a burden she had not strength to bear.

bounded from the dwelling, beside which the coach had halted a curly headed boy of four years. "O pa, pa," as the paternal head emerged from the coach-door, "I've good news for you; you can't guess what has happened to-day?" And clapping his chubby hands and dancing for joy, he exclaimed, "O pa, the baby's got a tooth!" There was a sudden revulsion of feeling in the coach. The passengers all laughed heartily at the vast importance of the news from that little world, Miss Trimmer put her head out of the coach window, and exclaimed, "What a darling little fellow !" The coachman forgot to crack whip for a whole minute,, as he gazed at the happy boy. The father turned round, smiled, raised his hat and said, "good bye" to his fellow travellers. The surly Squire laughed, and drew home his feet, which had all the way been stretched out on the widow's territory to her great inconvenience, saying, "Beg your pardon, ma'am." Even Miss Trimmer was softened, for she opened the cover of her ret

"You look tired, madam; have you come icule, and gave the offending baby a stick of far to-day?" asked the merciful man.

"I've held the baby, sir, thirty-six hours in the cars, before I got into the coach," she answered with a quivering lip.

"I don't see how any one can take care of a tiresome baby," again whispered the little Miss.

"Somebody held us all once, and took care of us, too, my child," replied the old gentleman, whose ears were too keen to lose her remark. "Children must be taken care of; they have their work to do, and they generally do it faithfully." And he rattled his seals and key again for the happy child.

candy, saying, "Poor little thing, she must have something to amuse her."

"Well," cried the laughing school-girl, "I do love children after all-they are so funny I can't help it!"

"Never try to help it child," said the baby's benefactor. 66 They ought to be loved, for they do a great deal for us grown up folks. Now don't you see that rosy boy, with the news of the great acquisition to his family treasures—a tooth for the baby-has changed a coach full of anxious and ill-tempered people, into a cheerful and even, kind hearted company? Don't you see how he has made friends for my little companion here, who is too young to speak for herself? Why, we are all better now for riding with this little one, and my word for it, you'll think of her after you go home, too. Then, turning to the widow, he asked her to whose house she was going. When she answerAt length the horses stood still, and all ed him, he said, "O, it's too far to ride seemed pleased at the prospect of having the to-night with the poor tired baby-stop and company thinned. Miss Trimmer looked hope- rest with us-grandmother will give even a ful at the widow and baby, but they did not strange baby a welcome-for we've just buried An anxious, care-worn gentleman be- our pet at home-my daughter's little one. gan to unwedge himself preparatory to alight-She made the house very cheerful for us, but ing. Then in the deepening twilight there she is gone; but not forgotten? No, I be

The mother cast a look of mingled gratitude on her benefactor-yes, benefactor he was though he had never given a crust nor a copper for kind words are often better than either. This good man alone of all the passengers save the unconscious baby-seemed at his ease.

move.

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