superior to affliction, I will "rejoice in my tribulation." But let infidelity interpose between God and my soul, and draw its impenetrable veil over a future state of existence, and limit all my trust to the creatures of a day, and all my expectations to a few years, as uncertain as they are short, and how shall I bear up, with fortitude or with cheerfulness, under the burden of distress? Or where shall I find one drop of consolation to put into the bitter draught which has been given me to drink? I look over the whole range of this wilderness in which I dwell, but I see not one covert from the storm, nor one leaf for the healing of my soul, nor one cup of cold water to refresh me, in the weariness and the faintings of my pilgrimage.

The very conduct of infidels, in spreading their system with so much eagerness and industry, affords a striking proof that its influence is essentially hostile to human happiness. For what is their conduct? Why, they allow that religion contributes largely to the comfort of man, that in this respect, as well as with respect to morality, it would be a great evil were it to lose its hold over their affections, and that those are no friends to the world, who would shake or destroy their belief in it. And yet, in the very face of this acknowledgment, they scruple not to publish their doubts and their unbelief concerning it among their fellow-men, and with all the cool deliberation of philosophy, and sometimes with all the keenness and ardor of a zealot, to do the very thing which they profess to deprecate as pernicious to the well-being and comfort of the species. Whether they are sincere in this profession, or whether they are only trifling with the sense and feeling of mankind, still it demon'strates the hardening influence of their principles; and from principles, which make those who hold them so reckless of the peace and order and happiness of their brethren, what can be reasonably ex pected, but everything which is most destructive of human comfort?

.

It is true, the infidel may be very humane in the intercourse of life; but, after all, what dependence can be placed upon that humanity of his, which deals out bread to the hungry, and clothing to the naked, and yet would sacrifice to literary vanity, or to something worse, whatever can give support in trial, and consolation at death? He may sympathize with me in my distress, and speak to me of immortality, and, at the very moment, his constitutional kindness may be triumphing over his cold-blooded and gloomy speculations. But his speculations have shed a misery over my heart, which no language of his can dissipate, and which makes his most affectionate words sound in my ear like the words of mockery and

scorn.

He has destroyed me, and he cannot save me, and he cannot comfort me. At his bidding I have renounced that Saviour in whom I once trusted and was happy, and he now pities me; as if his most pitying tones could charm away the anguish of my bosom, and make me forget that it was he himself who planted it there, and planted it so deep, and nourished it so well, that nothing but the power of that heaven, whose power I have denied, is able to pluck it out!

Yes, after he has destroyed my belief in the superintending providence of God, after he has taught me that the prospect of a hereafter is but the baseless fabric of a vision,after he has bred and nourished in me a contempt for that sacred volume which alone throws light over this benighted world, after having argued me out of my faith by his sophistries, or laughed me out of it by his ridicule, — after having thus wrung from my soul every drop of consolation, and dried up my very spirit within me, —yes, after having accomplished this in the season of my health and my pros perity, he would come to me while I mourn, and treat me like a drivelling idiot, whom he may sport with, because he has ruined me, and to whom, in the plenitude of his compassion, -too late, and too unavailing, he may talk of truths in

which he himself does not believe, and which he has long exhorted me, and has at last persuaded me, to cast away as the dreams and the delusions of human folly! From such comforters may Heaven preserve me! "My soul, come not thou into their secrets. Unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united!"

LESSON LXXX.

Death-scene in Gertrude of Wyoming.*

CAMPBELL.

Bur short that contemplation- sad and short
The pause, to bid each much-loved scene adieu !
Beneath the very shadow of the fort,

Where friendly swords were drawn, and banners flew,
Ah! who could deem that foot of Indian crew
Was near? yet there, with lust of murderous deeds,
Gleamed like a basilisk, from woods in view,.
The ambushed foeman's eye-his volley speeds,
And Albert

Albert-falls! the dear old father bleeds.

And, tranced in giddy horror, Gertrude swooned;
Yet, while she clasps him lifeless to her zone,
Say, burst they, borrowed from her father's wound,
These drops? O God! the life-blood is her own;
And faltering, on her Waldegrave's bosom thrown

*The three characters mentioned in the above passage, being warned of the approach of a hostile tribe of North American Indians, are forced to abandon their peaceful retreat, in the vale of Wy'oming, and fly for safety to a neighboring fort. On the following morning, at sunrise, while Gertrude, together with Albert, her father, and Waldegrave, her husband, are looking from the battlements on the havoc and desolation which had marked the progress of the barbarous enemy, an Indian marksman fires a mortal shot from his ambush at Albert; and, as Ger trude clasps him in agony to her heart, another shot lays her bleeding by his side. She then takes farewell of her husband in a speech which our greatest modern critic has described as "more sweetly pathetic than anything ever written in rhyme."- McDiarmid.

"Weep not, O Love!"- she cries, "to see me bleed

Thee, Gertrude's sad survivor, thee alone

Heaven's peace commiserate; for scarce I heed

These wounds, — yet thee to leave is death, is death indeed.

"Clasp me a little longer, on the brink

Of fate! while I can feel thy dear caress;

And, when this heart hath ceased to beat-O! think,

And let it mitigate thy woe's excess,

That thou hast been to me all tenderness,
A friend, to more than human friendship just.

O! by that retrospect of happiness,

And by the hopes of an immortal trust,

God shall assuage thy pangs-when I am laid in dust!

“Go, Henry, go not back, when I depart;

The scene thy bursting tears too deep will move,
Where my dear father took thee to his heart,
And Gertrude thought it ecstasy to rove

With thee, as with an angel, through the grove
Of peace, imagining her lot was cast

In heaven; for ours was not like earthly love: And must this parting be our very last?

No! I shall love thee still, when death itself is past.". * * *

* *

*

Hushed were his Gertrude's lips! but still their bland
And beautiful expression seemed to melt

With love, that could not die! and still his hand

She presses to the heart, no more that felt.

Ah, heart! where once each fond affection dwelt, And features yet that spoke a soul more fair.

Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt,

Of them that stood encircling his despair,

He heard some friendly words;-but knew not what they

were.

LESSON LXXXI.

To a Waterfowl. - BRYANT.

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens, with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight, to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,

The desert and illimitable air,

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon thou shalt find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows: reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou 'rt gone! the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.