A DOMESTIC JEWEL.

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."-PROV. xvii. 22.

HITHER she comes with the laughing eye,

The kindly word, and gentle tone;
The dimpled cheek, the light heart's tread,
And gay glad brow that knows no frown.

Oh, Spirit of Cheerfulness! welcome thou,
To the home of my changeless hearth:
Of all the bright Jewels that deck the brow,
Thou art fairest and best on earth.

E'er give me to dwell where thy smile doth reign,
In its happy and playful mood ;

Where the soften'd cast of the sparkling eye,
Is the index to native good.

As stream of the desert thy cheering ray,
As the sun on a cloudy day :

A glimpse I but catch of thy placid mien,
And heart-shadows are chas'd away.

Oh, Spirit of Cheerfulness! Jewel of worth!
Be my lot where thou art e'er nigh:

I sink with the hopeless, the gloomy, and harsh,
But live 'neath the smile of thine eye.

RELIGION.

"Be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance; but walk in wisdom toward them that are without."-MATT. vi. 16.-Col. iv. 5.

To invest Religion in the frigid and uninviting garb of austerity and gloom-while it leads the unreflecting to view it as a hard task-master, and repulses where it might otherwise win by the warmth of its benign and cheerful influence—also brings upon its professors the sarcasm of hypocritical and undue sanctity, and strengthens those prejudices against a religious life which it should be the Christian's solicitude to remove. How often is its entrance into the family-circle dreaded as a "kill-joy ;" and any approaches to it, beyond a mere Sabbath observance, vigilantly checked as a death-blow to that pleasantry, vivacity, and cheerfulness, in which chiefly centre the charm of social and domestic enjoyment. Yet far is it from the nature of true religion "to make our pleasures less :" different they may be; different in some respects they must be, from those of the worldling; but it is a difference as superior as are the soft, rich tints of the rainbow, to the artificial hues of the colourist-or as the warm, enlivening, self-originating rays of the sun, to the cold, cheerless, borrowed beams of the moon. It cannot be the province of a religion, devised in mercy to cleanse the soul from its pollutions, and reconcile it to a God of love-to restore it to its original pure and happy

state-to console and heal the sorrows of the heart, and promote the peace, well-being, and happiness of mankind-to abridge, but to increase, human felicity. And a happy cheerful spirit, a disposition to "rejoice with them that rejoice," and to participate in the innocent and harmless enjoyments and recreations of life, so far from being incompatible with genuine piety and its pure and elevated fruitions, result and flow from them, as the legitimate effect of a powerful and constraining cause. "Religion's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;" and those who have been led by Divine grace to walk therein, who have listened to the music of her voice, and know the happiness strewed upon her bright path, will do well to present her to the prejudiced under the aspect of consistent, cheerful benignity and happy content, and to convince the incredulous that it is her sphere to inspire cheerfulness without levity, solidity without gloom. "Why," says a popular writer, "should any ever be led to doubt when they look at you, whether it is a pleasant thing to be one of God's children?"

THE HOPE OF HEAVEN.

"That blessed hope," "which we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast."-TIT. ii. 13.-HEB. vi. 19.

EARTH'S dearest hopes, what are they

But vanity and tears?

In brightest days o'er-shadow'd
By carefulness and fears.

Though sunbeams play around us,
And joy awhile we meet,
And fond hearts gay and trusting
Think Hope of Earth is sweet;

Tho' mildest zephyrs fan us,

And fairest flow'rets wave:

What profit they in sadness.
Of coffin and of grave?

"Tis "the Hope of Heaven" shineth Though clouds and darkness low'r,

And cheers, with its abiding
And all-sustaining pow'r;

Encircling with its halo

Death's shaded vale of gloom,

To joy and glory pointing

Beyond the darksome tomb

To sun that knows no clouding,
To day that knows no night,

A region without shadow,

Resplendent with delight.

The hope of earth is fleeting-
Frail fabric of to-day,

On sandy basis founded,
E'er sinking to decay;

But built on Rock of Ages,

Unchang'd, and failing never,

The "Hope of Heav'n" abideth
For ever and for ever.

TO H. H......D.

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." PROV. XXV. 11.

"I left off yesterday with and you, who have lived all your life in the country, need not be told, how much sweeter and lovelier are some of our modest, lowly flowers, than the large, gaudy, scentless ones, that astonish for a time and then are disregarded; whereas the others live in our love and memory for ever."-LETTER FROM H. H....D.

SOME kind and gentle spirits see
A light in ev'ry shade,

Find honey in the way-side weed,
And fragrance in each blade.

Embalm'd in such a spirit's love,

My hedge-row wreath of flow'rs,
Shall yield the twiner odour sweet,

To scent life's bloomless bow'rs.

And soft and silv'ry tones resound,
Where "pricking brier” hath torn