might give itself up to that happiness which is at hand, considering that it is so very near and that it would last so very long. But when the choice we actually have before us is this, whether we will choose to be happy for the space of only three-score and ten-nay, perhaps of only twenty or ten years, I might say of only a day or an hour, and miserable to all eternity; or, on the contrary, miserable for this short term of years, and happy for a whole eternity-what words are sufficient to express that folly and want of consideration which, in such a case, makes a wrong choice? I here put the case even at the worst, by supposing, what seldom happens, that a course of virtue makes us miserable in this life; but if we suppose, as it generally happens, that virtue would make us more happy even in this life than a contrary course of vice, how can we sufficiently admire the stupidity or madness of those persons who are capable of making so absurd a choice? Every wise man, therefore, will consider this life only as it may conduce to the happiness of the other, and cheerfully sacrifice the pleasures of a few years to those of an eternity. THE BEACON. [Thomas Moore; born in Dublin in 1794; died in :852.] THE scene was more beautiful far to my eye, Than if day in its pride had arrayed it. The land breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky Looked pure as the spirit that made it. The murmur rose soft as I silently gazed Like a star in the midst of the ocean. No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast The fisherman sunk to his slumbers. VAGUE HOPES OF NATURE. POPE. HOPE springs eternal in the human breast: No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. He asks no angel's wings, no seraph's fire; THE CREATION. C. F. ALEXANDER. ALL things bright and beautiful, All creatures, great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. Each little flower that opens, Each little bird that sings, He made their glowing colors, He made their tiny wings; The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, God made them, high or lowly, And ordered their estate. The purple-headed mountain, The cold wind in the winter, The tall trees in the greenwood, He gave us eyes to see them, Who has made all things well! JOY IN BELIEVING. [The religions novel in our day is growing more and more a power to enforce truth. The common mind often finds it difficult to comprehend abstract principles. Christ himself set the example, by parabies, of illustrating truth through personal action. Human sympathies, to be aroused, must be excited by events in the drama of life. No book of this ing of God as a severe judge, an exacter, a harsh creditor, when he is a giver, a forgiving savior, yea, the very fountain of inexpressible love. "God's love," he said, "gives in such a way that it flows from a Father's heart, the well-spring of all good. The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious; as among ourselves wo say of even a trifling gift, 'It comes from a hand we love,' and look not so much at the gift as at the heart. "If we will only consider him in his works, we shall learn that God is nothing else but pure, unutterable love, greater and more than any one can think. The shameful thing is that the world does not regard this, nor thank him for it, although every day it sees before it such countless benefits from him; and it deserves for its ingratitude that the sun should not shine a moment longer, nor the grass grow; yet it ceases not, without a moment's interval, to love us, and to do us good. Language must fail me to speak of his spiritual gifts. Here he pours forth for us, not sun and class has been more admired, or productive of more happy results, than the "Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Fam ily." The Cotta family were among Martin Luther's car-moon, nor heaven and earth, but his own liest friends were associated with him while he was a Cath heart, his beloved Son, so that he suf fered his blood to be shed, and the most shameful death to be inflicted on him, for his wretched, wicked, thankless creatures. How, then, can we say any thing but that God is an abyss of endless, un olic priest. In the form of a diary, fictitious, of course, MARCH, 1513. "The whole Bible," he says, "is full of this, that we should not doubt, but be absolutely certain, that God is merciful, gracious, patient, faithful, and true; who not only will keep his promises, but already has kept and done abundantly beyond what he promised, since he has given his own Son for our sins on the cross, that all who believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. DR. LUTHER has consented to be our confessor; and. thank God, I do believe at last I have found the religion which may make me, even me, love God. Dr. Luther says I have entirely misunderstood God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He seemed to understand all I have been longing for and perplexing myself about all my life, with a glance. When I began "Whoever believes and embraces this," to falter out my confessions and difficul- he added, "that God has given his only ties to him, he seemed to see them all Son to die for us poor sinners, to him it spread before him, and explained them is no longer any doubt, but the most all to me. Ile says I have been think-certain truth, that God reconciles us to himself, and is favorable and heartily | ly, not a world full of silver and gold, gracious to us. not heaven and earth only, but his Son, who is as great as himself, that is eter nal and incomprehensible-a gift as infinite as the Giver, the very spring and fountain of all grace; yea, the possession and property of all the riches and treasures of God." "Since the Gospel shows us Christ the Son of God, who, according to the will of the Father, has offered himself up for us, and has satisfied for sin, the heart can no more doubt God's goodness and grace-is no more affrighted, nor flies from God, but sets all its hope in his goodness and mercy. "The apostles are always exhorting us," he says, "to continue in the love of God; that is, that each one should entirely conclude in his heart that he is loved by God, and set before our eyes a certain proof of it, in that God has not spared his Son, but given him for the world, that through his death the world. might again have life. "It is God's honor and glory to give liberally. His nature is all pure love; so that if any one would describe or picture God, he must describe one who is pure love, the divine nature being nothing else than a furnace and a glow of such love that it fills heaven and earth. "Love is an image of God, and not a dead image, nor one painted on paper, but the living essence of the divine nature, which burns full of all goodness. "He is not harsh, as we are to those who have injured us. We withdraw our hand and close our purse; but he is kind to the unthankful and the evil. "He sees thee in thy poverty and wretchedness, and knows thou hast nothing to pay. Therefore, he freely forgives, and gives thee all. "It is not to be borne," he said, "that Christian people should say, We can not know whether God is favorable to us or not. On the contrary, we should learn to say, I know that I believe in Christ, and, therefore, that God is my gracious Father." "What is the reason that God gives?" he said one day. "What moves him to it? Nothing but unutterable love, because he delights to give and bless. What does he give? Not empires mere Dr. Luther said, also, that the best name we can think of God is Father. "It is a loving, sweet, deep, heart-touching name; for the name of father is, in its nature, full of inborn sweetness and comfort. Therefore, also, we must confess ourselves children of God, since there is not a sweeter sound to the father than the voice of the child." All this is wonderful to me. I scarcely dare to open my hand, and take this belief home to my heart. It is then, indeed, thus we must think of God. Is he, indeed, as Dr. Luther says, ready to listen to our feeblest cry, ready to forgive us and to help us! And if he is indeed like this, and cares what we think of him, how I must have grieved him all these years? Not a moment longer, I will not distrust him a moment longer. See, heavenly Father, I have come back! Can it indeed be possible that God is pleased when we trust him, pleased when we pray, simply because he loves us? Can it indeed be true, as Dr. Luther says, that love is our greatest virtue; and that we please God best by being kind to each other, just because that is most like him? I am sure it is true. It is so good it must be true. Then it is possible for me, even for me, to love God. How is it possible for me not to love him? And it is possible for me, even for me, to be religious, if to be religious is to love God, and to do whatever we can to make those around us happy. But if this is indeed religion, it is happiness, it is freedom, it is life! Why, then, are so many of the re- | them safe home. All our wisdom," he ligious people I know of a sad counte- says, "is to keep always near this Good nance, as if they were bond-servants, Shepherd, who is Christ, and to listen toiling for a hard master? to his voice." I must ask Dr. Luther. APRIL, 1513. I have asked Dr. Luther, and he says because it is the devil makes a great deal of the religion we see; that he pretends to be Christ, and comes and terrifies people, and scourges them with the remembrance of their sins, and tells them they must not dare to lift up their eyes to heaven; God is so holy, and they are so sinful. But it is all because he knows that if they would lift their eyes to heaven, their terrors would vanish, and they would see Christ there, not as the judge and the hard, exacting creditor, but as the pitiful, loving Savior." I find it a great comfort to believe in this way in the devil. Has he not been trying to teach me his religion all my life? And now I have found him out. He has been telling me lies, not about myself (Dr. Luther says he can not paint us more sinful than we are), but lies about God. It helps me almost as much to hear Dr. Luther speak about the devil as about God-the malignant, sad spirit," he says, "who loves to make every one sad." With God's help, I will never believe him again. But Dr. Luther said I shall, often; that he will come again and malign God, and assail my peace in so any ways that it will be long before I learn to know him. I shuddered when he told me this; but then he reassured me by telling me a beautiful story, which, he said, was from the Bible. It was about a Good Shepherd and silly wandering sheep, and a wolf who sought to devour them. "All the care of the shepherd," he said, "is in the tenderest way to attract the sheep to keep close to him; and when they wander, he goes and seeks them, takes them on his shoulder, and carries I know the Lord Jesus Christ is called the Good Shepherd. I have seen the picture of him carrying the lamb on his shoulder. But, until Dr. Luther explained it to me, I thought it meant that he was the Lord and owner of all the world, who are his flock. But I never thought that he cared for me as his sheep, sought me, called me, watched me, even me, day by day. Other people, no doubt, have understood all this before. And yet, if so, why do not the monks preach of it? Why should Aunt Agnes serve him in the convent by penances and self-tor. mentings, instead of serving him in the world by being kind and helping all around? Why should our dear, gentle mother have such sad, self-reproachful thoughts, and feel as if our family were under a curse? Dr. Luther said that Christ was "made a curse for us;" that he, the unspotted and undefiled Lamb of God, bore the curse for us on the cross; and that we, believing in him, are not under the curse, but under the blessing-that we are blessed. This, then, is what the crucifix and the Agnus Dei means. Doubtless many around me have understood all this long ago. I am sure, at least, that our Eva understood it. But what inexpressible joy for me, as I sit at my embroidery in the garden, to look up through the apple-blossoms and the fluttering leaves, and to see God's love there; to listen to the thrush that has built his nest among them, and feel God's love, who cares for the birds, in every note that swells his little throat; to look beyond to the bright blue depths of the sky, and feel they are a canopy of blessing, the roof of the house of my Father; that if clouds pass over, it is the unchangeable light they veil; that, even when the day itself passes, I shall see that the night itself only unveils new worlds of light; and to know that if I could unwrap fold after fold of God's universe, I should only unfold more and more blessing, and see deeper and deeper into the love which is at the heart of all! And then what joy again to turn to my embroidery, and, as my fingers busily ply the needle, to think, This is to help my father and mother; this, even this, is a little work of love. And as I sit and stitch, God is pleased with me, and with what I am doing. He gives me this to do, as much as he gives the priests to pray and Dr. Luther to preach. I am serving him, and he is near me in my little corner of the world, and is pleased with me, even with Oh, the change which has come over my heart, now that I have learned, through Dr. Luther's teaching, that God is love--is our Father; that Christ is the Savior, who gave himself for our sins, and loved us better than life; that heaven is our Father's house; that holiness is simply loving God, who is so good, and who has so loved us, and loving one another, that the service we have to render is simply to give thanks and to do good; when, as Dr. Luther said, that word "our" was written deeply in my heart-that for our sins he died, for mine; that for all, for us, for me, he gave himself up. THE LOWLY HEART. And if some things I do not ask, There are briars besetting every path, [This much-admired poem is by Miss Ann Letitia Waring, But a lowly heart that leans on thee, and English lady of our time, an Evangelical Quakeress, who has earned her sweet, submissive strain in the school of sullering.' | FATHER, I know that all my life Is portioned out for me, And the changes that are sure to come, But I ask thee for a present mind, Is happy anywhere. In a service which thy will appoints, |