tion, but has sought rather to present, in a permanent form, either original contributions, or selections from the graceful poetry that so often adorns the periodical literature of the day. Nor will these flowers "Waste their sweetness on the desert air." Not for personal pleasure or gain have they been culled. The profits are devoted to a temple of God which stands in a lovely rural district near the banks of the Hudson. These flowers are an offering from ladies who projected the enterprise, and who desire to consecrate them to bloom around its altar. Most cordially is this volume commended to the youth of the land-both for its own merits, and for the benevolent design which prompted its preparation. May its readers add to intellectual acquirements and true refinement the higher graces of Christian purity and activity! and when they have ceased to bloom on earth, may they, in oriental phrase, shine as the "stars, those everlasting blossoms of heaven!" M. SIMPSON. PITTSBURGH, August, 1855. |