The churchyard, to the inhabitants of a rural parish, is the place to which, as they grow older, all their thoughts and feelings turn. The young take a look of it every Sabbath-day, not always perhaps a careless look, but carry away from it, unconsciously, many salutary impressions. What is more pleasant than the meeting of a rural congregation in the churchyard before the minister appears? What is there to shudder at in lying down, sooner or later, in such a peaceful and sacred place, to be spoken of frequently on Sabbath among the groups of which we used to be one, and our low burial-spot to be visited, at such times, as long as there remains on earth any one to whom our face was dear! To those who mix in the strife and dangers of the world, the place is felt to be uncertain wherein they may finally lie at rest. The soldier, the sailor, the traveler, can only see some dim grave dug for him, when he dies, in some place obscure, nameless, and unfixed to imagination. All he feels is, that his burial will be, on earth or in the sea. But the peaceful dwellers, who cultivate their paternal acres, or tilling at least the same small spot of soil, shift only from a cottage on the hillside to one on the plain, still within the bounds of one quiet parish; they look to lay their bones, at last, in the burial place of the kirk in which they were baptized, and with them it almost literally is but a step from the cradle to the grave. Such were the thoughts that calmly followed each other in my revery, as I stood beside the Elder's grave, and the trodden grass was again lifting up its blades from the pressure of many feet, now all but a few departed. What a simple burial had it been! Dust was consigned to dust; no more. Bare, naked, simple, and austere is, in Scotland, the service of the grave. It is left to the soul itself to consecrate, by its passion, the mould over which tears, but no words are poured. Surely there is a beauty in this; for the heart is left unto its own sorrow, according as it is a friend, a brother, a parent, or a child, that is covered up from our eyes. Yet call not other rites, however different from this, less beautiful or pathetic. For willingly does the soul connect its grief with any consecrated ritual of the lead. Sound or silence, music, hymns, psalms, sable garments, or raiment white as snow, all become holy symbols of the soul's affection; nor is it for any man to say which is the most natural, which is the best of the thousand shows, and expressions, and testimonies of sorrow, resignation and love, by which mortal beings would seek to express their souls, when one of their brethren has returned to his parent dust. My mind was recalled from all these sad, yet not unpleasant fancies by a deep groan, and I beheld the Elder's son fling himself down upon the grave, and kiss it passionately, imploring pardon from God. "I distressed my father's heart in his old age; I repented, and received thy forgiveness even on thy death-bed! But how may I be assured that God will forgive me for having so sinned against my old, gray-headed father, when his limbs were weak and his eyesight dim !” The old minister stood at the head of the grave, without speaking a word, with his solemn and pitiful eyes fixed upon the prostrate and contrite man. His sin had been great, and tears that till now had, on this day at least, been compressed within his heart by the presence of so many of his friends, now poured down upon the sod as if they would have found their way to the very body of his father. Neither of us offered to lift him up, for we felt awed by the rueful passion of his love, his remorse and his penitence; and nature, we felt, ought to have her way. "Fear not, my son," at length said the old man, in a gentle voice, "fear not, my son, but that you are already forgiven. Dost thou not feel pardon within thy contrite spirit?" He rose up from his knees with a faint smile, while the minister with his white head yet uncovered, held his hands over him as in benediction; and that beautiful and loving child, who had been standing in a fit of weeping terror at his father's agony, now came up to him, and kissed his cheek; holding in his little hand a few faded primroses, which he had unconsciously gathered together as they lay on the turf of his grandfather's grave. PALESTINE.-JOHN G. WHITTIER. Blest land of Judea! thrice hallow'd of song, With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore, Blue sea of the hills!-in my spirit I hear Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down, Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green, Hark, a sound in the valley! where, swollen and strong. Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain, There, down from his mountains stern Zebulon came, There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rang Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen, With the mountains around and the valleys between; And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod; I stand where they stood with the chosen of God- O, here with His flock the sad Wanderer came- And the same airs are blowing which breath'd on his brow! And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet, But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet; But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when, And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the sea In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me! And what if my feet may not tread where He stood, Nor my eyes see the cross which He bow'd Him to bear, Yet, loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near O, the outward hath gone!-but, in glory and power, THE SEA MONARCH.-T. BUCHANAN READ. A monarch reigned beneath the sea On the wreck of a myriad thrones The collected ruins of Tyranny Shattered by the hand of Destiny, Alone, supreme, he reigned apart, On the throne of a myriad thrones- As she heaved her earthquake groans. He gazed through the shadowy deep which shields And saw the many variant keels Driving over the watery fields, Some with thunderous and flashing wheels Oft, like an eagle that swoops in air, He saw from his throne of thrones, At the unreached sands and stones! INDIAN SUMMER.-CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. Light as love's smiles, the silvery mist at morn Beaded with dew, the witch-elm's tassels shiver; And from the springy spray the squirrel's gayly leaping. I love thee, Autumn, for thy scenery ere And wings his loitering flight to summer climes away. O, Nature! still I fondly turn to thee, With feelings fresh as e'er my childhood's were; I still can, child-like, come as when in prayer I bow'd my head upon a mother's knee, And deem'd the world, like her, all truth and purity. ANCIENT INDIAN VILLAGE.-MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. At Oregon, the beauty of the scene was of even a more sumptuous character than at our former "stopping-place." Here swelled the river in its boldest course, interspersed by halcyon isles on which Nature had lavished all her prodigality in tree, vine, and flower, banked by noble bluffs, three hundred feet high, their sharp ridges as exquisitely definite as the edge of a shell; their summits adorned with those same beautiful trees, and with buttresses of rich rock, crusted with old hemlocks, which wore a touching and antique grace amid the |