Vanish the Atheist's desperate boldness, Shame the presumptuous threats of hell! The age's apathy and coldness

Ye are the race of Israel.

Their blood who were, in years long faded,
Allied to God, ye bear within;
And ye are still, although degraded,
Ennobled by your origin;

Ye o'er all nations elevated,

God's earthly treasure, hope and claim, His favorites, his first created

O let us still deserve his name!

O sunk in shame! in sorrow straying!
Ye sinned-now suffer and atone!
In agony and exile praying

For that bright land you called your own Ye from God's beaten track departed:

Poor homeless pilgrims wandering here; His arm abandoned you, proud hearted! To trembling helplessness and fear.

What prophets have foretold comes o'er us;
The sceptre from our grasp is torn ;
Our rank and glory fade before us,

Our god-like kingdom given to scorn:
We chosen erst from chosen nations,
Now writhe beneath the scoffer's rod;
Bare to the meanest slave's vexations,
We who were subjects once of-God ¡
Ah! safety, comfort, all are reft us,
Exiled by God's almighty hand;
Nought of the glorious orient left us,
Our true-our only father's land!
Far from our sire's remains-ill-fated,
The abject race of Abraham weeps;
His blood, in us degenerated;

Now thro' a crumbling ruin creeps.
Redeemer! Sire! be our defender!
O, turn not from our prayers away,
Give Israel to her early splendor,
Or let her joyless name decay!
No! hopes deferr'd and memories vanish'd,
Our trust in thee could never bow!
We are the Hebrews still-tho' banish'd,
Thou art the Hebrew's God-e'en now!

Yes! the Messiah, soon appearing,
Shall burst these bonds of slavery;

Thine anger-mists again are clearing,
Our day of victory is nigh,

A heavenly flame is brightly soaring,
Behind the clouds of earthly wo:
Shout, Israel! shout, with joy adoring,
Your Prince's-Saviour's advent show.
Lion of Judah, roar and greet him,

Hail his majestic march once more:
Come Adam's race! with blessings meet him
And rank again, as rank'd of yore.
Announce him from on high thou thunder!
Bend your proud heads, ye hills around!
Fall, kingdom of deceit, asunder,

In ruins at our trumpet's sound.
Behold the long expected gladness!
Salvation's morn again appears;
The meed for suffering, scorn, and sadness,
The citadel 'gainst foes and fears.
With hope like this to live or perish,`

Is our

redemption-duty-joy!

Which when our souls shall cease to cherish.
Those guilty souls, O God, destroy!

VOL. I. 80-86.

FIDELITY.

A faithful friend is the repository of our secrets, and is like a precious stone, which has no spots, and which is not to be purchased but by the returns of the same nature.-Happy he who finds such a friend; for to him he can trust his most secret thoughts, and in him find a consolation at all times.

Diodorus, the Sicilian, says, that among the Egyptians it was a criminal matter, to discover a secret with which they were entrusted, and one of their priests, being convicted of this offence was banished his country. Certainly, nothing can be more just, than that a secret entrusted to a friend, under the sanction of good faith and secrecy, should be considered as a sacred thing, and that to divulge it, under any pretence whatever, is a profanation of the most sacred duties.

Plutarch remarks, that the Albanians, being at war with Philip, king of Macedon, one day intercepted a letter, which he had written to Olympia, his wife. They sent it back to him unopened, that they might not be obliged to read it in public, saying, that their laws forbid them to betray a secret.

THE HERMITAGE AT ST. PETERSBURG.

WE have given above a very spirited engraving of the Hermitage, or winter palace of the Emperor of Russia. It is situated at the west end of the Admiralty, and near the centre of the town. This huge edifice of stuccoed brick work, forms a square, each side representing a front, and lost in a confusion of pillars and statues of almost every description. The royal gallery of paintings is in this building; a part is also devoted to mineralogy. JOHNSTONE, in his description of St. Petersburg, says that within the palace or hermitage are artificial gardens, denominated the winter and summer gardens. The first is roofed with glass, laid out in gravel walks, planted with orange trees, and several parterres of flowers, and filled with birds of various countries. The summer garden is exposed to the air, and placed on the top of the palace.

In front of the palace is the largest square in the city. One of its sides is formed by a magnificent building, erected by the late empress Catharine for her favorites, but which is now changed to a private club VOL. I. 27

house by the English and German merchants, and on each side terminated by the public hotels.

To the west of the Hermitage, and fronting the river, is the palace of the grand duke, partly built of hewn granite, and partly of red Siberian marble: it is probably one of the chastest buildings in St. Petersburg. In the vicinity of this palace are laid out extensive gardens, in every corner of which are exhibited statues, which are condemned to be buried six months in the year under snow. Between the garden and the river is one of the finest and most superb iron railings perhaps to be found in any part of Europe. It is supported by between thirty and forty massive columns of granite, upwards of twenty feet in height, surmounted by large urns. Between the granite columns the iron spears are placed, of the same height, and gilded at the top.

To

At the south end of these gardens is the palace of the late emperor Paul, wherein he was strangled. This colossal and clumsy edifice was one of the many eccentric labors of that unfortunate monarch. avoid inhabiting the same palace which his royal mother had occupied, and as a secure asylum against the too just suspicions which he entertained against his nobles, he raised this building in the short space of three years. From this palace he hurled out mandates which menaced the very existence of his empire. Here his eccentricities rose to the highest pitch, and here he met with that fate which must always endanger the madness of despotism. It is said that his death might have been prevented, had he not forgotten to pull a bell wire which communicated under ground with the room where his body guards were assembled.

When the artist, Falconet, had finished his statue of Peter the Great, though as admirable a specimen of the art as ever graced the followers of a Phidias or Praxiteles, yet from the rudeness of its pedestal it could not but be rendered too minute in its general outline; he, therefore, in order to assimilate their dimensions, mutilated the rock, and thus gave an imaginary measure of bulk to the figure. The attitude of the statue represents the monarch as having gained the summit

of the precipice, and restraining the violence of his horse, which is seen rearing on its hind legs, with a full and flowing tail, touching the writhing body of a serpent, on which the horse tramples. The head of the figure is crowned with laurel, and a loose flowing robe is thrown over its body. The left hand holds the reins, while the other is stretched out in the act of giving benediction to his subjects. On the rock, the following short but expressive inscription is fixed in golden letters, both in the Latin and Russian language:

CATHARINE II. TO PETER I.

THE EXILE'S DIRGE.

(By Mrs. Hemans.)

"I attended a funeral where there were a number of the German settlers present. After I had performed such service as is usual on similar occasions, a most venerable looking old man came forward and asked me if I were willing that he should perform some of their peculiar rites. He opened a very ancient version of Luther's hymns, and they all began to sing in German so loud that the woods echoed the strain. There was something affecting in the singing of these ancient people, carrying one of their brethren to his last home, and using the language and rites which they had brought with them over the sea from the Vaterlanda word which often occurred in his hymn. It was a long, slow, and mournful air, which they sang as they bore the body along. The words 'mein Gott!'-' mein Bruder,' and Vaterland' died away in distant echoes amongst the woods. I shall long remember that funeral hymn."-Flint's Recollections of the Valley of the Mississippi.

There went a dirge through the forest's gloom:
An exile was borne to a lonely tomb.

"Brother!" (so the chant was sung
In the slumberer's native tongue)
"Friend and brother! not for thee
Shall the sound of weeping be;
Long the exile's wo hath lain
On thy life a withering chain;
Music from thine own blue streams
Wandered through thy fever dreams;