Musings.
I wandered out one summer night—
’Twas when my years were few:
The breeze was singing in the light,
And I was singing too.
The moonbeams lay upon the hill,
The shadows in the vale,
And here and there a leaping rill
Was laughing at the gale.
One fleecy cloud upon the air
Was all that met my eyes;
It floated like an angel there,
Between me and the skies.
I clapped my hands and warbled wild
As here and there I flew;
For I was but a careless child,
And did as children do.
The waves came dancing o’er the sea
In bright and glittering bands:
Like little children wild with glee,
They linked their dimpled hands.
They linked their hands—but ere I caught
Their mingled drops of dew,
They kissed my feet, and, quick as thought,
Away the ripples flew.
The twilight hours like birds flew by,
As lightly and as free;
Ten thousand stars were in the sky,
Ten thousand in the sea;
For every wave with dimpled cheek
That leaped upon the air,
Had caught a star in its embrace,
And held it trembling there.
The young moon too, with upturned sides,
Her mirrored beauty gave;
And as a bark at anchor rides,
She rode upon the wave.
The sea was like the heaven above,
As perfect and as whole,
Save that it seemed to thrill with love,
As thrills the immortal soul.
The leaves, by spirit-voices stirred,
Made murmurs on the air—
Low murmurs, that my spirit heard,
And answered with a prayer:
For ’twas upon the dewy sod,
Beside the moaning seas,
I learned at first to worship God,
And sing such strains as these.
The flowers, all folded to their dreams,
Were bowed in slumber free,
By breezy hills and murmuring streams,
Where’er they chanced to be.
No guilty tears had they to weep,
No sins to be forgiven;
They closed their eyes, and went to sleep,
Right in the face of heaven.
No costly raiment round them shone,
No jewels from the seas,
Yet Solomon upon his throne
Was ne’er arrayed like these:
And just as free from guilt and art
Were lovely human flowers,
Ere sorrow set her bleeding heart
On this fair world of ours.
I heard the laughing wind behind,
A playing with my hair—
The breezy fingers of the wind,
How cool and moist they were!
I heard the night bird warbling o’er
Its soft, enchanting strain—
I never heard such sounds before,
And never shall again.
Then wherefore weave such strains as these,
And sing them day by day,
When every bird upon the breeze
Can sing a sweeter lay?
I’d give the world for their sweet art,
The simple, the divine;
I’d give the world to melt one heart,
As they have melted mine.
Sou. Lit. Mess.
Anecdote of an Atheist.—An atheist on his death-bed was addressed by his son,—“Father, the physician says you can live but a few hours.” “I know it, my son. Have you anything to say to me?” “My father, you and my mother have held different creeds; my mother is a Christian—you believe there is no God. Shall I follow her faith or yours?” “My son,” said the dying parent, “believe in the God of your mother.”
Thus it is in the hour of sickness, at the moment when the frail supports of pride and passion are wrecked, that the sinking atheist clutches at the plank of the Christian. Thus it is that the atheist, when he is brought upon the stand before his Maker, confesses that his creed is not one that he would wish to bequeath to his children.
Who made this?
Here is a picture of the bones or skeleton of a horse. What a wonderful piece of mechanism it is! How many bones and joints, and how they are all fitted to each other!
Now, every horse has such a skeleton or frame-work of bones: and who contrives and makes them? Can men make such curious machinery? Certainly not. Men may make steamboats, and ships, and cotton-factories, but they cannot make the bones of an animal; nor can they put muscles and life to these bones. Now, if man cannot do these things, who can? God only: he only can do these wonderful things.
Wisdom of the Creator.—The happy proportioning of one thing to another shows the wisdom of the Creator. Man, for instance, is adapted to the size and strength of a horse. If men were giants, they could not ride horses. If men were either pigmies or giants, they could not milk cows, mow grass, reap corn, train vines, or shear sheep, with anything like the conveniency they do now. If men were pigmies, they would be lost in the grass and rushes, and their children would be carried off by birds of prey. Every one can see, that, other things being as they are, man would suffer by being either much larger or smaller than he is.
Yankee Energy.—A few days since, a gentleman of the city of New York was standing near the canal, at Albany, when he saw a small yawl-boat approaching him, propelled by a lad about seventeen years of age. The boat contained also the boy’s mother, six sisters, and a small brother. Our friend asked him where he was from, and where bound, and was answered, in substance, as follows:
“We are from Ohio. My father died there, and as we were nearly destitute, mother thought we had better go back to Saybrook, Conn., where we used to live; so we raised money enough to get this boat, and started from Ohio last fall. We came through Lake Erie, and got into the canal, where we were stopped by the ice. During the winter we hauled our boat up by the side of the canal, where we remained till the ice broke up. Sometimes we were considerably cold, and at times were sick a little, but on the whole we all got along right smart. We shall go down the North river, and up the sound to Saybrook.”
During this conversation, our friend was walking along the margin of the canal; our noble Yankee boy, being unwilling to lose any time, kept constantly propelling his boat forward, the younger brother, a lad of only seven or eight years of age, steering the craft. It was Sunday morning, and the mother and daughters were clad in their Sabbath suits, and engaged in reading. A small furnace was standing on the deck of the boat, and a sail, snugly stowed, was lying fore and aft. The few cooking utensils, bedding, and clothing belonging to this poor family, were securely placed under the deck.
Here is an instance of industry and perseverance, which commends itself to the notice of the rising generation—ay, and the present one too. No doubt, if this boy lives, he will yet make a stir in the world; and if we knew his name, we would publish it.
Who Made Man?—Look at the foot—how ingeniously is this contrived! Look at the arm: what piece of mechanism can compare with it? But of all parts of the body, the eye is perhaps the most wonderful. It has in it a lens, like that of a telescope, through which the rays of light pass; and at the back of the eye a little picture of whatever comes before the eye is formed. This picture falls upon a nerve which lines the interior of the eye, and thus it is we see. All this contrivance is very ingenious. And observe how the eye itself is placed in the head. See how easily it turns this way and that! Consider these things, and tell me, who but a Superior Being, one who contrives, one who thinks, could have made man?
Power of God.—The sun is as large as three hundred and thirty-seven thousand of our worlds. Jupiter is as large as one thousand two hundred and eighty-one of our worlds. Mercury flies along in its path at the rate of twenty miles in a second. Uranus is seventeen times as large as our world, one billion eight hundred milions of miles from the sun, and flies along at the rate of two hundred and forty miles every minute!
Here, then, is the power of God! A world, with all its mountains, and oceans, and kingdoms, is but a pebble in the hands of the Almighty!