By William Cutter.
What though the skies of winter
Look cold and cheerless now!
What though earth wears no mantle
But that of ice and snow!
Though trees, all bare and leafless,
Stretch up their naked arms,
In sad and mournful silence,
To brave the wintry storms!
There is enough of sunshine,
Fond memory will say,
Around this morning clustered—
This is thy natal day!
What though the birds of summer,
Flown far and long away,
In gentler climes are warbling,
Their loved and grateful lay!
What though, in field and garden,
No fragrant incense pours
From nature's thousand altars—
Her blossoms and her flowers!
There's music sweet as angels',
And fragrance sweet as May,
In the thoughts that breathe and blossom
Around thy natal day!
To me, the skies above us
Are bright as summer's noon!
And trees, in crystal blossoms,
More brilliant than in June!
There's music in the wintry blast—
There's fragrance in the snow—
And a garb of glorious beauty
On every thing below!
For oh! affection, wakened
With morning's earliest ray,
Has never ceased to whisper—
This is thy natal day!
RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION IN RULERS.
By John W. Chickering.
It is a great truth, and worthy of a place among the few grand principles which lie at the foundation of all wise and just government, that 'the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.' This may be understood de jure, or de facto; and in either sense must be believed, not only by those who admit, on the authority of the prophet, that it was spoken by a divine voice, but by all who do not deny the whole theory of an overruling Providence.
That the almighty Ruler retains both a right and an agency in the management of terrestrial governments, is undisputed by all who recognize his right and his agency in any thing. It is the atheist alone who would insulate the kingdoms of the earth from the kingdom of heaven. None would banish Jehovah from the smaller empires his providence has organized and sustained, but those who banish him from the universe his power has created.
Thus atheism in philosophy is sole progenitor of atheism in politics; and it should not excite our surprise, that he who 'sees' not 'God in clouds nor hears him in the wind,'—who beholds in the great things of the earth, the air and the sea, no footsteps of divine power, and no finger-prints of divine wisdom, should be equally blind concerning the progress of civil affairs, and should so have perverted his mind, and so tortured the moral sense which God gave him, as to believe, and to rejoice, that without God, kingdoms rise and fall, and that it is not 'by him' that 'kings reign, and princes decree justice.'