These principles and these alone form our only safeguards against vice and crime—our only security for using whatever other education we may acquire, as rational and accountable beings should use all the powers of their minds and bodies. Once acquired and ardently cherished, they will prove to you "a refuge in every storm—a present help in every trouble"—the sweetest solace in all adversity—the ever faithful monitors and guides in prosperous fortune. Armed with such a panoply you may safely march through all the most perilous paths of life, without fear of serious injury; and proceed, rejoicing on your way, that you have neither lived nor labored in vain. Yours will be the only true glory of the present life,—that of contributing to human happiness—yours the sole victory worthy of beings endowed with such godlike faculties,—the victory over your own passions—and yours the indescribable rewards after death, of those "who have done the will of their Father on earth as it is in heaven."
Look always to these principles as to the polar star of your earthly course—act up to them faithfully, under all the trying circumstances in which you may be placed; and each of you may then, in the confident hope of being graciously heard, begin and close every day of your lives with the comprehensive prayer of the pious Thomson:—
| "Father of light and life! thou Good Supreme! Oh! teach me what is good! teach me thyself! Save me from folly, vanity and vice, From ev'ry low pursuit! and feed my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure; Sacred,—substantial,—never-fading bliss!" |
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THE CONTRAST:
OR, A FASHIONABLE AND AN UNFASHIONABLE NEW ENGLAND WIFE.
Horace Lawrence and Ellen Frazier had been three years married, when Alpheus North, their friend, and nearest neighbor, brought home his beautiful bride, the accomplished Anna Weston.
They resided in a little village, the principal attraction of which was, that it was a good place for business. The village was, indeed, beautifully situated. From every point the landscape was diversified by hill and dale—the one crowned by here and there a towering oak,—the other shaded by the branching elm. The clear waters of the river, pursuing its rather circuitous course, might be seen from every eminence; and its passage being in many places obstructed, waterfalls added to the variety and beauty of the scenery.
But the inhabitants of the village had been influenced by other motives than the gratification of the eye, to locate themselves on this favored spot. The useful was to them the only truly beautiful; and however much the admirer of the lovely and picturesque in nature might have regretted it, there men of business delighted in adding mill to mill,—and in seeing the fine river obstructed by logs and slabs,—and every corner wearing the appearance of a lumber-yard. It was a real business place. The men were all intent on accumulating dollars and cents; and although among their wives and daughters, there was abundance of tea-drinking, visiting, and sociability,—and here and there an effort at the genteel,—there was neither science, nor literature, nor refinement in the place, excepting the little that just retained the breath of life, in the habitation of the aged pastor of the parish, and that which was enclosed in the room of the young physician.