room "the eyes of the portrait followed them." With these unfortunate gentlemen, repeated efforts have been made by the traders, and also by the chiefs and doctors, who understand the illusion, to convince them of their error, by explaining the mystery; but they will not hear to any explanation whatever, saying, that "what they see with their eyes is always evidence enough for them;" "that they always believe their own eyes sooner than a hundred tongues," and all efforts to get them a second time to my room, or into my company in any place, have proved entirely unsuccessful.

I had trouble brewing also the other day, from another source; one of the "medicines" commenced howling and haranguing around my domicile, amongst the throng that was outside, proclaiming that all who were inside and being painted were fools and would soon die; and very materially affecting thereby my popularity. I however sent for him, and called him in the next morning, when I was alone, having only the interpreter with me; telling him that I had had my eye upon him for several days, and had been so well pleased with his looks, that I had taken great pains to find out his history, which had been explained by all as one of a most extraordinary kind, and his character and standing in his tribe as worthy of my particular notice; and that I had several days since resolved that as soon as I had practised my hand long enough upon the others, to get the stiffness out of it (after paddling my canoe so far as I had) and make it to work easily and successfully, I would begin on his portrait, which I was then prepared to commence on that day, and that I felt as if I could do him justice. He shook me by the hand, giving me the "Doctor's grip," and beckoned me to sit down, which I did, and we smoked a pipe together. After this was over, he told me, that "he had no inimical feelings towards me, although he had been. telling the chiefs that they were all fools, and all would die who had their portraits painted-that although he had set the old women and children all crying, and even made some of the young warriors tremble, yet he had no unfriendly feelings towards me, nor any fear or dread of my art." "I know you are a good man (said he), I know you will do no harm to any one; your medicine is great and you are a great 'medicineman.' I would like to see myself very well, and so would all of the chiefs; but they have all been many days in this medicine-house, and they all know me well, and they have not asked me to come in and be made alive with paints-my friend, I am glad that my people have told you who I am-my heart is glad-I will go to my wigwam and eat, and in a little while I will come, and you may go to work; "-another pipe was lit and smoked, and he got up and went off. I prepared my canvas and palette, and whistled away the time until twelve o'clock, before he made his appearance; having used the whole of the fore-part of the

VOL. V.-28

day at his toilette, arranging his dress and ornamenting his body for his picture.

At that hour then, bedaubed and streaked with paints of various colors, with bears' grease and charcoal, with medicine-pipes in his hands and foxes' tails attached to his heels, entered Mah-to-he-hah (the old bear), with a train of his own profession, who seated themselves around him; and also a number of boys, whom it was requested should remain with him, and whom I supposed it possible might have been pupils, whom he was instructing in the mysteries of materia medica and hoca poca. He took his position in the middle of the room, waving his eagle calumets in each hand, and singing his medicine-song which he sings over his dying patient, looking me full in the face until I completed his picture, which I painted at full length. His vanity has been completely gratified in the operation; he lies for hours together, day after day, in my room, in front of his picture, gazing intensely upon it; lights my pipe for me while I am painting-shakes hands with me a dozen times on each day, and talks of me, and enlarges upon my medicine virtues and my talents wherever he goes; so that this new difficulty is now removed, and instead of preaching against me, he is one of my strongest and most enthusiastic friends and aids in the country.

Sarah Josepha Hale.

BORN in Newport, N. H., 1795. DIED in Philadelphia, Penn., 1879.

"IT

IT SNOWS.

[Woman's Record. 1852.]

T snows!" cries the School-boy-"hurrah!" and his shout
Is ringing through parlor and hall,

While swift, as the wing of a swallow, he's out

And his playmates have answered his call:

It makes the heart leap but to witness their joy,—
Proud wealth has no pleasures, I trow,

Like the rapture that throbs in the pulse of the boy,
As he gathers his treasures of snow;

Then lay not the trappings of gold on thine heirs,
While health, and the riches of Nature, are theirs.

"It snows!" sighs the Imbecile-"Ah!" and his breath
Comes heavy, as clogged with a weight;

While from the pale aspect of Nature in death,
He turns to the blaze of his grate:

And nearer, and nearer, his soft-cushioned chair
Is wheeled toward the life-giving flame-
He dreads a chill puff of the snow-burdened air,
Lest it wither his delicate frame:

Oh! small is the pleasure existence can give,
When the fear we shall die only proves that we live!

"It snows!" cries the Traveller-"Ho!" and the word Has quickened his steed's lagging pace;

The wind rushes by, but its howl is unheard—

Unfelt the sharp drift in his face;

For bright through the tempest his own home appeared-
Ay, though leagues intervened, he can see;

There's the clear, glowing hearth, and the table prepared,
And his wife with their babes at her knee.

Blest thought! how it lightens the grief-laden hour,
That those we love dearest are safe from its power.

"It snows!" cries the Belle-"Dear, how lucky!" and turns From her mirror to watch the flakes fall;

Like the first rose of summer, her dimpled cheek burns

While musing on sleigh-ride and ball:

There are visions of conquest, of splendor, and mirth,

Floating over each drear winter's day;

But the tintings of Hope, on this storm-beaten earth,
Will melt, like the snow-flakes, away;

Turn, turn thee to Heaven, fair maiden, for bliss,
That world has a fountain ne'er opened in this.

"It snows!" cries the Widow-"Oh God!" and her sighs Have stifled the voice of her prayer;

Its burden ye'll read in her tear-swollen eyes,
On her cheek, sunk with fasting and care.

'Tis night—and her fatherless ask her for bread

But He gives the young ravens their food,'

And she trusts, till her dark hearth adds horror to dread,

And she lays on her last chip of wood.

Poor sufferer! that sorrow thy God only knows

'Tis a pitiful lot to be poor, when it snows!

A

John Gorham Palfrey.

BORN in Boston, Mass., 1796. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1881.

THE GREAT AWAKENING.

[A Compendious History of New England. 1866-73.]

PORTION of the people of New England deplored the departure of what was in their estimation a sort of golden age. Thoughtful and religious men looked back to the time when sublime efforts of adventure and sacrifice had attested the religious earnestness of their fathers, and, comparing it with their own day of absorption in secular interests, of relaxation in ecclesiastical discipline, and of imputed laxness of manners, they mourned that the ancient glory had been dimmed. The contrast made a standing topic of the election sermons preached before the government from year to year, from the time of John Norton down. When military movements miscarried, when harvests failed, when epidemic sickness brought alarm and sorrow, when an earthquake spread consternation, they interpreted the calamity or the portent as a sign of God's displeasure against their backsliding, and appointed fasts to deprecate his wrath, or resorted to the more solemn expedient of convoking synods to ascertain the conditions of reconciliation to the offended Majesty of Heaven.

That religion, so sickly, might be reinvigorated was the constant hope and aim of numbers of reflecting persons. From time to time there would be reports of remarkable success attending the labors of one or another devoted minister. Among such Mr. Solomon Stoddard was distinguished. In his ministry of nearly sixty years at Northampton, “he had five harvests, as he called them;" that is, there were five different times at which a large number of persons professed religious convictions, and attached themselves to his church. An earthquake which traversed a considerable part of inhabited New England was interpreted as a Providential admonition, and the ministers of various places, of Boston especially, availed themselves of the terror which it inspired as an instrument of religious effect. The shock was felt just before midnight. "On the next morning a very full assembly met at the North Church [Cotton Mather's] for the proper exercises on so extraordinary an occasion. At five in the evening crowded concourse assembled at the Old Church [Dr. Chauncy's], and multitudes, unable to get in, immediately flowed to the South [Mr. Prince's], and in a few minutes filled that also. At Lieutenant-Governor Dummer's motion

.

a day of extraordinary fasting and prayer was kept in all the

churches in Boston. The ministers endeavored to set in with this extraordinary and awakening work of God in nature, and to preach his word in the most awakening manner;" and "in all the congregations many seemed to be awakened and reformed." But it was not till after the time of the political lull in Governor Belcher's administration, that in any quarter a religious movement took place of sufficient importance to attract wide attention.

Stoddard was succeeded as minister of Northampton by Jonathan Edwards, his grandson. In Edwards's judgment the people were suffering from want of a sufficiently distinct and earnest presentation of Calvinistic doctrine. He preached vehemently on "Justification by Faith" and "God's Absolute Sovereignty." Some of his friends were displeased, not by his doctrine, but by his exciting inferences from it, and would have discouraged him. But with an unimpassioned obstinacy he went on, and soon saw cause to rejoice in the fruit of his labors. "The spirit of God," he writes, "began extraordinarily to set in and wonderfully to work among us; and there were very suddenly, one after another, five or six persons who were to all appearance savingly converted, and some of them wrought upon in a very remarkable manner. . . A great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world became universal in all parts of the town, and among persons of all degrees and all ages; the noise among the dry bones waxed louder and louder; all other talk but about spiritual and eternal things was soon thrown by. Other discourse than of the things of religion would scarcely be tolerated in any company. There was scarcely a single person in the town, either old or young, that was left unconcerned; so that, in the spring and summer following, the town seemed to be full of the presence of God; it never was so full of love, nor so full of joy, and yet so full of distress, as it was then."

The people of the towns about "seemed not to know what to make of it; and there were many that scoffed at and ridiculed it, and some compared what was called conversion to certain distempers." But a session of the Supreme Court at Northampton brought numbers of people together there, and "those that came from the neighborhood were for the most part remarkably affected. Many went home with

wounded hearts, and with those impressions that never wore off till they had hopefully a saving issue. The same work began evidently to appear and prevail in several other towns in the county." South Hadley, Hadley, Suffield, Sunderland, Deerfield, Hatfield, Springfield, West Springfield, Longmeadow, Northfield, besides many towns in Connecticut, caught the sympathy, and made their large contributions of converts, as large, Edwards thought, in proportion to their population, as Northampton. Of his own town he wrote: "I hope that more than