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Entered according to the act of Congress in the year 1834, by KEY & BIDDLE, in the clerk's office of the district court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania.

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THE FATHER.

"Yes, I am he,-who look'd and saw decay

Steal o'er the lov'd of earth,-the ador'd too much.-
It is a fearful thing, to love what Death may touch."
MRS. HEMANS.

I was in the full tide of a laborious and absorbing profession,-of one which imposes on intellect an unsparing discipline, but ultimately opens the avenues to wealth and fame. I pursued it, as one determined on distinction,- -as one convinced that mind may assume a degree of omnipotence over matter and circumstance, and popular opinion. Ambition's promptings were strong within me, nor was its career unprosperous.—I had no reason to complain that its promises were deceptive, or its harvest tardy.

Yet as my path was among the competitions and asperities of men, a character combining strong elements might have been in danger of becoming indurated, had it not been softened and refined by the domestic charities. Conjugal love, early fixing on an object most amiable and beautiful, was as a fountain of living water, springing up to allay thirst, and to renovate weariness. I was anxious that my home should be the centre of intellectual and polished society, where the buddings of thought should

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