for a teacher, for in such a life there is a system to which a mind doubly embittered by recollections of the past and forebodings of the future, can never bend. Feeling it impossible to take that interest in the improvement of his pupils which his conscience told him was his duty, he gave up in despair, determining to seek some more active employment in which his mind would be in a measure distracted from brooding on his griefs, and where he might dissipate, if he could not stay, that sorrow which was gnawing at his heart. With this intention, he bent his way to one of our large commercial cities, and succeeded in obtaining a place in an importing warehouse. The duties here, as he had anticipated, had the effect of scattering much of that gloom which had hitherto clogged his energies, and as the sunlight of prosperity broke upon his path, he resumed much of that cheerfulness and gaiety which had made him an universal favorite at College.

While such was briefly the state of De Valville's mind up to this period, his father, as time advanced, had relaxed the sternness of his anger against his son, and besought by the fond accents of maternal love, he determined on receiving his erring child into the bosom of his family. When this proposal reached De Valville, it kindled into a flame the joy which had just begun to sparkle in his heart. He embraced it with eagerness, and a few days saw him happy in all the endearments of domestic affection; the sudden revulsion of his grief-dyed sympathies struck a chord which had long since been mute, or if it had given forth any tone it was but the echo of sadness and despair. But now all was joy, bright, unclouded joy; old friendships, which had rusted in the lapse of time, were revived, new acquaintances formed, the loved spots of childhood revisited, and poor Clarence began to think that the dreams of his youth were to be realized, and that he had been tried in the furnace of affliction, in order to prepare him for an elysium of happiness. Dis aliter visum.'

sweet

In the happy circle in which he now moved, there was one who had been in former days the "starlight of his boyhood." But a long absence and weightier cares had in a degree quenched that admiration which her presence inspired with a renewed ardor. Elizabeth M- had now reached the 66 of age seventeen," and had preserved all the artless simplicity and purity of the girl, while she had attained the grace and dignity of the woman. I saw her but once, and I then thought she was a being made to be loved; the timid, soft expression of that countenance; the locks, black as the raven's wing, in whose every ringlet passion seemed to thrill; that eye so languishingly dark, yet so purely clear; the nameless grace which floated around the whole figure, would have conquered the heart of the most indifferent Stoic, and it is not strange that it lighted a flame in that of

the susceptible Clarence De Valville. She was to him the beauideal of his dreams, the fair nymph whom he had so long been seeking, to enshrine in his heart. And, too, his own affection was reciprocated, and they spake of that tie which nought but death can sever, with ecstatic delight. But here the cold hand of family prudence interposed to check their mutual happiness; their intimacy was discouraged, and it soon appeared that at present insuperable obstacles prevented their union. De Valville now lost all relish for those pleasures which home had afforded him; he grew reckless, and determined on again seeking his fortune, and winning, spite of all opposition, at a future day, the fair object of his attachment. Having mutually pledged their vows of eternal constancy, he betook himself to his old business pursuits with fresh and unsubdued ardor, and buoyed up by fond hope, success attended his enterprises. Such was his situation, when he heard that she for whose sake he had left forever the fond endearments of home, had proved faithless; that urged by the stern commands of parental authority, she had become the bride of another; and the same moment in which this dreadful truth burst upon him, he felt that he was alone, that all worth living for had now gone, and that the cup of his sad destiny was filled to overflowing.

"Oh! colder than the wind that freezes

Founts that but now in sunshine played,
Is that congealing pang which seizes
The trusting bosom when betrayed."

It was not enough that in early life all his high hopes had been blasted, that in after years sorrow had made him her playmate, that reverses without and a wounded spirit within, had subdued all the fervor of his temperament; but this last, this fatal stroke, must be added to consummate the purpose of his being.

I was taking a stroll one October afternoon into the country, and found myself, almost unconsciously, musing over the romantic course of De Valville's life. I had always been his warm friend and admirer, I had corresponded with him when absent, and now residing in the same place, our intimacy resumed much of its former strength. I had seen him but a few hours before, and he had then just received the dreadful news of which I have spoken. On reaching home I found that a message had been left in my absence, stating that a person had been found drowned, and that from letters about him it was supposed that I must have some knowledge of him. I hastened to the spot with a presentiment, that this would prove to be my unhappy friend. Alas! my suspicions were too true: there lay the suicide, the child of sorrow and despair. I gazed a moment on those pale features; that

lofty brow, seamed with the wrinkles of a thousand cares, yet bespeaking the tokens of a noble mind; those eyes, which had once flashed with the fire of poetry and feeling, but were now struck blind by the cold hand of death; on the dark moist hair which had floated in disordered masses on his marble countenance, and had given it an unearthly aspect, and my soul grew sick at the sight. I thought of him when at College, the ardent enthusiast, the creature of impulse; of his career, checkered by misfortune in after life, of the cruel deed, which had doubtless prompted his last act, and I had not the heart to bestow upon him that withering epithet suicide. I was the only friend whom he possessed in the place where he had been residing, and I took charge of what little worldly goods he had left behind. On looking over his port-folio, I found that he had been long a votary of the muses, and as might be inferred from the course of his life, Melpomene was his favorite. Here is an address to the Autumn leaf, dated but a very few days before his death.

Lone trembling one!

Last of a summer's race, wither'd and sear,
And shivering-wherefore dost thou linger here,
Thy work is done.

Thou hast seen all

The summer's flowers reposing in their tomb,
And the green leaves that knew thee on thy bloom,
Wither and fall.

Why dost thou cling,

So fondly to the rough, and sapless tree?
Hath bleak existence aught like charms for thee,
Thou faded thing?

The voice of Spring,

Which woke thee into being, ne'er again

Shall greet thee-nor the gentle summer's rain
New verdure bring.

The Zephyr's breath

No more will make for thee its melody,

But the lone sighing of the blast shall be,
Thy Hymn of Death.

Yet a few days,

A few faint struggles with the autumn storm,
And the strained eye to catch thy trembling form
In vain may gaze.

Pale autumn leaf!

Thou art an emblem of mortality;

The broken heart once young and fresh like thee,
Wither'd by grief,

THE diversity of human character, the strongly contrasted stages of civilization, which exist in different sections of the world, have been employed as arguments by the daring sceptic, against the divine origin of reason. And when demanded why he refuses to ascribe its existence to a cause so rational, and so satisfactory to the believer, he replies, that he discovers in its conditions, and in man, the proofs of its mortality. If reason were granted us by a being infinitely wise and benevolent, it would have shared His character and immutability, and in its perfection would have corresponded with other works of His creation. Like the sun in the heavens, it would have received its unchanging and unchangeable brightness on the morning of its creation; and as it reveals to all men alike their external relations to the physical world, so reason, if it were a spark of the Deity, would in the moral and political kingdom, have proved to mortals a guide as unerring. That owing to different degrees of intellectual freedom we discover a great discrepancy in the moral condition of mankind, we are ready to admit; but that it is the result of causes which render such difference in no wise inconsistent with the character of our Creator, we think equally true. And that reason is not the child of civilization, the offspring of chance and circumstances, we only wonder that vain man should ever have questioned. Man was to be made, in the image of his God, to be in part the representative of His power and character. And to designate him from the millions of those subjected to his control, the stamp of Divinity was impressed on his brow and in his reason, he recognized the seal of his Immortality. It was given him as the magnet of his moral compass, ever pointing to the polar star of truth, whose office was to direct man aright in his earthly wanderings.

:

Man was made to be free, to be independent in thought, and, except when conflicting with the interests of society, to be independent in action: and that he might sustain these noble relations, reason was bestowed upon him, not a thing to be moulded at pleasure, to receive every hue and coloring with which passion or prejudice might please to gild it; but like its Author, its features were benevolence and justice, its character immutable and eternal. Are we asked then, whence the accumulation of evils under which mankind have ever been doomed to suffer? whence that tide of misery, of woe and degradation, which has for ages swept over the earth, and which is still moving in its desolating career over the fairest portions of our heritage? If reason be a heaven-commissioned guide, and nations are the architects of their own fortunes, why has the civilization of one age been succeeded by the barbarism of another? Why have the land-marks of former national greatness been swept away by the folly of succeeding generations? Why have the temples of liberty at which the early men worshipped in the true dignity of human character, given place to the shrines of a degrading superstition, and to the altars of an unhallowed despotism, at which a degenerate age bow with slavish submission and servile fear? We answer, man has fought against himself. Stimulated by pride and avarice, though he could not strip reason of its attributes, he has suffered his own passions to usurp its province. Had he obeyed its dictates, he would never have fallen from any height attained, nor ceased from progressive advancement to perfection in character. But as by intervening clouds the brightness of the mid-day sun is hid from our view, so superstition, ignorance and oppression, have beclouded the light of reason, and left man to wander in the darkness of a moral night. But as clouds fade away from before the face of him, whose glory they would eclipse, and he again reveals to us his brightness undiminished, so the light of reason has at times burst from the darkness which enveloped it, revealing to man his true character, and his glorious destiny. And here, to observe the influence of reason in its unrestrained exercise over man, and hence its influence in the formation of national character, and to note the era of its triumphs, may not prove an unprofitable task.

The world has ever been the theater of moral and political changes. Mind has seldom been stationary. It has either constantly advanced to successive triumphs, or under opposing influences has continued to sink into a grosser degradation. Nor has its degeneracy been confined to an early period, acquiring with its years the character it was destined to attain. But save at intervals, it has ever been the sport of circumstances which it was not suffered to control. In its comparative infancy, it first established its dominion, and filled the eastern world with the