FRIENDS' MEETING HOUSE, SANDY SPRING. Friends' Meeting House, Sandy Spring, Montgomery County, Md. This beautiful and yet secluded spot, is one of those retired situations where a temple seems to correspond with the feelings with which suchan edifice ought to be approached and entered. The society which assembles there, is one also, which few will visit and not wish to return and revisit again and again. In all my wanderings 73 flections, revived by the view of the earth and of human society on two continents. She is not alone, nations and empires are rising and falling before her mental eye. The deep green forest mantles her form from view, but the spirits of Shakspeare, Milton, and Byron, are her guides, and the young, the spiritual, and accomplished are her companions. Every tree, every herb, every rock, and every living being, are volumes in the immense library open to this society. over this world of care, and those wanderings This, let me tell the reader, is not imaginary, were neither brief in time nor space, 1 have seen no other place where, if my choice was under my own control, I would so willingly spend the evening, the sunny evening of my days. There, like the wind-beaten mariner, look in fancy on the wide and stormy ocean he has passed. Recal to remembrance the friends he has seen engulphed; retrace their virtues, their kindness, and feel the unspeakable luxury of converse with those he once and ever loved. "It is an age of business" floats on my ear. It is indeed an age of bustle as well as of business, and an age of political storm and strife; but there are still spots of clear blue heaven, on which the poetic eye rests, and the corroded heart is balmed with assurance that clouds and darkness do not cover the whole earth. Sandy Spring is one of those nooks from which we can -"See the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd. The roar she sends, comes in the folds of printed sheets, once a week, and if madness and folly could excite mirth and jollity, the laugh would resound through the primeval forest, on the margin of which stands the plain modest temple represented on the opposite page; but we here leave them to laugh, who wins the game played about twenty miles nearer the Equator, and leave those engaged by stating the almost incredible fact, that there is not a single inhabitant of Sandy Spring who holds ticket in the mighty lottery. a This place lace stands twenty-eight miles S. W. by W. of Baltimore, and twenty very nearly due N. of Washington city, and on the table land between the valleys of Potomac and Patuxent, at an elevation above tide water of about four hundred and fifty feet. Nature has so far befriended the inhabitants as to have made the soil sterile, and compelled them to gain physical strength and health by labor, and extended her beneficence so far, as to throw round them an atmosphere from which every source of impurity is removed. Though there is nothing grand or sublime in the scenery, there is richness and variety, and to those privileged to feel their sweets, the fields and woods have much of beauty. Nor have those beauties been lost on desert air; they have been visited, admired, and strongly remembered. Mentally I see that group now who changed the region of cholera for one where body and mind were alike safe from morbid contagion. Under that oak, whose foliage two hun it is a too faint sketch of reality. The hand that traces these rude lines, has been embrowned in the wilds of the west, and under the burning sun of Arkansas, Florida, and Louisiana, it has been benumbed in the snows of Canada. Hearts, and warm, sincere, and elevated hearts, have I found under every sky I have visited; but such were, in most instances, single flowers that bloomed alone. Time was when Hope would not have dared to whisper, "Mark Bancroft, thou shalt become blanched in a society where years shall follow years, where the old shall become older and the children become men and woman, without the occurrence of one of those vicissitudes which show depravity of heart."Yet, if this promise had been made, it would have been realized to the utmost word. Let those who cannot conceive the possibility, doubt the truth of this picture. To those who can believe such reality, it will unfold a most delightful canvass drawn from life; for such is the society of Sandy Spring. It is a society where useful employment is honor, and where mental improvement goes hand in hand with toil. It is a society where no door is shut upon the traveller. It is vain to say more. The Friends' Meeting here takes date with the original settlement of the place, or upwards of a century past. It has remained almost unknown beyond the neighborhood, from the secluded position. Within a few hundred yards from the Baltimore and Rockville road, it is sequestered, by a strip of forest, from the eye of the traveller; nor does any road pass its door, but one connecting the adjacent farms. In the discipline of ne of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, held in Baltimore, for the Western Shore of Maryland and the adjacent parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia, 1821, and printed in Baltimore the same year, at page 90 is the following historical notice: "From ancient records it appears, that the first Yearly Meeting, in Maryland, was held on West River, (lower part of Anne Arundell Co.) in the year 1672. That for many years the Meeting was held alternately at West River, on the Western Shore, and Fredhaven, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. That agreeable to an arrangement which took place in 1790, the Yearly Meeting was removed, to be held in Baltimore only, and to be composed of representatives from the Quarterly Meetings on the Western Shore of Maryland, and the adjacent parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia, to which was afterwards added the State of Ohio. But in the year 1812, Friends west of the Alleghany moun-. tains were separated from it, and authorized to dred and more springs have renewed, sits that establish a new Yearly Meeting in the State of female form, wrapt in the soul absorbing re- | Ohio; and it is now composed of Friends on the Western Shore of Maryland, and the adjoining parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia." The Yearly Meeting in Maryland was established by George Fox himself. "In the beginning of the year 1672, he took shipping for Maryland, where being come, he with those with him travelled through woods and wildernesses, over bogs and great rivers, to New England. By the way he had sometimes opportunity to speak to the Indians and their kings, and at other times he met with singular cases, all of which, for brevity's sake, I pass by in silence. He went also to the town called New Amsterdam, which name now is changed into that of New York. Here he lodged at the governor's house, and had also a meeting there. From thence he returned again to Maryland, and came also into Virginia and Carolina, and thus spent above a year travelling to and fro in America."-Sewel's History of the People called Quakers. pp: 582-3. Thus we find that the Society of Friends have had an organised Yearly Meeting in Maryland during one hundred and sixty years. Sandy Spring Meeting is a branch of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Meeting. The building seen on the left side of the engraving, g, is an old frame edifice once the Meeting House, which was in 1817 replaced by the plain but very neat brick building in which the Meeting is now held. The adjacent school house is seen on the back ground in perspective, between the two houses in front. Many readers may think the present notice warm-and too warm it would be for the far greater part of the habited earth; but let the reader, if in the city, fly the crowd, the smoke, and turmoil-the danger of epidemic diseaseand spend one summer at Sandy Spring, and if, as winter approaches, the summer and autumn does not appear too brief and fleeting, such a visitor will escape a regret felt by inost that have made the experiment. If cheerfulness, cultivated intelligence, and hospitality, can sweeten human life; if pure air, and pure and most limpid water, can ensure health, all these are combined at Sandy Spring; and if the visitor brings not the thorn in the heart, he will stand in no danger of gloomy days or sleepless nights. MARK BANCROFT. PHILADELPHIA EXCHANGE. This beautiful building, which was only commenced about eleven months since, stands on the angle formed by the intersection of Dock with Walnut street and at the corner of Walnut and Third streets. The engraving represents it as it will be when finished; at the present moment the basement and principal stories are carried up nearly to their destined height, and are covered in for the convenience of carrying on that part of the work which can be executed in the winter months. 'The Exchange is built entirely of marble, and the semi-circular portico on Dock street is composed of beau ful Corinthian pillars; it communicates with the great "Exchange room," by means of nine separate doorways. This portico is of the height of two stories, and opens into a Circular lantern, rising forty feet above the roof. The Exchange is a rectangular parallelogram 95 feet front on Third street, by 150 feet on Walnut street, including the semi-circular basement on Dock street of 72 feet in diameter. The basement story is 15 feet in height, and has 12 door ways on the Third street front and flanks. This story is arched throughout, and on the north or Dock street side is an apartment for the Post Office, 74 by 36 feet. Adjoining this, there is a hall or passage to shelter the public when receiving and delivering letters; this useful passage communicates with the main passage which runs through the entire building from Dock to Third streets. At the corner of Third and Walnut there is a room 35 feet front intended for the Exchange Bank, and another of similar dimensions for the Chamber of Commerce, &c. adjoins it. The other apartments in the basement are of a suitable size for Insurance and other companies. The Exchange room over this basement occupies an area of 3300 superficial feet; it is of course on the east front, extending across the whole building. In this story are also the great reading room, brokers' rooms, &c. The approaches to the Exchange room are by four flights hts of of steps; two from the semicircular basement, and the others from the main avenue underneath. The newspaper or reading room is over the Post Office-that over the Bank will be kept for the meetings of stockholders, &c. The brokers' room, &c. have fire proof closets. These arrangements appear complete and will no doubt be found very convenient. The attic story is of the same height as the basement, 15 feet, containing six large rooms, which will be rented to artists, &c. who will be sure of plenty of light and quiet. The roof is of copper, and the ornaments designed for the semicircular portion over the front colonnade it is said will be superb. The entire building will be finished it is presumed in another twelve month, and the Post Office will be removed to it by June or July, proving a vast accommodation compared with our present, where one has to stand under showers of rain to receive even a newspaper. The Girard Banking-house, the Pennsylvania Bank and the Exchange may now all be taken in at one view, and we perceive in the print shops that our artists have already taken advantage of this circumstance to engrave beautiful pictures. This view is one of the handsomest for architectural display our city can boast of, having large and imposing avenues by which the eye can gaze unobstructed on the whole, while at a sufficient distance to obtain the full effect. We have but one regret to add, and that is the eye-sore of Mr. Gowan's wine store, which if we had our own way should certainly come down. The prototype of this building is the Choragic Monument at Athens, called by the modern Athenians the Lanterne of Demosthenes. It stands near the eastern end of the Acropolis, and is now partly enclosed in the Hospitium of the Capuchins; this monument was erected 330 years before the Christian era, and is said to have been exquisitely wrought. ght. In this relic of antiquity, we have presented the richest example of Gre cian Corinthian architecture to be found in Attica. All the capitals from the hands of the best Italian artists are expected shortly. THE MOTHER TO HER FIRST BORN-SONNET-PAST AND PRESENT-STANZAS. Written for the Casket. THE MOTHER TO HER FIRST BORN. By Mrs. Jane E. Locke. Sad heritor art thou, My beauteous boy, Yet never may'st thou bow, To earth's alloy. Thine was no princely birth, No glitt'ring royalty, Or dignities of earth, Waited on thee. No tissue overspreads, Thy cradle bed; Or tinsel drapery shades, Thy infant head. 1 Ungartered and unstarred, Thy father's line; Yet a proud name, unmarred, Preserve it pure and free, On glory's page; *Tis all we have for thee- A lowly lot, my son, It pains my heart to give Its cold repulsive breath, Or folly's flowering wreath, Thy spirit gyve. Fain would I hold thee back, My infant, still, Lest manhood's widened track, Be choked with ill. But go, the God of heaven To Him thy hopes be given, From the New York American. SONNET TO HIS LYRE.-By Camoens. And are thy notes so tuned to wo Thou could'st not wake a happier strain, But that so wildly it should flow But hushed henceforth thy chords for aye, Let them no wakening hand obey But that which sweeps them o'er in sorrow. 75 From the Saturday Evening Post. THE PAST AND PRESENT. I cannot now recall those lays, In days long past my heart was light, But, ah! my days are now like night! Ah! in those happy, mirthful hours. That they would be like summer flowers, Yes, yes! a cloud hangs o'er each hour- There let it hang-had I the power I would not it dispell. STANZAS. BY MISS MARY ANN BROWNE. Come to the fields and woods! The hearth-the hot herth scorn; Come on the glittering sea, Come to the towering hill! That hold as yet the infant thunder, The lightning soon will rend asunder. Come, and in that crimson fire, The Lord of clouds and storms admire. Come to the bed of death! Without an agony- The light and glory in that eye, To Him who life's last hour can bless. C. |