I have of late only known existence by the pressure of the heavy hand of sickness, and have counted time by the repercussions of pain. I close my eyes in misery and open them without hope. Pale, emaciated, and feeble, you would not know me if you saw me; and my spirits fled-fled !" In the biography of the poet Campbell, who had in early youth sung the "Pleasures of Hope," and whose muse was never disgraced by the blemishes which attach to the compositions of the other poets whom we have named, a touching instance occurs of the emptiness of poetic fame. In the evening of life, the poet thus spoke to a circle of friends:-"I am alone in the world. My wife and the child of my hopes are dead. My only surviving child is consigned to a living tomb" (he was the inmate of a lunatic asylum). My old friends, brothers, and sisters are dead; all but one, and she, too, is dying. My last hopes are blighted. As for fame, it is a bubble that must soon burst. Earned for others, shared with others, it was sweet; but at my age, to my own solitary experience, it is bitter. Left in my chamber alone with myself, is it wonderful my philosophy at times takes fright, that I rush into company, resort to that which blunts but heals no pang-and then, sick of the world and dissatisfied with myself, shrink back into solitude?"

As a far more striking instance, however, of the vanity of the highest poetical genius and the emptiness of mere worldly fame, we select, as our type, LORD BYRON, or The Poet.

Upon this remarkable individual were heaped many of those gifts of nature and of fortune which are by the world so highly prized. He was by birth noble, tracing his descent from a line of ancestors which stretched back to a remote period of English history. Although not abounding in wealth, he was left in possession of an income which, to a well-regulated mind, would have secured independence. His manners, when he wished to please, are stated to have been singularly winning and attractive. His smile disarmed opposition and invited friendship. His external appearance harmonized with

the order of his mind. He not only was, but looked, the poet. The pen cil of the artist and the chisel of the sculptor were alike employed to delineate his countenance as a model

of classic grace. The talents intrusted to his stewardship were great; how melancholy, in surveying his short career, to observe their misapplication! And how different would have been the result had they been guided by the wisdom that is from above, instead of that which "is earthly, sensual, and devilish." His poetical genius was of a high class, capable of describing external nature, and the play of human passions, in a manner which awoke the deepest emotions of the heart. Byron early felt within himself aspirations after literary eminence. When a mere youth he wrote

The desire in my bosom for fame

Bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise;

Could I soar with the phoenix, on ashes of flame,

With it I would wish to expire in the blaze.

These desires were speedily gratified. After a passing disappointment, connected with the failure of some minor poetical effusions, he published his first great poem. "The effect of it," says a writer, "was electric. His fame had not to wait for any of the ordinary gradations, but seemed to spring up, like the palace of a fairy tale, in a single night." His work became the theme of every tongue. At his door most of the leading names of the day presented themselves. From morning till night the most flattering testimonies of success crowded his table. "He found himself," says Mr. Macaulay, "on the highest pinnacle of literary fame. There is scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence. Everything that could stimulate, everything that could gratify the strongest propensities of our nature, were at once offered to him: the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the acclamations of the whole nation, and the applause of applauded men." In place of the desert," continues his biographer, "which London had been to him a

few weeks before, he not only saw the whole splendid interior of high life thrown open to him, but found himself the most distinguished object among its illustrious crowds A short time before the publication of his poem, Byron had taken his seat amidst the hereditary legislators of his country.

With genius, with popularity, and with rank, how brilliant the prospect which now lay before him! Yet it proved but the deception of the mirage.

In that with which, above all other points, true happiness is so essentially connected-religious principle -his mind was singularly deficient; it had been darkened by scepticism. When a youth, some passing religious convictions appear to have agitated him; for he wrote at that season a poem containing the following lines: Father of light, on thee I call! Thou seest my soul is dark withinThou, who canst mark the sparrow's fall, Avert from me the death of sin.

If spiritual anxiety did for a moment cross his mind, it was soon obliterated by the irregularity of his moral conduct. The memorials of his early years are full of those records of wasted seasons of usefulness and squandered talents which lay up such a store of reproach for after-life. "The average hour of rising," says one of his companions at Newstead Abbey, was one o'clock. It was two before breakfast was concluded." Frivolous amusements consumed the remaining hours, until the company, at seven, sat down to an entertainment, which was prolonged till two or three in the morning. The finest wines were abundantly supplied; a cup, fashioned out of a human skull, forming an unhallowed chalice out of which the guests were expected occasionally to drink. The result of this life was such as might have been anticipated-inward dissatisfaction. To use the poet's own language

He felt the fulness of satiety, and he quitted his native shores for foreign travel, in the hopes of supplying his weary spirit with fresh excitement, but all in vain. Though he carried with him a genius deeply imbued with poetical power, he re

turned to England chagrined and sick at heart. When his travels were concluded he thus wrote:-"Embarrassed in my private affairs, indiffe rent to public; solitary, and without the wish to be social; I am returning home without a hope, and almost without a desire." Fresh literary triumphs failed to secure him the happiness for which he sought; nor was he more successful in finding it in a marriage which he soon afterwards contracted. He saw, to use his own language, his household gods shivered around him. Nine executions for debt entered his dwelling within a twelvemonth, and, at the end of that period, a separation ensued between his wife and himself. Retiring abroad, he plunged afresh in streams of sinful pleasure. His life became a miserable animal existence; the source of wretchedness to himself. He was, indeed, sick of it. "If I were to live over again," he writes, "I do not know what I would change in my life, except not to have lived at all." Similar sentiments were expressed in his poetry: Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen; Count o'er the days from anguish free; And know whatever thou hast been, 'Tis something better not to be.

The whole of his poetry, indeed, continued to bear the impress of his morbid spirit. "Never had any writer," says a critic, "so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts exhaust, its perennial waters of bitterness. From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation, there was not a single note of human anguish of which he was not master. He always described himself as a man whose capacity for happiness was gone, and could not be restored." Restless and dissatisfied, he pursued new objects, and betook himself to a visionary scheme for the political regeneration of Greece; a country which had attracted his poetical sympathies. Fresh disappointments awaited him in this scene of action, and his heart's aspirations after enjoyment were again blasted. On the last birth-day which he was destined to see, he

thus described, in touching lines, his own lonely and miserable condition:

My days are in the yellow leaf,

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.

The fire that in my bosom plays
Is lone as some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze,
A funeral pile.

The life of the poet was now, however, drawing to a close. Shortly after composing these verses he was arrested by the hand of disease, and his illness terminated fatally. The deathbed of the highly talented man was a painful spectacle. "I had never before felt," says an eyewitness,

Ir is a good resolution, founded on good reasons, some of which I will state, in the hope that others may be induced to come to a similar determination.

I will give liberally, for the following reasons, viz.:

1. Because the objects for which I am called upon to give are great and noble. It is the cause of letters and religion, of man and God, for which my donations are wanted. The interests of time and eternity both are involved in it. Now, it is a shame to give calculatingly and sparingly to such a cause, and for such objects. If one gives at all, he should give liberally. Nothing can justify a person's putting in only two mites, but its being all his living.

2. Liberal donations are needed. The cause not only deserves them, but requires them. It takes a great deal to keep the present operations a going; and we must every year ex tend the works. Do you know that we have the world to go over, and the millennium is approaching?

in the arms of some dear friend. His habitation was weather-tight; but that was all the comfort his deplorable room afforded him." No gleam of joy, of peace, or hope, rose upon that melancholy scene; no prayer for forgiveness ascended. The Divine Redeemer was but once mentioned, and then only in an exclamation wrung forth by pain. The dying poet murmured some broken and inarticulate sentences, in which occurred the name of his wife and child, and falling into a troubled slumber, he soon afterwards died: His high aims abandoned-his good acts undone

Aweary of all that is under the sun.

Such was the termination of the poet's career. The world and the glory thereof had been his; but, unsanctified and unblessed by God, all his rich intellectual enjoyments had proved illusive as the mirage.-From the "Mirage of Life," by the Religious Tract Society.

LIBERALLY."

tions small, is literally monstrous. I will not act so out of all proportion. If I must retrench, I will retrench from my expenditures, and not from my benefactions.

6. The time for giving is short, and therefore I will give liberally while I have the opportunity of giving at all. Soon I shall be com pelled to have done giving.

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7. A blessing is promised_to liberal giving, and I want it. The liberal soul shall be made fat. Therefore I will be liberal. And he that watereth, shall be watered himself." Then I will water. There is that scattereth and yet increaseth." Therefore I will scatter, and not sparingly, but bountifully, for "he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully."

8. I will give liberally, because it is not a clear gift, it is a loan. "He that has pity upon the poor lendeth to the Lord;" lendeth to the best of paymasters, on the best security, and at the highest rate of interest; for he renders double, aye, a hundredfold in this life, to say nothing of the life to come. I will lend him liberally.

9. I will give liberally, because the times are hard where the Gospel

is not.

10. I will give liberally, because there are many who would but cannot; and many that can but will not. It is so much the more necessary, therefore, that they should who are both able and inclined. I used to say, "I will not give liberally, because others do not. There is a richer man than I am, who does not give so much as I do." But now, from the same premises, I draw the opposite conclusion. Because others do not give liberally, I will.

11. I have sometimes tried giving

HOW TO GROW RICH.-"Nothing is more easy," says Mr. Paulding, "than to grow rich. It is only to trust nobody-to befriend none-to heap interest upon interest-to destroy all the finer feelings of nature, and be rendered mean, miserable and despised, for some twenty or

liberally, and I do not believe I have ever lost anything by it. I have seen others try it, and they did not seem to lose anything by it, and, on the whole, I think a man is in no great danger of losing who puts liberally into the treasury of the Lord and possessor of all things, and the giver of every good and perfect gift.

12. And finally, when I ask myself if I shall ever be sorry for giving liberally, I hear from within a prompt and most decided negative, "No, never."

Wherefore I conclude that I will give liberally. It is a good resolution, I am certain; and now I will take care that I do not spoil it all by putting an illiberal construction on liberally. I will understand it as meaning freely, cheerfully, largely, whether the lexicographers say so or not; or, in other words, as meaning what I ought to give and a little more. I will tell you how I will do. An object being presented to me, when I have ascertained what jus tice requires me to give, I will add something, lest, through insidious selfishness, I may have underrated my ability; and that, if I err, I may be sure to err on the right side. Then I will add a little to my donation out of generosity. And when I have counted out what justice requires, and what generosity of her free will offers, then I will think of Him who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be rich; and I say not that I will add a little more, but, how can I keep back any thing?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

DR. NEVINS.

thirty years-and riches will come as sure as disease, disappointment and miserable death."

THE body is the shell of the soul, and dress the husk of that shell; but the husk often tells what the kernel is.

THERE was, some years ago, not far from this place, a very gifted preacher, who for several years preached with great earnestness and success the doctrine of the cross; but who, on that very account, was violently opposed. One of his opponents, a well-informed person, who bad for a long time absented himself from the church, thought, one Sunday morning, that he would go and hear the gloomy man once more, to see whether his preaching might be more tolerable to him than it had been heretofore. He went, and that morning the preacher was speaking of the narrow way, which he did not make either narrower or broader than the word of God describes it. "A new creature in Christ, or eternal condemnation," was the theme of his discourse; and he spoke with power, and not as a mere learned reasoner. During the sermon, the question forced itself upon his hearer's conscience. "How is it with myself? Does this man declare the real truth? If he does, what must inevitably follow from it?" This thought took such a hold upon him, that he could not get rid of it amidst any of his engagements or amusements. But it became from day to day more and more troublesome, more and more penetrating, and threatened to embitter every joy of his life; so that at last he thought he would go to the preacher himself, and ask him, upon his conscience, if he were convinced of the truth of that which he had lately preached. He fulfilled his intention and went to the preacher. "Sir," said he to him, with great earnestness, "I was one of your hearers when you spoke, a short time since, of the only way of salvation. I confess to you that you have disturbed my peace of mind, and I cannot refrain from asking you solemnly before God, and upon your conscience, if you can prove what you asserted, or whether it was unfounded alarm?" The preacher, not a little surprised at this address, replied with convincing certainty, that he had spoken the word of God, and consequently infallible truth, “What, then, is to become of us ?" replied the

visitor. His last word, us, startled the preacher, but he rallied his thoughts, and began to explain the plan of salvation to the inquirer, and to exhort him to repent and believe. But the latter, as though he had not heard one syllable of what the preacher said, interrupted him in the midst of it, and repeated with increasing emotion the anxious exclamation, "If it be truth, sir, I beseech you, what are we to do?" Terrified, the preacher staggers back. "We," thinks he, "what means this we?" and, endeavouring to stifle his inward uneasiness and embarrassment, he resumed his exhortations and advice. Tears came into the eyes of the visitor; he smote his hands together like one in despair, and exclaimed in an accent which might have moved a heart of stone, "Sir, if it be truth, we are lost and undone !" The preacher stood pale, trembling, and speechless. Then, overwhelmed with astonishment, with downcast eyes and convulsive sobbings he exclaimed, Friend, down on your knees, let us pray and cry for mercy!" They knelt down, and prayed; and shortly afterwards the visitor took his leave. The preacher shut himself up in his closet. Next Sunday, word was sent that the minister was unwell, and could not appear. The same thing happened the Sunday following. On the third Sunday the preacher made his appearance before his congregation, worn with his inward conflict, and pale, but his eyes beaming with joy, and commenced his discourse with the surprising and affecting declaration, that he had now, for the first time, passed through the strait gate. You will ask what had occurred to him in his chamber, during the interval which had elapsed. A storm passed over before him-but the Lord was not in the storm; an earthquake-but the Lord was not in the earthquake; a fire-but the Lord was not in the fire. Then came a still small voice; on which the man enveloped his face in his mantle, and from that time knew what was the Gospel and what was grace.-Krummacher.