Poetry.

LET ME REST.

BY EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

HE does well who does his best: Is he weary? Let him rest. Brothers! I have done my best, I am weary-let me rest. After toiling oft in vain, Baffled, yet to struggle fain; After toiling long, to gain Little good with mickle pain,Let me rest. But lay me low Where the hedge-side roses blow; Where the little daisies grow When the winds a-Maying go; Where the foot-path-rustics plod; Where the breeze-bow'd poplars nod; Where the old woods worship God; Where His pencil paints the sod; Where the wedded throstle sings; Where the young bird tries its wings; Where the wailing plover swings Near the runlet's rushy springs; Where, at times, the tempest's roar, Shaking distant sea and shore, Still will rave old Barnesdale o'er, To be heard by me no more! There beneath the breezy west, Tir'd and thankful, let me restLike a child, that sleepeth best On its gentle mother's breast. Hargate Hill, near Barnsley, 26th March, 1849.

THE SPIRIT OF PROGRESS.

The gloomy night is breaking,

E'en now the sunbeams rest, With a faint, yet cheering radiance, On the hill-tops of the West. The mists are slowly rising

From the valley and the plain, And a spirit is awaking,

That shall never sleep again.
And ye may hear, that listen,
The spirit's stirring song,
That surges like the ocean,

With its solemn bass along-
Ho! can ye stay the rivers,
Or bind the wings of light,
Or bring back to the morning
The old departed night?
Nor shall ye check my impulse,
Nor stay it for an hour,
Until earth's groaning millions
Have felt the healing power!'
That spirit is Progression,

In the vigour of its youth;
The foeman of Oppression,

And its armour is the TRUTH.

Old Error with its legions

Must fall beneath its wrath; Nor blood, nor tears, nor anguish, Will mark its brilliant path. But onward, upward, heavenward, The spirit still will soar, Till PEACE and LOVE shall triumph, And FALSEHOOD reign no more.

THE WORKER.

Who blushes for labour, for honest toil?
Who scorneth the rough hard hand?
It is nobler far to till the soil,

Than simply to own the land.

Uncultured by man, only briers and thorns, Will the earth to its children yield,

But blessed with his labour the wilderness blooms,

And the waste is a fruitful field.

Let the titled, the rich, and the idle scorn,
The worker cares not for them;

Who decks them with pearls from the oceanwave?

With gold and the priceless gem? Who hunts for the ermine?

silk?

Who weaves the

Who embroiders the scarf of gold?
Who makes their soft couches and downy beds?
Who guards them from winter's cold?
Hurrah for the worker! He decketh them all,
He toils for the great in the land;

The rubies and pearls round the lady's fair neck,
Are twined by the labourer's hand.
The workers of old to the grave have passed,
But their memory cannot die,
Painting, and statue, and pyramid,

Are the trophies proud and high.

And glorious gems from the spirit mine,
Bright pearls from the waves of thought,
Are twined in a regal diadem,

By the toil of ages wrought.

Bind the laurel wreath round the workers' brow For a conqueror is he,

He hath wrestled with poverty, time, and death,

And hath won the victory.

Still onward and upward his path shall be,
No dangers his courage appal;

The winds and the waves are his coursers free
The lightning obeys his call.

He thinks-and the mighty orb of day,
Must its mightier master own,

The glorious stars are his beacon-fires,
From the poles to the burning zone.

Let monarchs boast in their pride and power,
Of the millions who own their sway;
The victor o'er poverty, time, and death,
Is a mightier king than they.

An offering to the shrine of power
Our hands shall never bring;
A garland on the car of pomp
Our hands shall never fling;
Applauding in the conqueror's path
Our voices ne'er shall be ;
But we have hearts to honour those,
Who bade the world go free.

Praise to the good, the pure, the great
Who made us what we are!

Who lit the flame that yet shall glow With radiance brighter far;

Glory to them in coming time,

And through eternity,

Who burst the captive galling chain
Who bade the world

go

free.-Nicholl.

E.

Aids to Progress.

In our day, it is the people that are Conservatives, and it is the governments that are revolutionists. The people aspire to wealth; the governments march to impoveri hment. The people are serious; the governments are not. The governments are yet at the age of playthings, at the age to be amused by beating a drum, and trailing a sword, and engaging in combats. But do you know, ye serious men, how much this diversion costs Europe? It costs every year, the third of its revenues. Now it is this precisely which prevents us from giving labour to all; and which would give to all, at least, the necessaries of life.— Emile de Girardin.

An elector wisely aiming at the public good, will favour all reform, real reform; not the tricksy baits by which pretended friends, whether of the farmer or the operative, would slacken pursuit of perfect liberty; but all reform that deserves the name, and is set in motion by known friends. There is scarcely a more cheering sign of popular progress in the right way, than the growing perception that every contribution to real reform is so much abstracted from the means of Wrong, and added to the stores of Right; so much increase to the strength of the people, and so much decrease in the power to enslave them. It must be so, if any one truth is, as it is, a part of the mighty whole which universal truth comprises. The addition of a stone to the rising edifice can be an evil only when it conceals the incompleteness of the structure, or creates indifference to its further progress. "Sustain your claim of universal suffrage," says Mr. William Johnson Fox, M.P., in the preface to one of his able volumes of Lectures to the Working Classes, "

but not in such a manner as to make it an impediment to other reforms." "It is sheer foily," he continues, "to go without any good which can be got under the present system, simply because you cannot obtain the reformation of that system. And," referring to the obstruction offered by working men to the Anti-corn-law movement, he adds, "commit not yourselves to any similar folly as to the great Financial Reform movemont now in progress. The impatience of political degradation is stronger as the circumstances of a class are meliorated and its intelligence is expanded. The half-starved beast is driven quietly. And, without calculating political results, every public saving gained by the fiscal reformers will contribute some fraction of good to yourselves and families. Tea, soap, and malt are not articles about whose price you can afford to be careless." Then, the present lecturer would add, let every man seeking the franchise hold himself bound, by faithfulness to his own demand to favour all reform. The interests of home, kindred, intellect, humanity morals, and religion, with all societies, of whatever kind, promoting their extension, flourish or fail in the degree of general competence or pressure; and real reform of any kind brings its proportionate tribute to the common stores, as surely as it promotes the common contentment and the public good.Edward Swaine,

The amount of difficulty before us, should be the measure of our determination.

We firmly believe that the whole civilized world is advancing rapidly, though with unequal progress towards a point at which the only suitable form of government will be one which allows full play to the representative principle, at which self-government will be the substance, and monarchy when it is retained will be the shadow.-Morning Chronicle.

THE UNITY OF TRUTH.-With regard to society, it teaches this lesson-would that men understood it-that there is diversity in unity and unity in diversity. There is no lesson more needed to raise them above the smallness of party and the pettiness of sect, than to see that there is one spirit, though many manifestations, just as there are different men in different lands and climes who yet are all

struggling towards the light and the truth. There is a possibility of mounting into such pure and elevated regions as to be able to look down upon the conflicts of particular classes and of particular opinions, watchful of them, though wearied of their nature. This is sublimity with a wise eclecticism-ascending so high as to be able to see what both parties meant, and to give them all credit for having meant well, enabling us to use and lay hold of the truth. They are called upon chiefly to advocate the truth which the dominant party of the day had most neglected. We say that God suffers none of us to monopolise the truth. You remember what John Milton (Hear.) speaks of truth, as coming into the world a fair virgin form, and how wicked conspirators dissevered those fair limbs, and scattered them to the four winds of heaven-how the sad friends of truth gathered up such limbs as they could, might, by the inspiration of the same spirit in the hope if they were brought together they that first created them, be re-united and be made a living body again.-George Dawson.

PEACE. What is that we do when we maintain the existence of large armies in great civilized countries? We not only overburden the citizens with large and oppressive taxes-we not only embarrass the diplomacy of governments, by keeping in existence masses of men whose interest must run to some extent in a military direction-but we help to keep alive the passion of war, and to inflame the public mind with grand military displays. We put our

faith in the sword as the ultimate arbitrator between nation and nation. We indoctrinate our young people with this baneful philosophy; we influence even the ardent imaginations of women-those imaginations that ought to be centred around all that is lovely, and holy, and generous. We inflame the imagination of the tenderest and most lovely portion of the human race, until the earth is impregnated with the bloody philosophy, and until peoples and rulers are alike inflicted by the common insanity. Good citizens must alter the sentiment, and try to impregnate the minds of men with the holy spirit of our common Christianity, to garland philosophy, literature, poetry, and all the holy domestic association around the grand cause of peace, and affect the general disarmament of the civilized world. -Henry Vincent.

59

Curious.

"The seeds of various plants," says a distinguished chemist, "may be placed in pure sea-sand, or even leaden shot, and nourished with nothing but pure distilled water, and the common atmosphere, and the sun's light and heat, and the seeds will sprout, and the plants grow and thrive, and attain to maturity, elaborating for themselves, out of the distilled water and the atmosphere, all their own nutriment, and properly arranging and composing the several vegetable structures and substances, and producing the several vegetable properties. And if this vegetable matter thus produced be carefully preserved and accurately analyzed, the various earths, the alkalies, acids, metals, carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, nitrogen, etc., may be obtained the same, or nearly the same, as if the plants had grown in their natural soil."

"It is well known," says Dr. Turner, in his Elements of Chemistry, "that many plants grow when merely suspended in the air. In the hot-houses of the botanical garden of Edinburgh, for example, there are two plants, species of the fig tree, the Ficus australis and the Ficus elastica, the latter of which, as Dr. Graham informs me, has been suspended for four, and the former for nearly ten years, during which time they have continued to send out shoots and leaves."

"The Aerial Epidendrum, a beautiful plant of Java and of the East Indies beyond the Ganges," says an eminent physiologist, has no roots nor any apparent organs of nutrition, but lives alone on air and the vapour of the atmosphere. It is said to be no uncommon thing for the inhabitants to pluck it up on account of the elegance of its leaves and the beauty of its flower, and the exquisite odour which it diffuses, and to suspend it by a silken cord from the ceiling of their rooms, where from year to year, it continues to put forth new leaves, new blossoms, and new fragrance, excited to new life and action only by light and heat and the surrounding atmosphere."

The "Arrogant Journal" is the title of a newspaper got up entirely (printing included) on board the "Arrogant," 64, Captain Fitzroy, at Portsmouth, principally by the ward-room officers, one of whom (Lieutenant A. D. Dundas,) has his name affixed as the sole proprietor. This paper, we believe, is the first ever printed and published on board ship.

In Loch-Shieldaig, in the Highlands, there is a small rocky island, a crevice in which affords a home for three very incongruous companions-a hawk, a rock pigeon, and an Owlet who have lived there, in the greatest harmony, for years.

The commerce of Russia in 1849 amounted in exports to 88,336,837 silver rubles: in imports, to 99,778,278 rubles.

The Medical Times shows that 90,000 patients are annually received into the hospitals of Paris; that 14,000 old and infirm persons are supportged in its infirmaries; that 5000 foundlings are taken in, and 23,000 sent out to nurse; and, finally, that domiciliary assistance is afforded by the Administration to 30,000 indigent amilies.

Comical.

The following was a puzzle to the best readers in the Post-office for some time:"Serum Fridavi, Londres:" when, by reading the address aloud, with the French as well as the English sound of the vowels, it was solved in-"Sir Humphry Davy, London."

A DUMB WOMAN.-It is said that a girl in Pittsfield, Mass., was struck dumb by the firing of a cannon. Since then it is said that a number of married men have invited the artillery companies to come and discharge their pieces on their premises.

HONEST EXERTION.-A down east spendthrift recently said, "Five years ago I was not worth a cent in this world; now see where I am through my exertions." "Well, where are you?" "Why, I owe more than 3,000 dollars !" FORENSIC ELOQUENCE IN AMERICA.-The following "burst of eloquence" was delivered before a Court of Justice in Pennsylvania:Your Honour sits high on the adorable seat or justice, like the Asiatic rock of Gibraltar, while the eternal streams of justice, like the cadaverous clouds of the valley, flow meandering at your feet.'

A beau dressed out resembles the cinnamon tree; the bark is of greater value than the body

"You are writing my bill on very rough paper," said a client to his attorney. "Never mind," said the attorney, "it has to be filed before it comes into court."

There are three things that never become rusty-the money of the benevolent, the shoes of the butcher's horse, and the woman's tongue. -Welsh saying.

AS GOOD AS IF IT WERE ESOP.-The Nantucket Islander says the following story was lately told by a reformed inebriate as an apology for much of the folly of drunkards:-"A mouse, ranging about a brewery, happening to fall into a vat of beer, was in imminent danger of drowning, and appealed to a cat to help him out. The cat replied it is a foolish request, for as soon as I get you out I shall eat you. The mouse piteously replied, that the fate would be better than to be drowned in beer. The cat lifted him out, but

the fume of the beer caused puss to sneeze, and the mouse took refuge in his hole. The cat called upon the mouse to come out you sir, did you not promise that I should eat you? 'Ah!' replied the mouse, but you know I was in liquor at the time.'

LIBERTY.The "Razor Strop Man" says"When first I got acquainted with strong drink, it promised to do a great many things for me. It promised me liberty-and I got liberty. I had the liberty to see my toes poke out of my boots-the water had the liberty to go in at the toes and got out at the heels-my knees had the liberty to come out of my pants

my elbows had liberty to come out of my coat I had the liberty to lift the erown of my hat and scratch my head without taking my hat off. Not only liberty I got, but I got music. When I walked along on a windy day, the crown of

"My hat would go flipperty flap,
And the wind whistle how do you do."

299

Temperance Truisms.

It is a mistaken notion that beer, wine, and spirits communicate strength; and it is disgraceful to see medical men endeavouring to propagate the error.-Kirby O'Sullivan, Esq.,

in Medical Times.

From careful observation of this subject, during many years of practice, I am persuaded that tens of thousands of temperate drinkers die annually, from diseases through which the abstemious would pass in safety.-Dr. Sewall. The first surgeon in Europe, Dieffenbeck, of Berlin, recently stated that, in amputating limbs after accidents, he invariably found the several muscles of those who had been treated by water, and were habitual water-drinkers, of much more vivid red colour, of greater compactness, and more contractility, than in any other individuals.-Drs. Wilson and Gully on the Water Cure.

On examination, it will be found that substitutes for alcohol are readily found as aids to digestion, and in lactation, and in fever. I have not prescribed alcohol as a medicine for the last fourteen years; and before that time I scarcely ever used it, except in extreme hæmorrhage, which I subsequently found worse than nothing as a remedy.-J. Higginbotham, Surgeon.

Charles Ritchie, M.D., Glasgow, says (14th June, 1849):-Judging from my experience of eight years in the Infirmary, about fifty per cent. of all the sickness admitted for treatment there, is connected more or less directly with the use of spirituous liquors.

Many persons imagine that spirits taken in moderate quantities cannot be injurious because they feel no immediate bad effects from their use. If the fundamental principle I have advanced is sound, and if all the functions of the system are already vigorously executed without the aid of spirits, their use can be followed by only one effect-morbid excitement; and it is in vain to contend against this obvious truth.-Dr. Combe's Physiology of Digestion.

Most unquestionably, society would gain immensely in health and morality were the present drinking usages abolished.-Dr. A. Combe.

The following document has received the signatures of 1652 medical practitioners, including a large number of the most eminent in the kingdom:

We, the undersigned, are of opinion

1. That a large portion of human misery, including poverty, disease, and crime, is induced by the use of alcoholic or fermented liquors as beverages.

2. That the most perfect health is compatible with total abstinence from all such intoxicating beverages, whether in the form of ardent spirits, or as wine, beer, ale, porter, cider, &c.

3. That persons accustomed to such drinks may, with perfect safety, discontinue them entirely, either at once, or gradually, after a short time.

4. That total and universal abstinence from alcoholic liquors and intoxicating beverages of all sorts, would greatly contribute to the health, the prosperity, the morality, and the happiness of the human race.

Fire Side Fun.

To tell the number that any person shall think of, be it ever so great.

Bid the party double the number which they have fixed on in their mind; which done, bid them multiply the sum of them both by 5, and give the product (which they will never refuse to do, it being so far above the number thought), from which, if you cut off the last figure of the product (which will always be a cypher,) the number left will be that first thought upon.

As for example, let the number thought on be 26, which doubled, make 52; that multiplied by 5, produce 260; then if you take away the cypher, which is in the last place, there will remain 26, the number thought on.

CONUNDRUMS.

When is a chaise like a dice-box? Which is the most appropriate side of Waterloo Bridge to jump over?

When may soldiers be eaten with roast beef? Why is the letter T like a satirical expression? What portion of the shore of the Serpentine river reminds you of a place of prudential investment?

Why is Charles Dickens a better writer than Shakespeare?

Why is the human understanding like a drunken clown attempting to get on horseback? ENIGMA.

I'm found in loss, but not in gain-
If you there search, 'twill be in vain ;
I'm found in hour, but not in day-
What I am, by this time, you can say.

TO MAKE SPORT WITH QUICKSILVER.-This volatile mineral will afford many curious experiments, none of which are more pleasing than the following. Boil an egg; and while it is hot, make a small hole at one end, then put in a little quicksilver, and seal up the hole with sealing wax, and then leave it on a table, or any where else, when it will not cease to fly about while there is any warmth in it, or till it is broken to pieces.

TO MAKE WATER FREEZE BY THE FIRE SIDE.Set a quart pot upon a stool before the fire, having previously thrown a little water upon the stool; put a handful of snow into the pot, and also convey into it privately a handful of salt. Hold fast the pot with one hand, and with a short stick stir the contents with the other, as if you were churning butter; in half or quarter of an hour the pot will freeze so hard to the stool that you can scarcely, with both hands, disengage it.

GLORY.-Near St. Sevier there lives an old soldier with a false leg, a false arm, a glass eye, a complete set of false teeth, a nose of silver covered with a substance resembling flesh, and a silver plate replacing part of his skull. He was a soldier under Napoleon, and these are his trophies!-French Paper.

From the American Almanack for 1850 the progress of the public debt of the United States would appear to be as follows:-1845, 16,801,617 dollars; 1846, 24,256,425 dollars; 1847, 45,659,652 dollars; and 1818, 65,804,450 dollars. This is independent of the State debts.

Statistics.

FIRE INSURANCE.-The amount of duty paid in 1848 by the Fire Insurance Companies of the United Kingdom, was £1,121.212; and the amount of farming stock Insured during the same year, exempt from duty, was £63,594,882. LIFE ASSURANCE.-There are 124 Life Assurance Companies in the United Kingdom. In 9 of these the assured do not participate in the profits; in 21, the assured and the proprietary participate in the profits; in 71, participation or nonparticipation in the profits is optional with the assured; and in 23 Companies there is no proprietary, and the contributors are consequently mutual assurers.

61

Chips from Channing, Emerson, and Longfellow.

CHANNING.

No man should part with his own individuality and become that of another.

Every human being is intended to have a character of his own, to be what no other is, to do what no other can do.

Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influences to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.

Knowledge is valuable in proportion as it is prolific, in proportion as it quickens the mind to the acquisition of higher truth.

There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd, even towards the best objects. All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self-determination. The best books have most beauty.

was

lish provincial, 234,166 in Scotch, and 206,857 in Irish. The rate of duty on each advertisement is 1s 6d in Great Britain, and 1s in Ireland.

In Prussia there are 699 temperance associations, and 753,713 members. In Austria there are more than 60 societies, and 159,000 members. In the kingdom of Hanover there are 456 societies, and 69,116 members. In the Duchy of Oldenburg there are 75 societies, and 28,108 members. In the rest of Germany there are 126 societies, and 25,824 members. So that there are now in all Germany, including Austria, 1416 temperance societies; and no less than 1,026,761 members.-From a paper by the Rev. Dr. Baird, New York, written in 1846.

POST-OFFICE.-The gross revenue of the post-office for the year ending 5th Jan., 1849, was £2,192,478; the cost of management, £1,386,853; the net revenue, £740,429. The number of money-orders issued was 4,203,127, the amount of them being £8,151,295. The amount of commission on the issue was £70,190. The amount of expense incurred was £75,935. The gross total of letters delivered in the United Kingdom, was, for the week ending 21st Feb., 1849, 6,849,196.

SAVINGS BANKS.-On the 20th Nov., 1848, the number of savings banks in the United Kingdom was as follows:-England and Wales, 481; Scotland, 40; Ireland, 61; Jersey and Guernsey, 2. Total, 584. The number of accounts open was 1,054,663, and the total amount owing was £28,046,139. The number of officers employed is 1,775, and the annual expense of management is £103,103.

EMIGRATION.-The number of persons who emigrated from Great Britain and Ireland to British colonies and foreign countries, during 1848, was 248,089. Of 176,883 from England, and 11,505 from Scotland, 11,550 were cabin, and 176,838 steerage passengers; and of 59,701 from Ireland, the number of cabin passengers was only 808. Of the whole, 188,233 went to the United States, 31,065 to our North American colonies, 855 to the British West Indies, 23,622 to our Australian colonies, 1,180 to the East Indies, 1,445 to the Cape of Good Hope, and the remainder to various places in small numbers.

is the highest intellectual culture.

A rational, moral being cannot, without infinite wrong, be converted into a mere instrument of others' gratification.

EMERSON.

The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

An institution is the lengthened shadow of a great man.

Do what we can, summer will have its flies. If we walk in the woods we must feed musquitoes. If we go a fishing we must expect a wet

coat.

The deep, divine thought demolishes centuries and millenniums, and makes itself present through all ages.

The landscape, the figures, Boston, London, are facts as fugitive as any institution past, or any whift of mist or smoke, and so is society, and so is the world.

The soul looks steadily forward, creating a world always before her, and leaving worlds always behind her.

The soul knows only the soul.

Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series.

Cause and effect are two sides of one fact. Nothing great was ever achieved without en thusiasm.

LONGFELLOW.

The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun.

Time has a Doomsday Book, upon whose pages he is continually recording illustrious

names.

Glorious indeed is the world of God around. us, but more glorious is the world of God. within us. There lies the land of song, here lies the poet's native land.

A ruined character is as picturesque as a ruined castle.

As the ice upon the mountain, when the warm breath of summer's sun breathes upon it, melts and divides into drops, each of which reflects an image of the sun; so in life the smile of God's love divides itself in separate forms, each bearing in it and reflecting an image of God's love.