And earth-born whirlwinds wake the wave: With sin and sorrow to the end: SUMMER MORNING. SHORT is the doubtful empire of the night; White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step, The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top, Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn. Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine; Limps, awkward: while along the forest-glade At early passenger. Music awakes And thick around the woodland hymns arise. And from the crowded fold, in order drives His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn. The Fir, the Maple, and the Pine, "Alas! I own my feebleness; No friend," she cried, "is near me; Oh! who will pity my distress? Ah! naught have I to cheer me. "No branch, no blossom, fruit or stem, Like other trees possessing; I sigh when I compare with them, - "But hold! I will not make complaint; "On cheering hope my trust relies ; The Farmer saw the drooping vine, A clust'ring store, delicious wealth! For the rich treasure of the vine Enlivens every station, With its rich fruit and cheering wine; And now the farmer daily sees His charity rewarded; The vine's reward for patent hope I have above recorded. MORAL. Patience and resignation are sure to meet their reward. DISCONTENT. THESE are, says Archbishop Tillotson, beyond comparison, the two greatest evils in this world; a diseased body, and a discontented mind. The discontented man is ever restless and uneasy, dissatisfied with his station in life, his connexions, and almost every circumstance that happens to him. He is continually peevish and fretful, impatient of every injury he receives, and unduly impressed with every disappointment he suffers. He considers others as happier than himself, and enjoys hardly any of the blessings of providence with a calm and grateful mind. He forms to himself a thousand distressing fears concerning futurity, and makes his condition unhappy, by anticipating the misery he may endure, years to come. THE PASSIONS. PASSIONS are strong emotions of the mind, occasioned by the view of approaching good or evil. These emotions are planted in man by Providence, in order to give him activity, and fit him for society. The directing of our passions to improper objects, or suffering them to hurry us away with them, is the great danger in human life. History is nothing but a catalogue of the miseries brought upon mankind by an improper indulgence of their passions. How ought it to be the constant business of rational creatures to regulate and chastise these internal tyrants! How earefully ought we to guard against yielding to the first impulses! And how ought all our education to be directed to a proper government of them. Nothing will so effectually contribute to this as a proper sense of religion. Christianity, by a sort of divine alchymy, makes those passions, which have been working for sin, become active in the cause of piety. |